Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe European Union (EU) has developed three institutions to facilitate intelligence‐sharing between its Member States: the Berne Group, Europol and the European Union Military Staff. These institutions serve the useful function of creating technical mechanisms for the diffusion of intelligence among national authorities. But they do not tackle the problem of mistrust, which is the key barrier to fully effective intelligence‐sharing. This article shows that mistrust of the interests of other Member States inhibits intelligence‐sharing, that existing institutions fail to overcome this mistrust and suggests changes that could lead to more effective sharing.

The failure of a policy to achieve its goals is often an important reason for the decision to replace it. Failure alone, however, is rarely a sufficient explanation of the timing and direction of policy change. Change follows failure when alternative policies exist that are politically viable—that is, able to garner support from powerful actors—and that can explain past failure persuasively, and offer new policy prescriptions. This article evaluates this argument through a case study of British international security policy after the end of the cold war. British decision makers' initial policy was to rely on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as the vehicle through which to organize multilateral responses to "crisis management tasks." The failure of this policy to deal successfully with the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia led British decision makers to search for and evaluate alternative policies. They concluded that the rival idea of basing more multilateral crisis management on a European rather than North Atlantic institution best explained the failures in the former Yugoslavia. This policywas not politically viable, however, leading the government to continue to rely on NATO for such missions. Only a change in government—the election of the Labor government in 1997 with a large parliamentary majority—allowed decision makers to adopt and implement this new policy.

ABSTRACT2This article evaluates the role of increased capital mobility, sectoral interests, and domestic institutions in bringing about policy change in French capital markets. Capital mobility played an indirect role by making it more costly for French governments to pursue inflationary economic policies. But it was domestic politics, not capital mobility, that led governments to achieve lower inflation by stabilizing the exchange rate. The key domestic political factor was institutional change to regulatory practices, while financial markets reduced bank lending to industry and internationalized French finance, breaking the strong ties and comon monetary diplomacy interests of bankers, industralists, and policymakers, and thereby weaken the political priority of promoting domestic growth and industrial competitiveness.

This article evaluates the role of increased capital mobility, sectoral interests, & domestic institutions in bringing about policy change in French capital markets. Capital mobility played an indirect role by making it more costly for French governments to pursue inflationary economic policies. But it was domestic politics, not capital mobility, that led governments to achieve lower inflation by stabilizing the exchange rate. The key domestic political factor was institutional change to regulatory practices, while financial markets reduced bank lending to industry & internationalized French finance, breaking the strong ties & common monetary diplomacy interests of bankers, industrialists, & policymakers, & thereby weaken the political priority of promoting domestic growth & industrial competitiveness. 2 Figures, 41 References. Adapted from the source document.

The field of comparative politics has begun to take seriously the role of ideas in politics, but to date this interest has not clearly specified the conditions under which ideas influence public policy. The author develops an integrated framework that shows ideas about policy goals and instruments are most influential when they do not attract substantial opposition from voters and interest groups and when political institutions concentrate decision-making authority. The author tests this framework by examining the fates of three ideas, facing different degrees of societal opposition and concentrated authority, adopted by the first Thatcher government in Britain.