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This paper discusses the development of economic higher education in Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1953, ie before the emergence of new economic universities with the same name: University of Economics (Vysoká škola ekonomická) in Prague and Bratislava. Its aim is to determine possible similarities and differences in economic education between the Czech lands and Slovakia. Although the paper embraces the issue comprehensively, the main focus is on the comparison of two of the most important colleges, the Commercial College in Prague and Slovak College of Commerce in Bratislava. It concludes and claims that despite the Czechoslovak uniform policy in tertiary education, there were undoubtedly some national differences. Essentially, they stemmed from different networks and the number of economic schools in the Czech lands and Slovakia and from different prior traditions. Overall, Slovaks endeavoured to continue with the preceding development more than Czechs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the electoral issues relating to modem international migration. The main topics of paper are the political electoral integration of immigrants in the Central European countries and also the opportunities for voting abroad. Voting from abroad is very important possibility for the citizens living abroad and for other expatriots. The Czech, Slovak and Polish political experience in this field is relatively long, but for Hungary it is new problem which has only existed for a couple of years. At present, all Central European countries allow their citizens living abroad to vote in parliamentary elections in some form or another, while some of them also permit voting in direct presidential elections. There are two models regarding to the political integration of immigrants: The more liberal model, which is typical for Hungary and Slovakia and more restrictive Czech and Polish model. Hungary and Slovakia permit the electoral participation on the local and regional level not only for the EU citizens living there, but for the third countries nationals too. The Czech Republic and Poland have opened their local electoral level only for the EU citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the less researched issue of regional federation projects in East-Central Europe from the period 1848 to 1918. Based on exhaustive research, primarily using original sources—works of the intellectuals who designed these projects—the paper examines the reasons why these federation projects were written, their historical-political context, and why these plans had to fail at their time. Similarities and differences of ideas in these projects are also presented. The intention is not to give a simple presentation of a series of historical facts, but to present some early ideas focused on regional integration, which, in turn, could also provide inspiration in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research into European identity has mostly focused on majority populations in Western European countries, neglecting new member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as well as ethnic minority groups. This paper contributes to filling this gap by exploring and investigating processes of European identity formation of five ethnic minority groups in four CEE countries. A generational perspective was applied by conducting qualitative in-depth interviews with three generations of ethnic minority group members. The results support the instrumental approach of identity construction. In all minority groups researched, the young generation, due to more positive personal experiences and perceived benefits from the European Union, have developed more positive images and perceptions of Europe and a greater sense of European identity than older generations. Furthermore, ethnic group-specific processes of identity formation were found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue challenges the concept of fluidity and flexibility of identities by demonstrating that ‘new’ European identity is not easily adopted and that the co-existence of ethnic and national identities is an ongoing process of negotiation. The theoretical approach assuming multiple identities can be confirmed for ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe who were often thought to be focused on ethnic identities. This issue provides empirical quantitative and qualitative evidence for showing that ethnic minorities typically relate to their ethnic identity and to the national identity of their residence country simultaneously. The individual papers reveal that the development and maintenance of ethnic, national and European identities are often linked to the socio-economic situation and possible benefits. Also, social and cultural practices such as language and media consumption are crucial for the construction of identities. Furthermore, articles in the special issue highlight that national and European politics, above all minority rights and integration policies, may contribute to ethnic and European identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis is based on an empirical sociological study (interplay of European, National and Regional Identities: nations between states along the new eastern borders of the European Union Project) aimed at exploring the various aspects of people’s diaspora affiliations and their ethnic and national identity on the Eastern borderland of Europe. We surveyed ethnic minority groups in eight countries along the frontier of Central Eastern Europe. With the ethnic minorities having a similar ethnic status along the border, we demonstrated how ethnic minorities ‘deal’ with their minority status in their ‘host’ country. The analysis reconstructs the image of the ethnic minority at the societal level. We model personal and collective ethnic identities as a stock of knowledge based on cognitive and affective components, and test them along the different ethnic dyads. The paper shows how successive generations are able to transfer the pattern of ethnic identity within the family, and also how language use practices and personal networks play a role in preserving personal ethnic identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Central and Eastern Europe Countries (CEECs) have been shaped by the EU conditionality, meaning that these countries were obliged to develop their administrative capacities in completely convergence with the acquis communautaire in order to join the European Union. The 2004 and 2007 enlargement of the EU and the accession negotiations have brought a systemic transformation of the CEECs through what is known in the literature as Europeanization. It seems to be a strong connection between conditionality and Europeanization, the former giving way to the latter. Therefore the capacity and the willingness of candidate countries to transfer the acquis into the domestic legal context have had a significant influence in the way in which the Europeanization process has succeeded in inhabiting the governance system of the CEECs. Considering these, the purpose of this paper is to examine through which mechanisms it was realized the correspondence between EU conditionality and the process of central and eastern enlargement-led Europeanization which seems to have been internalized distinctively by the CEECs, where administrative resources to comply with European standards were lagging behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the twenty years that have passed since the revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of communism across Central and Eastern Europe numerous fundamental changes have occurred across the region. One of the general trends associated with the post-communist transition has been rising levels of crime in general and organised crime in particular across countries in the region. Concerns about the perceived threat posed by increased levels of organised crime in Central and Eastern Europe became particularly prevalent in connection with European Union expansion to include countries from the region in 2004 and 2007. This paper seeks to analyse and explore the apparent “explosion”€™ of organised crime throughout Central and Eastern Europe in the aftermath of 1989, considering the relationship between the post-communist transition and the development of organised crime, and exploring the complex realities behind the evolution of organised crime in contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. This paper seeks to demonstrate that while the process of post-communist transition has facilitated a fundamental reshaping of organised crime in terms of its structure, composition and activities, the “worst case”€™ scenarios posited in relation to EU enlargement have not come to bear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of thermal and electrical energy is related to the emission of greenhouse gases, which are believed to cause climatic changes. The activities of the international community show an increase of ecological awareness. In the Central European countries the share of renewable energy in overall energy production is relatively small. One sector where some progress can be made is agriculture. This paper presents simulation results of CO 2 reduction potential by replacing conventional heating system for a poultry house with a hybrid solar–wind system. Heat requirement for 2400 birds was calculated. Simple models for solar collector, wind turbine and heat storage tank are presented. The system is modelled in a Matlab/Simulink environment and various system configurations are analysed for climatic conditions typical for Central Europe. The solar collector area was varied between 0 and 80 m 2 , wind turbine diameter was varied in the range of 0–20 m and 1 to 4 heat storage tanks. Apart from percentage of CO 2 emission reduction two other indicators are introduced: renewable energy utilisation ratio and weighted CO 2 emission reduction — renewable energy utilisation coefficient. The results show that larger systems provide higher CO 2 reduction but the energy utilisation ratio decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the extinction of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and the vacuum left behind by them, states have entered a stage of political crisis and establishing future trajectories in terms of governance. In this paper we propose to discusses several aspects concerning different trajectories of post-communist states and the factors that influenced their journey [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, eight formerly communist East Central European states acceded to the European Union, an event which was celebrated as the final overcoming of the post-war division of Europe into East and West and the ‘return to Europe’ of those states which had been ‘kidnapped’ by the Soviet Union. To mark the accession, an Austrian film production company commissioned five East Central European directors to make short documentary films under the collective title Über die Grenze: Fünf Ansichten von Nachbarn (Across the Border: Five Views From Neighbours). Drawing on geopolitical analysis of the dichotomy of Europe and Eastern Europe which underpinned the European Union enlargement discourse, this paper examines the Czech episode České Velenice Evropské as a film which explores the ways in which borders have been conceptualized and identities (re)framed in the context of European Union enlargement. At the moment when the Central European states’ symbolic ‘return to Europe’ is being realized, director Jan Gogola reflects on the meaning of European Union accession for Central Europeans, on shifting borders and their implications for the construction and understanding of identities of self and other, and on the dynamics of openness and closure in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates reverse knowledge transfer of foreign multinational subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary) in the light of the current political and economic transformations of these former communist countries. The study examines whether foreign subsidiaries in the region share their knowledge base with their sister-subsidiaries and parent company, and the role of various factors in this knowledge sharing. These factors include subsidiary initiative, subsidiary autonomy, local dynamism and corporate embeddedness. A proprietary dataset is used for statistical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the nexus between political instability and economic growth in 10 CEE countries in transition in the period 1990-2009. Our results support the contention that political instability defined as a propensity for government change had a negative impact on growth. On the other hand, there was no causality in the opposite direction. A sensitivity analysis based on the application of a few hundred different variants of the initial econometric model confirmed the abovementioned findings only in the case where major government changes were applied to the definition of political instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The case of undertaking health policy analysis has been made by a number of academics and practitioners, however there has been given less attention to how the health care decisions are made, what theories and methods best inform policy making processes. This paper aim to conceptualize a theoretical framework in order to describe decision-making models in six Central and Eastern European countries: Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-colonial face of Poland is rather problematic. Nationalistic right-wingers started using interpretations applying the post-colonial theory, and the theory itself seems to put little resistance to this type of appropriation. Rather than acknowledging such state of affairs as the fate of every idea falling into the hands of the natives, in this paper I would like to treat the problems of Polish post-coloniality as a very interesting test, both for the theory itself and for the analyses of the Polish reality. I shall compare the cases of nationalistic misuse with a more "mainstream" approach to the issue of applicability of the post-colonial theory to the situation in Eastern Europe, and particularly to the situation in Poland. As I shall try to demonstrate, this comparison will reveal many disturbingly common threads--which in my opinion are unjustified assertions and conclusions--resulting not only from errors in reasoning but the shortcomings of the theory itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical, competitive activities played an important role in social life in early Iron Age Central Europe. In this paper, the iconography of the most common forms of sport competitions – dumb-bell fighting, chariot racing and horse racing – are followed across temperate Europe. Although these ‘barbarian’ images remain linked to Mediterranean models, differences in materials, technologies and details in the way persons are depicted reveal local variations and divergent cultural connotations of what might have been understood as ‘sport’ in the European Iron Age. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the early transition phase in post-communist Europe, citizens' perceptions of the national economy appeared more favorable than objective economic indicators would suggest. With triple and quadruple digit annual inflation rates and a severe economic contraction, there was a substantial portion of the population in these countries who still thought that the national economy had been and would be improving. Thus, sociotropic economic perceptions in the wake of the democratic transformation appeared to be disconnected from the real economic situation. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it explores the link between objective economic indicators and public evaluations of the economy. Second, it investigates the microfoundations of economic perceptions. And finally, it tests a well-established proposition that political sophisticates are more accurate in their perceptions than their less informed counterparts. The findings of the study can be generalized to any political and economic system undergoing transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV), the primary causative agent in cervical cancer, are licensed. This paper contains the Central European Vaccination Advisory Group (CEVAG) guidance statement on the introduction of HPV vaccines in central Europe. Eight countries currently have medical representatives on CEVAG: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey. By raising awareness and disseminating information, CEVAG aims to promote the efficient and safe use of vaccines to prevent, control and if possible eliminate infectious diseases. In January 2008, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control published a report entitled Guidance for the Introduction of HPV Vaccines in EU Countries. Members of CEVAG have taken the information relevant to their countries from this report and, with consideration of local issues, produced these guidance recommendations for the introduction of HPV vaccines in the CEVAG region, which may be adapted for use in individual countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an introduction to the special thematic section on political mobilization in East Central Europe. Based on a brief presentation of the main arguments of the individual articles, the authors discuss the recent political volatility in East Central Europe. They highlight the tension between fierce political rhetoric and populist policies on the one hand, and low levels of voter turnout and overall political participation in the region on the other. The authors argue that recent cases of successful as well as unsuccessful political mobilization in East Central Europe point to structural re-alignments in the region’s political landscape. In particular, the parties that are successful are those that manage to communicate their visions in new ways and whose messages resonate with nested attitudes and preferences of the electorate. These parties typically rally against the so-called establishment and claim for themselves an anti-hegemonic agenda. The introductory essay also asserts that these developments in East Central Europe deserve attention for their potential Europe-wide repercussions – especially the idea of “illiberal democracy,” which combines populist mobilization and autocratic demobilization and finds adherents also in more established European democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]