Suchergebnisse

This article focuses on the evolution of Polish minority responses to Lithuanian minority policies in the post-EU-accession period. State-minority conflicts in Lithuania have not generated violence or minority radicalization, despite continuing discontent among members of the state's Polish minority (which constitutes Lithuania's largest ethnic minority population) and the failure of the Lithuanian state to resolve the causes of discontent. Employing Smooha's concept of ethnic democracy, the article addresses this puzzle through an ethnographic exploration of the views held by members of the Polish minority about the Lithuanian state's policies of nation-building. The findings reveal a diverse set of critical perceptions among Poles in Lithuania, which emphasize the ineffectiveness of state policies in addressing minority needs. However, a shared perception of threat from Russia, generated after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, helps to sustain the regime's stability and its strategy of stalling the resolution of minority concerns.

This article focuses on the evolution of Polish minority responses to Lithuanian minority policies in the post-EU-accession period. State-minority conflicts in Lithuania have not generated violence or minority radicalization, despite continuing discontent among members of the state's Polish minority (which constitutes Lithuania's largest ethnic minority population) and the failure of the Lithuanian state to resolve the causes of discontent. Employing Smooha's concept of ethnic democracy, the article addresses this puzzle through an ethnographic exploration of the views held by members of the Polish minority about the Lithuanian state's policies of nation-building. The findings reveal a diverse set of critical perceptions among Poles in Lithuania, which emphasize the ineffectiveness of state policies in addressing minority needs. However, a shared perception of threat from Russia, generated after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, helps to sustain the regime's stability and its strategy of stalling the resolution of minority concerns.

The paper examines the case of education policy learning in Europe and argues that, contrary to dominant assumptions, education is a fruitful area for the analysis of Europeanising processes. More specifically, an examination of the case of the Scottish school inspectorate's 'European' exchanges is particularly useful in relation to the study of international policy communities, their formation and particular workings, as it signals a new level of 'political work' (Smith, 2009): that of exporting, internationalising and then importing afresh one's local/national knowledge, once it has successfully gone through the international 'test', and is therefore still relevant and future-proof (to the nation). This is exemplified well through the role of these actors who, rather than being Brussels-based Europeans, invariably assume European identity depending on its exchange value — as the paper shows, due to the current political situation in Scotland and the Scottish National Party (SNP) government's aspiration for independence, that exchange value for Scottish actors is high.

This article analyses the extent to which the rise of political Islam (Note 1) in Turkey has triggered an intense and polarized debate about the principle eligibility of Turkey to be a full European Union (EU) member state. The Justice and Development Party's (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi-AKP) election victories in 2002 and 2007 have been considered to be a serious obstacle to Turkish EU accession. This article argues that even if the AKP government were able to meet the objective criteria of the EU acquis, European opposition to Turkish accession would persist for two main reasons: (1) The overall political targets of political Islam in Turkey seems less compatible with the traditional Turkish EU quest than formerly (2) The Turkish political Islamic turnaround is contributing to a climate of increasing scepticism in Europe, and presents significant obstacles to EU accession. As a result, 'privileged partnership' seems to represent a new pragmatic synthesis of Realpolitik that both Ankara and Brussels should reconsider.

This paper investigates how the growing importance of the European Union has changed the internal dynamics of national political parties. It can be shown that European integration strengthens national party elites, and this is particularly the case when parties are in government. At the same time, MEPs operate fairly detached from their national parties even though the European Parliament has become an important actor in the legislative process of the European Union. Given that ever more national policies are decisively moulded by the EU, national political parties and parliaments have experienced an erosion of their control over policy formulation. These findings raise important questions about the limits of party government within the European Union.

This paper investigates the main mechanisms of Europeanization of regional policies in Spain. Drawing from rationalist and constructivist approaches we study the inputs, processes and mechanisms of Europeanization as well as the outputs produced in Spain from 1986 to 2020. As there is little systematic research on the impact of EU regional policy on the Spanish regional policies, we use a number of different research strategies to fill this gap in the literature. The added value of the paper is to, first, increase the time span of study, and second, analyze the Europeanization of Spanish regions at the polity level (i.e. patterns of governance and domestic institutional change) as well as the policy level (i.e. Spanish regional policies). In addition, we also study the Europeanization of Spanish regions and a selected number of MS looking at aggregated data. Results show that both Spanish regional polity and policy have been Europeanized, as well as some autonomous communities and countries. These findings open the way for new avenues of research that study the circumstances under which regional policies are more effective both within and between Member States.

The literature on employment policies has mainly focused on national variables in order to explain change. This research studies the degree of openness of national boundaries in a European context. By adopting an interactionist approach of Europeanization, it first explains how European institutions have defined a model of flexicurity that combines flexibility on the labor markets and security for the workers, whereas these two characteristics have long been considered incompatible. Then the research compares the recent evolution of two social protection systems that did not fit with the flexicurity framework and have nevertheless implemented employment policy reforms in line with European requirements. To explain the link between European demands and national reforms, this research underlines two mechanisms. First, it shows that national spheres are embedded in a broader context that strengthens the competition between welfare models but has a different impact on national spheres (the "national delay issue" in Portugal and the "specificities of the French model" in France). Then, in both cases, the political and administrative actors have tried to depoliticize policy reforms by mobilizing academic expertise. The different modalities of expert interventions crucially influence trade unions' capacities to participate in the framing of national reforms. All in all, the thesis shows that national boundaries are challenged but have not disappeared. Even though it becomes difficult for them to act independently, national political leaders tend to develop strategies to preserve their autonomy. ; Alors que la littérature académique sur les politiques de l'emploi se concentre sur les variables nationales du changement, cette recherche s'intéresse à la perméabilité des frontières nationales de l'action publique dans un contexte européanisé. En adoptant une approche interactionniste de l'européanisation, elle explique d'abord comment les institutions européennes ont défini un modèle, celui de la flexicurité, qui articule ...

Examines challenges inherent in the "Europeanization" of European national laws & the function of European Community law in this process. The notion of European law is defined. The community legal system is based on three fundamental principles: (1) direct effect, (2) supremacy, & (3) & state liability. Then, constitutional principles, legislative instruments, & general principles at the heart of European law are described. The Court of Justice's use of the comparative law method is next addressed. A key aspect of the European Community legal order is its integration with national legal orders. Community law development has resulted in an intense legal harmonization, a Europeanization of legal thought, & convergence of national legal orders. This Europeanization is seen as more a phenomenon of culture than positive law, with a two-way process at work: European Community law has helped drive Europeanization, & Europeanization has influenced community law development. J. Zendejas