Polarization and Policy: The Politics of Public‐Sector Pensions

For decades, America's state and local governments have promised their workers increasingly generous pensions but failed to fully fund them, producing a fiscal problem of staggering proportions. In this article, we examine the politics of public pensions. While mainstream theoretical ideas in the American politics literature would suggest the pension issue should be polarized, with Democrats pushing for generous pensions over Republican resistance, we develop an argument—rooted in more traditional theoretical work by Schattschneider, Lowi, Wilson, and others—implying that both parties should be expected to support generous pensions during normal times and that only after the onset of the Great Recession, which expanded the scope of conflict, should the parties begin to diverge. Using a new data set of state legislators' votes on hundreds of pension bills passed between 1999 and 2011, we carry out an empirical analysis that supports these expectations.     

The Politics of a European Civil Code

Abstract:  Last year the European Commission published its Action Plan on European contract law. That plan forms an important step towards a European Civil Code. In its Plan, the Commission tries to depoliticise the codification process by asking a group of academic experts to prepare what it calls a 'common frame of reference'. This paper argues that drafting a European Civil Code involves making many choices that are essentially political. It further argues that the technocratic approach which the Commission has adopted in the Action Plan effectively excludes most stakeholders from having their say during the stage when the real choices are made. Therefore, before the drafting of the CFR/ECC starts, the Commission should submit a list of policy questions regarding the main issues of European private law to the European Parliament and the other stakeholders. Such an alternative procedure would repoliticise the process. It would increase the democratic basis for a European Civil Code and thus its legitimacy.     

The Decline and Decay of European Refugee Policy

This article challenges the view, implicit in much current researchon EU migration and asylum policy, that supranationalizationis a self-evident antidote to the exclusionary and securitizedmigration policy that has been enacted through inter-governmentalcooperation. It does so by treating supranationalization asan open question in need of empirical scrutiny. To develop thisthesis, it undertakes not only a critique of the current developmentstowards supranational policies, but also of the inter-governmentalpolicy-making system, pursuing a broad brush historical assessmentup to and beyond Amsterdam, with the aim of bringing fresh andfurther insights into the future development of EU asylum policy.It concludes that the current aims are less to do with the establishmentof a common European asylum system and more to do with reducingimmigration pressure and compensating for the perceived lossesof internal security in the wake of full freedom of movementinside the Union. Communitarization will not necessarily occursimply because the European Union is intent upon institutingever stricter immigration controls. Communitarization is doggedby the legacy of intensive trans-governmentalism. In particular,the British, Danish and Irish governments have only been preparedto support communitarization so long as they could have separateprotocols that legitimized their non-participation. The UK andIreland have opted into all proposals on asylum, illegal migrationand civil law but have opted out of practically all proposalsconcerning visas, borders, and legal migration. The securitarianframe still predominates and trans-governmentalism refuses todie. In January 2005, following the agreement on The Hague programme,there was change in decision-making rules from unanimous votingto Qualified Majority Vote (QMV) in the European Council andco-decision with the European Parliament. Yet, there is no guaranteethis will bring about more liberal asylum rules, as is clearfrom the ‘Schengen Borders Code’ which was agreedin June 2005. This is because European migration policy hasalways been fraught with internal contradictions, which haveyet to be resolved. Accordingly, the emergence of a rights-respectingmodel of asylum law based on the Geneva Convention 1951 remainsa distant dream.     

The Evolving Judicial Politics of European Integration: The European Court of Justice and national courts revisited

This article analyzes how the judicial politics sparked by the European Union's (EU) legal development have evolved over time. Existing studies have traced how lower national courts began cooperating with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to apply EU law because this empowered them to challenge government policies and the decisions of their domestic judicial superiors. We argue that the institutional dynamics identified by this ‘judicial empowerment thesis’ proved self‐eroding over time, incentivizing domestic high courts to reassert control over national judicial hierarchies and to influence the development EU law in ways that were also encouraged by the ECJ. We support our argument by combining an analysis of a dataset of cases referred to the ECJ with comparative case study and interview evidence. We conclude that while these evolving judicial politics signal the institutional maturation of the EU legal order, they also risk weakening the decentralized enforcement of European law.     

论欧洲共同体之反倾销法

本文以欧洲共同体 (EEC)之反倾销政策为主要内容 ,通过对其所形成背景、立法变更、新旧反倾销规则比较和其对欧洲共同体倾销差额计算方式之影响的研究 ,针对当前欧洲共同体反倾销政策实践的检讨 ,并以欧洲共同体反倾销法与美国反倾销法两者进行比较 ,希望藉此有助于对欧洲共同体之反倾销制度有更深入的分析与了解。     

Policy, Politics, and the Criminal Courts

This case study of criminal process in a middle-sized western city in the United States employs quantitative data, interviews, and library research to explore the politics of criminal process and its impact on the operative policies of the criminal courts from I964 through 1980. The research reveals significant policy change but a very elusive relationship between politics and policy. Judges and prosecutors preserve a significant measure of autonomy for dealing with the bulk of their caseload by giving up much of their independence in those cases that are inescapably politicized. Both judges and prosecutors use this partial political insulation to advance their own versions of criminological wisdom. On the other hand, they are constrained by the prevailing ethos and by institutional limitations to operate well within conventional definitions of crime and criminality—even when those conventional views run counter to their own practical experience.     

Politics and Rights: The Future of the EU from a European Perspective*

Abstract. Beyond Community political minimalism, citizenship, rights and States are today associated with new constitutional ambitions. In this connection this paper draws attention to the “unsaturated” character of national institutions, especially parliamentary institutions, and argues for a re‐elaboration of the classical European conceptions of rights in an institutional rather than a purely individualistic perspective.     

Bosman—There and Back Again: The Legitimacy of Playing Quotas under European Union Sports Policy

The 1995 ruling of the European Court of Justice in Bosman was a pivotal point in the relationship between the European Union and sport. It has had an immense impact upon professional team sports, most notably football, in terms of liberalising the transfer system and abolishing player quotas. This paper will chart the development of a European sports law policy generally and will specifically discuss two current proposals concerning the reintroduction of playing quotas in football. We will examine the legality of these proposals with reference to Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and will evaluate the political context within which these proposals have been promulgated. It will be suggested that a possible solution, which should end legal uncertainty, could be the adoption of a collective agreement or directive based on the methodology of reflexive labour law.     

European Integration: Popular Sovereignty and a Politics of Boundaries

The problem raised by popular sovereignty in the framework of the EU is not whether it is relevant to European integration; it is. The problem is another, namely the identity and, thus, the boundary of a democratic polity. The very idea of ‘European’ integration suggests that integration is only imaginable by reference to the closure provided by an identity, a boundary that is normative rather than merely geographical. In this minimal sense, a European people is the necessary presupposition of integration, not merely its telos. Bluntly, there is no integration without inclusion and, also, no integration without exclusion. This, then, is the real problem raised by popular sovereignty in a European context: if there is no such thing as non‐exclusionary integration, how can a reflection on the boundedness of European integration be more than a rationalisation of exclusion?     

Researching Restorative Justice: Politics,Policy and Process

The purpose of this paper is to explore some questions around the process of engaging in research in restorative justice in the contemporary political and economic climate of the UK. Its key concern is to endeavour to create a framework in which it is possible to develop an understanding of the process whereby restorative justice was transformed from the ‘dead duck’ of the late 1980s to its current popularity. It takes as its example for understanding this transformation the problems and possibilities of engaging in research in restorative justice and how such research needs to be contextualised within a wider understanding of the policy and political process. This paper does not set out to offer any answers to the questions it raises, but is primarily concerned to bring to the fore some of the absences that can be detected within the contemporary embrace of restorative justice in the UK.     

Between 'Common Values' and Competing Universals—The Promotion of the EU's Common Values through the European Neighbourhood Policy

The aim of this article is to discuss the position of common values in defining the EU's identity by using the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as an example. It is argued that the notion 'common values' is used by the EU institutions as both a universal and as an EU concept, which highlights the abstract nature of these values. This abstraction is also reflected in the way in which Russia has recently aimed to develop its own set of values which could be adopted by its neighbouring countries. The abstraction of values means that, in practice, their meaning in the context of ENP is decided by the European Commission through the implementation of Action Plans. The central position given to the promotion of common values requires that the ENP be reformulated so as to guarantee a stronger degree of participation of the neighbouring countries in the formulation and implementation of the ENP objectives.     

The National Judiciary—Sword of European Court of Justice Rulings: The Example of the Kohll/Decker Jurisprudence

The role of the national judiciary in enforcing EC law, and particularly European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings, has been largely neglected by empirical legal and political science research. Existing research has categorised the role of the national judiciary as either shielding national legislation from the ECJ or as serving as a ‘sword’ to foster integration and to force change on reluctant governments. This article sides with the second assumption and attempts to empirically assess it using the example of the patient mobility jurisprudence by the ECJ, the so‐called Kohll/Decker jurisprudence. The three case studies on France, the UK and Germany show that national courts played an important role in overcoming the resistance against this jurisprudence: via a multiplication of national court cases that contradicted domestic legislation they forced the legislator to end judicial uncertainty.