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31. Institutionalizing Operations Analysis for Security and Defense in Bulgaria

Author:
Klaus Niemeyer, Velizar Shalamanov, and Todor Tagarev
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
During the period of preparation for membership and accession to NATO, the administration of the security sector in Bulgaria had very limited access to expertise and tools to support decision making on key functions for the effective management of defense, such as long-term force planning, operations planning, and acquisition management. The institutes that had been responsible for such tasks were closed down as part of the downsizing of the defense establishment in the 1990s. A small number of researchers and analysts were transferred to other defense organizations, primarily to the Defense Advanced Research Institute (DARI), which is part of the “G.S. Rakovski” Defense and Staff College (DSC) in Sofia. Institutes of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) employed others. The Operations Research (OR) Department in the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics in the BAS was primarily oriented toward theoretical studies and teaching. Some of the legacy software tools for decision support and Computer Assisted Exercises (CAX) packages were also available in DARI, but the level of connection between this institute and the larger civilian operations research community was limited.
Political Geography:
Bulgaria

32. Full Issue

Author:
Alexander Stoyanov
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Romanian Journal of Political Science
Institution:
Romanian Academic Society
Abstract:
Corruption, particularly in the high echelons of power, is one of the most serious problems faced by Bulgaria on the eve of its accession to the European Union. The problem has remained on the monitoring agenda for Bulgaria and extensively commented by the EC in its monitoring and evaluation reports in the last 2-3 years. In a period of three years subsequent to EU membership the government and the European Commission will report on the progress in countering administrative and political corruption in the country.
Political Geography:
Europe and Bulgaria

33. Administrative and Political Corruption in Bulgaria: Status and Dynamics (1998-2006)

Author:
Alexander Stoyanov
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Romanian Journal of Political Science
Institution:
Romanian Academic Society
Abstract:
Corruption, particularly in the high echelons of power, is one of the most serious problems faced by Bulgaria on the eve of its accession to the European Union. The problem has remained on the monitoring agenda for Bulgaria and extensively commented by the EC in its monitoring and evaluation reports in the last 2-3 years. In a period of three years subsequent to EU membership the government and the European Commission will report on the progress in countering administrative and political corruption in the country.
Topic:
Corruption
Political Geography:
Europe and Bulgaria

34. From Sofia to Brussels - Corrupt Democratization in the Context of European Integration

Author:
Gergana Bulanova
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Romanian Journal of Political Science
Institution:
Romanian Academic Society
Abstract:
This paper examines the correlation between corruption, democracy and transformation. It is designed as a study of the quality of the established model of democracy, focusing on the governance capacities of one of the newest EU-member states – Bulgaria to effectively counter political corruption. Taking into account the levels of corruption spread in Bulgaria since 1989, I address the following question: why does Bulgaria fail to effectively counter political corruption, notwithstanding the large scale anticorruption campaign, launched in the course of the democratization and Europeanization processes of the last years? I suggest that the state failure in anticorruption is tightly connected to the quality of the established (achieved) democratic model. Furthermore, I argue that this state weakness refers to profound institutional shortcomings, which in turn cause the contamination of the exchange of wealth and power. Respectively the study's main goal is to offer an analyse of the influence of the level of attainment of a balanced, liberal democracy over the state capacities to effectively counter political corruption, while taking into account the role played by particular context factors.
Topic:
Corruption and Democratization
Political Geography:
Europe and Bulgaria

35. Escaping Gazprom's Embrace

Author:
Borut Grgic and Alexandros Petersen
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Journal of International Security Affairs
Institution:
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Abstract:
In the first month of 2008, Russia's state-controlled natural gas mono-poly, Gazprom, ticked off two more European countries that will rely almost entirely on Moscow for their everyday energy needs. On Janu¬ary 18th, Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by his anointed successor, Gazprom chairman Dmitri Medvedev, pressured the govern¬ment in Sofia into signing an energy deal with Russia and providing its backing for the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Bulgaria, and further into Europe, undercutting EU- and U.S.-backed plans for a pipeline from Turkey. Then, a week later, Serbian President Boris Tadic, accompanied by his prime minister, visited Moscow and signed on the dotted line, allowing Gazprom to acquire a 51 percent stake in Serbia's national oil company (NIS). The ambitious move not only strengthened energy links between the two Slavic nations, but bolstered ties between the two most vocal opponents of independence for Kosovo.
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Kosovo, Moscow, Serbia, and Bulgaria

36. Mobility of Labor and Services across the Baltic Sea after EU Enlargement: Trends and Consequences

Author:
Jon Erik Dølvik
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The enlargement of the EU / EEA area on 1 May 2004 to comprise 28 countries – including eight Central and Eastern European countries, in 2007 followed by Bulgaria and Romania – was a milestone. The subsequent opening of the markets for labor and services between countries with gaps in wages and living conditions comparable to those along the U.S./Mexican border has no modern precedent, prompting new patterns of competition, migration and adjustment in national labor market regimes. This paper reviews developments in labor migration after enlargement and the implications for the labor markets in the Baltic states and Poland, which have accounted for a predominant share of the intra- EU / EEA migration flows since 2004. Besides the UK and Ireland, where almost one million EU 8 citizens had registered in 2007, the booming Nordic economies have become important destinations, having granted more than 250,000 permits and seen sizeable additional flows of service providers and self-employed from the Baltic states and Poland. In the sending countries, rising demand for labor has, alongside strong outmigration – especially among young and well-educated groups – engendered falling unemployment, soaring wage growth, and made shortages of skills and labor an obstacle to further economic recovery. Yet, while better paid temporary work abroad may weaken the incentives for employment, mobility and training in the home country, aging will lead to shrinking working-age populations in the coming years. Unless the Baltic states and Poland can entice a larger share of the population to work in their home countries – and/or can attract substantial labor migration from third countries – the declining work force may easily entail economic stagnation and reinforce the outflow of human resources. These countries are thereby facing a critical juncture in their economic and social development. In the recipient Nordic countries, the growing labor and service mobility, low cost production, and competition for labor in Europe, as well as emerging lines of division in the labor markets, have, on the other hand, raised new questions as to how the principles of free movement and the egalitarian Nordic models can be made reconcilable in the open European markets.
Topic:
International Political Economy and Markets
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Eastern Europe, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and Ireland

37. The PfP Consortium as a Change Management and Integration Tool: Ten Years of Experience

Author:
Velizar Shalamanov
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The PfP Consortium was born in 1999 at NATO's Fiftieth Anniversary at the Washington Summit, although the idea of the Consortium was first tested in 1998 at ISF in Zurich. Bulgaria had the privilege of hosting the Second PfP Consortium Annual Conference in Sofia—the first gathering dedicated to the new initiative to define the roadmap for the future “troika council” that had been established to provide continuity between the annual conferences.
Political Geography:
Washington, Bulgaria, and Zurich

38. Recalibrating EU Policy towards the Western Balkans

Author:
Michael Emerson
Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The time is not only ripe but pressing for the EU and the states of the Western Balkans to recalibrate and reinforce the current pre-accession strategy. Trade policy should be moved beyond existing free trade commitments for all the Western Balkans to enter the customs union of the EU and Turkey. Eurozone doctrine should be adapted to realities. Rather than regarding the use of the euro by Montenegro and Kosovo as an unfortunate turn of events, the costs and benefits of unilateral adoption of the euro by not-yet member states of the region should be more openly appraised, and the option to 'euroise' recognised as a possibility. It is good that the EU has moved at the declaratory level toward s visa 'liberalisation', which means scrapping visas rather than just 'facilitation' measures. However the Commission has not yet published guidelines or timelines for this. The region should be put on track for access to the Structural Funds on terms and scales progressively approaching those from which new member states such as Bulgaria and Romania already benefit. The ratio of these aid receipts between the new member states and the Western Balkans is currently 4:1; the former are receiving more than they can handle efficiently, whereas the Western Balkans have huge unsatisfied needs. Overall the case is made for significant moves towards 'functional membership' of the whole of the region with the EU, which would be a highly useful advance, irrespective of how or when the EU overcomes its Lisbon Treaty hiatus.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Balkans, Romania, and Lisbon

39. Bulgaria and Romania's Accession to the EU:Postponement, Safeguards and the Rule of Law

Author:
Gergana Noutcheva
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
On the day before the European Commission's decision on the fitness of Bulgaria and Romania to become EU members on 1 January 2007 (due to be delivered 16 May 2006), it is becoming increasingly evident that the EU has fallen into its own 'rhetorical trap' from which there is no easy way out. Most EU officials and politicians would agree that the governance standards in the two Balkan candidates are not up to EU level yet, but everyone knows that there is not much the EU can do about it at this point.
Topic:
International Cooperation and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Bulgaria, Balkans, and Romania

40. The Miniskirt and the Veil: Aid and Islam in Bulgaria

Author:
Dana Steinberg (ed)
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
In 1989, while traveling through Spain, Kristen Ghodsee stared in disbelief at the television in the bus station in Barcelona as images appeared of the Berlin Wall crumbling. A year later, she backpacked through Eastern Europe to witness the unprecedented changes in the region. But these countries that held such promise soon suffered economic collapse, and Ghodsee wondered what went wrong.
Topic:
Economics, Gender Issues, Islam, and Religion
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe and Bulgaria