Suchergebnisse

Contents -- Chapter 1: Introduction: The Commission Under Pressure -- References -- Chapter 2: Assessing the Commission -- Metrics and Reference Points -- References -- Chapter 3: Critiques of the Commission: From the Rise of Euroscepticism to the Democratic Deficit -- The Commission and Eurosceptic Political Narratives -- The Commission and the Democratic Deficit -- Assessing the Commission's Democratic Legitimacy -- References -- Chapter 4: Institutional Pressures: The Commission After Lisbon -- The Commission and the European Council After Lisbon

This book examines the multitude of challenges which the European Commission faces: once the centre of political gravity in Europe's integration process, the growth of Euroscepticism and the emergence of new institutional rivals threaten to undermine its status as an institution. Tracing the roots of the Commission's decline from the early 1990s through to the Eurozone and refugee crises, Stuart A Brown draws on new evidence to illustrate why the EU's executive now faces a battle for its future, and asks whether in the reforms of Jean-Claude Juncker the Commission may be facing its last chance. This study will appeal to students and scholars in EU institutions, politics, and public policy.

With the entry-level student in mind, Stuart Brown guides the reader through three main topics: whether or not there is life after death; whether or not there is a powerful, beneficent intelligence controlling the universe; and the nature and appropriate defence of religious belief or faith. Each chapter is linked to readings by commentators on religion and belief, such as David Hume, John Hick, Richard Dawkins and William James. Key features also include activities and exercises, chapter summaries and guides to further reading

This is a two-volume work with entries on individuals who made some contribution to philosophy in the period 1900 to 1960 or soon after. The entries deal with the whole philosophical work of an individual or, in the case of philosophers still living, their whole work to date. Typically the individuals included have been born by 1935 and by now have made their main contributions. Contributions to the subject typically take the form of books or journal articles, but influential teachers and people otherwise important in the world of philosophy may also be included. The dictionary includes amateu

European Parliament elections are frequently held to be insufficient for conferring democratic legitimacy on the EU's policy process. This has led a growing number of actors to suggest that deriving legitimacy from national parliaments offers a suitable remedy for the EU's democratic deficit, following the principles of 'democratic intergovernmentalism'. Yet little attention has been paid to the effect such reforms might have on representation in practice. This article presents a novel way of visualising the problem by recalibrating the balance of power in the European Parliament between 2009 and 2024 to reflect the composition of national parliaments and the results of national elections. It finds that actors within the Greens/EFA group would be particularly vulnerable to a loss of influence. This raises important questions about the potential representative costs associated with democratic intergovernmentalist approaches.

When states engage in negotiations in the Council of the European Union, the position of actors relative to their negotiating partners has a substantial impact on outcomes. Those with extreme positions will experience difficulty in winning support, while those in the centre will find states more amenable to their perspective regardless of their actual negotiating power. The bulk of the literature on bargaining in the Council has tended to assume that this form of 'luck' will balance itself out across negotiations, but is this actually the case? Using the DEUII dataset I show that certain states consistently adopt 'luckier' positions than others and that this effect appears to benefit smaller states. The clear implication of this finding is that we require a better understanding of the preference formation stage if we are to capture fully the dynamics of EU decision-making.