Suchergebnisse

Defence date: 23 March 2007 ; Examining board: Prof. Martin Rhodes (EUI/Denver University)(Supervisor) ; Prof. Andreas Auer (University of Geneva) ; Prof. David McKay (University of Essex) ; Prof. Alexander Trechsel (EUI) ; This dissertation analyses the dynamics of EU policy making through a structured and focused comparison with two other federal polities: the United States and Switzerland. To this end, it draws on the wider comparative federalism literature to examine how basic federal political institutions structure the development of policy outcomes. The empirical focus is on the regulatory challenge posed by the internet's spectacular proliferation during the period of 1995-2005. Two hypotheses are formulated as to how basic federal political institutions shape the development of policy outcomes in the three polities under investigation. First, given the cross-border nature of the policy challenge, we expect to find similar interactions among the different levels of government in all three units of analysis. In particular, federal level political actors should be similarly mobilised into offering centralising solutions to problems with cross-border effects. Furthermore, this could provoke allocational shifts in authority towards the centre in the three units of analysis. Second, it is expected that differences in the policy process and the 'power capabilities' of the centre help to explain the variance in policy outcomes. The main findings of the empirical investigation suggest that the dynamics of policymaking in the realm of internet regulation exhibit similarities that make EU comparison with other federal polities across these dimensions especially revealing. This is particularly the case when comparing the EU with polities characterised by an extremely decentralised federal configuration, institutionally weak centres, consensual modes of decision-making, and decentralised modes of policy implementation such as Switzerland.

Bridging the gap between law and political science this book draws together divergent research on the role of constitution making in conflict resolution, constitutional law and democratization and employs a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to unfold and explore the political frameworks of the states affected. Comparative analysis is used to investigate potential causal chains between constitution-making processes and their outcomes in terms of stability, conflict resolution and democracy. By focusing on both procedure and context, the book explores the impact of constitutio.

AbstractScholars seeking to understand political competition in Europe have proposed various models of political dimensionality. While most scholars draw on data from the supply side of politics (political parties), demand-side (voter) studies remain few. In this article we compare the two approaches. The main difference is that while supply-side approaches suggest a single model of dimensionality that can be applied to all EU countries, demand-side approaches suggest a greater degree of divergence. In particular, the bundle of issues commonly identified by supply-side studies as TAN/GAL not only fail to form a coherent dimension when viewed from a demand-side perspective, but incorporate issues of EU integration in some (northern European) cases, but not in others.

Scholars seeking to understand political competition in Europe have proposed various models of political dimensionality. While most scholars draw on data from the supply side of politics (political parties), demand side (voter) studies remain few. In this paper we compare the two approaches. The main difference is that while supply side approaches suggest a single model of dimensionality that can be applied to all EU countries, demand side approaches suggest a greater degree of divergence. In particular, the bundle of issues commonly identified by supply side studies as TAN/GAL not only fail to form a coherent dimension when viewed from a demand side perspective, but incorporate issues of EU integration in some (northern European) cases, but not in others.

The recent proliferation of referendums on sovereignty matters has fuelled growing scholarly interest. However, comparative research is hindered by the weaknesses of current compilations, which tend to suffer from conceptual vagueness, varied coding decisions, incomplete coverage and ad hoc categorizations. Based on an improved conceptualization and theory-driven typology, this article presents a new dataset of 602 sovereignty referendums from 1776–2012, more than double the number in existing lists. In an exploratory analysis, it uncovers eight distinctive clusters of sovereignty referendums and identifies patterns of activity over time and space as well as outcomes produced.

EUvox2014 was a Voting Advice Application (VAA) operating during the pre-electoral period of the 2014 European Parliament elections. VAAs are online platforms developed and published online in periods before elections with the purpose of providing prospective voters with information concerning their proximity to competing political parties, given their policy preferences. Users are able to visit these platforms and, after providing their agreement or disagreement with a number of policy statements, they are provided with measures of proximity to political parties or candidates, on the basis of the latter's programmatic positions or estimates thereof.
The dataset available in the present file contains responses of individual users to a number of questions that can be summarised into 6 categories:
a) demographics,
b) politics-related questions (e.g. vote intention),
c) self-placement of users and parties on 3 axes: economic values (Left - Right), social values (Progressive – Cosnervative) and EU-integration (Pro – Against),
d) Probability To Vote for competing parties,
e) Policy preferences,
f) Questions asked following the presentation of the results of the VAA to the user.
Additionally encoded and included in the datasets are para- and meta-data, e.g. time and date of completion, web-browser used, response times for questions etc.