The business of state capture and the rise of authoritarianism in Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia

This paper will discuss the rise of authoritarian tendencies in the political systems of Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. In all four countries, certain parties and political elites have become entrenched in the political system, and have been able to enhance their grip on power, often beyond, and in some cases through, constitutional frameworks. It will discuss how forms of state capture have enabled political elites to position themselves in a situation in which they not only control the political decisionmaking institutions, but also exercise excessive influence on the economic and social systems of these systems in transitional states. By extending their networks of patronage, limiting political access for opponents, and holding strong control over media and the judiciary, these elites have been able to develop semi-authoritarian systems, which utilise democratic elections to confirm their long-term dominance, veiling them in a veneer of legitimacy. This rise of electoral authoritarianism – and in turn illiberal democracy – is not only linked to the political actions of certain parties and elites, but also results from the political, social and economic changes that the countries under investigation have faced in recent years. What is more, the so-called transformative power of EU integration has failed to hinder or deter the rise of these new authoritarian regimes. The paper will progress in three main steps: In the first part, a theoretical framework will be introduced, by focusing on theories of democratization and authoritarian back-sliding. In the second part, the four countries under investigation will be discussed in more detail, to highlight why there has been an increase in authoritarian practices across these four countries. This section will also discuss how these authoritarian tendencies play out in practice and how they have been undermining the consolidation of liberal democracy. Finally, in the conclusion it will be discussed what the European Union (EU) and other actors could do in order to support those forces that focus on democratic governance in these countries, and make the accession process truly transformative

Conclusion: the politics of numbers – censuses in the post-Yugoslav states

This conclusion poses a number of questions related to policy issues and the censuses in the post-Yugoslav states. It is argued that censuses are always more than just a technical counting exercise. Census discussions in Western Europe tend to focus on regional funding, infrastructure support and long-term policy planning, and can be as contested and heated as questions over identity, religion and mother tongue in the post-Yugoslav states. However, identity-related questions in an area in which identity is still in flux and in which fundamental demographic changes have taken place recently, prevent any focus on more policy-oriented discussions. In their EU integration process, all of the post-Yugoslav countries will have to concentrate on issues such as economic development, sustainable infrastructure planning, budgeting within the strict rules of the most recent EU agreements and hence policy discussions should be at the forefront of the debates about the results of the censuses. Instead, discussions over who is counted and how remain of key importance in all countries (even those that have joined the EU), and demonstrate unconsolidated nation-building projects

Dynamics and neutrino signal of black hole formation in non-rotating failed supernovae. II. progenitor dependence

We study the progenitor dependence of the black hole formation and its associated neutrino signals from the gravitational collapse of non-rotating massive stars, following the preceding study on the single progenitor model in Sumiyoshi et al. (2007). We aim to clarify whether the dynamical evolution toward the black hole formation occurs in the same manner for different progenitors and to examine whether the characteristic of neutrino bursts is general having the short duration and the rapidly increasing average energies. We perform the numerical simulations by general relativistic neutrino-radiation hydrodynamics to follow the dynamical evolution from the collapse of pre-supernova models of 40Msun and 50Msun toward the black hole formation via contracting proto-neutron stars. For the three progenitor models studied in this paper, we found that the black hole formation occurs in ~0.4-1.5 s after core bounce through the increase of proto-neutron star mass together with the short and energetic neutrino burst. We found that density profile of progenitor is important to determine the accretion rate onto the proto-neutron star and, therefore, the duration of neutrino burst. We compare the neutrino bursts of black hole forming events from different progenitors and discuss whether we can probe clearly the progenitor and/or the dense matter.Comment: 30 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Ap