Bridging borders through institution-building: the EGTC as a facilitator of institutional integration in cross-border regions

This article examines cross-border integration at the sub-state level in the frame of a European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC). The EGTC is a supranational and directly applicable EU legal instrument that regulates the creation of cross-border ‘associations' with legal personality between public authorities. Thus, it represents a policy tool that can have an effect on the institutional frame of cross-border cooperation and potentially enhance cross-border institutional integration at the sub-state level. The aim of this article is to examine the potential effect of this EU instrument on cross-border institutional integration by studying the institutional architecture of selected EGTCs. This is done on the basis of an analytical grid that defines elements of a possible integration process based on an institutional-oriented approach. This analytical grid is applied to four case studies: the Eurométropole Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, the EGTC Ister-Granum, the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion and the European Region Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino. The empirical analysis shows that despite the considerable improvement of the legal basis for cooperation, the possible effect of the EGTC for further institutional cross-border integration is still rather limited due to a narrow design of institutions and a low level of actor involvement.     

Comment: Good-bye dependency theory,hello dependency theory

Studies in Comparative International Development -     

The faces of death: regional differentiation in cause-specific mortality in the past

In mortality research, much attention has been paid to the strong geographical differentials in mortality levels and in modern mortality decline, as the analysis of this geographical differentiation might hold the key to explaining the determinants of mortality change. The use of historical cause-specific mortality data has proved a challenging, although very insightful, means to this end. The four contributions to this special issue focus on cause-specific mortality in the past, both to reassess older data using new insights and to challenge existing insights by using new data and methods. These papers, of which earlier versions were presented during the thirty-eighth Social Science History Association (SSHA) Meeting in Chicago, 21–24 November 2013, explore mortality at different stages of the life course, ranging from early infancy to old age. Moreover, each paper revolves around a different group of causes of death. Although the papers are in many ways rather different, together they demonstrate how different data, theoretical frameworks and methodologies can push the boundaries of research into the trends and determinants of historical mortality patterns.     

Consent in escrow

Disasters such as flash flooding, mass shootings, and train and airplane accidents involving large numbers of victims produce significant opportunity for research in the biosciences. This opportunity exists in the extreme tails of life events, however, during which decisions about life and death, valuing and foregoing, speed and patience, trust and distrust, are tested simultaneously and abundantly. The press and urgency of these scenarios may also challenge the ability of researchers to comprehensively deliver information about the purposes of a study, risks, benefits, and alternatives. Under these circumstances, we argue that acquiring consent for the immediate use of data that are not time sensitive represents a gap in the protection of human study participants. In response, we offer a two-tiered model of consent that allows for data collected in real-time to be held in escrow until the acute post-disaster window has closed. Such a model not only respects the fundamental tenet of consent in research, but also enables such research to take place in an ethically defensible manner.     

Democratic control and border security in the Western Balkans

This note focuses on the best means for achieving civilian control of border security in the Balkans. Civilian control may be achieved through societal control (as in civilian complaint reviews) but such procedures require an established political culture that does not yet exist in the region. Civilian control also requires a degree of technical expertise, which is not always available among international officials, let alone local communities.     

Boundary institutions and HIV/AIDS policy in Brazil and South Africa

Why have some national governments acted more aggressively to address the HIV/ AIDS pandemic than others? More specifically, what explains, widely varied responses across Brazil and South Africa—two countries where one might have expected more similarity than difference? We argue thatboundary institutions—those sets of rules and practices that give social and political meaning to group identities—help explain this puzzle. Institutions interact with other pressures to structure the dissemination of information, the construction of risk, and priorities within society. Where institutions divide groups deeply, elites and ordinary citizens are less likely to feel volnerable, and more likely to blame other groups, making aggresive government action far less likely.     

In vivo measurements of facial tissue thicknesses in American caucasoid children

Ultrasonic determinations were made of facial tissue thicknesses in 50 healthy American caucasoid children, ranging in age from 4 to 15. Twenty measurements were taken at sites along the median, right sagittal, and right lateral planes. A static scanner was used in the B-mode. Three measurements significantly increased with age, the mid-philtrum (rs = 0.43, p less than 0.01) in females, the mental sulcus (rs = 0.30, p less than 0.05) in males, and the frontal eminence (rs = 0.32, p less than 0.05) in both sexes. Moreover, 25% of the measurements, while not statistically significant, decreased with increasing age. These data provide a basis for facial reproductions in caucasoid children.