Volume 68, Issue 4

Workplace celebrations are a festive genre influenced by local and global socioeconomic transformations and cultural trends. This article presents a qualitative study of company celebrations in international firms in Bulgaria. Festivities, which are the object of study, are conceptualised as a medium through which identities are constructed, managed, and shared. The goal is to explore labour relations through the prism of such non-work events and trace the dynamics between the local and the international, between notions of ‘us’ and ‘them’, individual and organisational identities. The presented case studies are based on in-depth interviews with a range of stakeholders and on participant observation in celebrations organised by firms for their employees.

The research presented here investigates the impact of the business environment on the formalization of informal firms, using firm-level data for 243 informal firms in Kosovo. The findings indicate that business-environment variables such as limited access to financing, the cost of financing, the unavailability of subsidies, tax rates, and corruption have a significant negative impact on the formalization of informal firms. In addition, firm-level characteristics analysis suggests that the age of the firm also exercises a significant negative impact, whereas sales volume exerts a significant positive impact on the formalization of informal firms. These findings have important policy implications and suggest that the abolition of barriers preventing access to financing, as well as tax reforms and a consistent struggle against corruption may have a positive influence on the formalization of informal firms. On the other hand, firm owners should consider formalization to be a means to help them have greater opportunities for survival and growth.

Using Kosovo and its constitutional jurisprudence as a case study, this paper discusses the role of constitutional courts as agents for implementing a democratic project on behalf of the sovereign as the principal. It discusses that role primarily from the point of view of the court’s functional intervention in improving the behaviour of the three branches of government. The paper begins by unveiling the historical development of constitutional justice, with as its focus the concept of new constitutionalism and the European/Kelsenian model encountered in Kosovo. It discusses too the theories of delegation of power, the contractual relationship, and trust between sovereigns and constitutional adjudicators in the context of subjects connected with this article. To present scenarios where the court manifests itself as a negative legislator, a positive legislator, and as an influencer of attitudes, the article includes convincing illustrations from both legal theory and case-law.

This text will reconstruct the main determinants of Croatia’s foreign policy to the European Union (EU) and the Western Balkans. It will demonstrate why, after joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the EU, Croatia needs a new foreign policy goal. I will advocate a thesis that Croatia is looking for a place of its own within the EU, but that it has not yet managed to find it due to its dual foreign policies approach—the government’s, which was pro-European, and that of the previous president of the country, which was pro-American. The election of the new president and the presidency of the EU has given Croatia a chance to set a new goal for its foreign policy. Specifically, in its focus on Europe, could Croatia’s new role be found in guiding the enlargement process in the Western Balkans?