https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213919 2026-09-14T20:52:34Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213923 Title: Looking back, looking forward: Central and Eastern Europe 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall Authors: Grieveson, Richard; Gligorov, Vladimir; Havlik, Peter; Hunya, Gábor; Pindyuk, Olga; Podkaminer, Leon; Richter, Sándor; Weinberger-Vidovic, Hermine Abstract: To mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this paper aims to assess developments in Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE) over the past three decades, and to look forward to what the next 30 years might bring. First, we measure the convergence of per capita income, wages and life expectancy in CESEE with Western Europe since 1989, and examine demographic trends. We find that, after a difficult start, many countries have become significantly wealthier and their populations much healthier. However, for others, the outcomes of the first 30 years are less positive, and a large number of countries in CESEE have already experienced significant population decline. Second, our experts look back at the situation in 1989, and to what extent their expectations have played out, reflecting on both successes and disappointments. Third, we analyse current trends in the region, and attempt to project what will come next. Here, we focus on automation, digitalisation, institutions, demographics and geopolitics. We find evidence of institutional regression, demographic challenges, and a changing geopolitical backdrop which will have important implications for much of the region. However, we also see reasons for optimism, including the opportunities provided by digitalisation and automation, and an active civil society that could in time force positive change. 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213921 Title: Legitimacy: Yugoslav lessons for Ukraine Authors: Gligorov, Vladimir Abstract: Examples from the breakup of Yugoslavia and state-building in the successor states are used to highlight the political and constitutional choices facing Ukraine. The main lesson is that legitimacy is needed for constitution-building, which is needed for long-term state stability. Ethnic and other diversities are not crucially important except if they are used as a means for external interference. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213922 Title: Exploring sectoral conflicts of interest in the Eurozone: A structural political economy approach Authors: Cardinale, Ivano; Landesmann, Michael Abstract: This paper develops a 'structural political economy' approach to two fundamental tensions that emerged as the eurozone crisis unfolded: real exchange rate misalignments and external debt build-up. The approach builds on a classical legacy going back to Francois Quesnay, who conceptualised interdependent sectors as being also socio-political groups. In the context of the European integration process, we analyse the overlapping economic and political dimensions of how sectoral interests evolved within and across countries with regard to real exchange rate adjustments and potential debt write-offs. Central to our analysis is the interplay between sectors' particular interests and their interest in preserving the 'viability' of the systems to which they belong (regional, national, supranational). The sectoral perspective developed in this paper complements, enriches and often questions results usually obtained from country-level political economy analyses. In the last section of the paper we show how sectoral and country-level interests are at play within the institutional set-up of a monetary union, and how this can lead to stances in favour of further integration or disintegration. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213920 Title: Russia's interventions: Counterrevolutionary power Authors: Gligorov, Vladimir Abstract: The key point is about Russia, old and new, being a counterrevolutionary power: Russia's post- Napoleonic War and moreover post-1848 policy was counterrevolutionary abroad and conservative, even when reformist, at home, as is Russia's current post-Soviet, post-Cold War policy. However, while the current foreign policy end is Russian, the instruments of intervention, e.g. in Syria, are Soviet. The main difference as compared to both, Tsarist Russian and Soviet, is Russia's lack of a universalistic ideological justification now, notwithstanding all the attempts to revive the ideology of the Russian cultural and civilizational exceptionalism to supress liberal changes at home, and for that reason also abroad. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z