Devon: Log 2

I used the UIUC library search with the terms: Structural funds, Poland

EBSCO returned 13 results, which I sifted through but only found three or four useful articles.

SCOPUS returned 35 results, which happened to contain the useful articles which I had found in EBSCO. Because of the greater selection offered by SCOPUS, I chose to use sources from this data base.

Most articles had full text access provided, though some journal articles from Poland did not. The selection of articles deal with issues of decentralization, usage of structural funds and economic growth policies. Here are five of the many useful sources I found.

1. Churski, P. 2008. Structural funds of the European Union in Poland - experience of the first period of membership. European Planning Studies 16, (4): 579-607.
2. Bukowski, Andrzej, Kaja Gadowska, and Paula Polak. 2008. Barriers in the process of awarding and implementation of EU funds in Poland. Polish Sociological Review 168, (4): 437-469
3. Dabrowski, M. 2008. Implementing Structural Funds in Poland: European influences, the weight of the past and collective learning. Revue d'Etudes Comparatives Est-Ouest 39, (3): 145-70.
4. Heimpold, Gerhardt. 2008. Growth versus equalisation? An examination of strategies for regional policy in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland after EU accession. Jahrbuch fuer Regionalwissenschaft. 28 (1), pp. 1-29
5. Gasior-Niemiec, A. 2007. Civil society and new modes of governance in Poland. in Polish Sociological Review (1), pp. 65-85.

Churski discusses how the EU structural funds have been used in Poland thus far. He seems to have a more positive disposition towards the government's use of funds compared to the others mentioned below.

Bukowski et al. comment on the process of implementing EU funding in Poland and the Polish bureaucracy's inefficiency in handling the structural and cohesion funds. The theories of Luhmann are applied to Poland.

Dabrowski assesses the efficiency and status of the system divised by the Polish government to distribute structural funds at the regional and local level.

Heimpold compares how regional policies are implemented in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Regional policies are an important prerequisite in the EU's formula for strucutral and cohesion funds. Thus it is interesting to see how Poland's neighbors in Central Europe fare in this process.

Gasior-Niemiec explores how regional and local government administrations in Poland will team with private actors to promote economic and infrastructural growth.

I am interested in researching how government adminitstrations impliment policies enacted or decreed by the executive and or legislative organs of a given country's government. I look at the composition of such administrations, the bureaucratic aspects of the system, and whether or not the system is a professional civil service. Observing these systems in Central Europe is of particular interest to me, due to the reforms implemented since the fall of communism and the accession to the European Union.