This timely comparative analysis explores the evolution of governance in Central and Eastern Europe. The book considers post-communist leaders' key challenge: the development of central government institutions capable of coordinating, integrating, and steering the policymaking process. Building on a broad range of primary sources and extensive field research, the distinguished authors analyze the processes and outcomes of institution-building in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria since the late 1980s. They examine in detail the organization and inner workings of central...

Drawing on numerous interviews with high-ranking and founding members of the European Central Bank (ECB), Karl Kaltenthaler identifies and explains the factors that shape the bank's domestic and international monetary strategies. As at all institutions, politics are very much involved in policy-making at the ECB. Kaltenthaler finds that instead of being unconcerned with how the bank's policies impact the citizens of the Eurozone, the central bankers desire to keep the economy healthy. This desire is driven by the central bankers' two primary personal preferences: to appear competent to as...

The discussion about a constitution for the European Union and its rejection by referendum in two of the EU founding member states has once again spurred public and scholarly interest in the democratic quality and potential of the European Union. Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union brings together distinguished thinkers from law, political science, sociology, and political philosophy to explore the potential for democratically legitimate governance in the European Union. Drawing on different theoretical perspectives and strands from democratic theory, this volume is the...