Publications · 10 February 2014
Call for applications for the panel “Local Institutions and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe: Outcomes of (Non-)Democratic Transformations” (until 2 June 2014)
The Organising Committee of the Fourth International Congress of Belarusian Studies is pleased to announce the opening of applications for the panel “Local Institutions and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe: Outcomes of (Non-)Democratic Transformations”. The panel will consider problems of self-government in authoritarian and democratic regimes, local political elites, as well as economic transformations, Europeanisation and governance at the local level.
The deadline for individual applications is 2 June 2014.
To apply for participation in the panel, please register using the electronic form:
http://icbs.palityka.org/4th-international-congress-of-belarusian-studies.htm
Since the collapse of the socialist bloc, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have travelled a long path in reforming their political systems, and in particular the institution of local self-government and relations between central authorities and local communities. Some of them (Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania) carried out deep reforms and legally secured the principles of decentralisation, subsidiarity and the autonomy of local communities. Yet it became clear that expectations regarding the effects of these reforms were too high: local communities proved economically and administratively unable to ensure their own development, while citizens demonstrated a low level of participation in local affairs.
On the other hand, most former Soviet republics attempted to introduce similar norms only partially and later, as authoritarian regimes (Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan) or hybrid regimes (Ukraine, Georgia) consolidated, abandoned further reforms. The current state of local institutions in each country has its own distinctive trajectory. In Ukraine, as a result of elite games and constant conflicts between central institutions of power, reforms have slowed down, while the executive institutions of the central government compete with local self-government without a clear division of powers. Russia began reforming local self-government in the 1990s but started rolling it back after Putin came to power and restored the vertical of executive power in the regions. Even earlier, from 1995, Alexander Lukashenka did this in Belarus, where local self-government has the least autonomy among the countries mentioned.
Today, these processes determine political and socio-economic dynamics at the local level in the region and provide a broad field for research. The panel therefore proposes the following problem blocks for discussion:
- Local politics in democratic and authoritarian regimes
- The formation and evolution of regional elites
- Reform of local government/self-government institutions: political and economic aspects
- Adaptation of European standards of local self-government and local governance
Preliminary list of participants:
Adam Gendźwiłł (MA in Sociology, University of Warsaw, Poland), to be confirmed
Andrei Zavadski (Lev Sapieha Foundation, Belarus)
Gabrielė Burbulytė-Tsiskarishvili (Master of Public Administration, Klaipėda University, Lithuania), to be confirmed
Irina Busygina (Doctor of Political Sciences, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Russia)
Jacek Wasilewski (Dr. habil. in Sociology, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland), to be confirmed
Yury Kryvarotska (Doctor of Economic Sciences, Belarusian Institute of Law, Belarus)
Mažvydas Jastramskis (PhD candidate in Political Science, Vilnius University, Lithuania), to be confirmed
Michal Illner (Doctor of Law, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), to be confirmed
Miroslava Lendiel (Doctor of Political Sciences, Uzhhorod University, Ukraine)
Paweł Swianiewicz (Dr. habil. in Economics, University of Warsaw, Poland), to be confirmed
Petr Jüptner (PhD in Political Science, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic)
Rostislav Turovsky (Doctor of Political Sciences, Higher School of Economics, Russia)
Tatiana Majcherkiewicz (PhD in Sociology, Pedagogical University of Kraków, Poland), to be confirmed
Vadim Smok (MA in Political Science, Political Sphere Institute, Belarus)