Suchergebnisse

In this article I test spatial models of European Union (EU) legislative decisionmaking regarding the dimensionality of the policy space. After clarifying the concept of dimensionality, I review the existing literature. I then map out possible ways to test these models based on different dimensionality assumptions. Using quantitative data on actor positions for EU legislative politics, I .rst employ dimension-reducing techniques. The results show that this technique is not appropriate for generating a decreased number of underlying dimensions for the data at hand and that a one- or two-dimensional European policy space cannot be detected. Shifting to more theory-based analysis, I calculate the predicted outcomes for voting models of the EU under different spatial con.gurations. The findings show that the formal models' predictive power increases with the use of multi-dimensional policy spaces. I conclude by interpreting these findings in the light of a more general debate on evaluating the decision space assumed bymodels of group decision-making.

The emergence of targeted sanctions in the mid-1990s was due to the humanitarian impact of embargoes, which were deemed unacceptable and compelled senders to shift to measures designed to affect only wrongdoers. Twenty years on, the present paper considers the extent to which autonomous sanctions are designed to affect those individuals and elites responsible for the behaviour the EU aims to condemn. How faithful has the EU remained to this concept in its sanctions policy? The enquiry scrutinizes diverse practices in three established sanctions strands of the EU, development aid suspensions, Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) sanctions and Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) withdrawals. It shows that it has been more faithfully implemented in some strands of EU sanctions than in others. Specifically in the flagship CFSP sanctions practice, the due process motivated court challenges of its blacklists have led the EU to modify selection criteria in a way that renders them potentially less targeted.

This book reviews a variety of approaches to the study of the European Union's foreign policy. Much analysis of EU foreign policy contains implicit theoretical assumptions about the nature of the EU and its member states, their inter-relationships, the international system in which they operate and the nature and direction of European integration. In many instances such assumptions - not being discussed openly - limit, rather than facilitate debate. The purpose of this book is to open up this field of enquiry so that students, observers and analysts of EU foreign policy can review a broad range of tools and theoretical templates from which the development and the trajectory of the EU's foreign policy can be studied. Situated as it is at the interface between European Studies and International Relations, the book also seeks to engage the attention of readers who are anxious to understand how the European Union relates to the rest of the world and to explain the efforts of the EU and its member states towards the creation of a credible, effective and principled foreign, security and defence policy.

An introduction to the European Union -- Institutions of the European Union -- Sources of European Union law (including general principles of law and fundamental rights) -- Competences and supremacy of the Union -- Judicial methodology and preliminary rulings of the Court of Justice -- Judicial review of the legality of Union acts -- Enforcement proceedings against member states -- Direct effect, indirect effect and state liability -- European Union citizenship and free movement rights -- Free movement of workers -- Freedom of establishment and the free movement of services -- Free movement of goods

The paper explores controversial representation of the European Union in the Georgian political public sphere through the deconstruction of public political narratives of the pro-Western and anti-Western/pro-Russian political and societal forces in Georgia. The dis-information incursion and propaganda of the Russian Federation in the societal landscape of Georgia – soft power capabilities of Moscow – have become the primary tools of the Kremlin to undermine the soft-power policy of the EU and the pro-Western/pro-EU driven agenda in Georgia. The study reflects on the rotating political discourses on the EU through narrative analysis and deconstructs those metanarratives, which legitimize or undermine the pro-Western foreign policy discourses in Georgia. The mutually exclusive metanarratives build on shared cultural values (the pro-Western) and religious commonality (the pro-Russian): the pro-Western – on the myth of Georgians as an ancient European nation and on the 200 years-long Russian colonization, embedded in symbolisms of "mental revolution" and "re-joining the European nations;" the anti-EU – on the Orthodox unity and on a belief that balanced politics between Russia and the West will restore country's territorial integrity. This fact contributes to the fragmentation of the political public sphere in Georgia and makes it vulnerable to the external encroachments. The pro-Western narrative evolves around liberal conceptions, which try to transform the post-Soviet Georgian society through 'mental revolution.' The political discourse analysis – understanding and interpreting meanings – refers to public speeches of elites and policy documents for deconstruction of narrative structures provided by the pro-Western political elites, as their causal explanations provide insights into the ambiguous and contradictory representations of the West/EU in the Georgian political public sphere.