Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: After the System Transformation to joining to the EU in Central and Eastern Europe, the economic situation compoletely changed in these spheres, but the sicial differentiation between Rich and Poor becomes strictly wide. Especially in Hungary, the Eastern and Southern borders contact to Western Ukraine, Western Romania and Serbia, there remains poverty and un-modernized system. The author analyzes through Japanese investment and company trade comparing between Eastern border and the Metropolis, and analyzes the social situation of minorities, romas, in these area especially before and after joining to the EU.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper discusses the evolution of global central banking norms and examines the IMF’s role as an agent of change promoting norm compliance in the former Soviet Union. Drawing from the contrasting cases of central bank reform in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan from 1992-96, I show how the IMF attempted to reconfigure the structure of public financial authority in these new states but norm adoption depended on governments’ existing interests and financial resources. The IMF’s influence produced different results in these cases because the IMF cannot alter how national élites perceive their immediate interests, at least in the short term.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: With the collapse of the former Soviet Bloc and realignment of the countries of Central-Eastern Europe (CEE), the question of the permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) within the European Union has become especially acute. This paper considers attempts of CEE states to address the challenge of permanent disposal of nuclear waste and argues that the success of a country in siting a permanent geologic repository on their own territory depends on three key variables: 1) An open strategy of consultation with the public (Process); 2) Widespread popular trust in government and industry (Social trust); and 3) Resilient democratic institutions to efficiently channel opinion (Institutions). Using a comparison between siting processes and outcomes in Sweden and the Czech Republic, this paper highlights the distinctive sociopolitical context of the new democracies of Central-Eastern Europe and argues that while the CEE states are swinging westward in their accession to the EU, their difficulties in siting permanent waste facilities demonstrates that the legacy of communist rule – particularly the continuing lack of trust between society and government & industry – still plays a significant role in shaping policy outcomes.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: When international financial institutions and advanced capitalist countries threw their support for financial liberalization in rest of the world, the expectation was that the ?threat of exit? by internationally mobile capital would make the governments susceptible to capital market pressures. Accordingly, in a world where the global financial market actors can quickly and easily penalize the national governments, when those governments employ economic policies distasteful to them, the value of central bank(CB)independence would increase significantly in emerging markets as a signal of their ?creditworthiness? to potential investors. However, in many developing countries the structural transformation in the status of the CB did not realize. This paper will respond to the question of ?Under what conditions does financial liberalization lead to a change in the status of CB in favor of institutional autonomy?? by tracing the roots of politicians` institutional choices to the structural conditions that those politicians operate under. In the paper I will argue that change in the status of a particular monetary institution- whether the CB should be ceded autonomy- is contingent upon 1- the degree of distributional conflicts arising from the liberalization process, and 2-the party system of the country in question. By exploring the cases of Turkey and Argentine between 1980-2000, the paper will argue that in an age of financial liberalization, the politicians who were ruling in a highly competitive and fragmented political system, and who were experiencing severe distributional conflicts among different segments of the society resisted structural transformation in the status of the CB since it was too costly for their political survival. An autonomous CB, which views policy through the lens of macroeconomic stability is to resist policies that result in excess spending, loose monetary policy, and high inflation. As the paper will highlight, by establishing a monetary regime where such populist policies are off the agenda, ruling politicians would tie their own hands by setting up powerful constraints over the types of policies that they want to pursue for electoral purposes. The paper will claim that in such a context, structural change in the status of a CB could come only through an exogenous shock as in the form of a severe economic crisis, given the heavy costs involved in transformation. A brief analysis of the most recent crisis in Turkey will be discussed to support this argument.Methodologically, the paper will employ qualitative tools in its analysis. All recent arguments on CB literature are formulated by game theory approach and mathematically complex formal models. Unfortunately, they do not offer many insights to understand the causality that lead to presence/lack of an institutional transformation in a domestic setting. By using process-tracing method, the paper aims to fill a gap in current literature and demonstrate why the political outcomes occur the way they do.To sum up, the paper sets itself the task of bringing a persuasive theoretical explanation of conditions and terms of institutional change in CBs for the scholars who engage themselves with the question of how to brighten the prospects of economic well-being in emerging markets in this age of financial liberalization.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The emergence of social network analysis (SNA) in the study of international politics provides a versatile tool for examining system structure in ways that traditional metrics do not. The work of Maoz and others provides some tantalizing insight into the