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This chapter offers an alternative to mainstream policy studies analysis of educational policy in postcommunist Ukraine. Taking its many insights from Foucault-inspired studies of education policy (Besley and Peters, 2007; Doherty, 2006, 2007; Fejes and Nicoll, 2007; Fimyar, 2008a, 2008b; Lindblad and Popkewitz, 2004; Marshall, 1998; Masschelein, Simons, Bröckling, and Pongratz, 2007; Peters, 2001, 2004, 2006; Peters and Besley, 2007; Popkewitz, 2007; Tikly, 2003), this chapter identifies and examines a new domain of analysis, termed in this chapter policy rationalities or policy why(s). Policy rationalities are conceptualized in this chapter as structures distinct from policy discourses that enable the emergence of some discourses and constrain the emergence or reception of others. “Conditions of possibility,” “background practices,” or “epistemes” are some other ways of thinking about the abstract – yet important for the study of policy – term of “policy rationalities.” Fourteen policy documents and 17 years of policy-making (1991–2008) represent textual and temporal borders of analysis. The official authorship of the documents is limited to the three state actors, namely, the President, Parliament, and the Cabinet of Ministers. The rationale for not including the ministerial documents in the analysis is explained in the chapter. The main methods employed by the study are deconstruction and discourse analysis. The chapter discusses three sets of policy rationalities: the rationalities of nation- and state-building, the rationalities of comparison and critique, and, what I will call, the rationalities of “catching-up” Europeanization. The study also traces the textual constructions of the models of individual, society, and the state as well as the definitions of education, upbringing, and educational governance in the documents under analysis. The chapter makes an important contribution to the current debates in policy sociology and governmentality studies by mapping out a new terrain of inquiry, i.e., policy rationalities, as an important starting point for the analysis of educational reform and change.

Olga Bain teaches at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at George Washington University, Washington, DC. Her research interests include educational policies in post-socialist countries, internationalization and globalization of higher education, faculty productivity and women's advancement in academia, and higher education financing. Olga Bain has consulted for the American Council on Education, the Academy of Educational Development, the International Research and Exchanges Board, the Council of Europe, the Salzburg Seminar, and others. She authored the book University Autonomy in the Russian Federation since Perestroika (2003, RoutledgeFalmer) as well as book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals. She holds a Ph.D. degree in social foundations of education, comparative and higher education from the University at Buffalo, NY, and a candidate of sciences degree in sociolinguistics from St. Petersburg University, Russia.

A spate of nonviolent youth movements has recently demanded political change in the postcommunist region. Though these challenger organizations shared similar characteristics, some of them were more successful than others in mobilizing citizens against nondemocratic regimes. This chapter argues that analysis of tactical interactions between social movements and incumbent governments provides a partial explanation for cross-country variations in youth mobilization. The empirical analysis focuses on youth movements in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Serbia, and Ukraine. The study traces how movement strategies and state countermoves affected the level of youth mobilization. This research contributes to social movement literature by analyzing tactical interactions in hybrid regimes, falling somewhere between democracy and dictatorship, and adds to civil resistance scholarship by comparing cases of successful and failed mobilization.

Financial stability has become a focal point for central banks since the global financial crisis. However, the optimal mix between monetary and financial stability policies remains unclear. In this study, the “soft” approach to such policy mix was tested – how often monetary policy (in inflation reports) analyses financial stability issues. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.

A total of 648 inflation reports published by 11 central banks from post-communist countries in 1998-2019 were reviewed using a text-mining method.

Results show that financial stability topics (mainly cyclical aspects of systemic risk) on average account for only 2%of inflation reports’ content. Although this share has grown somewhat since the global financial crisis (in CZ, HU and PL), it still remains at a low level. Thus, not enough evidence was found on the use of a “soft” policy mix in post-communist countries.

Given the strong interactions between price and financial stability, this paper emphasizes the need to increase the attention of monetary policymakers to financial stability issues.

The study combines two research areas, i.e. monetary policy and modern text mining techniques on a sample of post-communist countries, something which to the best of the authors’ knowledge has not been sufficiently explored in the literature before.

Russia's attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, marked a very historic turning point in European security architecture. With enlarged Western aid in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, Ukraine could have overcome somehow the crisis, yet many of its cities and infrastructure were largely destroyed and one-quarter of its citizens are now refugees and displaced. What is even more serious is that it remains unclear if and how a diplomatic solution could emerge between the parties. Russia's war against Ukraine is not an overnight event, it is a part of the story of the gradual escalation of Russian aggression on Ukraine since the beginning of the 2000s. Indeed, it is not just the result of the ideological or geopolitical competition between the West/European Union (EU) and Russia regarding their mutually exclusive or even antagonistic integration policies in the shared neighborhood. It is a more dynamic process including the agency of Ukraine with all aspects of its domestic politics and societal features, ideology, the role of energy, business links as well as the impact of regional and global dimensions. This chapter aims to overview the interlinked relationship between the EU, Ukraine, and Russia in a triadic manner within key aspects including ideology, geopolitics, energy, and integration projects and by specifically focusing on the underlying factors that have triggered the emergence of the Russia–Ukraine war of 2022 and further implications for the EU politics.

The purpose of this paper is to examine processes of Eurasian integration and the veritable ‘culture war’ between Russia and the West over it, while contributing to the theoretical paradigm of geopolitical economy. This paradigm invites us to consider the multiple manifestations of an emerging multipolar world order while scrutinising the extent to which previously popular approaches to the study of international political economy were themselves enmeshed in projects, the architects of which aspired to global hegemony.

The paper employs critical historicism, an approach in which cultural difference is seen as the sedimentation of historically constituted material and ideational processes and which eschews cultural essentialism and orientalising tropes. It is through this lens that Russian state attempts at normalising Eurasian integration processes are examined.

I demonstrate that Russian state organs and officials, as well as ‘political technologists’ attempt to de-politicise processes of Eurasian integration by appealing to both the logic of cultural/civilisational compatibility of affected parties, as well as the logic of economic integration. Such portrayals invite scrutiny; however, it is important that we also consider how Eurasian integration initiatives are the product of a post-Soviet struggle over Eurasian space but represent something more than mere neo-Soviet revisionism.

The paper demonstrates its originality by situating ongoing processes of Eurasian integration within the longer post-Soviet conjuncture and amid processes of international contestation. Moreover, it situates Russian officials and political technologists as active contributors to international debates about the emerging multipolar world order.

The link between corruption and firm performance has received considerable critical attention. However, until now, far too little attention has been paid to different dimensions of corruption and their relationship with firm performance. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to examine the relationship between dimensions of corruption and firm productivity.

This paper uses the fifth wave of Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey, which is based on the survey questionnaire with senior managers of 16,566 randomly selected firms across 32 developing countries. Empirical analysis employs structural equation modeling (SEM) and instrumental variable two-stage least square (IV 2SLS) estimation techniques.

Our results revealed that political corruption and red tape have a positive relationship with firm productivity. We also found that perceived extent of bribe and corruption experience are positively related to the firm productivity.

Findings suggest that multifaceted dimensions of corruption exist. Therefore, policymakers should develop anticorruption measures by taking into account these dimensions. In addition, policymakers should focus on improving institutional quality by reforming laws and measures to detect and punish government officials.

So far only few studies have looked at the dimensions of corruption; therefore, this study seeks to examine the effect of different dimensions of corruption together on firm performance in postcommunist countries.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2019-0476

The slogan ‘not in my backyard’ became a symbol of a successful campaign in a psychological war waged by the Soviet Union against the United States and the NATO allies. Russians have already placed their cruise missiles in firing positions, but tried to prevent the US Army from doing the same on the other side of the Iron Curtain, namely in the NATO countries. Misguided citizens of the welfare states on the western side of the Iron Curtain demonstrated for disarmament in spite of Soviet secret build up of the missile stockpile. The EU citizens and their intellectual elites never dealt with the Russian communist genocide and underestimated hidden injuries of the Cold War. Today, when Soviet secret decisions leaked out due to a temporary access to the communist archives in Moscow, even carefully orchestrated campaigns in social media cannot change facts and wipe awareness out. This time it is the financial level of military expenditures, which is questioned by Russian trolls in the social media of the Dutch, German or French populations. Apart from military expenditures of NATO member states, Russian troll campaigns are also directed towards the support of multicultural ideologies and welcoming all immigrants. At first sight, they are as successful with the immigrants as they were with the cruise missiles. Most respondents in the Netherlands claim that immigrants are welcome – provided they settle down somewhere else – anywhere, but not in my backyard. Perhaps in my neighbour's backyard, behind national borders? In Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Spain – anywhere (but not here)? This is the message defining the subtle brand of a Dutch xenophobia, phrased in a politically correct way. Nobody, except extreme right (e.g., Wilders) or extreme libertarians (e.g., Baudet), dares to spell it out – and yet it haunts all political debates. A spectrum is truly haunting Europe – a spectrum of mass migrations. Are all forces uniting against it? No, but even the most ardent believers in welcoming Third World masses in the first world infrastructures conclude that good fences do good neighbours make or that a sound democracy requires solid territorial borders. Or does it? And what does this turn of political mind tell us about the values of Enlightenment?

While the liberalization of economies within the transition paradigm is viewed to take place primarily on a macroeconomic (primary) level, this paper switches emphasis to the secondary and tertiary level of post-transition. While macroeconomic reforms may provide the playing field, secondary reforms level the playing field and tertiary reforms develop the capabilities necessary for firms and individuals within firms to compete in the landscape of liberalized economies. It is necessary to examine the transformations on three levels. First, the development of public policy and institutions aimed at regulating certain industries or firms. Second, the explicit market strategies of firms operating in the industries that shape market structure and inform public policy. Third, the nonmarket strategies of firms aimed at influencing the form and substance of public policy. Drawing on research in three related areas: institutional voids (IVs), the role of market and nonmarket strategies of firms, respectively, this paper examines the current state of transition in CEE/FSU countries. The main conclusions of the paper are first, transition and post-transition has been and continues to be profoundly impacted by the liberalizing influences of multinational firms. Second, this causation from the strategies and tactics of multinational firms to the extent of transition also helps to explain the degree of modernization of economies in a given transition economy. Third, it is important to distinguish between local and foreign firms on the transition process. Foreign firms are more likely to pursue liberalization agendas when it strengthens their competitive advantage over local firms. Conversely, local firms – especially those who rely on the capacity to navigate institutional voids – may be opposed to liberalization, as liberalization would threaten their sources of competitive advantage.

The rebirth of populist agenda echoes at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century is the birth of populist unrest in democratic and in authoritarian regimes alike – in Europe, the Middle East, America, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Regardless of many faces and appeals to diverse constituencies, as well as clearly established trends, a current escalation in the rapid and widespread development of populist insurgency is an outcome of two factors. One is the weakness of representative politics and the party system in many states across the globe. The other is the global economic recession or crisis that has led to an increase in economic disparity between social classes and impoverishment of the poorer and middle social strata combined with the establishment of global economic, multinational giants.