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Das Treffen des Europäischen Rates in Sibiu sollte eigentlich die Europäische Union stärken, die in zwei Wochen an die Wahlurnen geht und zu diesem Zeitpunkt ursprünglich bereits den Brexit vollzogen zu haben dachte. Die Mitgliedsstaaten sind jedoch zerstritten und zögern vor nennenswerten Verpflichtungen für die Zukunft der EU zurück, obwohl die Zustimmung der Bürgerinnen und Bürger zur EU steigt. Der Gipfel spiegelt den Zustand der EU, muss aber nicht ihre Zukunft nach der Wahl bestimmen.

Abstract This article argues that only a limited form of EU citizenship is available to transgender people. As the paper demonstrates, transgender Union citizens face numerous difficulties when they exercise their right to free movement, despite such movement being the core of Union citizenship. Rather, transgender individuals only have access to a considerably restricted form of EU citizenship which is guaranteed as part of their fundamental status conferred by EU Treaties. The article points out that the current approach of including transgender discrimination in the purview of discrimination on the grounds of sex fails to tackle the issue because it is conceptually problematic and largely ineffective. As a solution to remedy the issue, the paper suggests overhauling the existent approach to trans discrimination in a way that makes it capable of ensuring that transgender persons enjoy their Union citizenship to its fullest extent.

Corporate targets of union "comprehensive campaigns" increasingly have responded by filing civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuits alleging that unions' speech and petitioning activities are extortionate. These lawsuits are the descendants of the Supreme Court's unexplained treatment of much labor speech as less worthy of protection than other types of speech. Starting from the position that speech that promotes democratic discourse deserves top-tier First Amendment protection, this article argues that labor speech--which plays a unique role in civil society--should be on an equal footing with civil rights speech. Thus, even if union advocacy qualifies as legal extortion, the First Amendment should trump civil RICO enforcement, with two limited exceptions: speech that is actually malicious, and speech that imminently threatens to force an employer to choose between breaking the law and suffering significant economic harm or shutting its doors altogether.

SUMMARYThe article deals with the development of Catalan cotton textile trade unionism between 1890 and 1914. It has been argued that, given the economic difficulties which faced the cotton textile industry, employers were anxious to cut labour costs and unwilling to negotiate with trade unions. Between 1889 and 1891, therefore, they launched an attack on trade-union organisation within the industry. In many rural areas they were able to impose their will with relatively little difficulty. In urban Catalonia, however, they faced stiffer opposition. The state's response to labour unrest was not uniform. Nevertheless, at crucial moments the authorities supported the mill owners' assaults on labour organisation. The result was to radicalise the cotton textile labour force. This could be seen in the growing influence of socialists and anarchists in the textile unions' ranks, and in the increasing willingness of the textile workers to use general strike tactics.

The completion of the two-wave entry of CEE states in the EU potentially changes the impact of European integration issues on party politics in the region. Membership entails movement from a general aspiration to 'return to Europe' to hard costs and specific policy instruments. But are these changes reflected in the Europe-relevant issue stances taken by parties and in the importance parties assign to them in their electoral appeals? Has the relationship of European and integration issues to the broader issue bases of party competition changed? Data from expert surveys of political parties in the ten new CEE member states conducted just before and just after accession reveal that, in line with expectations from comparative literature on party competition, entry has had little impact on party stances but greater impact on the salience of integration issues. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractIn contemporary Russia, online discourses on gender reflect the complex legacies of the Soviet and post-Soviet attitudes and approaches to masculinity and femininity. The current discourses on gender affect its digital construction. Mirroring the gendered discourses on masculine and feminine roles and patterns of behavior, digital media spaces impose similar restrictions and expectations on female users as those experienced by women in their offline activities. This chapter offers an analysis of how the World Wide Web and digital technologies influence gender identity politics in contemporary Russian society. We look at the ways Russians construct gender online, how their practices become means of resistance and activism, and how they adapt and shape digital technologies to perform their gender identities and communicate with the State in the situation of increasing surveillance and control of material and cyberspaces.

In research on 'mass killings' such as genocides and campaigns of state terror, the role of ideology is hotly debated. For some scholars, ideologies are crucial in providing the extremist goals and hatreds that motivate ideologically committed people to kill. But many other scholars are sceptical: contending that perpetrators of mass killing rarely seem ideologically committed, and that rational self-interest or powerful forms of social pressure are more important drivers of violence than ideology. In Ideology and Mass Killing, Jonathan Leader Maynard challenges both these prevailing views, advancing an alternative 'neo-ideological' perspective which systematically retheorises the key ideological foundations of large-scale violence against civilians. Integrating cutting-edge research from multiple disciplines, including political science, political psychology, history and sociology, Ideology and Mass Killing demonstrates that ideological justifications vitally shape such violence in ways that go beyond deep ideological commitment. Most disturbingly of all, the key ideological foundations of mass killings are found to lie, not in extraordinary political goals or hatreds, but in radicalised versions of those conventional, widely accepted ideas that underpin the politics of security in ordinary societies across the world. This study then substantiates this account by a detailed examination of four contrasting cases of mass killing - Stalinist Repression in the Soviet Union between 1930 and 1938, the Allied Bombing Campaign against Germany and Japan in World War II from 1940 to 1945, mass atrocities in the Guatemalan Civil War between 1978 and 1983, and the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. This represents the first volume to offer a dedicated, comparative theory of ideology's role in mass killing, while also developing a powerful new account of how ideology affects violence and politics more generally.

What is the gender of political power? Since the beginning of political thought, rule has been a male prerogative in European imagination. This is of course not to say that there never were women sovereigns. In-depth studies of women sovereigns have grown considerably in number in the past three decades and have added substantially to our understanding of the complexities of their rule of power.0Yet what is often obscured by such in-depth analyses is the fact that all women rulers throughout the entirety of European cultural history have had to operate in a context that could not think of power as female - except in grotesque terms. This continuity, as this book demonstrates, can only be brought out by studying women?s political rule comparatively and in the longue duree.0This collection of essays brings together studies of female sovereignty from the Polish-Lithuanian to the British Commonwealth, and from the Middle Ages to the dawn of modern democracy. It demonstrates how the strategies and imagination women rulers adopted against the backdrop of an all-pervasive scepticism toward female rule are comparable across regions and periods. To illustrate its point, this book not only addresses historical figures and queens, but also takes stock of the rich yet unsettling imagination of female rule in philosophy, literature and art history

Worker and union responses to mass redundancy announcements are complex. This article explores a mass redundancy announcement with the purpose of shedding light on the way collective responses are shaped at such times. The article focuses on steelworker redundancies in South Wales (United Kingdom) in 2001 and 2002, which occurred at the Corus plc steelworks at Ebbw Vale in Blaenau Gwent and Llanwern, Newport, and argues that management handles such announcements in strategic ways to neutralize collective responses. Further, the article contends that the way trade unions organize and operate can result in union members being demobilized, thereby restricting alternative courses of action. Central to the analysis are understandings of the ways information, in the form of rumour and through more formal channels, flows between management, union and the membership/workforce.

The High Court, the Constitution and Australian Politics is an in-depth exploration of the relationship between decisions of the High Court and broader political currents in Australia. It begins with an investigation of the patterns and effects of constitutional invalidation and dissent on the High Court over time, and their correlation with political trends and attitudes. It also examines the role of constitutional amendment in expressing popular constitutional understandings in the Australian system. Subsequent chapters focus on the eras marked by the tenure of the Court's 12 Chief Justices, examining Court's decisions in the context of the prevailing political conditions and understandings of each. Together, the chapters canvass a rich variety of accounts of the relationship between constitutional law and politics in Australia, and of how this relationship is affected by factors such as the process of appointment for High Court judges and the Court's explicit willingness to consider political and community values

Modern housing units must meet new needs and requirements; housing dimensions and functional characteristics are relevant issues, mainly considering population ageing and disability. The housing standards of nine European countries were compared to analyze their ability to satisfy new population need, in terms of size. The regulations were downloaded from the websites of the official channels of each country. A wide variability in room size was observed (e.g., single room: from 9 m2 in Italy to 7 m2 in France, to the absence of any limit in England and Wales, GermanyHesse, and Denmark). Italian and French legislations define housing dimension considering the room destination and the number of people. The Swedish regulation provides performance requirements and functional indications but does not specify the minimum dimensions of habitable rooms. The rooms' minimum heights vary between 2.70 m in Italy and Portugal and 2.60 m in the Netherlands, but no limits are established in England and Wales. A diverse approach among European countries regulations is observed: from a market-oriented logic one (e.g., England and Wales) in which room minimum dimensions are not defined to a prescriptive one (Italy) and one that is functionality-oriented (the Netherlands). However, considering the health, social, environmental, and economic trends, many of these standards should be revised.

Modern housing units must meet new needs and requirements; housing dimensions and functional characteristics are relevant issues, mainly considering population ageing and disability. The housing standards of nine European countries were compared to analyze their ability to satisfy new population need, in terms of size. The regulations were downloaded from the websites of the official channels of each country. A wide variability in room size was observed (e.g., single room: from 9 m(2) in Italy to 7 m(2) in France, to the absence of any limit in England and Wales, Germany-Hesse, and Denmark). Italian and French legislations define housing dimension considering the room destination and the number of people. The Swedish regulation provides performance requirements and functional indications but does not specify the minimum dimensions of habitable rooms. The rooms' minimum heights vary between 2.70 m in Italy and Portugal and 2.60 m in the Netherlands, but no limits are established in England and Wales. A diverse approach among European countries regulations is observed: from a market-oriented logic one (e.g., England and Wales) in which room minimum dimensions are not defined to a prescriptive one (Italy) and one that is functionality-oriented (the Netherlands). However, considering the health, social, environmental, and economic trends, many of these standards should be revised.