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Introduction -- A conceptual framework -- Empirical contextualisation -- Linguistic claims in Spain : education, public space signalisation and audio-visual media -- Comparative analysis across issues and territories -- The European Union : framing linguistic conflicts in Spain? -- Conclusions.

AbstractEU agencies have emerged as entities offering technical coordination to member states and support to the European Commission in different policy areas. Their expertise may play a role in responding to unexpected crises. Against this backdrop, we examine under which circumstances EU agencies, through their specialized expertise, are involved in transboundary crisis responses, and when they acquire a leading position in coordinating those responses. To do so, we study four agencies which faced crises: the EBA and the 2012 banking crisis; the ECDC and the 2014 Ebola outbreak; EFSA and the 2011 E. coli outbreak; and Frontex and the 2015 refugee crisis. Our findings discuss to what extent agencies' involvement in transboundary crises is related to functional (sector characteristics) and institutional (delegation of authority) variables. We also identify that under certain political conditions EU agencies' coordination capacity is activated, allowing them to emerge as leading institutions in transboundary crisis resolution.

EU agencies have emerged as entities offering technical coordination to member states and support to the European Commission in different policy areas. Their expertise may play a role in responding to unexpected crises. Against this backdrop, we examine under which circumstances EU agencies, through their specialized expertise, are involved in transboundary crisis responses, and when they acquire a leading position in coordinating those responses. To do so, we study four agencies which faced crises: the EBA and the 2012 banking crisis; the ECDC and the 2014 Ebola outbreak; EFSA and the 2011 E. coli outbreak; and Frontex and the 2015 refugee crisis. Our findings discuss to what extent agencies' involvement in transboundary crises is related to functional (sector characteristics) and institutional (delegation of authority) variables. We also identify that under certain political conditions EU agencies' coordination capacity is activated, allowing them to emerge as leading institutions in transboundary crisis resolution.

AbstractThis article provides an encompassing analysis of how economic crises affect social regulation. The analysis is based on an innovative dataset that covers policy output changes in 13 European countries over a period of 34 years (1980–2013) in the areas of pensions, unemployment, and child benefits. By performing a negative binomial regression analysis, we show that economic crises do matter for social policymaking. Our main empirical finding is that crises impinge on social regulation by opening a window of opportunity that facilitates the dismantling of social policy standards. Yet crisis‐induced policy dismantling is restricted to adjustments based on existing policy instruments. We do not find significant variation in policymaking patterns across different macroeconomic conditions for the more structural elements of social policy portfolios, such as the envisaged social policy targets or the policy instruments applied. This suggests that economic crises do not lead to a profound transformation of the welfare state but to austerity.

Résumé Dans le présent article, nous nous intéressons au processus politique lié à la politique de cohésion européenne au niveau régional et à la phase de programmation de cette politique (qui précède la phase de mise en œuvre). Nous entendons expliquer le fonctionnement dans la pratique des principes et des règles de « partenariat » européens formellement introduits dans différents environnements politiques. Nous soutenons que les règles procédurales introduites par l'extérieur en ce qui concerne le processus décisionnel ont des conséquences variables pour les processus d'élaboration des politiques. Plus particulièrement, nous laissons entendre que les types de liens en matière de capital social des acteurs concernés produisent différents réseaux politiques régionaux, même si les règles formelles existantes sont similaires. C'est en nous appuyant sur une analyse des réseaux sociaux en guise d'outil méthodologique que nous présentons des données empiriques issues de deux régions d'Espagne similaires, identifions les caractéristiques du capital social des acteurs et comparons les structures des réseaux politiques s'occupant de la programmation dans les deux régions. Nos observations indiquent que les structures varient selon le degré de capital social « instrumental » affiché par les acteurs associés aux réseaux politiques. Nous examinons dans le détail notre hypothèse exploratoire, en tenant également compte d'autres variables possibles éventuellement responsables de ces variations. Remarques à l'intention des praticiens Dans le présent article, nous allons voir que le principe du partenariat européen, en tant qu'ensemble de règles formelles, ne fonctionne pas toujours comme prévu dans la pratique ; nous avons remarqué qu'il ne produisait et ne renforçait les contextes pluralistes et délibératifs attendus en matière de processus décisionnel que lorsque les acteurs concernés partagent un certain niveau de confiance. De fait, les règles européennes de partenariat contribuent à rendre l'élaboration des politiques plus transparentes et mieux organisée sur le plan procédural en s'appuyant essentiellement sur les ressources en capital social dont disposent déjà les acteurs publics et privés dans le réseau politique. Cela veut dire qu'investir dans la création de capital social pour les élites régionales peut considérablement améliorer le modèle institutionnel européen actuel de politique régionale. D'une manière plus générale, nous soutenons que les modèles de partenariat qui encouragent davantage les élites politiques et sociales à développer leurs propres ressources en capital social pourraient rendre la mise en œuvre des politiques régionales décentralisées plus efficace.

This article focuses on the policy process stemming from European cohesion policy at the regional level and at its programming stage (which precedes the implementation phase). It aims to explain how the formally introduced EU 'partnership' principles and rules work in practice in different political environments. The article argues that externally introduced procedural decision rules have different impacts on effective policymaking processes. In particular, we suggest that the patterns of social capital linkages carried by the actors involved produce different regional policy networks, even though the existing formal rules are similar. Relying on social network analysis as its main methodological tool, the article presents empirical evidence drawn from two similar Spanish regions, identifies the characteristics of the actors' social capital and compares the structures of the policy networks dealing with the programming tasks in the two regions. Our findings suggest that the structures differ according to the amount of linking social capital displayed by the actors involved in the policy networks. We discuss in detail our exploratory hypothesis, considering also other possible variables that might account for these variations. Points for practitioners In this article we demonstrate that the EU partnership principle, as a set of formal rules, does not always work in practice as expected; we found that only when the actors involved share a certain level of trust does it produce and reinforce the expected pluralist and deliberative contexts for decision-making. In fact, EU partnership rules contribute to making policymaking more transparent and better procedurally organized by essentially sorting out the social capital resources already possessed by public and private actors involved in the policy network. This suggests that investing in the creation of social capital for regional elites might significantly improve the current EU institutional design of regional policy. More generally, we argue that partnership designs that provide stronger incentives for political and social elites to build their own social capital resources could make the implementation of decentralized regional policies more effective.

This paper focus on the European Cohesion Policy in the regional level at its programming stage. It argues that Structural Funds have been very influential in shaping regional development policy-making. Europeanization of the regional policy in Spain has involved an increasing role for regional governments, which have adopted a set of homogeneous practices and procedurals as regard to cohesion policy programming and implementation. However, empirical evidence drawn from Murcia and Galicia's regions related to the programming financial period 2007-2013 (ROPs) highlights the configuration of different regional policy networks to deal with such programming tasks. Also, different features of social capital among the network's actors arise for both regions. These findings suggest that their policy processes are quite different –in spite of similar formal procedures-, and raise new questions about the sources of such variations. ; El artículo analiza la fase de programación de la política europea de cohesión centrándose en el nivel autonómico de gobierno. Sostiene que los Fondos Estructurales han afectado de manera esencial la configuración de las políticas de desarrollo regional. En particular, la europeización de la política regional en España ha implicado un papel creciente de los gobiernos autonómicos, que han ido adoptando un conjunto de prácticas y procedimientos homogéneos en los procesos de programación e implementación de la política de cohesión. No obstante, la evidencia empírica recogida en las comunidades autónomas de Galicia y de Murcia, en relación con la programación del período financiero 2007-2013 (PORs), prueba la existencia de diferentes configuraciones de la red de política regional que lleva a cabo las tareas de programación. Al mismo tiempo, también las características de capital social de los actores implicados en cada red de política regional presentan diferencias significativas. Estos resultados sugieren que, a pesar de que los procedimientos formales de programación son prácticamente idénticos, los procesos políticos son bastante distintos en cada comunidad autónoma, lo que plantea nuevos interrogantes sobre las causas de dichas variaciones.

European Union agencies have been studied explicitly or implicitly from two distinct perspectives: an intergovernmental and a supranational point of view. Both relate to broader dynamics that aim to understand the forces that EU agencies respond to. However, different authors have pointed out that both perspectives can be observed simultaneously in EU agencies. This is because they combine intergovernmental coordination and access to supranational power with different intensities under conditions of institutional isolation and a strong professional identity. This article takes as its starting point this integrating vision and argues that EU agencies function as a new type of regional trans-governmental body that is flexible, adapts to the new age of global governance and actively participates in it. The paper discusses the literature on EU agencies along these lines and concludes with a plea to favour an analysis that includes global governance to understand how these bodies operate in transnational spaces. The fragmentation of sovereignty into multiple levels and regulatory spaces, where complex sectorial systems take on a global dimension to produce public goods, requires articulating hybrid institutional structures. EU agencies respond perfectly to this need as their institutional design endows them with a strong capacity for multilevel interaction. ; This study was supported by the TransCrisis project (grant number 649484) under the European Union Horizon 2020 programme.

In this working paper, we present the results of a survey completed by 1,004 staff members of 30 international organizations (IO) across six key areas of governance: trade, climate change, development, migration, finance, and security. The selected organizations also include United Nations (UN) agencies as well as three Directorates-General (DG) of the European Union. Respondents were asked to share their opinions on the main trends shaping the future of global governance. Looking specifically at the 2020–30 decade, we focused our questions on perceptions about the role of IOs in the increasingly complex global governance environments they are involved in. We were also interested in staff members' perceptions of their own organizations' internal dynamics and performances, as well as in their perceptions of the main difficulties and problems their organizations face. Overall, the survey reveals that IO staff are sensitive to global trends and challenges, notably climate change, global inequalities, and geopolitical clashes. While respondents are aware of certain organizational shortcomings, and the risks of unfavourable external environments that might undermine the work of IOs, they are nevertheless hopeful about other aspects, including the prospect of evidence-based policymaking; the effectiveness of international instruments such as treaties and regulation; the autonomy of their IOs in relation to member states and lobbying influences, and their interactions with other IOs.