Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The paper explores the adaptation of CSSD and KSCM to open-list proportional representation system. Candidate-centered ballots allow voters to select or rank candidates; voter input, I argue, gives ex-communist party leaders the incentive to delegate candidate selection to district-level decision makers. Local decision makers are better informed about the prospects of legislative candidates in their districts than national-level leaders. Moreover, ex-communist party leaders who wish to attract the votes of people who reject communist regime will nominate a lower proportion of candidates with links to that regime. The incentives to rid the party ranks of communist legacies are higher in systems with a candidate-centered ballot than in systems with a party-centered ballot._x000d_The comparative analysis of the adaptations of CSSD and KSCM shows that the former has decentralized candidate selection while the latter retained hierarchical decision-making. The Social Democrats have purged their ranks from candidates with authoritarian links while the Communists are still run by leaders with links to the communist dictatorship. Unlike the orthodox party, the reformed one excels at playing the electoral game.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: This paper uses the case of the Czech Republic to examine the processes through which the European communist states and their policies affected women’s ability and willingness to organize for collective action during the democratic transformation of the 1990’s. The basis for this proposal is an empirical finding that points to curiously low levels of women’s mobilization during the 1990s in post-communist Europe in comparison to other democratizing regions. Women in Central and Eastern Europe have generally shown reluctance to organize in order to protect and/or advance their social, political and civil rights. This fact is surprising given that women had much to lose in the transformation process. Soon after the political turnover, unemployment for women escalated beyond the rates for men; social protections under communist regimes weakened; quotas for holding political office were abolished; and women’s reproductive rights were threatened. In contrast, woman in the transitioning regions of Southern Europe, Latin America, and more recently Africa and East Asia, have typically organized to advance various social and economic grievances and promote gender equality. By advancing the work of feminist and other authors studying the post-communist European region, and building on the new ‘policy feedback’ approach in political science, this article links Czech women’s reluctance to mobilize to how laws and public policies in the communist state were developed and implemented.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Why did central bankers across the new European Union (EU) accession countries initially press so strongly for the rapid adoption of the Euro, despite the risks and costs involved? I argue that the central bankers' stance was motivated by domestic political considerations. The central bankers wanted to adopt the Euro quickly in order to tie the hands of their own governments, forcing the governments to first cut their budget deficits enough to meet the Maastricht criteria, and then to cede control over monetary policy to the more powerful ECB. The central bankers took this position out of weakness, not strength, viewing the external constraint of Euro adoption as the only way to ensure conservative fiscal and monetary policies in their own countries. Drawing on insights from constructivism and historical institutionalism, I then argue that this weakness stemmed from the internationally driven institutional change process in post-communist central banks, a process which did not require or engender significant domestic support for the central banks. I develop these arguments through case studies of Hungary and the Czech Republic. The East European central bankers’ domestic support and credibility will have been further compromised by the controversial process of Euro adoption, raising questions about the long-term sustainability of macroeconomic convergence in the European Union.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The impact of international capital flows on domestic policy choices, in particular on exchange rate regimes, has become a particularly salient issue after the currency crises in developing and emerging market economies in the late 1990s. Many of these economies in the South and East adopted currency boards and exchange rate based stabilization programs that link the value of domestic currency closely to dollar and other credible international currencies in order to combat inflation. Fixed currency regime arrangements and increasing capital inflows led to appreciated exchange rates in these economies, causing uncompetitive export sectors, deterioration of trade and current account balances and to accumulation of foreign debt. As a result, a number of these countries with pegged regimes suffered devastative speculative attacks on their currencies. Nevertheless, governments of many of these countries were persistent in pursuing and defending pegged exchange rates in the conditions of uncompetitive export sectors and poor economic performance. Defending pegs requires governments to make large monetary and fiscal policy adjustments with negative economic and political consequences. What causes expensive and irrational delays of devaluation resulting in large currency falls that could have been avoided with an earlier devaluation? This paper highlights incompleteness of economic and various domestic approaches to foreign economic policy making and detects the effect that reliance on global capital has on domestic the policy preferences of domestic groups and on domestic policy choices. This paper argues that emerging economy governments use fixed currency regime arrangements strategically to ?signal? to international investors and lenders their commitment to the ?right? policies as a means of attracting external private capital flows. Emerging market economies rely on capital inflows to finance persistent government and balance of payments deficits, to pay external debts, or to promote economic development. This creates powerful incentives for governments to signal policies that foreign investors find favorable. The success of this signaling effect (that is, the response of international investors) creates the credibility of institutions and policies of these countries. Failure to defend fixed currency regime can undermine domestic and international credibility of a government. Governments in emerging market economies learn about the effects of pegging by observing the experiments of other governments successfully attracting capital inflows. Therefore, this paper suggests that delay of devaluation in emerging market economies stemmed from a desire to avoid harming powerful international investors favoring stable and strong currency. This paper investigates the politics of financial crisis in Russia (1998) and in the Czech Republic (1997-1998). Both countries engaged in prolonged and expensive defense of pegged regime before they were finally forced to devalue at great costs. These countries however differ in several aspects that offer important empirical leverage on this research question.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: What makes some European transitional states assume the role as "trusted allies" to the United States in the war against terrorism in general and the Iraq war in particular, in sharp contrast to the Franco-German axis that vehemently oppose recent US policy in the Middle-east? Why was Europe not coupled tighter as a political entity than to allow the disarray that followed the US and UK initiatives regarding Iraq that seriously damaged the cohesion of NATO and the EU's Common foreign and security policy? In order to begin answer those questions, this study investigates the basic principles and policy ideas underlying the foreign policy of two increasingly central, yet surprisingly overlooked, actors in modern European politics - Poland and the Czech Republic.