Ján Buček

Ján Buček
Comenius University Bratislava · Department of Economic and Social Geography Demography and Territorial Development

Professor

About

63
Publications
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Introduction
Ján Buček currently works at the Department of Economic and Social Geography, Demography and Territorial Development, Comenius University in Bratislava. Ján does research in political geography, governance, spatial development .

Publications

Publications (63)
Article
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Although Bratislava is one of the youngest national capital cities in the world, we can observe a much longer process of its capital-making. We document its gradual formation as a centre of national politics and government, as well as the centre of national culture and national symbol. Bratislava confirms the impact of assumptions and experiences a...
Article
There is a specific group of former mining cities facing depopulation in Slovakia. They lost their key growth factor because their natural resources have been exhausted over the centuries or their extraction has become inefficient in the global economy. Nevertheless, even among them, we can find significant differences. We attempt to identify the d...
Article
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Sub-municipal spatial community-based bodies, represented in the form of councils, have important roles in urban governance in many countries. This paper attempts to contribute to a better understanding of the legitimacy of sub-municipal councils (SMCs) in the specific conditions of small and mid-sized cities, within the context of democratising po...
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In 2022, further municipal elections await us, for the first time connected with elections to the bodies of higher territorial units (self-governing regions). This paper aims to evaluate the issue of elections of mayors in Slovakia in a longer period of time (2002-2018), in terms of the degree of legitimacy regarding the power of this post with res...
Chapter
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The Covid-19 pandemic seriously affected the societies, economies and public sector operations in most of the countries. This is also the case in Slovakia. Although the first wave of the pandemic seemed less critical, the second wave was more devastating in terms of positive case number and the death rate. We identify the scope and timing of Covid-...
Chapter
This chapter deals with the evaluation of the political situation in Slovakia, a young democracy with a population of over five million and with history of a quarter of a century of independence, lying in the heart of Europe, by analyzing the results of the recent general (parliamentary) election held in 2016 and a series of referenda that have tak...
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This article is a contribution to the debate on specific and interrelated problems of regional government, regional development and the electoral success of radical political forces in post-socialist Europe in the late transition times and during the financial and economic crisis and its aftermath. We document these issues based on the case of the...
Book
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Najväčšie mestá predstavujú v mnohých aspektoch kľúčovú zložku fungovania modernej slovenskej spoločnosti. Z pohľadu demografického výskumu a najmä populačných prognóz im však bola doteraz venovaná len obmedzená pozornosť. Vzhľadom na veľký význam a v mnohých ohľadoch špecifickosť populácií najväčších miest sa predkladaná monografia riešiteľského k...
Book
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Politická geografia sa v súčasnosti snaží v nebývalej miere prispieť k pochopeniu meniacej sa politickej organizácie sveta. Vynárajú sa nové, komplexnejšie a komplikovanejšie spoločenské procesy, ktoré generujú doteraz nepoznané súvislosti. Do nového kontextu sa však dostávajú i poznatky, ktoré sú odbornej či laickej verejnosti známe už pomerne dlh...
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Purpose Geographical disparities in the light of regional development constitute ever present issue affecting academic debates as well as decision process of policy-makers also in the Central and East European countries, mainly during the last two decades. The primary aim of this paper is to outline the economic development of one of the most unde...
Chapter
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Public administration reforms are among the most typical expressions of societal progress from the point of view of governments and the public sector, and more often than not have impacts on the institutional frameworks of urban governance. Debates and considerations on reforms are almost permanent, but their conversion into real terms and implemen...
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This paper responds primarily to current innovations that have emerged in urban development policy during the last decades also in East-Central Europe. Prior to the change of the social regime, we notice more traditional approaches in the urban development policy – public consumption, economic development and environmental issues. Among current urb...
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This contribution attempts to explain briefly the signs and substance of shrinking in Bratislava at the turn of centuries. Although the first look indicates clear shrinking processes in Bratislava, we have to be very careful in search for reasons of such development. Bratislava is specific case combining contradictory processes of suburbanisation,...
Chapter
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When local governments gain significant new powers, their main concern is the maintenance and expansion of their assets. This has been particularly true among the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Looking at Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, this paper examines changes which occurred after the collapse of communist rule in 1990...
Book
Since the 1980s, there has been a global trend to give more power to local governments. Even in Korea and the United Kingdom, the most centralised countries in the OECD, local government powers have increased, with substantial economic benefits. Within the European Union, the principle of subsidiarity has enshrined the idea of devolution. New membe...
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Two important conceptual innovations have penetrated into managing of urban affairs and urban development in late post-socialist transition and early post-transition periods. These two concepts are governance and strategic planning. They are interacting in parallel in cities generating various effects as a part of extensive modernization processes....
Book
Following the financial crisis and subsequent impacts of economic slowdown and austerity, the emergence of new local governance models and innovation is a very timely issue. The same goes for identifying new types of funding schemes and fiscal models prompted by austerity with the reduction in financial resources for local governments. This book of...
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Indigenous communities in Nepal have for generations been self-governing communities with their own concept and law. The Bheja system of the Magar of western hill Nepal is an indigenous self-governing practice. A case study of the Bheja system has been conducted by participatory observation including Focus Group Discussion and Key Informants Survey...
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The demographic characteristics of "shrinking" processes in large Slovak cities, as well as the awareness of such shrinkage processes in local development planning, is the subject of this article. Population loss, together with other demographic indicators, clearly documents such a trajectory in urban development. In spite of this reality, there is...
Chapter
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There is rising number of countries whose local government introduced directly elected mayors. They are also very important feature of local self-government in Slovakia for more than two decades. This contribution focuses on advantages as well as risks of the directly elected mayors' activities and leadership style in quickly changing post-socialis...
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Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave V rámci rozsiahlych diskusií o rozvoji na regionálnej a miestnej úrovni sa musí venovať čoraz väčšia pozornosť veľkých mestám a ich regiónom, keďže práve od nich sa očakáva kľúčová úloha v sociálnom a ekonomickom rozvoji, či medzinárodnej interurbánnej konkurencii. Ešte špecifickejšiu úlohu medzi nimi majú hlavné...
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This contribution summarizes and evaluates the first ten years of regional selfgovernment development in Slovakia. It is based on an extensive study of legislation, institutional structures, regional self-governments documents, electoral results and financial data. This study also reacts to the lack of research focused on regional self-government c...
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This study focuses on the current situation in urban strategic economic development planning in Slovakia. It is based on the planning approach and compares the strategies worked out in Slovak cities to experiences of cities outside Slovakia. After years of arbitrary, rare and more or less careful preparation of development strategies during the 199...
Article
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Political geography is one of the most expanding disciplines of current geography. Its development is not easy to understand, since it involves almost unrestricted research fields. Under such condition, it is useful to outline and briefly characterize main research directions and problems. They were identified, after careful analyses of the structu...
Article
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The experiences accumulated during more than ten years of praxis, as well as decentralisation and modernisation measures have been incorporated into public administration reform processes that has completed especially during 200 l-2005. However, outcornes of the reform have not been one directional. Local self-government strengthening by new powers...
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This study focuses on the basic problems of foreign direct investment inflow and their functioning in Slovakia during the transformation period after 1990, addressing especially the latest development from 1999 to 2001. Improved political and institutional conditions substantially influenced the inflow of foreign investments after 1998. FDI inflow...
Chapter
The age of internationalisation has also reached local government. Leaders of local authorities are increasingly in touch with their opposite numbers in other countries. The cross-border networks between cities, towns and regions seem to grow denser day by day (Goldsmith and Klausen 1997, Baldersheim and Ståhlberg 1999a). East and Central European...
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A process of bottom-up integration is taking place in Europe. Regions and cities are establishing direct contacts and co-operative arrangements across national borders. The participation in cross-border networks may require certain political and institutional capacities that not all local and regional authorities may possess to the same extent. The...
Chapter
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regional development, regionalization, regional policy, government, Slovakia, reforms
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Paper focuses on identification of the extent and main forms of local self-government involvement in local development of Bratislava during post-socialist period. In more general terms, it is depending especially on situation of local economy and condition of local self-government functioning. While the situation of local economy looks promising, t...
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Paper focuses on potential of diverse and flexible forms of local autonomy application in regulation of inter-ethnic relations and in satisfaction of minority rights and needs. The concept of autonomy is briefly characterised and specified, including various partial forms of autonomy according to the political and legal aspects, spatial aspects and...
Article
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Katedra humánnej geografie a demogeografie, Prirodovedecká fakulta UK, Mlynská dolina, 842 15 Bratislava, Slovenská republika Ivan Zemko, Ján Buček: Problémy cezhraničnej spolupráce a jej inštitucionálneho rámca na príklade regiónu Bratislavy. Geografické spektrum, 2/2000, Prírodovedecká fakulta Univerzity Komenského, Bratislava, 2000, pp. 43-54. A...
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Two themes of particular significance in the changing world of local government are examined: the growing pressures to incorporate participatory and direct forms of democracy into local government; and the varied use of a complex structure of nongovernmental organisations as part of local governance. Two main forms of democracy with participation a...
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By means of case studies of Slovak cities, the author focuses on decentralisation processes at the local level, paying special attention to the role of local self-government during the transformation period in Central and Eastern Europe. Four main directions of sublocal decentralisation are considered: political decentralisation, managerial decentr...
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Sub-local decentralisation is one of the latest main institutional changes in big cities' self-government General trends and opportunities, experiences, are mentioned in the first part of the paper. Managerial and political forms of decentralisation are defined as key issues of interest. I discuss the functioning of decentralised units within the l...
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Territorial systems in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovaki are surveyed together with factors that have determined their present shape. The most important among these are: a relatively late start in the building of the modern state, the legacy of communist regimes, and the exigencies of postcommunist transition. In the second part of t...
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The authority of the directly elected mayor is a new element in the local power structure in Slovakia. An understanding of local power holders is therefore very important to us. In the election results of the two mayoral elections three tendencies are identified: a decrease from 1990 to 1994 in the number of mayors with previous affiliation to the...
Article
Local finance is one of the important factors that influence various aspects of local development. This has been particularly valid since 1990, when a new system of local government was introduced in Slovakia. Local governments have an important level of autonomy in decision-making concerning local finances. Nevertheless, the state still has strong...

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