The global economic crisis sets the idea of competitiveness and the ways of its achieving in the center of the economic debate. According to the comparative analyses and studies, Bulgaria is among the countries with lowest competitiveness in EU. At the same time the country is required to...

The general elections held in February 2013 marked an earthquake in Italian politics. The two coalitions on the center-left and center-right that had governed Italy alternately between 1996 and 2011 together lost 11 million votes compared to the 2008 elections. The explanations advanced for this...

Economists broadly agree on many key economic policy issues, but economics as a discipline has provided much less guidance on why and how economic policy reform occurs and how to develop institutional mechanisms that enable governments to adopt “good” economic policy. Political scientists...

In this paper we present the elements of the modern diplomatic environment that have led to the greater importance of a nation’s soft power in international relations. We focus on efficient public diplomacy as a mechanism for the enforcement of this power. We define culture as a source of soft...

The objective of this paper is to show that the current global economic crisis in which also Italy fell in 2008 represents indeed for the Italian economy just the last step of a much longer declining path which started in the nineties or to be more precise in 1992-93. In particular, I argue, the...

The objective of this paper is to explore why some countries perform better than others in managing the current economic crisis, which started in 2007 in the US financial sector. I will elaborate on this question using the Crisis Management Index, taking into consideration GDP and labour market...

This paper illustrates the sensitivity of political attitudes to the business cycle. It shows how the 2008 economic crisis has reshaped individual support for democracy and market liberalization in post-transition countries. Pro-reform attitudes have lost ground between 2006 and 2010 in Central...

We estimate the impact of the recent economic crisis on support for democracy and a free market economy in 30 post transition countries and five western European countries. Political values are cyclical and reflect a learning process. Support for the market and democracy has decreased between...

We study how the recent economic crisis has reshaped support for democracy and the market economy in 30 transition countries. Political values are cyclical and reflect a learning process. Support for the market and democracy has decreased between 2006 and 2010 in countries that were hit the...

In the present paper, our main objective is to bring to the forefront two notable processes, as a result of the world financial and economic crisis. On the one side, we underline the increasing role of the emerging countries (especially that of China, Brazil, Russia and India) in the world...