Professor James Hughes

EU Sixth Framework

SIXTH Framework MIRICO (Human and Minority rights in the life cycle of ethnic conflicts)
2006-2008

MIRICO was a scientific project which was funded under the 6th framework program of the EU. EURAC (Bolzano/Bolzen) was the lead partner of a group of six universities including academics from Italy, Austria, Germany, the UK and the Balkan countries. As director of the LSE research programme James Hughes supervised the writing of three reports: "Specific report on the EU policies in the Stabilisation and Association process", "Synthetic Report on Conflict Settlement and the Role of Human and Minority Rights, and Country Specific Reports on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia" and "The European Neighbourhood Policy: Effective Instrument for Conflict Management and Democratic Change in the Union’s Eastern Neighbourhood?".

One Europe or Several? (ESRC)

ESRC Elites and Institutions in Regional and Local Governance in Eastern Europe
June 1999 - 31 December 2002

The consolidation of postcommunist transition in Eastern Europe requires change to be embedded at the local level, yet this dimension is currently neglected. This project will investigate the universal assumption that geography is a critical factor, the argument being that there is only one Europe and proximity to the EU and a shared European civilization will lead to democratic consolidation and prosperity. To evaluate civic capacity, democratic practice and the extent of any transference of state forms, traditions and practices from EU states to Eastern Europe, we will conduct a comparative study of the elites, and governing institutions of one major gateway regional city in six transition states (three ins, one pre-in, and two outs in terms of EU enlargement): Maribor (Slovenia), Pecs (Hungary), Tartu (Estonia), Brasov (Romania), St Petersburg (Russia), and Lviv (Ukraine). The project entails the large-scale systematic interviewing of elites using standardised questionnaires to identify change and adaptation in elite composition and recruitment during the transition, their values and the discourses used, elite networks, influence and cross-regional linkages. Our aim is to test the relevance of geography as an explanation for why some post-communist states democratise and marketise more rapidly and successfully than others

Post-Soviet Local Elites in Siberian and Kazakstan (ESRC)

ESRC Post-Soviet Local Elites in Siberian and Kazakstan: A Pilot Study of the Cities of Novosobirsk and Karaganda
October 1996 - September 1997

The structure and composition of ruling elites demonstrate how government and power is organised and exercised in any society, but they are far more important in a society undergoing a regime transition. In the case of the former Soviet Union, the extent to which there is a continuity circulation or turnover of ruling elites will affect the prospects for democratic consolidation and marketisation. This research project will investigate post-Soviet elites in two major cities of the most important states in Eurasia: Novosibirsk in Russia, and Pavlodar in Kazakhstan. The elites of these two cities will be examined as case studies of the local dimension of the transition. The research will be based on interviews with one hundred key members of the local elites identified by the snowball method. A database of personal and attitudinal attributes of the elite members will be compiled, and their networks will be mapped. The project will investigate patterns of change in local decision making through a case study of energy policy. The research will provide an empirical foundation for testing the applicability of pluristic and power elite theories to post-Soviet politics.

EU Tempus

TEMPUS TACIS Mobility JEP Project: Regionalism and Federalism in European Studies
1999-2001

This was a joint project with the European University of St Petersburg and Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris, to establish a network of postgraduate student exchanges.

EU INTAS

INTAS Regionalism and the Regionalisation of Reform in Siberia
1996-98

This was a joint project with the Institute of Economics, Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences.