This dissertation examines the political nature and impact of nationalism within political systems. The dissertation does this through two distinct contributions: 1) establishing a clear conceptual definition of nationalist political parties (NPPs) and 2) developing a typology of NPPs that explains their development. Attention to NPPs has been mixed as some scholars have dismissed their relevance and/or merely grouped them with right-wing political parties. This points to a particular problem within the study of NPPs, namely that they are both under-theorized and over-simplified. In the dissertation, I argue that a more systematic approach is necessary for analyzing the distinct features of NPPs so that scholars can discern the similarities and qualities that make NPPs unique. NPPs are defined as parties that prioritize a singular nation or national identity, expressing a belief that this nation or national identity is unique, and as such requires political action to ensure its protection and survival. Unlike traditional political parties, NPPs are unique in their often-disjointed policy proposals and lack of definitive policy positions along the traditional left-right spectrum. The rhetorical tools employed by NPPs provide a basis for how they can be identified as different from other political parties within their system. Using small-N comparative historical analysis of political parties in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe, a typology of NPPs is proposed across three distinct policy frameworks. Specifically, the Fidesz and Jobbik parties of Hungary and the UDMR of Romania are examined as respective ideal types of each of the frameworks discussed. The theory presented in the dissertation states that the type of policy framework chosen by the party depends on the timing of its development and more importantly on the structure and membership of the party organization. / Political Science

No description available.

The aim of the study is to map out and analyse the integration of political parties from Central and Eastern Europe into the main European party families. The prospect of eastern enlargement of the EU implicated opportunities and above all challenges for the West European party families. The challenges consisted of integrating new parties with a different historical legacy. The study focuses on mainly how the European party families handled these challenges and what motives that have driven them in this engagement. At a more general level the thesis sketches two alternatives interpretations of the process: Western neo-colonialism and contribution to democratisation. The method used for the study is comparative case-study method and the main sources that have been utilised are party documents and in-depth interviews. The study is delimited to the three main European party families: the Christian democrats, the social democrats and the liberals. The countries of interest in Central and Eastern Europe are those postcommunist countries that became EU-members in 2004 and 2007: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The time-frame is limited to the first party contacts in 1989 to the final inclusion of the new parties in 2000-2006. The results suggest that the European parties have responded with ambitious means to the challenge of integrating new parties from a postcommunist context. They have set up new coordinating bodies and organised educational programmes for the applicant parties, mainly directed to young politicians. The Christian democrats and the social democrats have also used parallel organisations as buffer-zones, which provided certain flexibility. As for motives, the Christian democrats stand out as the party family with the clearest power-oriented motives. At the other end, the liberals stand out as the party family that is most steered by ideology and identity. The social democrats went through a change with ideological considerations dominating the early phase and became increasingly poweroriented as the EU enlargement drew closer. When it comes to the two alternative interpretations of this process, the main conclusion is that they are intertwined and more or less impossible to separate from each other.

Cette thèse s’ouvre sur l’analyse de l’évolution spatiale des flux du transport ferroviaire de marchandises dans les Pays d’Europe centrale et orientale (PECO), depuis la chute du mur de Berlin en 1989 à l’adhésion à l’Union européenne en 2004. Au cours d’un peu plus d’une décennie, de profondes mutations ont contribué à ouvrir les PECO à l’Union européenne. La chute du mur s’est accompa gnée de la recomposition des réseaux ferroviaires, structurés désormais par les frontières nationales. Alors même que la demande du transport évolue sous l’effet des échanges commerciaux dont la nature et les origines-destinations changent en profondeur et privilégient le transport routier, les chemins de fer doivent affronter d’autres facteurs d’incertitudes liés à la transition, telles que les réformes engagées par l’Etat dans le cadre des négotiations d’entrée des PECO à l’Union Européenne. Les chemins de fer réagissent pas la mise en place de stratégies de survie et parfois même de réhabilitation d’institutions de la période socialiste tombées en désuétude durant la première phase de la transition. Tout au long de la transition, les chemins de fer présentent une puissante force d’inertie aux changements, notamment au travers d’une forme d’adhérence du réseau d’infrastructure au territoire, tout en incarnant une forme de stabilité dans les périodes de mutations propres à la transition / This thesis begins with the analysis of the freight transportation flows in the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), from 1989 up to membership of the European Union (EU) in 2004. During more than a decade, the CEECs have gone through deep political and macroeconomic structural changes that led to the opening up of the CEECs’ trade with the EU. The fall of the Berlin wall was followed by the reorientation and restructuring of the railway networks and services along the national borders, which are revealed by the freight flows. Although the transport demand changes as a result of the new trade exchanges, which give more importance to the road transport, railway networks are challenged by new factors of uncertainties generated by the transition process itself, such as the restructuring reforms initiated by CEECs’ governments, as part of the negotiations to enter the EU. Railways respond by implementing what is described as being surviv al strategies, and in some cases rehabilitate former socialist institutions that were actually abandoned in the early stage of the transition. Throughout the whole transition process, the railways demonstrate a strong capacity of inertia against change, whilst incarnating a needed form of stability during the periods of rapid and chaotic changes of transition

The objective of this thesis is to examine cross-border contagion effects during the 2007-09 crisis in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and from all the possible propagation channels, it chooses to focus on cross-border bank loans. It tries to discover which global and local factors had significant influence on the changes in bank loans from banks in source (lending) countries to banks, as well as households, corporations and government in host (borrowing) countries. The main research method is a panel data regression model. The empirical results suggest that both local and global factors had influence on the changes in cross-border loans, i.e. helped to spread the 2007-09 crisis to CEE. The significant local factors were macroeconomic and financial characteristics of both source and host countries, such as their GDP growth differential, interest rate differential, FDI, or profitability and health of the banking sector. The significant global factors were the expected market volatility and investors' risk appetite/aversion which was an indicator of "pure" contagion. The main contribution of this thesis lies in its focus on CEE and the analysis of investors' behavior based on their changing risk appetite.

The thesis aims at identifying the reasons behind the heterogeneous inflation performance of countries across Central and Eastern Europe. The impact of a large number of variables is being assessed in a dynamic panel data model covering 20 countries over the period 2003-2013. The empirical results suggest that cross-country differences in inflation are attributed to the structure of the economy, to the capital deepening effects and openness. Along with the structural factors, cyclical positions also prove to be of particular importance in explaining inflation across the region, since during the last decade most of the Central and Eastern European countries have experienced fast GDP growth, a credit boom and increased domestic demand that in turn fueled inflation.

This work analyzes the contagion effects between energy and CEE financial markets during the two crisis periods (global financial crisis 2008-2009 and energy market crisis 2014), using a sample of daily data from 2004 till 2015. We detect contagion by observing the degree and structure of two dummy variables for specified crisis periods included into the quantile regression models on the basis of a dependence measure called "coexceedances". Our results show that there are significant contagion effects present between the gasoil and CEE stock markets during the 2008-2009 period and mixed evidence of contagion between crude oil market and CEE stock markets. CEE stock markets do not appear to exhibit significant contagion effects with energy markets during the recent energy market crisis. These results substantially differ from those found in the developed European markets. In particular, our results indicate that energy markets and stock markets in developed Europe seem to display significant contagion effects during the 2014-2015 period. Keywords: Central and Eastern Europe, contagion, energy market, quantile regression

Although civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe are often portrayed as similar, united by a shared communist past, they have developed along increasingly divergent trajectories over the past three decades. This article investigates the current state of civil society in the region and the role the institutional context plays in it. Drawing on historical institutionalism and the process of European integration, we classify the 14 countries under investigation into three distinct groups and analyze data from a survey of more than 350 local civil society experts. We find that, together with domestic governments, international donors and the EU are perceived as the most influential institutional actors for civil society organizations. Their respective influences, however, depend largely on a country's stage in the EU accession process. Overall, the study provides a differentiated mapping of civil society in this region and a better understanding of how the institutional context relates to a Country's civil society.

V práci jsou analyzovány kořeny, vývoj, současné postavení, hrozby a výzvy think-tanků v České a Slovenské republice. Srovnání s jejich tradicí ve Spojených státech zkoumá přenositelnost amerického "modelu" think-tanků do střední a východní Evropy. Tento přenos je značně omezený a krátkodobě nerealizovatelný vzhledem k rozdílným legislativním podmínkám a nerozvinuté filantropii. Zvláštní pozornost je věnována motivům k vytváření regionálních i mezinárodních sítí think-tanků. Práce vychází jednak z dosavadní literatury na toto téma, jednak z dotazníkového šetření.

<p>Through the use of political conditionality, the EU has exercised what many have chosen to call an international normative power. The fast democratisation process of the central European countries that joined the EU in 2004 has often been attributed to the force of EU’s normative power. Here, the core of the political conditionality was found in a promised future membership – acting as a reward in exchange for democratic reforms. The new European Neighbourhood Policy however, initiated briefly after the 2004 enlargement, gave rise to new prerequisites to the Unions new neighbours and this time enlargement fatigue prevailed in the EU policy. This case study examines and assesses the ability of the EU to exercise its normative power on Ukraine through the new conditions set up by the European Neighbourhood Policy, were a membership perspective neither is promised nor ruled out. The result show that the effective conditions for the conditionality are favourable and that a good progress on the areas of democracy, rule of law and human rights has been achieved. Although difficult to prove, I argue that this progress most probably is partly due to EU’s normative power on Ukraine.</p>