Metropolitan challenges and reform pressures across Europe – the perspectives of city mayors

Metropolitan governance arrangements and their policy purposes have been a matter of debate among researchers and practitioners around the globe. While we may trace three broad schools of metropolitan governance – reform school, public choice theory and new regionalism – with each still having its proponents, we are interested to learn whether there are assumptions on metropolitan governance that have today become general knowledge among urban political elites. By investigating the attitudes and perceptions of city mayors across Europe, we show that functional multipurpose governance bodies are indeed more generally associated with equitable service distribution, whereas the preconditions for cost-efficiency and sustainable development are more equivocally placed at different modes of governance. Moreover, we show that a perceived general lack of problem-solving capacities does not automatically translate into pressures for metropolitan reform, but it is only in combination with a general disaffection with the governance structures currently in place.     

The Macroeconomics of Aid: Overview

Abstract

This Special Issue explores macroeconomic effects of aid from various perspectives through a blend of studies, both conceptual and empirical in nature. The overall aim is to enhance the understanding of the macroeconomic dimensions of aid in the policy and research communities, and to inspire further innovative work in this important area. This opening article provides a scene setting summary of five generations of aid research, with a particular focus on how the JDS has contributed to this literature, and ends with an overview of the papers included in this Issue.     

International sanctions against Iran and Tehran's responses: political effects on the targeted regime

This article seeks to explain the combined political effects of international sanctions against Iran and Tehran's domestic responses on the power structure of the targeted regime. It contends that although sanctions have contributed to elite infighting in Iran, they have not weakened the targeted regime. The Iranian leadership's modified reading of the imposed sanctions from targeted United Nations, US and European Union (EU) nonproliferation sanctions as an opportunity to develop indigenous nuclear capabilities to the perception of comprehensive and coordinated US and EU sanctions as regime change efforts marked a critical juncture. Tehran's adjusted responses to these sanctions, shaped by the interplay between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, affected Iran's balance of power to the detriment of the outgoing president and his faction. This impact sheds a light on the workings of a targeted hybrid regime under intensive sanction pressure.     

Eisenhower, arms control and disarmament: United States diplomatic documents, 1958-60

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-60: Volume III, Microfiche Supplement, National Security Policy; Arms Control and Disarmament, Washington, DC: Department of State, 1998.     

Toward a Sociology of the International? International Relations between Anarchy and World Society

To develop a sociology of the international, it is common in international relations (IR) to use a notion of inter-subjectivity defined as the space "in-between" individual actors. This approach is based on a parts/whole systems theory where common norms and values inscribed in international law not only create a "world society" but also provide for its social cohesion. Rooted in a parts/whole distinction, the very term of inter-subjectivity takes on a rather positivist meaning as the social quality of the international is then "measurable" and possibly even falsifiable by observing states' behavior. In the end, the inter-subjective quality of rules and norms is then ultimately reduced to the individual level. This article proposes a different avenue that breaks with the parts/whole distinction to emphasize the connectivity of communications. From this perspective, the notion of inter-subjectivity appears to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution and is thus replaced by the distinction between system and environment. The changing contours of international law are then decoupled from states' interests to emphasize the "relative autonomy" of the legal discourse as represented in its shifting paradox and programs.     

The politics of government reorganization in Western Europe

The reorganization of governments is crucial for parties to express their policy preferences once they reach office. Yet these activities are not confined to the direct aftermath of general elections or to wide-ranging structural reforms. Instead, governments reorganize and adjust their machinery of government all the time. This paper aims to assess these structural choices with a particular focus at the core of the state, comparing four Western European democracies (Germany, France, the Netherlands, and United Kingdom) from 1980 to 2013. Our empirical analysis shows that stronger shifts in cabinets' ideological profiles in the short- and long-term as well as the units' proximity to political executives yield significant effects. In contrast, Conservative governments, commonly regarded as key promoters of reorganizing governments, are not significant for the likelihood of structural change. We discuss the effects of this politics of government reorganization for different research debates assessing the inner workings of governments.