Korean foreign direct investment in Europe: The determining forces

Korea's more complete integration into the world economy has been stunted by past government policies aimed at preserving comprehensive control over the domestic economy. This situation has recently changed owing to prevailing structural weaknesses in the Korean economy and the dictates of the global competitive environment. Consequently, the level of Korean overseas investment has escalated, particularly in Europe — the Triad region which has traditionally attracted limited inward FDI from Korea's large chaebol companies. This paper examines the determining forces that lie behind this trend. It is recognized that early Korean investments in the EU were principally driven by reactionary motives when confronted by actual or anticipated policy threats. While it is argued that the pretext for such investment has not significantly diminished, the imperatives of globalization together with emerging economic conditions in both east and west Europe have provided considerable incentives for more proactive FDI strategies to be adopted. The recent announcements by senior chaebol of intended large‐scale investments in Europe suggest that this new pattern is becoming increasingly apparent.     

人力资本理论研究需要关注的新领域——人力资本投资风险

人力资本投资有不确定性并可能给相关主体带来损失。由于风险的存在，在某种程度上已经抑制了我国人力资本投资的扩展。这在人力资本作用日益重要的时代，可能会不利于经济的发展。本在对原有人力资本理论反思的基础上对人力资本投资风险问题涉及的主要方面进行讨论。     

Agenda-setting under pressure: Does domestic politics influence the European Commission?

The European Union (EU) has become increasingly visible and contested over the past decades. Several studies have shown that domestic pressure has made the EU's ‘electorally connected’ institutions more responsive. Yet, we still know little about how politicisation has affected the Union's non-majoritarian institutions. We address this question by focusing on agenda-setting and ask whether and how domestic politics influences the prioritisation of legislative proposals by the European Commission. We argue that the Commission, as both a policy-seeker and a survival-driven bureaucracy, will respond to domestic issue salience and Euroscepticism, at party, mass and electoral level, through targeted performance and through aggregate restraint. Building on new data on the prioritisation of legislative proposals under the ordinary legislative procedure (1999–2019), our analysis shows that the Commission's choice to prioritise is responsive to the salience of policy issues for Europe's citizens. By contrast, our evidence suggests that governing parties’ issue salience does not drive, and Euroscepticism does not constrain, the Commission's priority-setting. Our findings contribute to the literature on multilevel politics, shedding new light on the strategic responses of non-majoritarian institutions to the domestic politicisation of ‘Europe’.     

Bricks in the wall: the politics of housing in Europe

Abstract

Housing has important economic, political, and social ramifications for Western Europe and beyond. Despite its importance in shaping economic and political outcomes, however, housing remains in the peripheral vision of major comparative political economy debates. This introduction to the special issue accomplishes four objectives. First it demonstrates how housing defies current political economy typologies by failing to conform to their theoretical and empirical predictions. Second it summarises the current state of housing research within political science, which still remains in its infancy. Third it highlights how the contributions in this special issue expand our understanding of how housing causes and is shaped by political and economic outcomes in Europe. Finally, this introduction concludes by outlining how the special issue contributions demonstrate housing’s importance for the welfare state, political preferences and electoral shifts, regulatory and redistributive policies, and financialisation and household indebtedness in Europe.     

The Growing Importance of Issue Competition: The Changing Nature of Party Competition in Western Europe

Changes in Western European political parties in general have attracted considerable scholarly interest, whereas changes in party competition have been almost overlooked in an otherwise extensive literature. Using the party manifesto data set, this article documents that party competition in Western Europe is increasingly characterised by issue competition, i.e. competition for the content of the party political agenda. What should be the most salient issues for voters: unemployment, the environment, refugees and immigrants, law and order, the welfare state or foreign policy? This change is crucial because it raises a question about the factors determining the outcome of issue competition. Is it the structure of party competition itself or more unpredictable factors, such as media attention, focusing events or skilful political communication? The two answers to this question have very different implications for the understanding of the role of political parties in today's Western European democracies.     

Integration of Environmental Concerns in a Trans‐Atlantic Perspective: The Case of Renewable Electricity

The issue of integrating environmental concerns into energy policy decision making is increasingly addressed, not least related to climate change. Although the United States, unlike the EU, did not sign the Kyoto Protocol, several U.S. states promote renewable electricity (RES‐E), and some of these initiatives are linked to climate‐change mitigation efforts. The present article assesses in this connection the six New England states of the United States, comparing their efforts of integrating RES‐E with climate change to the Nordic countries in Europe. In order to explain different approaches, the article focuses on the importance of different EU and U.S. multilevel governing structures. The analysis indicates that the New England states' RES‐E promotion thus far has not been substantially integrated with climate‐change concerns, whereas in the EU's more top‐down approach, climate change figures more prominently vis‐à‐vis RES‐E. EU policies represent an increasingly important driver for the Nordic countries. In the United States, on the other hand, it remains an open question as to how future federal policy efforts will relate to existing policies at the state level.     

The Contagion Effects of the Feminist Initiative in Sweden: Agenda‐setting,Niche Parties and Mainstream Parties

As new parties have emerged in Europe on the left and the right, they have placed pressure on mainstream parties to adjust their issue positions and engage with new issues. This research note asks whether women's parties have the same effect. Analysing election manifestos of the mainstream parties in Sweden from 1991 to 2014, this article considers the extent to which the Swedish Feminist Initiative (F!) has influenced the attention parties pay to women's issues. The data indicate that a profound discursive change has occurred among these parties in Sweden around gender and women's roles in society, resulting in near consensus that gender inequality is a problem necessitating government action. There is gradual evolution for most of the period under study but a marked departure from past trends in 2014, coinciding with the emergence of F! as a contender for EU and parliamentary seats. Consistent with contagion theory, the concerns of women acquired urgency as F! grew more competitive. News coverage and public comment by political parties suggests that F! has had disproportionate influence, given its electoral support, on the issue agenda of the mainstream parties, pressuring them to ‘take up’ the issues of this niche party and engaging them in a competitive struggle to address women's issues in politics. The results indicate that we should look more closely at women's parties as a tactical choice of social movements to enhance women's representation and encourage public discourse about gender and power.     

Beyond roll-off: individual-level abstention on ballot measure voting

Why do individuals who have turned out to vote abstain from voting on certain ballot measures? Previous work examines abstention at the aggregate level by observing ballot roll-off, and focuses on the readability of the ballot summary for a measure as the primary determinant of whether individuals will abstain. In contrast, I hypothesize that three individual-level factors interact with the accessibility (i.e. ease or difficulty) of a ballot measure’s issue content to influence one’s propensity to abstain. Individuals with low issue information, who are risk averse, and who attach low importance to the issue should be more likely to abstain from voting than those with high knowledge, who are risk-acceptant, and who attach high importance to the issue. Furthermore, the impact of each of these individual-level traits strengthens as the issue raised in the measure becomes increasingly complex. I find strong empirical evidence for these hypotheses using an experimental design.     

Do parties respond? How electoral context influences party responsiveness

How responsive are political parties to the issue priorities of voters? While there are numerous studies that examine policy position congruence between parties and voters or government responsiveness, we know little about the extent to which parties adjust their policy priorities to the issue concerns of voters. Following saliency and issue ownership theory, we argue that political parties listen to their voters by emphasizing policy issues in their election manifestos that have been prioritized by citizens. However, in line with second-order election theory, we expect that issue responsiveness varies with the electoral context. To test our theoretical expectations, we generated a novel dataset that combines data on issue attention of political parties from the Comparative Manifesto and the Euromanifesto projects with data on policy priorities of voters from the European Election Studies, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and various national election studies. We empirically test our theoretical claims based on a comprehensive analysis of 104 parties from 17 countries competing in 84 national and European elections from 1986 to 2011. Our findings have important implications for political representation in Europe.     

Learning from the Danish case: A comment on Palle Svensson's critique of the Franklin thesis

Abstract. Palle Svensson in this issue of EJPR has objected to the characterisation of Danish voters made by Franklin and others who, in various publications, expounded the thesis that on issues of low salience, referendum votes tend to follow party lines. Svensson finds evidence that the Maastricht Treaty was not an issue of low salience to Danish voters in the ratification referendums conducted there, and gives other details of the evolution of public opinion regarding Europe that clarify the circumstances in which our thesis should apply. In the light of his arguments, this Comment presents a more nuanced version of the thesis that learns from the Danish case, and should be of greater utility than our earlier version in helping to interpret the role of government standing in referendum outcomes.     

行业协会自主运作中的合作难题及其求解

随着国家经济管理体制由部门管理走向行业管理，行业协会的自主性运作问题越来越引起人们的关注．关注的焦点主要在行业协会应当如何获得自主权上。然而在此之外的另一个问题是，行业协会一旦进入了自主性运作，它将如何保证会员间合作的达成——而这却是真正行业自律的保证，本文拟从理论上对此加以分析。文章区分了两类不同性质的合作难题，追寻它们各自的解决出路，并提出了相关的理论建议。     

Explaining the Emergence of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties: The Case of Denmark

This article aims to explain the emergence of the Danish People's Party, a radical right-wing populist party, by using a model combining political opportunity structures and the diffusion of new master frames. The article shows that because of dealignment and realignment processes – as well as the politicisation of the immigration issue – niches were created on the electoral arena. The Danish People's Party was able to mine these niches by adopting a master frame combining ethno-pluralist xenophobia and anti-political establishment populism, which had proved itself successful elsewhere in Western Europe (originally in France in the mid-1980s). In this process of adaptation, a far right circle of intellectuals, the Danish Association, played a key role as mediator.     

Boisterous Russia in emerging Europe

Russia is permanently at a crossroads in its history, or standing in exasperation at a fork in the road but failing to resolve a geographical, historical and metaphysical dilemma: is Russia part of Europe or not? Russia holds a key but vulnerable strategic position in the heartland of Eurasia. Its geographical existence within a larger zone of Eurasian civilization meant that Russian culture had been shaped to a not insignificant extent by influences coming from Asia, that Russia was Eurasian and not European not only by virtue of its cultural patterns but also in terms of anthropological–racial considerations as well. The Eurasian Customs Union is clearly seen by Russia as a vehicle for reintegrating the post‐Soviet space, including the countries that fall within the sphere of the European Union's (EU)'s eastern neighbourhood. The Eurasian Customs Union is the vehicle through which Russia increasingly engages in ‘normative rivalry’ with the EU in the so‐called ‘shared neighbourhood’. These geopolitical and economic contraptions underpin the strategic calculations that have influenced largely the crisis of Russian Lebensraum escapade in Ukraine and EU's reaction. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Clinton,Europe and Economic Diplomacy: What Makes the EU Different?

The Clinton administration's economic diplomacy has been more aggressive, politicized and controversial than that of any recent US administration. We examine its application to the European Union (EU) and seek to answer the question: what makes Europe different? Put another way, why has the US pursued cooperation on “behind-the-border” issues such as competition policy, standards and investment rules, and eschewed export promotion? We offer three explanations. First, the EU's market is unique: it is a mature, but lucrative one for large US-owned firms concerned more with behind-the-border issues than with market access issues. Second, American companies who have invested heavily in Europe have developed their own political links to the EU, particularly through the EU Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce. Third, these same companies have a powerful influence over US policy towards Europe as well as EU policymaking. Our analysis develops these three hypotheses, and also offers an assessment of the progress and meaning of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue.     

The Politics of Dual Citizenship in Hungary

The study reviews the politics underlying the 2004 referendum in Hungary on whether the country should offer extraterritorial, non-resident citizenship to ethnic Hungarians living in the neighboring states of Romania, Slovakia, Serbia-Montenegro and the Ukraine. The study argues that the issue of dual citizenship for ethnic minorities and kin-states in Central and Eastern Europe is quite distinct from the issue of dual citizenship in West European immigration countries. Transborder ethnic relatives make up large proportions of some of the contiguous countries with whom Hungary has a long history of border disputes which is why the Hungarian reform initiative touched upon sensitive issues connected to the sovereignty of these states. In addition, the large size of the non-resident Hungarian population means that their potential Hungarian citizenship would have serious consequences for the Hungarian welfare state, and the determination of the political future of Hungary, where even much smaller numbers of voting non-residents might swing the vote. The article outlines the arguments that were made in favor of the reform by the political right and those against the reform by the left. It examines the initiative from the European Union's perspective and compares the Hungarian case to cases of dual citizenship in other countries of Europe. The article also raises questions about the long-term implications of this form of dual citizenship for the “re-ethnicization” of citizenship.     

What's an Elite to Do? The Threat of Populism from Left,Right and Centre

Anthony Painter's report for Policy Network correctly describes populism as a ‘democratic argument’ which sets up a morally pure ‘people’ against vilified ‘elites’, in binary opposition. This is an argument which is increasingly prominent in political discourse, whether the elites in question are political, financial or technocratic. Painter focuses on the now‐familiar ‘radical right‐wing’ version of populism, as reflected across Europe in the rise of parties such as the UKIP. He omits discussion of other types of populism (of the left and centre), which perhaps represent the future for populist politics.     

The Contradictory Political Economy of Higher Education in the United Kingdom

The Coalition government's first Comprehensive Spending Review will cut 40% from university budgets by 2014. This will result in an increasingly tension‐prone political economy of UK higher education. As it is, the sector already sits uncomfortably astride the two distinct welfare models currently in existence in Britain. As the fees agenda has taken hold, university degrees have been increasingly susceptible to being rebranded as a strategic investment in the future, thus acting as an exemplar for the move towards an asset‐based system of welfare. Despite this, even in the post‐Browne world students will still not be charged the full market price of delivering degree programmes. Higher education institutions therefore continue to be redistributive mechanisms providing long‐term welfare‐enhancing transfer payments to their overwhelmingly middle‐class student base. The budget cuts and the associated changes to student finance will bring into stark relief the contradictions of serving two welfare masters at once.     

Assessing the Effects of Immigration and Diversity in Europe: Introduction to the Special Issue

This article introduces the special issue on “Assessing the Effects of Immigration and Diversity in Europe” to the JEPOP readers. The article starts with a summary of the controversy generated by Putnam's 2007 article “E pluribus unum”. Next, it provides a brief account of the state of the art in the scholarship analysing the link between diversity, trust, social capital and social cohesion. The article continues with a discussion of a number of key problems that affect the existing scholarship, and highlights how the contributions to this special issue overcome some of these limitations. After this, the article considers the implications of this debate for the study of elections and public opinion. It concludes with a succinct overview of the contributions to the special issue and a discussion of how they help move forward the scholarship in this area.     

Hegemony or diversity in film and television? The United States,Europe and Japan

Abstract

In October 2005 UNESCO produced its Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. This was largely a response to the worries of countries, especially in Europe and not least of which France, which feared the damaging effects to their cultures if trade in entertainment products remained too one-sided. Generally the argument of this paper is that while initial tensions between the United States and Europe were motivated by the usual commercial concerns, Europeans were increasingly worried about the cultural impact of this commerce. The Japanese, however, have not been nearly so concerned as the Europeans about becoming ‘Americanized’. This lack of tension between the United States and Japan in the area of film and television is due to several factors. First, there is a complementarity between American entertainment and the Japanese electronics industry. Second, the Japanese are major players in some aspects of the entertainment industry, most especially in the area of animation, and they are especially influential in Asia. Finally, issues of cultural conflict between the United States and Japan are simply less salient to Tokyo than those which characterize Japan's relations with its Asian neighbors.     

Flatliners: Ideology and rational learning in the adoption of the flat tax

What factors explain the wave of adoption of the flat tax in Eastern Europe? It is argued in this article that, once the first few successes were underway, governments with liberal outlooks toward taxation adopted the reform through a process of rational learning: an often radically new government will tend to adopt the policy based on successful implementation of its neighbours. The issue of policy diffusion is approached by explicitly modeling the different mechanisms that might underlie the process. Little evidence is found for pure ‘bandwagoning’ in the adoption of the flat tax – the presence of other market‐minded reforms do not predict adoption of the flat tax, and contagion measures do not capture the dynamics of the adoption of the reform. Instead, rational learning, where economically right‐wing governments evaluated the success of the reform (as measured by their ability to attract foreign investment) in the medium term, plays the largest role. Rational emulation in a shorter time period contributes to the probability of adoption as well, as does a change to an economically liberal ideology.