European Culture and the European Union's ‘Turkey Question’

This article attempts to discern whether Turkey belongs to Europe's emerging pan-European cosmopolitan culture and investigates the political implications of Turkish cultural ‘otherness’. The article revisits Laitin's (2002 Laitin, David D. 2002. ‘Culture and National Identity: “The East” and European Integration’. West European Politics, 25(2): 56–80. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggestion that social mobility in contemporary Europe requires individuals to possess 2 ± 1 cultural repertoires. Then, drawing on analysis of Eurobarometer, World Values Survey, European Values Survey, and original datasets, it compares the cultural repertoires of citizens from four groups of European countries – the EU's founding members, countries that joined the Communities between 1973 and 1995, countries of the 2004/2007 enlargement wave, and Turkey itself. The data support the conventional wisdom that Turkey is culturally quite different from EU norms. Still, the article concludes by interrogating the political implications of this difference and suggesting that Turkey's cultural alterity does not necessarily preclude the possibility of smooth Turkish integration into the EU.     

Rape and Sexual Violence as Torture and Genocide in the Decisions of International Tribunals: Transjudicial Networks and the Development of International Criminal Law

International criminal tribunals established by the UN Security Council in the 1990s have been widely acclaimed as active participants in the modern system of dynamic criminal justice. One of their best known achievements is the prosecution of rape and sexual assaults. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) set an example for other tribunals to follow. By interpreting a variety of international laws, the community of international legal professionals has been able to shift the prevailing understanding of rape and sexual violence away from that of an “unfortunate byproducts of war.” Not only has the epistemic community of legal professionals been able to end impunity for these crimes, but case-law of international tribunals has become a basis for subsequent trials at quasi-international tribunals. Decisions of the tribunals have been instrumental in drafting the Statute of the International Criminal Court and can be regarded as an example of the formation of new international norms by means of judicial decisions.     

Judicial policy‐making and the evolving rotection of human rights: The European court of human rights in comparative perspective

This contribution is a comparative analysis of three attempts to strengthen the supranational protection of human rights in an increasingly transnational world. It focuses on the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations, the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter‐American Court of Human Rights. The recent decision by the Inter‐American Court on the forced disappearance of individuals by state or para‐state forces illustrates the important role of cross‐pollenisation from the European Court and the United Nations. It further demonstrates how judges on supranational courts attempt to make law in the face of uncertain government compliance.     

Time to Comply: National Responses to Six EU Labour Market Directives Revisited

This paper examines variation in the timing of compliance with European directives. It formulates and tests the hypothesis that member states' policy-based incentives to deviate from the content of directives influence delay in compliance. This hypothesis is tested along with other factors that are posited to influence compliance, including the amount of discretion directives give member states, the level of misfit between national and European-level laws, and characteristics of member states. The hypotheses are examined in a quantitative research design using arguably the best available information on compliance: national responses to six labour market directives investigated by Falkner et al. (2005 Falkner, Gerda, Trieb, Oliver, Hartlapp, Miriam and Leiber, Simone. 2005. Complying with Europe: EU Harmonisation and Soft Law in the Member States, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) for Complying with Europe. The present study develops Falkner et al.'s analysis in two respects. First, it identifies new theoretically important variables and offers measures of these, notably member states' policy-based incentives to deviate and the amount of discretion granted by directives. Second, it tests these hypotheses using multivariate analysis, while Falkner et al. applied bivariate tests only. In contrast to Falkner et al.'s conclusions, the findings indicate that misfit between national and European laws significantly reduces the likelihood of timely compliance. While political opposition at the time of a directive's adoption is not linked directly to compliance, member states tend to oppose directives that do not fit existing national laws. Compliance is more timely for directives that grant more discretion.     

Gender,intersectionality, and religious manifestation before the European Court of Human Rights

Decisions on Article 9(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights—the right to religious manifestation—evidence the importance of intersectional considerations of gender, religion, and even nationality. This article uses qualitative comparative analysis in order to find patterns of litigation victory and defeat by intersectional groups in their claims of violation of this provision. Our analyses show that intersectionalization, operating through a methodology particularly well suited to do so, was essential to render visible important patterns in the judicial arena. These patterns show the different outcomes of litigation by intersectional groups. In particular, Muslim women, whose cases frequently had a clear dimension of “claim intersectionality” related to religious clothing, systematically were defeated before the European Court of Human Rights. This contrasts with cases brought by male Muslims, a successful category of litigants, therefore emphasizing the importance of gender dimension when understanding cases on religious manifestation.     

The Legal Obligations of Albania in the Stabilization and Association Agreement Between Albania and EU

The purpose of this article is to discuss the legal effects of the preliminary agreement between Albania and EU （European Union） on the EU and on the Albanian national legal system. The topic is ＂The Legal Obligations of Albania in the SAA （Stabilization and Association Agreement） With EU＂, and the purpose is to address the issue of harmonization and application of the obligation in the most effective way regarding the EU legislation. The method used is systematic, comparative and teleological analysis of the European and national legal systems and inherent principles and reflection on the ways of integration and coordination between them. At first the sources and features of the EU legal system will be presented. Then the application of these principles in preliminary and pre-accession agreement and through them their influence over the EU and over the national legal system of the pre-accession states will be presented. The contribution will be to argue that the preliminary agreement between EU and Albania creates legal effects both on the EU and on the national legal system of the pre-accessions countries. Their lull and effective application will be the duty of national court and legislators.     

Religion and National Identity in America and Europe

America and Europe have had very different religious experiences, and these differences have continuing consequences. In America, the preponderance of Reform Protestantism gave rise to religious and political pluralism, a religious marketplace, and the continuing vitality of the churches. In Europe, the dominance of state churches gave rise to the eventual rejection of these churches and religions when the traditional political and social authorities were rejected, particularly by the Generation of 1968. However, Europe’s extreme secularization has rendered it confused and ineffective in dealing with the new religious challenge posed by Muslim immigrant communities.

YouTube: A Political Advertising Tool? A Case Study of the Use of YouTube in the Campaign for the European Parliament Elections 2009

Political campaigns are made to attract the attention from citizens. The beginning of its adaption is linked to the appearance of the social media and user-generated content. Since the number of users of social network sites in Europe constantly grows, 2009 was the first time that these websites were used in political marketing purposes for the European Parliament elections. This is an exploratory study of the nature and extent of video-based social media, studied through the content analysis of YouTube videos created for the electoral campaign for the 2009 European Parliament . ( 2009 ). European elections . Retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/default.htm?language=en  [Google Scholar] European Parliament elections by 13 political parties from four EU states. Results have shown the specificities of political advertising on the YouTube, a raising interest in social media among citizens in Europe, and the development of this way of campaigning.     

The European Politics of Book Pricing

Scholars are increasingly concerned with the phenomenon by which successive policy areas in Europe become 'communitarised' - by which we mean that the sector's governance increasingly takes place at the supranational level. As was the case for the environment or the telecommunications sector, no formal competence on book policy, and more generally on cultural policy, appeared in the original treaty, and hence I seek to explain why and how the communitarisation of the policy debate on book prices took place. On the one hand, the European Court of Justice and the Commission, which benefited from the complicity of subnational private actors, were making use of their judicial and regulatory powers in order to liberalise the book sector. On the other hand, member states which felt that their policy traditions were challenged by European intervention tried to shift the decision-making process back to an intergovernmental mode in an attempt to impose an alternative policy solution, treating books as a special product. The main argument that is put forward in this article is that once the locus of the decision-making process had shifted de facto towards the EU level, the diversity of actors' preferences, decision rules and the nature of the status quo made it impossible for the tenants of dirigiste solutions to impose their policy preferences.     

Judicial Europeanisation: The Case of Zambrano in Ireland

The Court of Justice of the European Union is an important motor of integration and is said to be particularly strong in those cases where the Council shows an inability to act. What is the relevance of the Court to social Europe? Europeanisation studies analyse how member states change due to European integration. Judicial Europeanisation is a topic that is under-explored in the literature. Using a case-study approach, this paper analyses the Zambrano case, one of the most notable recent cases of judicial activism of the CJEU with regard to EU citizenship rights. Although the literature often assumes that member states only reluctantly embrace the requirements of case law, the Irish government immediately obliged its administration to implement the required changes. Analysing this case in greater detail and comparing it to the responses of several other member states promises to shed some light on the under-explored question of how Europeanisation through case law proceeds, and what the Court may contribute to social Europe.     

Nordic vs. anti-Nordic: the Galton Society and the American Anthropological Association

Most homegrown commentators on race and multiculturalism in Britain find it very difficult to believe that multi-ethnic Britain has anything much it can learn from continental Europe. Arguing against this view, Favell diagnoses the reasons why British academics tend to fall back on 'exceptionalist' arguments. It is wrong to characterize the achievements and peculiarities of British multicultural race relations in terms that disconnect it from similar developments in other West European countries. Favell goes on to discuss the wide-ranging impact of black British cultural studies on research in Britain, exploring the limitations in particular of the paradigm laid down by the influential work of Stuart Hall. Offering an alternative comparative approach to understanding race relations and immigration in Britain, he sets out the distinctive insights to be found when Britain is looked at in terms of general international theories of citizenship and migration. Policymakers and policy academics in Britain, however, continue to work within a framework of ideas and concepts that is becoming increasingly less responsive to the challenge of new migrations-such as asylum-seekers and new economic migrants - which have come to dominate the European scene in the last decade.     

Why do corporations contribute to the Nature Conservancy?

Treating corporate contributions as purchases of valuable inputs, we hypothesize that firms for which genetic diversity, advertizing, and reputations of environmental responsibility are more valuable and firms for which the cost of contributing is less will be more likely contributors to the Nature Conservancy. These hypotheses are supported by logit estimations which find firms in industries where biological inputs are important, firms with high advertizing expenditures, firms in industries with high costs of meeting environmental regulations, and large firms are more likely to contribute and so become Corporate Associates of the Nature Conservancy.     

Corporate lobbying in Europe,managing knowledge and information strategies

• Given that knowledge and information are critical resources for acquiring access to the EU policy process, the question of this paper is how firms should manage the knowledge and information strategies surrounding their lobbying attempts. Developing an appropriate resource base is critical for firms trying to bring their interests to bear on European decision‐making. The same holds for the ability to recognize potential points of entry to the EU policy process. Next to substantial knowledge and expertise, therefore, the ability to understand policy dynamics and the appropriate timing of lobbying attempts are critically important in corporate lobbying in Europe. The implication of this argument is that managing knowledge and information strategies become increasingly important for handlings firms' public affairs.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Democratic Development,Judicial Reform and the Serbian Question in Croatia

In anticipation of Croatia’s accession to the European Union, this article assesses the way in which the state has come to terms with the Serbian question and the practice of non-discrimination in the justice sector. The first part offers an historical review of the Serbian question in Croatia and the main laws that discriminated against non-Croats during the war and rule of President Franjo Tudjman (1991–1999). The second part evaluates the nature of judicial reform in light of the external demands placed on Croatia to improve relations with the Serbian minority and recent rulings from the European Court of Human Rights, which have questioned the capacity of the Croatian judiciary to provide an effective remedy in cases of human rights violations.

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Fighting Housing Discrimination in Europe

ABSTRACT

There is no exact European equivalent to the U.S. Fair Housing Act. The member states of the European Union (EU) have transposed into law the EU Racial Equality Directive of 2000 that prohibits discrimination in, among other things, access to the supply of goods and services, including housing, on the basis of race. Most housing discrimination case law so far comes from nonbinding decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and European Committee of Social Rights under the revised European Social Charter of the Council of Europe. This article explains how the European context of discrimination and segregation differs from the American, reviews the major legal conventions establishing equal rights in housing, protected classes, and key precedents. It discusses how mixing policies in social housing are the primary mechanism to reduce residential segregation in Europe. The special case of extreme discrimination against the Roma is presented, before concluding with some comparative observations.     

Ambient accountability: intelligence services in Europe and the decline of state secrecy

Abstract

In the 1990s, judgments in the European Court of Human Rights concerning state surveillance forced many West European countries to introduce new parliamentary bodies and formal systems for accountability. Promising both greater transparency and lawful intelligence, these frameworks were then energetically rolled out to Central and Eastern Europe. Although officials boasted about their effectiveness, these formal accountability mechanisms have failed to identify serious abuses over the last decade. Moreover, the security regime in much of Central Europe still remains largely unreconstructed. The article argues that a robust culture of accountability cannot be conjured into existence merely by introducing new laws and regulations, or indeed by the increasing tide of media revelations about intelligence. However, it suggests that we are now seeing the rise of a more complex pattern of ‘ambient accountability’ which is at last challenging the secret state across Europe.     

Upgrading the ‘software’: The EU–Korea Free Trade Agreement and sociocultural barriers to trade and investment

Abstract

In October 2010, the European Union (EU) and the Republic of Korea signed a free trade agreement that went into effect in July 2011 and aims to increase levels of bilateral trade and investment by dismantling existing tariff and non-tariff barriers. In this article, we highlight the importance of a third class of barriers: social, cultural and institutional barriers to trade with and investment in Korea that cannot be legislated for under the new agreement but that can serve as ‘hidden stumbling blocks’ to its implementation and effectiveness. We argue that the phenomenon of ‘mismatched globalization’ (in which economic globalization outpaces cultural globalization) is still apparent in Korea, as evidenced by the continuing existence of these ‘soft’ barriers which include, inter alia, the gap between policy and implementation; the lack of predictability, consistency and transparency in the regulatory environment (including IPR protection); education systems; labour militancy; and attitudes towards globalization. These findings resonate with Dent's (2006 Dent, C. M. 2006. New Free Trade Agreements in the Asia-Pacific, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) argument that ‘deficient capacity’ in terms of technocracy, industry and/or institutional arrangements can pose problems for developing countries seeking to negotiate and implement bilateral trade agreements with more developed countries. In the case of Korea, the long-term ‘soft’ social, cultural and institutional barriers identified and discussed in this article act as a constraint on the country's institutional capacity functions and thus have the potential to hinder the full and effective implementation of the EU–Korea Free Trade Agreement and reduce the economic benefits that the signatory parties hope to gain from it.     

Religion between Nation and Europe: The French and Belgian ‘No’ to the Christian Heritage of Europe

Religion has new salience in contemporary European politics, but its range and nature are still not properly understood. In contrast with most other member states, France and Belgium held a common position of refusal regarding any reference to the Christian heritage of Europe in the now defunct Constitutional Treaty. The two countries were however motivated by two different models of laïcité anchored in distinct socio-political historical paths: the French all-encompassing laïcité, supposing the neutrality of the public space; and the Belgian institutionalised laïcité, organising the pluralism of philosophical and confessional worldviews. The analysis addresses the dynamics of each national configuration in the wider perspective of the interactions between religion and politics today; the patterns of European negotiations; the effects of this issue on domestic politics and mobilisations of civil society. It concludes that religion in the integration process is a way of reformulating old symbolic resources and of coming to terms with identity and social adaptations, rather than a source of political cleavages.     

Time to Discuss: Data to Crunch or Problems to Solve? A Rejoinder to Robert Thomson

Testing the insights from qualitative case studies (Falkner et al. 2005 Falkner, G., Treib, O., Hartlapp, M. and Leiber, S. 2005. Complying with Europe. EU Harmonisation and Soft Law in the Member States, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) in quantitative models is a challenging task (see Thomson 2007). This article argues that in political science, our evaluation standards for quantitative analyses need to go far beyond the sophistication of calculations. They should include the quality of assumptions imputed, of data used, and of reasoning as to the political – as opposed to statistical – significance of regressions. When presenting statistical findings that counter solid qualitative work, scholars therefore are under an obligation also to present reasoned arguments for their case, taking into full account the qualitative findings on processes and mechanisms unveiled in these empirical studies.     

Policy Responses to Human Trafficking in Southern Africa: Domesticating International Norms

Human trafficking is increasingly recognized as an outcome of economic insecurity, gender inequality, and conflict, all significant factors in the region of southern Africa. This paper examines policy responses to human trafficking in southern Africa and finds that there has been a diffusion of international norms to the regional and domestic levels. This paper finds that policy change is most notable in the strategies and approaches that differ at each level: international and regional agreements emphasize prevention measures and survivor assistance, but national policies emphasize prosecution measures. Leaders across the region have adapted these policy norms to fit regionally specific conditions, including HIV/AIDS, conflict, traditional leaders, and prostitution. Yet, national policies often fail to incorporate preventative solutions to address gender inequality, human rights, and economic development. Until appropriate funding and preventative measures are introduced, the underlying issues that foster human trafficking will continue.