Europe-Asia Studies 

About: Europe-Asia Studies is an academic journal published by Routledge. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Politics & Communism. It has an ISSN identifier of 0966-8136. Over the lifetime, 3775 publications have been published receiving 52295 citations. The journal is also known as: Europe Asia studies.

Nationalism reframed: Nationhood and the national question in the new Europe.

Abstract: Myanonamouse is a private bit torrent tracker that needs you to register with your email id to get access to its database. It is a comparatively easier to get into website with easy uploading of books. It features over 2million torrents and is a free for all platform with access to its huge database of free eBooks. Better known for audio books, Myanonamouse has a larger and friendly community with some strict rules.

Economic Transformation Outside the Law: Corruption, Trust in Public Institutions and the Informal Economy in Transition Countries of Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract: This article considers the role of the informal economy in Central and Eastern European postcommunist countries. The informal economy is defined as the ‘black’ economy, which is monetised but outside the law (often illegal) on the one hand and the ‘household’ and ‘social’ economies which are non-monetised and non-legal in the sense that they are outside of legislation. The article shows that in some countries the black economy is very important for supporting household incomes (Serbia and Croatia) and in other countries the household or social economies are predominant (especially Romania and Ukraine). In a third group of countries the formal economy predominates over other economies (especially the Czech Republic and Hungary). The article goes on to look at what kinds of people participate in these different economies and concludes that whilst the household and social economies are a social safety net for the poor, the elderly and those in rural areas, the black economy is more likely to be an option for those who are already better off to improve their incomes. The article considers the implications of this for attitudes to the legitimacy of the public realm and finds that greater participation in the informal economy is associated with both loss of trust in public institutions and increased perception of corruption. Therefore it is hypothesised that economic activities that take place ‘outside the law’ could lead to a decline in confidence in the state, although there are important variations between countries. THE INFORMAL ECONOMY WAS AN ESSENTIAL PART of the former communist economies and is now an important part of the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe. Many claim that it is growing. However, this depends upon how one defines the informal economy. The informal economy in Central and Eastern Europe should be seen as encompassing the ‘black’ economy (that is, economic activity undertaken for cash or money), the ‘social economy’, including non-monetary forms of help, and the ‘household economy’, meaning household subsistence activities. We argue that different households are involved in different economies and that the different economies have different roles during the course of transition. Informal economies exist outside of the law, that is, outside of formal state regulation. They are regulated instead by informal rules of exchange and social relationships (Portes, 1994; Wallace et al., 1999) or they are subject to criminal control

Capture or Exchange? Business Lobbying in Russia

Abstract: tween business and the state. This redefinition has been particularly difficult in Russia, where policy makers and scholars alike have cited an incestuous relationship between business and the state as a key impediment to an orderly market economy.1 However, we have few empirical studies of business lobbying in Russia.2 Views about lobbying are extensively coloured by writings about the oligarchs-a small group of powerful industrialists and financiers that is by definition atypical.3 In addition, analyses of lobbying tend to focus on sectors or regions rather than firms.4 Most important, discussions of business-state relations in the region tend to concentrate on successful lobbyists and ignore firms that are not influential. By examining only cases where firms influence policy, observers risk distorting perceptions of the extent and significance of lobbying. Many questions remain about lobbying in Russia. What types of firms are successful lobbyists and at what levels of government can they exercise influence? What means do they employ? Are business-state relations closer to a form of capture in which powerful firms have great sway over the state and bear little cost for their influence? Or are they better seen as a form of elite exchange in which firms receive favourable treatment in return for providing benefits to state agents? These questions are hardly unique to Russia. Observers have expressed concern over the tight links between business and the state in other post-communist countries as well.5 Privatisation in the Czech Republic often led to opaque ownership structures that allowed state-owned banks, their related voucher funds and industrial holding companies to serve as powerful lobbies.6 In Bulgaria the parastatal association of firms known as Multi-Group used its privileged access to state officials to gain control over state assets, which were then largely used for personal consumption.7 The close relations between business and the state that mark many post-communist countries smack of the crony capitalism that contributed to the collapse of the Asian economies in 1998.8 Indeed, good governance has become a mantra of international financial organisations.9 This article examines business lobbying in Russia using an original survey of 500 firms conducted between October and December 2000 in eight cities and presents three findings. First, the sources of lobbying power vary by level of government and by type of firm. While large firms claim to be able to influence legislation at all levels of government, the impact of property type-whether a firm is state-owned, privatised

The evolution of business-state interaction in Russia: From State Capture to Business Capture

Abstract: This article discusses two basic strategies of Russian companies—isolation from, and close cooperation with the state. The author analyses several ways in which companies realise these strategies, drawing analogies with the ‘exit’ and ‘voice’ strategies suggested by A. Hirschman. It is shown that under the conditions of a weak state these strategies lead either to an expansion of the shadow economy or to ‘state capture’. Both the privatisation of the state and the lack of its privatisation result in budget crises as well as drastic social and political shocks, leading to calls for a ‘strong hand’ in the business community itself. However, as there is little political competition and the mechanisms of democratic control are weak, state consolidation takes place as a bureaucratic consolidation accompanied by new opportunities for informal ‘business capture’ by the authorities. Nevertheless, the high degree of openness of the economy and the remaining heterogeneity of political actors provide busine...

Catching the ‘Shanghai Spirit’: How the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Promotes Authoritarian Norms in Central Asia

Abstract: This article examines how the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) seeks to undermine democratisation in Central Asia. Prior studies of the interplay between international organisations and democracy have tended to examine only one half of this relationship: whether, how, and under what circumstances do international organisations promote democracy? However, the opposite has been largely ignored: how do international organisations sustain autocracy? Authoritarian governments are increasingly adopting policies aimed at preserving their political power and the SCO represents an additional strategy in this regard: utilising multilateral cooperation to defend themselves against regional or global democratic trends. As such, the ‘Shanghai Spirit’ may be a sign of things to come as autocratic leaders become more bold in their rejection of democratic norms.