The evolution of European legal integration

This article contributes to the development of theories on European integration by testing and exploring statistical models on the long-term development of legislative activity of the European Commission. Drawing on legal information gained from the European Union’s PreLex database and analyzing it with the help of statistical analyses, we map out growth patterns of EU law between 1976 and 2003. We construct time-series models and models based on non-linear regression. While the performance of models based on the traditional theoretical approaches, intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism, is rather poor, the analysis suggests that nonlinear dynamic models might be an interesting avenue for future conceptualizations of the EU integration process. This article is based on a paper presented at the ECPR Standing Group on the European Union Second Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, “Implications of a Wider Europe: Politics, Institutions and Diversity”, 24–26 June 2004, Bologna, Italy. We would like to thank the seminar participants for useful comments.     

The European Parliament's Legislative Powers Reconsidered – Assessing the Current State of the Procedural Models Literature

This article maps out the state of affairs of the academic literature which uses procedural spatial voting models to explain legislative decision-making in the European Union. Employing Tsebelis's (1994 ) article in which the author models the Union's co-operation procedure and using it as a reference point, I show that there is no clarity yet as to which of the several existing procedural model specifications yields the most convincing results. I conclude by suggesting how the current situation could be improved, and that procedural modelling might be integrated with other rational choice theory for a better understanding of the ongoing evolution of the policymaking instruments in the European Union.     

Decision-making after the EU Intergovernmental Conference

Abstract: One central point of debate at the current EU Intergovernmental Conference will be the reform of EU decision-making. This article begins by briefly summarising the current decision-making system in the EU. It then approaches in a quantitative manner how a lowering of the qualified majority threshold in the Council of Ministers would increase EU decision-making capacity. Finally, it proposes new decision-making procedures which might be particularly well-suited to overcoming EU indecision.     

Benefiting from Public Sector Innovation: The Moderating Role of Customer and Learning Orientation

This article examines whether the payoff from engaging in innovation‐generating activities is contingent on an organization's level of customer and learning orientation. The authors suggest that innovative activity is associated with higher public service quality when the level of customer and learning orientation within the focal organization is high. They test this hypothesis by drawing on a novel panel data set covering all public nonspecialist hospital organizations in England. Using dynamic panel data estimation techniques, the authors find strong support for a direct relationship between innovative activity and public service quality and for a moderating role of both customer and learning orientation. These findings call for a contingency perspective on public sector innovation and highlight some of the boundary conditions that need to be in place if public service organizations are to benefit fully from their innovative activities.     

Transitional narratives of identity among ethnic minority youth gangs in Denmark: from collectivism to individualism

Current literature often depicts the street cultures of ethnic minority youth as forms of collective cultural resistance to experiences of marginalization from mainstream society. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews in 2014 with 23 young men attached to a rehabilitation centre for criminal offenders in Denmark, this article focuses on ethnic minority youth who desist from such street culture and their former gang life, criminality and drug use and how they describe this shift within their narratives. More specifically, we show how this shift can to some extent be characterized by a move from collective to more individualistic self-narratives re-articulating broader individualistic discourses existing in contemporary society. Among these more individualistic self-narratives, we find extensive reference to ideas of self-responsibility and also individual pragmatic interpretations of Islam. Such re-articulations can be seen as a way to create feelings of agency in severely disempowering circumstances.     

Forensic analysis of carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) by HPLC--statistics and extreme CDT values

Background

Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) is the most specific serum marker of chronic alcohol abuse so far. There is little knowledge about extreme CDT values of >20% and the more >30% CDT.

Methods

Serum CDT/transferrin ratios from 19,236 serum samples sent to our laboratory for routine CDT analysis were determined by HPLC. About 75% of these serum samples were from traffic or employment medicine investigations. A CDT value frequency histogram was computed and extreme CDT values were clinically validated.

Results

Fourteen thousand four hundred and sixty-one CDT results were normal (≤1.7%) and 4775 increased (1.8–36.9% CDT). Most frequent normal and increased results were 0.9% CDT (n = 1964) and 1.8% CDT (n = 356). CA. 70% of the pathological results were between 1.8% and 5.0% CDT, ca. 88% between 1.8% and 10.0% CDT, and 98% between 1.8% and 20.0%. CDT values >20.0% appeared in 79 cases and results >30.0% in two cases (33.8% and 36.9%). In each case of CDT values >20%, chronic alcohol abuse was the underlying cause as confirmed by anamnestic exploration.

Conclusions

CDT/transferrin ratios are usually <20%. Higher values can appear in rare cases. CDT results >30% can be due to alcohol abuse but should be considered as remarkable single observations. Visualization of the transferrin isoform patterns by HPLC allows the detection of pathological transferrin isoform patterns and of genetic transferrin variants. This is essential for a reliable interpretation of (extreme) CDT values. CDT analysis by immunoassays without physico-chemical confirmatory analysis is no longer acceptable.     

Evaluating the predictive power of a procedural model for the European Union legislative process

This article analyses the European Union legislative process with the help of formal models of decision-making. The predictions gained from a procedural model are compared with the power of a much simpler model that is informed by the median voter theorem. The finding of the analysis shows that the simpler model out-performs the more complex one. The article proceeds by deriving the hypothesis that the more salient an issue is for EU policy-makers, the higher the probability becomes that the procedural model out-performs the median model. The test results show that this hypothesis can be confirmed.