Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Institutional Conditionality And State Compliance: The Czech And Slovak Accession To Nato And The Eu, Eva Svobodova

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation studies the interaction between international institutions and nation states. More specifically, it examines how the membership conditionality of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) was adopted by candidate states. It uses the Czech and Slovak accessions to NATO and the EU to argue that, in order to understand the external phenomenon of conditionality, we need to study its effects within states. Critical to this process is national leadership. National leaders determine whether and how conditionality is implemented. Furthermore, this dissertation asserts that successful compliance with NATO and EU conditionality is decisively determined by …

East European Security Revisited: Institutions, Power, And Security, Blagovest Tashev

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Drawing on the literatures on democratization, security studies, and small states this dissertation explores the relationship of small states' domestic and international institutionalization and their security. Small states have limited power not only to affect their environment but also to guarantee national security. Small states, it is hypothesized, enhance their security through the consolidation of domestic institutions and the accumulation of capacities provided by their participation in capacity-reach international institutions.

The dissertation tests the hypothesis by applying the comparative method to the post-communist states of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania. The three case studies analyze the effects of domestic …

The Concept And Practice Of Representative Democracy In Post-Communist Eastern Europe, Georgeta V. Pourchot

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Using the concept of representation, this study advances a comparative interpretive analysis which makes use of hard statistical data and soft data to assess the direction of democratization in Eastern Europe between 1990 and 1998. Specifically, the study looks at how governments in Eastern Europe chose to heed constituencies' calls for the institution of a market economy, and analyzes the degree of government responsiveness towards constituencies. The study finds that the region is moving towards a more responsible and responsive type of governance, but at different paces and degrees. Poland leads with respect to government responsiveness. The Czech Republic displays …