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Overall geostrategy of the European Union seeks global stability, economic security and environmental sustainability. In contrast with occurring interpretation of „geostrategy” in security/defence terms, we are prone to perception of geostrategy in the context of competitiveness driven by geopolitical and geo-economic developments that are shaped by the political and economic environment. Multidisciplinary relevance of our insight into the issue derived from the primary concept of geo-heterogeneity – and app...

The electoral systems represent a very important element of the entire political process which connects the people`s choices to the types of politics promoted by the governments. They are chosen and sometimes modified by political actors and, once functional, exercise political consequences over these actors. A state`s politics is profoundly influenced by its electoral system. In the last decades, more and more states have opted to modify, either partially or entirely their electoral systems, the main reason being...

In an earlier paper titled “European Union Enlargement to the Western Balkans applied to the Acapulco typology of agenda-setting: Focus on Montenegro, Serbia and FYROM revisited” (Ciderova, Fejesova & Kovacevic, 2015) interactive matrix of the Acapulco typology of agenda-setting was stretched to the context of the European Union external relations (namely, macro-regional strategies of the European Union and regional cooperation initiatives) and enlargement (particularly the Western Balkans). Fulfillment of thi...

Good governance and the quality of public administration is a key aspect in ensuring a country's long-term competi¬tiveness and well-being. In 2001, the European Commission underlined in its “White paper on Governance” that five principles combine to form the basis of good governance: openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness and coherence. Europe 2020 strategy emphasizes that to achieve transformational change towards a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth it is required a strong governance f...

The goal of this paper is to describe and analyze the transatlantic relationship, why it is important to strengthen it not only within the common security and defense policy, but also within the international political and economic system, and to point out the future scenarios of transatlantic relations. Even with the rise of other economic powers, including the emerging growth markets, the United States and the European Union remain the fulcrum of the world economy, each other's most important and profitable mark...

Unrecognized states represent an interesting anomaly in the current international system which is based exclusively on the project of sovereign states. Although not internationally recognized, or only recognized by a few states, they are able to conduct a certain degree of administration over their territories for a relatively long time and according to the Freedom House Index, some of them have become more democratic in last few years. This is an important signal that international recognition is not necessary fo...

Election management is concerned solely with administrative infrastructure required to support the democratic process of elections. Successful elections do not happen without preparation and planning. They are big and costly events, resulting in the completion of a large number of big and small jobs, including a large number of people, where everyone should be aware of their responsibilities in the electoral process and to give account for their actions on the basis of the law. Election management has to do with s...

While some scholars see compatibility between Islam with the concept of democracy, many of them disagree by manifesting great concern for the problem of how to assure that democracy could be developed in a way compatible with liberty. Best illustration is a number of Muslim societies possessing the outward forms of democracy but yet operating as authoritarian regimes. Democracy cannot exist without a functioning civil society that lies outside from the political sphere. Historically religion (Islam) for majority o...

As much as guns and warships, maps have been used as tools of imperialism. Nations and empires are not natural features within the landscape. They are social constructs, created in order to convert the Earth into a huge real-estate market. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is not fought only in Ukraine, but also on every map, that shows Crimea. Cartography was coined as a science of princes, as it was these elites who used maps to take land and natural resources from those without power – local people. In the last ...

Modern public administration in the implementation of public administration intends to serve citizens' and this is a starting point of any administrative reform, even from the experience of the European countries. Public administration in Republic of Macedonia is mainly understood as centralized administration and disconnected in relation with citizens and the requirements for modern administration and service. The state is the largest employer within the society and in this context the public administration is a ...

Abkhazia and South Ossetia represent specific cases of disintegration of the Soviet empire. Owing to an extensive support of Russia, they managed to effectively separate from Georgia and to get formal recognition of their independence from Russia. However, in fact, Russia conducts full control over both of these republics, which is significantly different from other republics in the post-Soviet space existing de jure. Both of these separatist republics are under direct economic, political and military control of R...

Political aspects in general can be considered as one of the key determinants not only the structure but also the philosophy of public administration of every modern and democratic state. It should be noted, however, that the degree of their influence on the final result (structure and operation) vary from state to state. In the case of modern democratic political systems it is usual that the impact of the political aspects on the system of public administration is displaced by existing civil society. Where civil ...

In October, the Responsibility to Protect will be celebrating 10-year anniversary. This doctrine was developed from a report reflecting the incapability of international community to prevent and effectively react on terrible events of the 90s, such as Rwanda or Srebrenica. However, even after the 10 years of its official existence within the UN institutional system, the operationalisation of the doctrine falls short on several fronts. Why are states reluctant to rely on Responsibility to Protect? What prevents it ...

An underlying thesis of the issue is defined in the causes of the historical failure of direct democracy and on the causes of the factors responsible for the victory of the principle of representative governance in modern political system. Presented paper is based on authorВґs attempt to generalize the views of various authors of modern political science and practical political and historical experience. Organizational difficulty, numerousness of political community, economic or financial questions, the need for p...

Interest of the contribution is nationalist populism in terms of local government of Slovak Republic. The concept is closely related or is identical to the national populism, nationalism, in many cases to extremism. The nationalist populism in the Slovak Republic is studied at two levels. It occurs not only at national level but also at the local level. Profiling actors at the national level establish their ideological orientation also in regional level, and vice versa. Pluralism of interests, which is typical for...

The article reviews the historic experience in forming the regional Executive Authority during the 1990-ies of the XXth century in the Kemerovo, Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions. The 1990пЂ­2000 period, which is marked with establishing and developing the new Russian statehood on the basis of the concept of separation of powers, can be divided into two main periods of establishing the regional Executive Power in Russia, i.e. 1990пЂ­1993 and 1994пЂ­2000. Each period has had a decisive influence on formation of governa...

The conflict resolution and prevention is still developing challenge for the Diplomacy. The Concept of The Multi Track Diplomacy concentrates attention to the role of media. The main role of the media is through the press, television and electronic media to inform and involve the public in discussions on peace and conflict resolution. This Track of the Multi Track Diplomacy Concept is based on the assumption that the engagement in national conflicts, it is necessary to inform the public about the state and develop...

The study provides an outline comparison of the political culture of the countries of Central Europe, on the example of the Visegrad countries - the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. The regionalization and possibly interregionalization of those countries have for strengthening their international position undoubtedly great importance, both inside and outside the EU. Countries of Central and Eastern Europe we can still rank among countries in political transition. Those countries have much in common an...

The European Union is perceived as a great promoter of human rights not only within its borders, but also in its external action. Have they, however, been integrated into the structures of CDSP yet? The paper will focus on the development of the ECDP which will be demonstrated on the EU missions in crisis situations defined as threats to international peace and security by the UN Security Council. On this terms, the EU is a solid partner to the UN, however, the pattern on the mission choice is rather based on real...

The study deals with the current trends of radicalization and support for extremism among young people in Slovakia. The results from previous research projects indicate that the political behavior of current young generation tends to be more related with new trends especially to promote alternative political agenda and solutions. We aim to discuss the findings from qualitative in-depth interviews from two different field work locations in Slovakia and compare these with the nation-wide statistical data from the pe...

The article bears the name of problems contribution of older people in Slovakia after 1989. It is divided into two parts. The first part is addressing to issue at the theoretical level and in the second part we examine them empirically.

The relations between NATO and Ukraine have been discussed in scholarly literature for the two last decades. This issue obtained new dynamics after the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which had led to the annexation of Crimea and occupation of the eastern parts of the country by Russian army and forces controlled by Russia. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, NATO condemned the Russian policy on many occasions, provided Ukraine with diplomatic support and launched several programs that were supposed t...

Evaluation is one of the important strategic instruments for obtaining feedback and testifying to the functionality of the management system of research and development (R&D). Based on evaluation results, top representatives generally make decisions and then allocate and redirect funds to support public research in educational institutions. The intentions of science policy, proposals for priority directions of research, reform of the system of R&D and the reorganization of educational institutions are subsequently...

Emigration represents both an opportunity and a challenge for the EU. International migration is growing in scope, complexity and has a serious impact - both positive and negative - on the EU and the Member States. Migration is a complex process with a multinational character that cannot be managed unilaterally or bilaterally only, but through an effective management beneficial to everyone involved and considering its changing characteristics. Within this context, the migration policies of countries change dependi...

The paper analyses the trust of the Romanian citizens in political institutions and leaders at two different levels: first, it is taken into account the relation between trust and institutional performance, and secondly, the influence on trust of the ethical expectations of the population and of the current corruption and lack of accountability of the political actors. Citizens grant and withhold trust based on their evaluation of the performance of the actors and institutions of government, but scientific studies...

The purpose of our study is to provide a up-to-date comparative analysis of the performance management practices implemented in public sector institutions in European Union countries and to identify the ones that could be successfully adapted to the public sector environment of countries which still need to put an effort into the reform and modernization of their human resources management system. Performance management practices create the connection between individual and organizational objectives and provide th...

The concept of "hybridism" in political science has become the result of the theoretical search to describe the new political realities that have emerged in crises, "transitional" or different socio-cultural contexts. Hybrid forms of political institutions were the subject of research interest of V. Merkel, A. Croissant, G. O'Donnell, H.K.Bhabha, S.P. Peregudov, I.L. Prokhorenko, I.V. Kudryashova et al. The purpose of our research was to assess the status and trends of development of modern hybrid political instit...

The paper titled “Social Policy in the Second Fico´s Cabinet” discusses the period when the government headed by Mr. Fico started in 2012 after Ms. Radicova had resigned as the Prime Minister (2010-2012). The government of Ms. Radicova was a right wing cabinet. The Fico´s government is a government of one-party so he is able to implement completely his pre-election programme that is the basis for the programme of the national cabinet. There is the only one political party proclaiming the social-democratic or...

Both state authorities and the society are in need of performance analysis of public administration. This paper analyzes existing public administration estimation techniques used by international agencies and individual countries. This paper also quantifies an effectiveness of public administration in Russia and interprets the results.

Despite the progress registered by the Romanian political culture, the democratic balance remains fragile due to the low participation of citizens to the associative life and political decision, and in the same time, one can't yet rely on the fact that political actors position themselves impersonally towards the formal institutional practice. Romanian democracy frequently encounters challenges coming from the political actors – who tend to adjust the functioning mode of the consecrated democratic institutions a...

The paper presents different views of the threats posed to Swedish security as well as diverging stances on further development of the state's defense and security policy within the context of the recent heated debates among the Swedish political elite. Particular attention is paid to the current direction of the Stockholm's security policy that represents a non-alignment strategy in combination with close collaboration within the frameworks of NATO and is highly unlikely to be changed after the forthcoming parlia...

EU energy security discourse took a new path during recent years and more then accessibility to foreign fossil resources, new issues related to electricity markets and environmental security aroused. However, in our article we argue that these two issues are far from being independent as, despite all the progress, fossil fuels were responsible for some half of electricity generation in EU in 2013. With respect to multiple attempts to conceptualize framework for examining energy security that recommend ultidimensio...

The study aims to examine the role of reform of state apparatus in the process of consolidations of democracy. By applying a theoretical framework of Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan (five arenas of consolidation) on the development in Brazil, the author outlines the relationship between the reform of bureaucratic apparatus and the development of the other four arenas: civil society, political society, rule of law and economic society. The paper undertakes a description of the reforms of state apparatus Brazil and anal...

The creation of a common European Union energy market aims at creating conditions of unrestrained and flexible exchange of electricity and natural gas among Member States (MS). The aim to the article is to evaluate the condition of the gas infrastructure of EU MS in the scope of concepts of the creation of a internal gas market. The analysis of the capacity of the existing interconnectors will allow to determine the potential level of natural gas exchange among MS.In view of these facts the question regarding the ...

The countries of the Visegrad Group (V4) are dependent on the natural gas import from Russia which uses the supplies of this raw material to achieve its political goals. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the demand for natural gas, its extraction and the import structure in the V4 countries. The indexes of the energy security and the levels of concentrations on the V4 markets have been compared. The conclusions drawn from the research analysis are to determine the activities that are to increase the energy s...

The working is devoted to a critique of the liberal rethinking such nodal categories for the Russian science though (philological, linguistic, philosophical, ethnological and others) as the Russian nation, nationality and Russian idea. Rethinking is carried out by the liberal authors under influence of the American mythologism, pragmatism, the concept of conditional (conventional) linguistic sign. The methods of the application in the USA mentioned artificial concepts were introduced in social life and politics lo...

Within the framework of the pivotal reforms of administrative governance the process of decentralization has acquired a new momentum in Kazakhstan under the challenges of the new century. It is linked to the fact that decentralization leads to optimization of public functions and facilitates a more rational model of inter-budget relations that ensure the sustainable operation on all levels of state institutions. We should admit that in Kazakhstan movement towards decentralization goes by leaps and bounds. The obje...

Cultural pessimism is one of the typical features of right-wing political extremism. It plays also a pivotal role in the research presented here which was focused on the construction of identity of activists from the extremist scene in Central Europe. A method used in the research was a narrative interview with leaders of extremist movements and parties in Central Europe. Narrators were telling their life stories and then were asked, how they reflect contemporary society. In telling their life stories narrators sh...

A lot of countries have implemented e-government initiatives to further enhance public sector efficiencies and streamline governance systems to support sustainable development. Though there are enough studies in the area of e-government, development of e-government in the countries of the Eastern Border of the European Union (EU) has not been investigated yet. E-government level and tendencies of its development in the Eastern Border of the European Union during the period of 2003–2012 are analysed in this artic...

The study aims to examine the role of reform of state apparatus in the process of consolidations of democracy. By applying a theoretical framework of Linz and Stepan (five arenas of consolidation) on the development in the Czech Republic, the author outlines the relationship between the reform of bureaucratic apparatus and the development of the other four arenas. The paper undertakes a description of the unsuccessful attempts to reform state apparatus in the Czech Republic that led to the formation of the client ...

This paper deals with the problems of corporate social responsibility (CSR) business in the territorial aspect. The main emphasis is on the analysis of the essence of CSR and the specificity of its manifestations in Russian business. Indicates the trend of formation and development of the Russian model of CSR. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of corporate social responsibility core enterprises located in mono. Calculation of the authors' methodology and proposed set of indicators to assess the level of...

Military education system is recently challenged by negative trends such as demographic with lower part of young generation, financial with diminishing defense budgets as well as growing civilian universities sector. Those long-term circumstances change military education and training itself to a new format leaving university ambitions and to focus to military training only using absolvents graduated at civilian universities.

Our study deals with relatively unexplored problem of corruption in sport, while Czech and Slovak football serve as a model. It proves and concludes that corruption in this area is most probably far reaching, while most cases of corruption will remain undetected. While introducing the main instruments, we proceed from the standard economic theory of corruption and conclude that key areas to improve are the level of risk exposure of corruption behavior (i.e. increasing “costs” of corruption) and appeal to chang...

The article presents study on determinants of development of the employment of people with disabilities in Poland. There were carried out 197 In-Depth Interviews among employers to diagnose determinants of motivation of employment of people with disabilities and related barriers and difficulties. Analysis of collected data were carried out with exploratory factor analysis to identify relations between measured variables.

Background: Numerous surveys report the rising number of workplace violence incidents. Eight European social partner organisations operating in a range of sectors in which employees are exposed to third-party violence in the employment relationship have now adopted a supplementary set of Multi-sectoral guidelines to tackle work-related third-party violence and harassment. The prevalence of client-initiated occupational violence in health and social services has motivated us search for causes of this destructive be...

Collapse of the USSR and the world socialist system, that happened more than twenty years ago actualized processes of implementation of national models of political modernization related to democratization and liberalization of society and state. Russia implements etatist model of political modernization, involving, on the one hand, the structural and functional modernization of the Russian state as a political institute, and on the other - the production of specific mechanisms of interaction between government an...

At the beginning of the XXI century is actualized the task of political analysis of general and specific characteristics of the manifestation of the threats and risks inherent to the life of societies and states, members of the European Union, as well as Russia, constantly and deliberately positioning itself as the largest country of Eurasia. From our point of view, in Russia due to genetic relationship with Western civilization, which theoretically justified the possibility of the socialist experiment, there are ...

The main goal of this paper is to analyze the voting behaviour of the Bulgarians and Romanians in the European elections, in order to identify the similarities and the differences regarding the results, the rate of the electoral participation and the interest for these elections. To that effect, we stress out the disparities between the declared enthusiasm of the population concerning the European elections (and their countries' integration in the European Union in general) and the discouraging voter turnout, at t...

Hungary joined World War II alongside Germany in order to get back its territories lost at the end of World War I. However, the co-operation was only partial: the Hungarian Government did not fulfil several German claims (using the entire armed forces at the front lines, German control over the economy, and deportation of the Jews). In 1943, Hungary started secret negotiations with the Western Allies in order to quit the war, and in September, it accepted the preliminary conditions of an armistice. The Carpathian ...

The European Union is a very dynamic organization, which from the time of its formation until now, has undergone legal and institutional reforms. From the 1990's, the interest of the EU has been very dynamic in supporting the Republic of Macedonia and the Western Balkan countries in the process of political and economic transformation; during this period, the EU began develop a regional approach to the Western Balkans. Macedonia's key relations with the European Union date back to the year 1996 and continues to th...