Suchergebnisse

The subject of research in this paper is plural societies, the mechanisms of their political-system formation and functioning - concretely comparative research of plurality and consociational organization of the European Union and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The historical heritage of religious, national and ideological conflicts are the building blocks of the plural societies of the European Union and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition to the pronounced cultural-political plurality, the joint political-value point and basis of comparison between the European Union and Bosnia and Herzegovina is consociational democracy. The comparative analysis of plural societies and consociational democracy in the European Union and Bosnia and Herzegovina and the conclusions drawn in the paper contribute to the overall knowledge about plural societies and consociational democracy.

Over the last decade, European Union members have experienced a dramatic increase in imports. This increase was accompanied by a strong growth in the number of imported goods and trading partners, indicating positive welfare gains for consumers via an extended set of consumption possibilities, as pointed out in the "New Trade Theory". In this paper, we apply the methodology developed by Feenstra (1994) and Broda and Weinstein (2006) to estimate structurally the gains from imported variety for the 27 countries of the European Union using highly disaggregated trade data at the HTS-8 level from Eurostat for the period of 1999 to 2008. Our results show that, within the European Union, especially "newer" and smaller member states exhibit high gains from newly imported varieties. Furthermore, we find that the vast majority of the gains from variety for consumers stem from intra-European Union trade.

Differentiation has become a salient feature of European integration. Yet systematic empirical evidence is lacking about its origins, duration and variation across countries and policies. This article provides such evidence from a new data set on differentiation in European Union treaty law. In addition, it is argued that two logics of treaty-based differentiation are at work. 'Instrumental differentiation' originates in enlargement and is motivated by efficiency and distributional concerns. 'Constitutional differentiation' has its origins in treaty revisions and is motivated by concerns about national sovereignty and identity. It is driven by Eurosceptic Member States that are opposed ideologically, or fear popular resistance, to the supranational centralization of core state powers. Adapted from the source document.

The enlargement of the European Union generates socio-economic costs and benefits for the citizens of new members and as such it is bound to affect their perceived legitimacy of the whole enterprise. The legitimacy of EU accession is likely to be enhanced by the inclusion of compensatory transfers and transition periods in the terms of accession, by the perception that EU membership represents the most favorable terms of exchange available and by the linking of accession to a sustained period of economic growth, a favorable movement in prices, improving relative incomes and the consolidation of a level playing field across new members

We test the closeness of the correspondence between the preferences of EU citizens and their delegations to the European Parliament using data on roll-call votes. Differences in EU citizens' preferences are captured using a variety of country characteristics including bilateral country dummy variables, and the demographic, social and economic characteristics of the countries. We find that the differences in delegations' voting patterns are not strongly related to underlying differences between the countries they represent. Our findings support the existence of a democratic deficit in the EU -- a gap between the preferences of EU citizens and the way their delegations vote. [Copyright Elsevier B.V.]

In the current programming period, European Union (EU) regions and member states that want to use European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) are required to develop innovation strategies for smart specialization (RIS3) based on the idea of rational strategic management. In order to explore the relationship between strategic policy design and policy performance, this article maps regional strategies for information and communication technologies (ICT) and their effects in the period 2008–2012. Furthermore, it generates suggestions for relevant case studies. We first conduct a quantitative analysis of the effects of ICT strategies and ERDF expenditure on regional ICT performance in Western European regions. ICT is a relevant priority for many regions, and it reflects EU priorities fostering ICT activities through regional development funds. Second, we propose a framework to categorize EU regions in the context of ICT policy based on the expected distribution of regional ICT performance. Our analysis covers 97 regions in 9 EU member states, out of which 29 have had a dedicated ICT strategy. In line with ideas of rational strategic management, our working hypothesis states that regions with a dedicated strategy should display better performance. However, our findings suggest that having a dedicated ICT strategy has not had a clear effect on performance in terms of Internet and broadband access, while allocating dedicated ERDF and other expenditure to Internet infrastructure has had a positive effect. At first sight, this questions the effectiveness of rational strategic management. Yet, more research is needed to assess the quality of ICT strategies and their fit with broader innovation agendas. It is indeed the degree of embeddedness of ICT in the regional innovation ecosystem that is likely to condition the effect of strategies on performance. To this end, our mapping indicates interesting case studies, and we suggest additional factors to be taken into account in future analyses. New insights into strategy design and performance will also be important to inform the implementation of the new generation of innovation strategies for smart specialization.

In December 2019, the European Commission published the European Green Deal (EGD), an overarching policy framework to achieve climate neutrality in Europe by 2050. This thematic issue aims to understand the origins, form, development, and scope of the EGD and its policy areas. It uses the concept of turbulence to explore and assess the emergence of the EGD and the policy and governance choices associated with it. Focusing on different levels of governance, different policy domains, and different stages of policymaking, each contribution raises pertinent questions about the necessity of identifying sources of turbulence and of understanding how to govern with such turbulence, rather than against it. Overall, the articles in this issue demonstrate that, while specifying contextual factors, researching the sources of and responses to turbulence provides useful insights into the development, direction, and potential durability or advancement of EU climate governance.