|
|
Transformation of the Post-Socialist Identity in Eastern Europe: A Comparative Analysis on the Cases of the Czech Republic and Belarus
Pyatkevich, Aryna ; Hrůzová, Andrea (advisor) ; Pergl, David (referee)
Once the Soviet Union ceased to exist, its subjects and dominions gained the ability to determine their course of political, cultural, and economic development. The never-ending transition to democracy, described by Boris Buden, is one of the key elements of post-communism. Yet, while the countries that had been the part of Eastern Bloc but not part of the Soviet Union itself were reasonably successful on their path to democratic capitalistic development, the former dominions struggled to incorporate the values that came with what Madina Tlostanova describes as a process of forced westernization. The following paper explores the problem of post-socialistic identity transformation in Central Europe in the case of the Czech Republic and post-soviet identity transformation in Eastern Europe in the case of Belarus. The qualitative research is built on the accessed collective memory of those who work within institutions of memory on the level permitted by the governing regimes in both countries, all born after 1989. The similarities and differences that clearly emerged during the comparative analysis of the findings suggest that being post-socialistic and post-soviet should no longer be interchangeable in the academic literature. Those were and continue to be homological yet different processes, as...
|
|
|
The Country Image of The Czech Republic from the Perspective of Japanese
Oka, Kohei ; Marková, Alena (advisor) ; Minářová, Markéta (referee)
The question of this study is how the Japanese imagine the Czech Republic. The aim of this study is to clarify the factors that constitute the image of the Czech Republic through the interview survey. It is apparent that, overall, the respondents do not have an image of the Czech Republic as economically developed. On the other hand, there is a tendency for respondents to consider working conditions and the level of education to be good or at least above a certain level. With regard to security, more people imagine that the Czech Republic is safe than those who imagine that the Czech Republic is not safe. Most respondents also indicated that the Czech Republic has an image of ethnic diversity. The image of Czechs' character is frequently expressed with words such as serious, diligent, hard-working, honest, calm, and laid-back. Many respondents imagined the Czech Republic as a comfortable country to live in. The two factors that seemed to influence the formation of the Czech image in this interview survey are "culture and arts" and "historical background," which includes Eastern Europe, socialism and communism, Russia and the Soviet Union. The "culture and art" factor evoked positive images such as "beautiful," "admired," and "high standard," while the "historical background" factor evoked negative...
|
|
|
Transformation of the Post-Socialist Identity in Eastern Europe: A Comparative Analysis on the Cases of the Czech Republic and Belarus
Pyatkevich, Aryna ; Hrůzová, Andrea (advisor) ; Pergl, David (referee)
Once the Soviet Union ceased to exist, its subjects and dominions gained the ability to determine their course of political, cultural, and economic development. The never-ending transition to democracy, described by Boris Buden, is one of the key elements of post-communism. Yet, while the countries that had been the part of Eastern Bloc but not part of the Soviet Union itself were reasonably successful on their path to democratic capitalistic development, the former dominions struggled to incorporate the values that came with what Madina Tlostanova describes as a process of forced westernization. The following paper explores the problem of post-socialistic identity transformation in Central Europe in the case of the Czech Republic and post-soviet identity transformation in Eastern Europe in the case of Belarus. The qualitative research is built on the accessed collective memory of those who work within institutions of memory on the level permitted by the governing regimes in both countries, all born after 1989. The similarities and differences that clearly emerged during the comparative analysis of the findings suggest that being post-socialistic and post-soviet should no longer be interchangeable in the academic literature. Those were and continue to be homological yet different processes, as...
|
|
| |
|
|
Innovation Benefits from European Union Ascendancy: An Econometric Analysis.
Nguyen, Lisa ; Paulus, Michal (advisor) ; Figueira, Filipa (referee)
This paper investigates the benefits of joining the European Union (EU) and its impact on innovation for two indicators: patents and R&D expenditure. Based on a sample size of 27 countries within the EU observed over the time period 1996 to 2013 and utilising the GMM, FE and OLS models, I showed that, overall, entry into the EU has provided substantial benefits. Nevertheless, not all of the indicators of EU benefits are significant and sometimes did not provide positive impact on innovative activities. My evidence also suggests that with a further breakdown into two different regions, Western and Eastern Europe, there is a further rift in gains. Financial integration, for starters, has had a negative impact on innovation for both Western and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, for the entire EU, financial integration has a positive impact on the number of patents filed. I also showed that another benefit of joining the EU, free movement of labour, has a negative and significant effect on both innovative indicators. This is consistent with the idea not all benefits of the EU provide a positive impact on innovation. Further research is warranted due to the insufficient time period.
|
|
|
Labour market restrictions and migration flows in the European Union: the case of Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine
Ducháč, Tomáš ; Strielkowski, Wadim (advisor) ; Jurajda, Štěpán (referee)
The thesis aims to estimate the future migration flows from Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova to the EU. Based on the experience of previous EU enlargements and econometric modelling using the method of Ordinary Least Squares with Fixed Effects, multiple forecasts are created. The forecasts capture the likely development of migration flows in the event of collapse of labour market restrictions as well as the case of no labour market liberalization. The results show that migration flows are expected to be moderate, posing no threats to the stability of the labour markets of EU member states. The increase of migration due to the accession to the EU is likely to be short-term, without substantial impacts in the long-run. Ukraine has the biggest migration potential and is likely to supply the highest amount of labour migration.
|
|
|
Determinants of Crime in Eastern Europe with a Focus on Czechia and Slovakia
Umlaufová, Anna ; Kalabiška, Roman (advisor) ; Schwarz, Jiří (referee)
This study examines whether determinants of crime, hypothesized in the eco- nomic theory of crime and tested in other global regions, also explain crime rates in Eastern Europe, which is often excluded in existing research. Using fixed effects estimation and controlling for social cohesion and law enforcement, the results suggest that increases in income per capita have a negative effect on homicide and violent crime, but the effect on sexual and property crimes is mixed. Furthermore, the significance and sign of the impact of income in- equality and unemployment differ across individual crimes. This study also investigates crime determinants specifically in Czechia and Slovakia. Contrary to the cross-country analysis, there appears to be little connection between aggregate income and the regional distribution of crime, indicating the impor- tance of social rather than economic factors. JEL Classification K42, O15, O52, P20, C23 Keywords Crime, Income distribution, Eastern Europe, Panel Data, Czechia, Slovakia Title Determinants of Crime in Eastern Europe with a Focus on Czechia and Slovakia
|
|
|
Rightist shift in Poland's internal security: Regional security implications for NATO
Pehrson, Taylor Anne ; Smith, David (advisor) ; Kučera, Tomáš (referee)
Within the last decade, European states, particularly in the post-Communist and post-Soviet region, have elected more rightist-led governments. Poland is no exception and after a surprising election in 2015 led to a Law and Justice Party (PiS) government majority in the state, questions of how this political shift in the "role model" Eastern European state could impact Polish security began to circulate. (Lupitu, 2016, p. 25) This study analyses the PiS's security actions within its first year as the Polish government majority (2015-2016) to discern the potential agency political actors have in determining how regional security organisations function through a structure vs. agency framework. Using NATO as a unit of analysis, the study aims to synthesise regional security implications of Poland's political shift on the Alliance. To do so, a triangulated methodology is applied to four key security events and actions PiS took within 2015-2016 using both a document and news media analyses as well as three elite interviews. These four events include a controversial pardoning of the minister responsible for all Polish Special Services, lustration activities within Polish security agencies, a controversial dismissal of the head of NATO's Centre of Excellence in Warsaw and the Warsaw Summit of 2016. A common...
|
|
|
The impacts of financial crisis on exports of Central and East European countries
Zhang, Wen ; Semerák, Vilém (advisor) ; Paulus, Michal (referee) ; Radošević, Slavo (referee)
Finanční krize, která začala v roce 2008, ovlivnila nejen finanční sektor, ale i zbytek ekonomik mnoha zemí světa. Země střední a východní Evropy (SVE) zažily především negativní externí poptávkový šok. Tato dizertace analyzuje, zda exporty zemí SVE odpovídají změnám HDP a zda finanční krize měla na obchod zemí SVE dlouhodobé dopady. Analýza využívá data za období 2000-2018 za 12 zemí SVE v roli exportérů a celkem 198 importérů. Je založena na strukturálním gravitačním modelu využívajícím Baier & Bergstrandovu (2009) "Bonus Vetus" metodu doplněnou o roční dummy proměnné a vybrané párové dummies pro vybrané páry zemí. Výsledky v první řadě ukazují, že v souladu se základní logikou gravitačních modelů jsou vzdálenost a HDP vývozců a dovozců významnými determinantami exportů. Výsledky dále ukazují na přítomnost dalších efektů, tj. že obchod se během krize změnil více, než by odpovídalo čistě změnám HDP. Dummy proměnné vztažené k citlivosti na HDP a k úrovňovému efektu ukazují na dlouhodobé dopady krize na obchod. Pokud jde o další vlivy, členství v EU a přítomnost plovoucího kurzu může exportům napomoci, zatímco vliv členství v Eurozóně byl nevýznamný. Kvůli přítomnosti trvalejších efektů dále analyzujeme data na sektorové úrovni. Dopady se týkaly všech sektorů, ale příčiny a velikost se lišily. I...
|
|
|
Forecasting Electricity Pricing in Central and Eastern Europe
Křížová, Kristýna ; Krištoufek, Ladislav (advisor) ; Baruník, Jozef (referee)
Within forecasting electricity pricing, we analyse whether adding various vari- ables improves the predictions, and if shorter time intervals between observa- tions enhance accuracy of the forecasting. Next, we focus on proper selection of lagged observations, which has not been thoroughly covered in the past litera- ture. In addition, many papers studied electricity prices in larger markets (e.g. United States, Australia, Nord Pool, etc.) on datasets limited in scope, with 2-3 years timespan. To address these gaps in literature, we obtain one daily and one hourly dataset, both spanning 6 years (January 1, 2015 - December 31, 2020), from four Central and Eastern European countries - the Czech Repub- lic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary, and Romania. These contain information on the electricity prices, and information on our observed added variables - temperature and cross-border electricity flows. For the forecasting, we use two different methods - Autoregression (AR) and Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR). The thorough selection of lagged observations, which we accustom to the closing time of the auction-based electricity market system, serves further studies as a guidance on how to avoid possible errors and inconsistencies in their predictions. In our analyses, both AR and SUR models show that...
|
guest ::
