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New competition policy; Begovic, Boris and Bukvic, Rajko et al
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This paper is the result of cooperation between the CLDS and foreign competition policy experts as part of the project “New Competition Policy”, part of the USAID Economic Policy for Economic Efficiency Project. It attempts to build new legislation as a first step in a longer process towards having policy and institutions concerning competition. The authors looked at the forms of competition policy around the world and at the local situation in FR Yugoslavia, to set out recommendations that would be suitable and workable. It proposes that the new competition policy should, broadly speaking compatible with EU competition policy, but with several additions. One example of this applies to restrictive agreements, of which the author identifies three: cartel agreements (H1 group), horizontal agreements other than those covered by the first group (H2 group), and vertical agreements (V). The first group should be prohibited in the view of the authors, while the other two subject to scrutiny
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Transparency in the financing of political parties; Putnina, Aivita and Terauda, Vita and Voika, Inese
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The main objective of the project executed in the time period from 1 February to 1 July was measurement of the funding spent during a pre-election campaign. The project was aimed at drawing attention to the possibilities of public control and achieving a greater transparency in the flows of political party financing. The study presents the gathered data and the process of project implementation, and includes recommendations as to how to improve transparency in the financing of political parties and public trust in Latvia.
The objective of the project was to put in place an independent observation mechanism, because the law does not oblige anyone to declare expenditure linked to the conducting of pre-election campaigns. The project had three subsequent tasks – by undertaking an independent advertising follow-up to establish the amount of financing spent during the 2001 municipal elections, to ask the political parties to cooperate in provision of the data, and to compare the data received.
The independent advertising observation did not take place through the entire period of the pre-election campaign therefore the acquired data is not presented with ambition to full precision, however, it gives a fair ground for discussion about the overall spending.
During the project implementation, a discussion evolved about a by-subject: ethics principles of mass media during a pre-election campaign.
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Local initiatives in the period 1999-2000; Center for the Study of Democracy
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The report Local Initiatives in the Period 1999-2000, discussed at the Policy Forum of Coalition 2000 in December 1999, is dedicated to the public-private partnership on local level. The common interests of civil society and local government allow expanding the scope of the cooperation initiated in the pilot stage of the local projects. The main idea of the report is that one precondition for successful advancement in this direction is fostering a climate of dialogue and trust between the two sectors.
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Justice Initiative access to information monitoring tool: report from a five-country pilot study; Open Society Justice Initiative
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New access to information laws in many countries provides a strong foundation for transparent public institutions, but cannot ensure open government absent active follow-up. This was the conclusion of a pilot study monitoring freedom of information carried out by the Open Society Justice Initiative in 2003 with partners in five countries. In just over a decade, more than 45 countries worldwide have adopted freedom of information laws. This study shows that, even once a law is adopted, effective implementation remains a major challenge. Conducted in Armenia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Peru and South Africa, the survey marks one of the most comprehensive efforts yet to test the limits of government transparency. It involved the submission of 100 information requests to 18 different public institutions by a range of actors in each country. On average, only 35 percent of requests for information were fulfilled. Many requests not explicitly rejected were simply ignored—in total, 36 percent of requests submitted resulted in tacit or “mute” refusals. Interviews with government officials revealed a number of common obstacles in enforcing FOI laws. These include a lack of political will at senior levels to encourage transparency, inadequate information management, insufficient training of public officials, and an excess of bureaucratic obstacles to timely information release. In some countries it proved near impossible to submit requests for information orally or without filling out an official form. Persons belonging to vulnerable or excluded groups, such as disabled individuals or ethnic minorities, were less likely to receive positive reactions than journalists or NGOs submitting the same requests. A surprise result was that short timeframes for official responses, far from posing an obstacle to information release as some feared, appear to improve the chances of positive reactions. Peru, the country with the highest rating of the five, also permits the least time to officials to respond: seven working days.
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Corporate governance: an antidote to corruption; Yalamov, Todor and Belev, Boyan
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The phenomenon referred to as corruption comprises the sundry forms of abuse of power (economic, political and administrative) which all result in obtaining personal or collective benefits to the detriment of the rights and lawful interests of an individual, groups or the whole society. Corruption hinders development virtually everywhere, thus harming the social, political, and economic life of any society. It distorts choice, increases costs of products and services, promotes unproductive investment, contributes to decline of living standards and undermines democracy and societal integrity.
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Corruption, contraband and organized crime in Southeast Europe; Center for the Study of Democracy
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The report looks at the origins, mechanism and effects of, in particular, cross border corruption and smuggling within South Eastern Europe while giving statistical data to highlight the extent of the problem. Cross border smuggling and the inherent border cooperation that must accompany this scale of corruption is highlighted as one of the main problems in preventing the transition to a market economy in the former war torn states. The lack of trust among the majority of the public in the governmental institutions and political parties has led to an acceptance of this type of behaviour and also the need for some law abiding businesses to adopt underhand tactics in order to remain competitive. The report states that the need to fully understand the true dimensions of the problem while establishing cross border cooperation to combat the problem is paramount in the fight against organised crime. The support of the international community in encouraging partnerships among public and private institutions and obtaining public participation in the fight against corruption is also highlighted as being of critical importance.
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Social participation of local representatives; Soos, Gabor
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This paper tries to shed light on the mechanisms through which participation, by local politicians, in social groups have an effect on the political performance of local governments. The authors claim that, politicians join social groups for two reasons, a desire for social and personal satisfaction, but also as a way of using these social connections as a means of extending their political support. Over half of Hungarian local representatives join civil society organisations, in which they typically hold office and in most cases these are independent of local government subsidies. Membership is more than symbolic for most representatives, since they invest a certain amount of time in these social activities. The theory is that face-to-face social relationships have a developmental effect on individuals, making them more civic minded. . However, among the conclusions of the paper are that membership in a civil society organisation does not have much effect on civic virtues.
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Corruption in everyday experience; Kubiak, Anna
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Corruption is present in the life of every society. However, it acquires particular significance in the legal, institutional aspect and in social perception during times of great political transformations. Such a period of change is currently being experienced by society in Poland. Despite the fact that in the process of transformation of the economic and political system unquestionable success has been achieved, this does not yet mean that an efficient State has been built. Central as well as local government authority is generally perceived as inefficient, too politicized, and by the same set at attaining particular interests at the cost of the public interest. It functions with weak mechanisms of accountability of politicians and officials, which encourages corruption. The change of ownership relations has made it possible to transfer immense state funds into the private sector. This has given rise to many opportunities to relatively quickly change the social status – by acquiring ownership and moving into the category of owners, which is linked with many temptations of bending or even breaking the law for the purpose of unjustified enrichment. A significant portion of the economy still remains in the hands of the State or local government, which means that decisions of great material and vital significance for private entrepreneurs and the whole population remain within the competence of public officials. The former state budget sphere, remaining unreformed to the end, continues to provide often deficit or low-standard services essential for the majority of citizens. The first decade of the system transformation was also a period of low efficiency of legal protection and law enforcement bodies. The increased crime rate in various domains is accompanied by weaker effectiveness of action of the law enforcement bodies, frequent evasion of punishment in various criminal practices, including corruption practices. The system transformation has also been a time of axiological chaos – disintegration or even erosion of hitherto functioning social norms, accompanied by a rise of aspirations and consumer attitudes that had been blocked by the decades of socialism, or developed by the new opportunities. All these phenomena and processes have been conducive to the expansion and transformation of corruption, which had also been present in the previous political system.
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Poles' attitudes toward Polish and European democratic institutions; Institute of Public Affairs
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There is increasing mistrust among Poles of their political institutions, and a general feeling that politicians are corrupt and only interested in power, claims this article. It asks what is the level of knowledge and trust in the European Parliament among the Polish population. Poles, who trust the European Union, are usually young, male, city dwellers, interested in politics and optimistic about the future, while those most against tend to be rural dwellers and farmers. The public are very critical of the performance of Polish institutions, in terms of their efficiency and morality but feel that joining the EU will have a positive effect on national institutions and will increase Poland's importance in international affairs. The argument is backed by the results of a poll.
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