Globalization and legal change: The “Americanization” of European law?

Intensified global economic competition, economic liberalization, and the rise of EU governance have led some observers to argue that there has been a trend toward the “Americanization” of the European “way of law.” This article addresses that contention, focusing on legal change in European member states. It first describes ways in which the American legal tradition has differed most sharply from the national legal systems of Western Europe (including Great Britain) and the political and economic factors that account for this “American legal distinctiveness.” Similar political and economic factors currently are at work in Europe, the article acknowledges, creating incentives for legal convergence. But it also argues that European legal culture and the political organization of European national states generate path‐dependent forces that impede European movement toward American ways of law, and it discusses six important differences between European and American law that remain entrenched and are unlikely to disappear.     

Traditions of protest and the high‐school student movements in Spain and France in 1986–87

This article explores the social circumstances that nurture social movements in advanced capitalist societies by examining the Spanish and French high‐school student movements of 1986–87. Attention is given to the influence of unemployment, outside organisers, the political education of community leaders, and past protests that provided examples for movement participants. The article proposes that future research on European social movements focus, first, on organisational prerequisites, and, second, on the social and psychological processes by which people derive lessons from past political events.     

The effectiveness of institutional borrowing restrictions: Empirical evidence from Spanish municipalities

The need for restrictions on borrowing by subnational governments is a generally accepted notion that is justified both by public choice theory and by the fact that such restrictions are in force in the majority of decentralized countries. Furthermore, recent breaches of the Stability and Growth Pact of the European Union have led to the introduction of legislative tools aimed at balancing the budget at all levels of government have come to the forefront of interest in European public finance research. This paper is concerned with the financial situation and debt level of Spanish municipalities from 1988 to 2000. We have two main objectives: the first is to assess the value of mandatory limitations on municipal borrowing and past trends in the borrowing policies adopted by Spanish local authorities. The second is to develop an econometric model using panel data stratified by population size to measure indebtedness in Spanish municipalities. These measures enable us to formulate a series of hypotheses to explain municipal borrowing practices, which are then tested empirically. The evidence thus obtained appears to support the effectiveness of institutional borrowing restrictions to introduce some financial discipline in the borrowing policies adopted by local governments in Spain.     

Labour protest in China’s private sector: responses to Chinese communism with capitalist characteristics

Abstract

Building on existing studies of worker activism in formerly communist states, this paper examines the context, nature and consequences of labour protest in China’s private sector – highlighting the specific features that have emerged from China’s unique ‘communist’ political regime and partially privatized economy. As private enterprises have grown in China, private sector worker protests have been common. Three key factors have shaped this activism: (i) a disjuncture between benevolent and protective national laws and the lived experience of workers; (ii) fluctuations in the labour market; and (iii) generational shifts and learning among workers, employers and political authorities. The interplay of these factors has led protesting private sector workers to focus their ire on their employers and on occasion local political authorities, while viewing national political leaders as sources of worker support. These dynamics have had both positive and negative consequences for private sector workers and political authorities. Making comparisons with other authoritarian and communist states, this study adds to current understandings of how specific economic and political configurations engender particular characteristics of labour activism – and how these change over time.     

Local economic strategies as industrial policy: a critical review of British developments in the 1980s

The proliferation of interventionist local authority strategies for employment and economic development has been widespread in Britain since the early 1980s. But much of the radical promise of these strategies has been slow to materialise, due in part to the abolition of the metropolitan authorities and to the election of a third Thatcher government. Moreover new and traditional forms of policy production have co-existed in an uneasy relationship within local authorities, and this threatens the strategic capacity of intervention. It is argued that the regeneration of strategic perspectives should be a priority for local authorities; at the same time flexible specialisation in manufacturing offers new political and tactical opportunities for strategic intervention in pursuit of both regeneration and accountability in the economic sphere.     

Local Renewable Energy Initiatives in Germany and Japan in a Changing National Policy Environment

Our article explores the contribution of local initiatives to the creation of path dependencies for energy transition in Germany and Japan in the face of resistance from entrenched incumbents at the national level. We use a process‐tracing methodology based partly on interviews with local participants. In particular, we explore the role of local initiatives in securing “socio‐political space” for the expansion of renewable energy (RE) and in embedding themselves in “ecosystems” of public and private institutions. German energy activists were more successful than their Japanese counterparts in expanding this space and creating positive feedback in part because they were able to build horizontal networks that anchored the energy transition firmly in local communities. Although problems with grid technology have led to retrenchment in both cases, Japanese activists' reliance on vertical networks has limited their ability to weather a backlash from national government and utility actors. Our study demonstrates the interaction of political, economic/technological, and legitimation paths to energy transition and highlights the importance of the latter two.     

The Impact of Political Factors on Local Government Decentralisation

ABSTRACT

The process of local decentralisation of public services delivery has attracted research attention because of the wide range of factors that induce governments to make this decision. Nonetheless, most such studies have focused on economic and financial aspects, ignoring the impact of political factors. The scarce previous research about political factors is the motivation for this study. We used panel data models based on 153 Spanish municipalities with populations over 50,000 for the period 1999–2007. The process of decentralisation is disaggregated according to the legal form of the entities: corporations and foundations. Our results show that more corporatisation processes are carried out in environments where political competition is lower and the party in power enjoyed greater support in the last elections. Additionally, decentralisation processes usually take place in the years immediately following elections, especially through foundations. Furthermore, both forms of decentralisation are more likely to be initiated by right-wing politicians.     

On the Determinants of Local Government Debt: Does One Size Fit All?

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the factors that directly influence levels of debt in Spanish local governments. Specifically, the main objective is to find out the extent to which indebtedness is originated by controllable factors that public managers can influence, or whether it hinges on other variables beyond managers’ control. The importance of this issue has intensified since the start of the crisis in 2008, due to the abrupt decline of revenues and, simultaneously, to the fact that the levels of costs these institutions face has remained the same or, in some cases, increased. Results can be explored from multiple perspectives, given that the set of explanatory factors is also multiple. However, the most interesting finding is the varying effect of each covariate depending on a municipality's specific debt level, which suggests that economic policy recommendations should not be homogeneous across local governments.     

Social movements and the changing structure of political opportunity in the European union 1

To the extent that European integration results in the decline in the importance of the nation‐state as the exclusive seat of formal political power, we can expect attendant changes in those forms of interest aggregation and articulation historically linked to the state. This article suggests that a polity characterised by multi‐level governance is emerging in Europe and that this poses a set of new constraints and opportunities for groups that wish to influence political decisions. We argue that group strategy in response to this is a function of: (1) the structure of political opportunities facing a group in the EU; and (2) inherited institutions and ideologies that constrain the capacity of a group to exploit those opportunities. We use this framework to analyse the effect of European integration on four groups: the labour movement, regional movements, the environmental movement and the anti‐nuclear movement.     

Party Politics and the Common Good in Swedish Local Government

Local government in Sweden is usually classified as the northwest European type of local government, together with the local government systems of the other Nordic countries and Britain. In the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, Swedish local government has been especially susceptible to the ideas of 'new public management' (NPM). At the same time there has been a long-ongoing trend of increasing party-politicisation of local councils. In this paper a selection of five local authorities are examined in order to see how party politics and party-politicisation are confronted by the new organisational doctrines. It is concluded that in this respect the doctrines guiding local government organisation can be characterised by three common traits: the legitimacy of particular interests is denied in favour of the common good of the locality; it is denied that conflict and competition between political parties perform any democratic function; finally, when it comes to the relation between politics and administration there is a common confession of the management-by-objectives doctrine. Somewhat surprisingly, these three principles guide organisation and politics not only in those authorities most enthusiastically adopting NPM but also in the authorities implementing organisational reforms based on more communitarian principles and even organisationally conservative municipalities not even considering any organisational change. One interpretation of this contradictory observation may be that NPM concepts and ideas have also found their way into local doctrines that are based on quite different principles. Another interpretation is that there is a consensus tradition in Swedish political culture that can also account for similar results in municipalities not explicitly introducing an apolitical organisation doctrine.     

The Europeanisation of conflict: Reflections from a social movement perspective

If Europe is becoming a polity, then regular patterns of social and political conflict ‐ both institutional and non‐institutional ‐ will emerge between citizen groups and decision‐making authorities. Although we are beginning to have a substantial body of research on institutionalised interest group interaction at the European level, we know much less about non‐institutionalised forms of contentious collective action that have European policies as their targets. Using social movement theory, several varieties of such collective action can be identified. Based on the theory of political opportunity structure, it is shown why one of these forms ‐ actions intended to bring national states’ power to bear against European policies — appears to have a rich and turbulent future.     

Does Gender Equality Affect Municipal Transparency: The Case of Spain

The influence of women in organizational transparency is an understudied vein of representative bureaucracy. Literature claims that the increase of women in formal political representation opened the opportunity to bring to public organizations gender diversity, experiences, and values different from those of men. It highlights the beneficial leadership styles and the legitimacy of public bureaucracies. Since gender equality in Spanish local government has increased in recent years, it was the trigger and the aim for this study: to understand the influence of women’s political representation on the level of Spanish municipalities’ transparency. The analysis draws on panel data econometric techniques. The results reinforce the discussion that the representation of women in local political life will increase information transparency and reduce information asymmetry in municipalities.     

Nationalism,identity and landscape in contemporary Galicia

In escaping the territorial trap of the nation-state, political geography has devoted mounting attention to sub-state geographies of nationalism. This paper traces the history, geographies, and politics of Spanish Galicia, in light of the contradictory processes of contemporary European integration and secessionism. After a review of sub-state nationalism, it contextualizes Galician nationalism within Spanish regionalism. It offers an historical overview that highlights the uniqueness of Galician culture and explicates the roots of the current nationalist movement. Finally, it delves into contemporary Galician politics, including its electoral dimensions, cyberpolitics, and banal nationalism, in which territory plays a decisive role.     

(Same)-sex in the city: Urbanisation and LGBTI rights expansion

Despite the notable successes of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) activism in the region, individual European countries have varied considerably in the extent and speed with which they have adopted legislation to recognise the rights of their LGBTI citizens. Scholars have often turned to modernisation theory to explain these variable outcomes and argue that high levels of national wealth are an important factor in the success of LGBTI movements. Although the correlation between modernity, economic development and tolerance of LGBTI lifestyles is often treated as a truism in the literature, scholars have paid less attention to the precise mechanisms by which the complex processes associated with modernisation facilitate policy change. Drawing on the classic works of both modernisation theory and gay and lesbian history, we examine a less explored route by which modernisation leads to the expansion of LGBTI rights. Specifically, we posit that urbanisation facilitates the adoption of rights policies by strengthening LGBTI movements and enhancing their political effectiveness. To test this proposition, we use event history analysis and an original dataset that contains measures for institutional, cultural, economic and movement variables, as well as measures of urbanisation in 44 European countries between 1980 and 2015. Our findings support the contention that urbanisation has a strong effect on the formation of LGBTI movement organisations as well as the speed with which European states adopt both same-sex union and anti-discrimination legislation. The relationship between urbanisation and rights expansion persists even after controlling for a country's level of wealth, religious adherence and the influence of European institutions and norms.     

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AS IMPLEMENTORS OF PUBLIC POLICY

This study expands the growing literature in comparative public policy that examines welfare services. By now, it is accepted that a combination of economic, social, and political factors are influential in the delivery of these services by the 60 states. This paper finds that similar factors are also operating at the county level in New York state. Most notably, political factors affect the distribution of welfare benefits–despite federal and state mandates that require distribution to be based solely on need. This raises a number of issues. concerning the nature of political influence and the autonomy of local bureaucracies, which require further exploration.     

Sub-state Climate Pioneers: The Case of Scotland

Climate change poses a global challenge, but many of the most ambitious and innovative efforts to confront it have emerged from the sub-state level. While such action has received significant attention in North America, less attention has been paid to European sub-state nations and regions, even though several of these regions are at the forefront of policy efforts to reduce carbon emissions and promote renewable energy. This article begins to fill that knowledge gap. It explores the puzzle as to why, and how, given their more limited scope for policy action, some sub-state governments position themselves as ‘climate pioneers’. The article undertakes a heuristic case study of Scotland, which has developed a particularly ambitious climate change and renewable energy programme. Drawing on public policy literature, we use the case study to consider the extent to which such ambition is enabled by constitutional and fiscal capacity, facilitated by a cohesive policy network, and motivated by economic and political goals. While we find evidence of these enabling features in the Scottish case, we argue that understanding sub-state climate action also necessitates examining such action through the lens of territorial politics. Adopting a territorial perspective highlights the opportunities, constraints and motivations associated with the politics of territorial identity and multi-level government.     

Understanding varieties of populism in times of crises

Abstract

This introduction presents the conceptual and analytical framework which constitutes the background for the special issue entitled ‘Varieties of Populism in Europe in Times of Crises’. More specifically, this contribution investigates how different populist parties in the European Union have been affected by the recent economic crisis and the more long-lasting political and cultural crises. Analytically, the article disentangles the role of the Great Recession vis-à-vis other factors (such as political and party system factors, but also structural social changes or cultural opportunities) in the growing strength of populist parties in various European countries. It argues that although the economic crisis has without any doubt provided a specific ‘window of opportunity’ for the emergence of new political actors, which have capitalised on citizens’ discontent, long-lasting political factors – such as the increasing distrust toward political institutions and parties – and the more recent cultural crisis connected with migration issues have offered further fertile ground for the consolidation of populist parties in several European countries. Furthermore, as confirmed by the articles presented in the special issue, the various crises have offered differential opportunities for different types of populism – both inclusionary and exclusionary.     

Renewable Portfolio Standards and Policy Stringency: An Assessment of Implementation and Outcomes

This research examines the impact of increasing the stringency of renewable portfolio standards (RPS) on the consumption of energy produced from renewable sources. Putting prior findings in the context of policy learning, first we focus on technological innovation, factor endowments, and economic energy dependence of American states to track how RPS have proliferated and strengthened. Next, we look at the net effect of this RPS evolution on state fossil fuel energy divestment. To evaluate the interplay between: a) the political desire to lower fossil fuel use, b) technological feasibility to do so, and c) the economic trade‐offs and risks, we focus on the industrial sector dependence on energy security and affordability. Our results indicate that energy security is a priority and even in light of increasing RPS stringency, states with relatively weak but mandatory RPS are leaders in aggregate renewable energy consumption. This fact is due to favoring biofuel and hydro generation rather than solar and wind because of lower deployment costs.     

Political and social rights for second country nationals: freedom of movement and citizenship in Australasia

Agreements allowing regional freedom of movement inevitably raise questions about the citizenship status and rights of those who exercise regional mobility. In the case of the European Union, such questions have received considerable academic attention, particularly since the creation of European citizenship in 1992. Little attention has been paid to Australasia, where a long-standing freedom of movement agreement, the trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement (TTTA), permits New Zealanders and Australians to live and work indefinitely in each others' country. As the two countries pursue a single economic market, the TTTA has played a central role in facilitating the creation of a regional labour market. Changes to Australian social security and citizenship legislation, however, have meant that many New Zealanders permanently resident in Australia have limited social and political rights, and no access to citizenship. This article extends debates about whether the political and social rights of citizenship ought to be granted to second-country nationals into the Australasian context. It examines a range of arrangements by which citizenship could be protected during the current period of intense economic integration in Australasia, asking which provides the best fit with existing constitutional and political arrangements.     

Towards an internal health market with the European court

This article examines the process through which a European healthcare dimension has been established and which has gradually extended the rights of European patients to cross-border healthcare. The integrative course has been charted by the legal activism of the European Court of Justice, whereas political voice has largely been absent. Judicial activism alone has applied the principle of the free movement of services to the policy field of healthcare, and thereby further energised the process. The political impact of this specific process of integration through law is, however, clear. The dynamic evolution of Community law has increasingly challenged the national instrument to retain health supply within own borders. Furthermore, the position of the European patient has been empowered by new individual rights, emanating from a supranational locus of rights against which the discretion exerted by national authorities can be challenged. Through the indeterminacy of European rules, open to continuous contestation and clarification, healthcare institutionalisation has proceeded and the European Union has extended into the core of the welfare state.