Papers by Vera Scepanovic
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Challenges of Upgrading: The Dynamics of East Central Europe’s Integration into the European Auto... more Challenges of Upgrading: The Dynamics of East Central Europe’s Integration into the European Automotive Production Networks
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The EU's view of decentralization in regional development policy has made a sharp U-turn sinc... more The EU's view of decentralization in regional development policy has made a sharp U-turn since the 1990s. The earlier emphasis on the strengthening of local developmental agency in the accession countries has been replaced by renewed enthusiasim for centralization. One justification for this turn is that decentralization amplifies fiscal imbalances, encouraging excessive borrowing at the local level, thus undermining the overall fiscal stability. Drawing on the in-depth study of one such case – the rapid accumulation of municipal debt in Montenegro – this paper makes several arguments against such a simplistic view. First, the fiscal opportunism and soft budget constraints that fuelled the debt crisis have been spurred on not by decentralization, but by partial decentralization, i.e. the ambiguous division of powers between levels of government. Second, while most corrective measures proposed by international advisors focus on the behaviour of local authorities, fiscal imbalance...
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The EU's view of decentralization in regional development policy has made a sharp U-turn since th... more The EU's view of decentralization in regional development policy has made a sharp U-turn since the 1990s. The earlier emphasis on the strengthening of local developmental agency in the accession countries has been replaced by renewed enthusiasm for centralization. One justification for this turn is that decentralization amplifies fiscal imbalances, encouraging excessive borrowing at the local level, thus undermining the overall fiscal stability. Drawing on the in-depth study of one such case – the rapid accumulation of municipal debt in Montenegro – this paper makes several arguments against such a simplistic view. First, the fiscal opportunism and soft budget constraints that fuelled the debt crisis have been spurred on not by decentralization, but by partial decentralization, i.e. the ambiguous division of powers between levels of government. Second, while most corrective measures proposed by international advisors focus on the behaviour of local authorities, fiscal imbalances at the subnational level are just as likely to be fomented by the opportunism of the central government. This suggests that re-centralization is unlikely to ensure fiscal consolidation, and may even be counter-productive. A more promising strategy would be to strengthen the competencies and competences of local authorities, clearly delineating their developmental responsibilities and improving their capacity to exercise them.
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European Journal of …, Jan 1, 2011
Labour in Central-Eastern Europe is widely regarded as a uniformly weak actor. We challenge this ... more Labour in Central-Eastern Europe is widely regarded as a uniformly weak actor. We challenge this view, and explore the conditions under which CEE labour can play an active role in the welfare reform process. We draw on evidence from education and health care in Poland and Serbia, and show that public sector unions have largely retained their ability to prevent major restructuring and to defend employment-related privileges of their constituencies. The unions’ resilience is explained by the fact that the public sector in these countries remains sheltered from competitive pressures by delayed privatization, and by the extensive structural and associational power enjoyed by public sector employees.
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… -Zeitschrift fuer Arbeit, …, Jan 1, 2010
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Book Reviews by Vera Scepanovic
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Pieter Vanhuysse's book, Divide and Pacify. Strategic Social Policies and Political Protests... more Pieter Vanhuysse's book, Divide and Pacify. Strategic Social Policies and Political Protests in Post-Communist Democracies, is one of the most challenging and provocative publications that has appeared so far on the transformation of Central and Eastern European (CEE) ...
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Czech Sociological Review, Jan 1, 2010
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East Central Europe, Jan 1, 2010
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Books by Vera Scepanovic
Regions in the EU’s Eastern and Southern peripheries tend to perform badly across many rankings f... more Regions in the EU’s Eastern and Southern peripheries tend to perform badly across many rankings from economic development, to quality of government,social justice and innovation potential, despite the fact that the vast majorityof EU structural funding has been spent in these countries. However, these countries followed different development trajectories and reacted differently to the economic crisis. Some of them still struggle, others thrive, others, afteryears of structural transformation, are stuck in a middle-income trap.Successes and failures as a result of EU cohesion implementation are avaluable source of feedback for future plans. Southern part of the EU, and Central and Eastern Europe provide an excellent opportunity to evaluatethem, The whole implementation exercise is sometimes challenging to accomplish, as both the public and private sectors have low absorption capacity. In contrast, positive experiences also emerged. Regions in Central and Eastern European countries witnessed improvements in the form of change in GDP per capita, benchmarked against the EU average during theyears 2008-2015, while Southern Europe improved similarly between 2000-2008. In this volume, the authors cover a variety of aforementioned problems and experiences of either all member states, with special attention to peripheral countries, or to sectoral or regional problems in selected countries. The book begins with an overview of the issues of economic convergence and quality of life in all member states. It also addresses political aspects of EU cohesion policy, including involvement of civil society into this public policy, as well as relationships between cohesion policy support and EU identification. The final section discusses an important novelty in the framework of EU cohesion policy, namely the JESSICA initiative, that is, an instrument offering repayable and recyclable funding targeted at economically-viable and sustainable urban development projects. Authors are engaged in research on EU cohesion policy and represent severaldisciplines: economics, political and social sciences.
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Papers by Vera Scepanovic
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Books by Vera Scepanovic