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In recent years, the trade policy of various countries has become an important topic, both for administration and business. The present paper aims at presenting the EU trade policy and some of its advantages and challenges.
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The article presents the results of an empirical study on the use of the term 'hybrid war' (and its analogs) in Bulgarian media. It is focused on the use of the concept in meanings and contexts different from those implied by the existing definitions. The study covers the first five months of 2019. The publications in Bulgarian online media are selected through the news aggregation and analysis system 'European Media Monitor' (EMM). The results show that, in certain cases, the concept is not only used with different meanings, but some derivative concepts are created by the media such as 'hybrid propaganda' or 'hybrid content'
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National and international corruption indices suggest that the Bulgarian tax administration has an important role to play in fighting corruption. While the general public and the business community are inclined to think better of the tax administration, in terms of the levels and spread of corruption, by comparison with other institutions, such as customs, the police or the judiciary, corruption in the tax administration is still admittedly rather high. Business largely believes that most, if not all, tax officers are involved in corruption. Over the last five years, one out of five businesses on average has come under corruption pressure at the hands of tax officers. While they would not go as far as to accept the taxpayers’ perception of the situation, members of the tax administration do not deny the problem. They see the administration’s functional areas for Tax Audit and Operational Control as worst affected in terms of, respectively, the amounts of money changing hands and the frequency of such transactions. International surveys are inconclusive about the level of corruption in the Bulgarian tax administration on a comparison basis. The World Economic Forum rates it as relatively low within the enlarged European Union. By contrast, the World Bank has found it to be higher than corruption levels in most of the Balkans and the former Soviet republics. The purpose of this study is not primarily to add another estimate of the level and scale of tax corruption in Bulgaria but rather, to contribute to an in-depth diagnosis of the phenomenon in terms of its drivers at work in individual and institutional behaviour.National and international corruption indices suggest that the Bulgarian tax administration has an important role to play in fighting corruption. While the general public and the business community are inclined to think better of the tax administration, in terms of the levels and spread of corruption, by comparison with other institutions, such as customs, the police or the judiciary, corruption in the tax administration is still admittedly rather high. Business largely believes that most, if not all, tax officers are involved in corruption. Over the last five years, one out of five businesses on average has come under corruption pressure at the hands of tax officers. While they would not go as far as to accept the taxpayers’ perception of the situation, members of the tax administration do not deny the problem. They see the administration’s functional areas for Tax Audit and Operational Control as worst affected in terms of, respectively, the amounts of money changing hands and the frequency of such transactions. International surveys are inconclusive about the level of corruption in the Bulgarian tax administration on a comparison basis. The World Economic Forum rates it as relatively low within the enlarged European Union. By contrast, the World Bank has found it to be higher than corruption levels in most of the Balkans and the former Soviet republics. The purpose of this study is not primarily to add another estimate of the level and scale of tax corruption in Bulgaria but rather, to contribute to an in-depth diagnosis of the phenomenon in terms of its drivers at work in individual and institutional behaviour.
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The continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, together with the increased tension in relations between Russia and the West, have led the Belarusian authorities to attempt to redefine their country’s foreign policy by stressing neutrality towards the two sides in the conflict. As a result, over the last year or so Belarus has clearly adopted a non-committal stance. Minsk is trying to play the part of a neutral mediator in the hope that this will safeguard it in the event of escalation of tensions between Russia and the West, which is seen as the greatest threat to the country’s security at the present time. Thus Minsk is returning to the notion, discussed in the early 1990s, of Belarus striving for neutrality. Officially, the goal of neutrality is still stated in the Belarusian Constitution. However there are serious limitations to the effectiveness of this new strategy, due to Minsk’s close military alliance with Moscow, and therefore Belarus will not be entirely credible on the international stage as a country that wishes to remain neutral.
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The subject of this study is the evolution of British public policy between 1900 and 2010 with to the special focus on budgetary, monetary and social policy, as well as policy towards the public sector. This period was characterized by a steady, yet non-linear rise in economic and social activity of the state. Sudden increases were caused by one of three categories of events: wars, economic crises and changes at the highest levels of government. As a result, the history of British public policy in between 1900 and 2010 is divided into the following stages: 1) 1900-1931 - decline of the liberal era; 2) 1931-1951 - steady increase in the state's economic activity; 3) 1951-1979 - systemic stabilization at a high level of state involvement in economic and social issues; 4) 1997-2007 - attempt to return to economic liberalism; 5) 2007-2010 - a period of volatility and the search for new public policy principles.
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The Belarusian opposition is currently experiencing its deepest crisis since Alyaksandr Lukashenka took power in 1994. Following many months of negotiations, opposition leaders failed to select a joint candidate for the presidential election scheduled for 11th October. The failure of this latest round of talks has proven that not only is the opposition unlikely to threaten Lukashenka’s rule; it will not even be able to demonstrate to society that it could provide a genuine alternative to the present government.The presidential election in 2010 was a painful landmark for the opposition. The repression that accompanied the election has largely weakened political circles opposed to the government. Against this backdrop, the traditional internal problems of the opposition have worsened, such as its incapacity to reach agreement and develop a common, coherent operational strategy, the excessive ambitions of the leaders of particular groups, the low level of political maturity, mutual distrust and frequent personal conflicts. As a result the opposition has for years been unable to gain confidence in society and reach beyond the limited number (20%) of staunch proponents of democratic transformations. Given the fact that the Belarusian opposition is fragmented and lacks one clear leader, the readiness to support individual leaders does not exceed several per cent, according to independent surveys. Lukashenka’s present political opponents rather resemble a group of dissidents, than constitute a genuine opposition to the government. The crisis and helplessness of opposition circles are more acute given Belarus’s internal situation since for the first time Alyaksandr Lukashenka will run his presidential campaign in the context of the economic crisis and a forecasted fall in GDP.
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The study of the global and local aspects of Bulgaria’s possible future entry into the Eurozone is partly based hereunder on the study of the evolution of the Polish, Estonian, Lithuanian and other strategies for joining the Eurozone. The reason for that is that there are fewer analyzes of the Bulgarian situation, which is still unfolding. The Polish, Estonian, Lithuanian and other cases overtake the Bulgarian one for several years. Therefore, in some places, the text below is a compilation of texts of research articles on these close cases. Poland is the largest economy among the New Accession countries in the EU. Estonia and Lithuania are small economies but used to have currency board arrangements before adopting the euro exactly as the plans for Bulgaria are. Moreover, all these countries were part of the Eastern bloc unlike Greece and this makes them useful examples. Of course, there are also historical, cultural, political and economic differences that also need to be highlighted.
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The purpose of this study is to assess the implementation of balanced scorecard in the offices of Trade and Industry Development, Micro and Small Scale Enterprise Development and Finance and Economic Development Bureaus of Addis Ababa City Administration. To collect and analyze data this study employed both quantitative and qualitative method using variables such as strategy setting, implementation of the change initiatives performance measurement, leadership, management and staff commitment. The findings show that though there have been positive achievements, the leaders and organizers of the change initiatives have not yet fully discharged their responsibilities of using strategic measures and customer service standards as performance measurement and management tool. Moreover, the actions taken in monitoring and evaluation is not satisfactory. The feedbacks did not go beyond awareness creation, and they are not being consistently utilized as an input for any administrative and corrective measures. Though the leaders made efforts, the city administration had to play a leading role in supporting the implementation of the change initiatives to bring the desired changes in the sectors.
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The concept of abuse of rights is universal in nature and is present in all branches of law. The development of scholarly opinion and jurisprudence led in time to the introduction of the prohibition on abuse of rights as a general principle of administrative law, understood as a ban on the use of rights or powers in a manner inconsistent with the purposes for which they were established or in violation of constitutional and axiological order. This paper is a presentation of a model that describes basic characteristics of abuse of right in administrative law. These basic characteristics can be summarized in a few theses as follows: (1) subjective variability – prohibition of abuse applies to both the authority as well the individual; (2) strong links between abuse and circumvention of law – abuse of right is often aimed at avoiding the application of those norms of administrative law which the individual considers to be disadvantageous to her/him; (3) different legal basis of the prohibition of abuse – general principles of law (e.g. the principle of good faith), specific regulations referring to specific powers, immanent limits of the powers or the right; (4) “axiological entanglement” – links with universal, basic administrative law values: legality, rule of law, certainty, justice and common good; (5) vague boundaries and casuistic nature, making it difficult to formulate generalized conclusions, especially with regard to the consequences of abuse of right.
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Access to public information in Poland is most typically discussedin the legal and political contexts. However, it is not consciouslydiscussed as a possibility for political scholars to exercise their right ofaccess to public information. This paper, which is of postulatory nature,identifies the benefits for those political scholars who decide to use, inthe process of data collection, their right of access to public informationas a data collection technique. The proposed technic of data collectionmay be used by scholars – political scientists around the world.
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The optimal size of government or the public sector in general has been the topic of many studies and debates all over the world. There are some who state that the public sector should play a much greater role in the economy, while others proclaim the private economy is a much better placed to generate the desired economic outcomes. This article investigates this issue and applies it to South Africa as there is no consensus on the optimal size of the South African government. The reporting formats of the National Treasury and South African Reserve Bank (SARB) were used to define the public sector, and estimate its actual size and contribution to the country’s economy. The research period ranges from 1992 to 2017. In theory, the BARS or Armey curve suggests that there exists an inverted U shape association between the size of government and optimal economic growth, and that was tested. Various regression equations were assessed using the fully modified OLS (FMOLS) estimation technique. The optimum level of the public sector size is estimated to be between 18 and 24% of the economy, which compares to the current level of between 30 and 50%, while optimal levels were experience between 2005 and 2007. The results suggest that the size of the South African public sector is significantly larger than optimal.
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Croatian population and, consequently, Croatian labour force is rapidly ageing. With ageing comes the change in abilities e.g. decreasing productivity and declining cognitive ability. In the modern world, new applications of technologies transform requirements of jobs, thus workers have to adjust to those novelties. The problem is that older workers are ‘digital immigrants’ who started using a Personal Computer (PC) later in their lives, often during employment, so they had to change their approach to work i.e., they had to adjust to different requirements of today’s jobs. Required adjustments accompanied by decreasing abilities may lead to early retirement. The authors have investigated the influence of 1) the need to adjust to the requirements of today’s jobs (approximated by requirements to use a PC) and 2) the ability to adjust to the requirements of today’s jobs (approximated by ratings of PC skills) on early retirement intentions of population aged 50+ employed in the Croatian public sector. A logistic regression model in the context of complex samples was created by the authors, whereby both analysed variables were found to be related to the early retirement intentions. Finally, those who were required to use a PC and thus to adjust to changes were more likely to want to retire early than employees who did not have the same obligation. Those with low PC skills, i.e. employees whose ability to adjust was low, were also more likely to retire early than those who have adjusted better.
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Government administration, both central and municipal, creates a system that is a result of solutions introduced many years ago, and then changed or refined. The Constitution defines the nature of the state, political system, legal system and relationship between the institutions of power. State law is based on the Constitution, the Constitution provides undisturbed peace in the implementation of its provisions. State institutions through its activities protect constitutional order. In this context, here are two principles that ensure safety – the principle of legality and the rule of law stability. Hence, all the institutions and legal persons are responsible for the security of the state according to the provisions of the Constitution.
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The subject of the analysis in the article is the participation of the local government administration in running a cultural institution. The situation in the Podlaskie voivodship 100 Cezary Mielko Studia z Polityki Publicznej has been analyzed on a nationwide basis. The main problems focus on the principles and methods of financing cultural institutions by regional self-government and various ways of obtaining additional, extra-budgetary funding for their activities, especially from Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the European Union. The author points to spatial, social, and financial diversification related to the access to cultural events and participation in them using the example of Podlaskie voivodship. He propounds greater professionalisation related to running cultural institutions at the level of the voivodship as well as conducting pro-development cultural policy by local government units. He also stresses the need for activating local and regional communities in connection with cultural events and participation in organizing them. Participation in culture at the local and regional level and prudent government policy in this area are the foundation for building a strong social and regional identity.
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Administrative costs of taxation are for many years investigated by the economic theory and practice. They are connected with the principle of effectiveness of taxation and the goal for any state is to collect taxes relatively as cheap as possible. The goal of this paperis to present our data about the administrative costs of taxation in Slovakia and to compare results with the situation in other developed countries. We decided to use the already existing and tested Czech methodology to calculate results, to be able to obtain comparable data. Our results suggest that the administrative costs of taxation in Slovakia, expressed by the percentage of costs to tax revenues, are higher than in almost all comparable countries – some actions to improve this situation would be necessary.
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Global organizations have become more and more informed and more demanding in identifying and selecting the best suppliers for technological infrastructure, for courses, services and implementations.With the global development of new information and communication technologies, they will have to be applied in more and more countries, in more languages and in more and more cultures. Dissemination of knowledge through books, articles, research, professional organizations, conferences, seminars, courses will increase as new concepts and new technologies will be implemented in organizations in order to improve the training and through this to increase the efficiency of their own human resources.Younger generations that grew up in the digital age will require more interesting, exciting and entertaining learning experiences that are consistent with the way in which they collaborate, work and learn. The E-learning technologies are becoming more and more accessible, e-learning can be used on more and more communication devices.
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Międzynarodowa aktywność samorządów może być jednym z istotniejszych narzędzi zaangażowania Polski w państwach Afryki Subsaharyjskiej. Poprzez organizację misji gospodarczych oraz działania informacyjne jednostki samorządowe wspierają lokalne przedsiębiorstwa na rynkach afrykańskich. Innym obszarem zaangażowania miast i regionów jest pomoc rozwojowa oraz humanitarna w biedniejszych regionach kontynentu. Z uwagi na szybką urbanizację w państwach afrykańskich współpraca z władzami lokalnymi może też stać się ważnym elementem wymiany doświadczeń i promocji polskich miast.
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Two years after the Revolution of Dignity, it is clear that hopes of a quick reconstruction and modernisation of the Ukrainian state as a political and institutional system have not been fulfilled. The resistance of the bureaucrats, politicians and oligarchs who make up the informal, corrupt systems has proven to be very strong, and the will of part of the political elite and the EU and the United States to implement the procedures they have suggested has proved insufficient. If not for the war and the economic collapse, which forced Kyiv to seek external financial assistance and political support, the modernisation of the state would have proceeded even more slowly and with yet greater difficulty.
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In this article, it is aimed to examine the understanding of justice in the context of al-Māwardī’s moral and political thought. In the tradition of Islamic thought, although justice is generally examined with its philosophical / theoretical content, the works written on its application in practical life are limited. In this study, we will trace al-Māwardī’s approach to how justice should be applied in practical life, from ethics to politics and state administration, based on his own works. In al-Māwardī’s thought, ethics and politics that united in the virtue of justice, are considered as two basic fields that complement each other. Besides being a virtue in itself, justice as a moral concept is the main virtue from which the virtues originate. He emphasizes that the person must first be just to himself by establishing a relationship be-tween the justice and moderate. This is possible if a person stands in moderate between excess and deficiency/inadequacy, directs oneself to the good and the right, and prevents oneself from bad deeds. Since justice is the preference of the balanced in one’s behavior, a person who cannot show good and right behaviors torment himself.al-Māwardī’s discusses the justice under two headings as justice against into oneself and others. Being, being on the right path, avoiding nasty things and not exceeding the limits in his behavior, etc. can be listed as justice to oneself. Justice towards others me-ans that people act in a balanced way in accordance with social life/etiquette. The fairness of the administrator in approaching his/her citizens is also considered within this scope. Because in politics, justice is the basic principle that determines the principles that regulate the individual-individual, individual-state, state-individual relationship. Justice that the indispensable principle of living together has many aspects such as from the words and actions of the individual to the rule of law and income distribution. Recognizing the need for morality in politics, al-Māwardī aimed to establish an effective and realistic administration theory based on moral principles in politics, and therefore urge the justice as the first principle of state administration. In this respect, justice is regarded as a basic principle that determines the rules of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, as a fundamental duty of the state, as well as being a moral virtue. al-Māwardī emphasized the comprehensive justice principle in order the justice encompass the entire society within the framework of the rule of law. He also acknowledge the justice as a balancing factor for the power and legitimacy of power. According to him, justice that encompasses everyone is an important principle that ensures order and unity in society. Thanks to the comprehensive justice, the people's commitment to the administration increases, the country becomes prosperous, so the administrator can be safe. In this way, justice becomes a tool that ensures the legitimacy of the actions of political administration. al-Māwardī, who sees justice as the balancing factor of the power, associates the ideal practice of justice with religious values and the qualities of the ruler.In order for the state administration to function in a healthy and purposeful way, al-Māwardī emphasizes principles rather than institutions, and he states that the state organs that will exercise justice should not give up the principles on the distribution of justice. The administrator should act on the principle of equality by starting with himself, and then pay attention to the appointment of judges who will execute the distribution of justice and to speed up the trial. Likewise, al-Māwardī sees justice as a principle limiting the powers of the ruler. In this respect, justice is an important balancing factor that determines the limits of the ruler’s approach to his people and ensures the legitimacy of the government. This approach of Mâverdî has been considered valuable by some political philosophers since it aims to establish an authority based on rights and justice instead of authority based on power. As a result, it seems that according to Mâverdî, who emphasizes justice everywhere in his works, justice is a unchanging fundamental virtue in every field from individual life to state administration.
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Normative concept of The Social-Economic order proposed by Wilhelm Röpke allows for the valuation of the modern shape of Capitalism. In the introduction the author has attempted to show the actual problems faced by current Public Policy such as reinstatement of the socially accepted order of freedom during era of oligopolistic-corporate-finance oriented capitalism, fight against asymmetric distribution of wealth and management of sustainable Immigration Policy. Wilhelm Röpke was a member of a group called "Ordo liberals". According to the Ortoliberals the public policy needs to allow most possible freedoms to all citizens (including economic free market freedoms). At the same time, the Ortoliberals want to be active in preparing the Public Policy which would prepare a platform for effective economy, fair justice system and equal opportunity for all members of society. According to Ortoliberalism, administrative actions need to follow the principle of subsidiarity. The Public Policy must also ensure social justice and protection of dignity for the whole population, as expected in the society governed by Social Solidarity.
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