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The article investigates the concept of accountability as one attempt to answer the question of legitimacy of European governance. The guiding thesis is that accountability is an important organizing principle of democracy. There is, however, a lack of consensus on the definition of democracy as the fundamental norm beyond the state. The current career of accountability as a topic of European political discourse may be interpreted as an instance for the search of that norm lost in the creation of the supranational polity, which has led to a diffusion of power. The result is a form of 'diffuse democracy'. Stressing accountability will not necessarily solve the dilemmas of European democracy. The procedures of accountability provided by the treaties do not suffice to convince the citizens of the democratic quality of the Union. By way of conclusion, the article advocates greater clarity through appropriate constitutionalization of the Union. Adapted from the source document.

Annual Conference and 11th. Research Conference, 'Exchanging Ideas on Europe 2006 - Visions of Europe: Key Problems, New Trajectories', 36, Limerick (Ireland), 2006. ; There has been a lively debate among scholars about the feasibility and desirability of fiscal federalism in the European Union (EU). The paper addresses the question of whether 'conventional fiscal federalism' is feasible in the EU, considering the distinctiveness of European integration and the political-economic template of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). It is an attempt to bridge the gap between economics and political science by adding the political conditions that might create difficulties to economics' rationale. The paper highlights how fiscal federalism is a multi-faceted concept embracing both a centralisation and a decentralisation outcome. Borrowing the Musgravian classification of allocation-equity-stabilisation, the EU is examined as far as redistribution is concerned. The aim is to conclude whether centralisation or decentralisation is the prevailing outcome. For that purpose, the EU is compared with five mature federations on two issues: the depth of regional asymmetries; and the extent to which regional inequalities are redressed through redistribution. Considering that in the EU: i) the current distribution of fiscal competences is favourable to member states; ii) decentralisation is the outcome for the redistribution function; iii) despite monetary policy is the main tool for macroeconomic stabilisation, and this is a policy arena where centralisation prevails; iv) the diminished scope for inter-state solidarity averts more centralisation in redistribution; and v) national governments' absent political willingness to increase the EU budget; all this suggests that centralised, 'conventional fiscal federalism' is ruled out as a feasible solution for the EU. Notwithstanding this doesn't imply that fiscal federalism is absent from the EU. A distinct, decentralised modality of fiscal federalism already exists, coping with the 'sui generis' nature of European integration.

As unions in most other industrialized democracies continue to decline, unions in Spain have been able to regain and maintain strength despite unfavorable institutional, political, and economic conditions. The Politics of Industrial Relations provides a comprehensive analysis of Spanish unions from the Franco dictatorship until the present. It builds on industrial relations, comparative politics, and political economy literature to investigate the trajectory of Spanish unions. The book analyzes unions as political actors, that is, their interaction and involvement with governments, political p

How do online news and social media use relate to public support for the European Union? To answer this question, this study compares the effect of institutional websites, news websites, online social networks, blogs, and video hosting websites on five important dimensions of public attitudes toward the EU: strengthening, performance, fear, efficacy, and utilitarianism. Cases were selected by choosing the samples from the largest country in each stage of EU enlargement: Germany, the United Kingdom, Greece, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Romania. After controlling for demographic and political factors, results show that getting European news from blogs fosters negative attitudes toward the EU, whereas social network sites contribute to a positive view of the EU's performance and support for further strengthening. In addition, the use of YouTube and news websites interacts with off-line discussion to enhance political effects.

The key challenge for medium- and long-term policy in European Union countries is to use the potential of knowledge-based economy (KBE), which is a condition for maintaining high total factor productivity in Europe. For this reason, the relationship between quality of institutional system and total factor productivity in the EU countries has been examined. The quality of institutional system is defined here from the perspective of incentives that influence the use of the potential of KBE. In order to determine the level of effectiveness of the institutional system in the analyzed countries the method for linear ordering of objects was applied based on data from Fraser Institute. The main hypothesis of the article was formed as follow: the quality of institutional system in the context of KBE has significant influence on the level of total factor productivity in the EU. In order to verify the hypothesis, the parameters of the Cobb-Douglas production function were estimated, which allowed to evaluate TFP for EU countries. The calculation made in the article was based on Eurostat data. Then, the identification of the relationship between the quality of institutional system and the level of TFP was made with the application of panel model. The research made for the years 2000-2010 allowed to verify the hypothesis.

This paper explores the nationalizing policies of Estonia & Latvia in the wake of independence restoration from the incorporation into the Soviet Union. As in all newly independent postcommunist states, the national question consumed the initial stages of the democratization process. The case studies provide an example of the EU's political conditionality in promoting conditions in which the resolution of ethnic conflicts becomes possible. The EU's commitment to cohesion, cooperation, & multiculturalism is at this stage an elite-led process, while the integration of ethnic groups within states requires a society-wide readjustment to new institutions. Adapted from the source document.

When the European Union expanded eastward in 2004 and 2007 to accession the so-called EU8 and EU2 countries, respectively, the incumbent member states imposed temporary restrictions on the employment of EU8 and EU2 nationals. Self-employed individuals were exempted from these transitional arrangements, prompting concerns that self-employment could be used as a means to evade the restrictions on labour market access. If the transitional arrangements led to an increase in EU8 and EU2 nationals' self-employment rates, as previous research suggests, then their removal should have led to a corresponding decrease. This article analyses whether the latter has indeed been the case. Using pooled cross section data from the EU Labour Force Survey, over the period 2004-2019, we show that removing the transitional arrangements has had a negative effect on the self-employment rates of EU2 nationals, but seemingly no effect on the self-employment rates of EU8 nationals. Distinguishing between types of capitalist regimes, however, reveals a much more nuanced picture, with significant variation in terms of the magnitude and significance of the effect across groups of countries.

"This innovative text brings together pairs of specially commissioned contributions by prominent scholars who debate 14 key controversies in relation to the nature, current state and future of European integration. The contributors represent the whole spectrum of thinking about the EU and examine the most fundamental contemporary issues."--Publisher's website