Experiencing Multi-Level Meta-Governance

This article analyses the outcome of dividing the meta-governor role among various levels of governance and describes local actors' experiences under multiple meta-governors. The empirical case presented here involves Danish local action groups in contemporary EU Rural Development and Fisheries programmes. This article takes its theoretical point of departure from the four types of meta-governance that Sørensen identified. The data analysed are derived from a survey sent to all Danish local action group board members and coordinators. The article demonstrates that authorities at the sub-national level in the context of multi-level meta-governance engage in various types of activities and identifies important differences between board members' and coordinators' perceptions of meta-governance.     

Research and Development,Competitiveness and European Integration of South Eastern Europe

This article explores the relationship between research and development (R&D) and competitiveness of South East European (SEE) economies from the perspective of European Union (EU) integration. Specifically, the article addresses the question of whether South East Europe is a potential asset or liability to the enlarged EU. SEE countries are quite diverse in terms of levels of competitiveness, with visible effects on the role of R&D, which is confirmed by analysis of R&D demand and supply factors. Improvements in the national innovation systems of SEE countries have largely taken place through vertical linkages on the supply and demand sides. However, a wider role for R&D will depend increasingly on the strength of horizontal linkages within national systems of innovation and their key agent—the local innovative business enterprise sector. This calls for a rethinking of science and technology policy, traditionally defined as a sectoral activity.     

Lev Gumilev and the European New Right

The striking affinities that have developed between radical-conservative movements in Western Europe and Russia since the end of the Cold War have been widely noted. This essay considers these affinities through the example of the Soviet historian and geographer Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912–1992). It argues that Gumilev and the European New Right developed perspectives that were highly comparable, founded on similar principles, and articulated through similar images and allusions. Yet despite the powerful resonances in terms of basic concepts and theoretical orientation, there were nonetheless deep differences in terms of the conclusions regarding the practical implications for their respective societies that Gumilev and the Europeans deduced from these principles.     

Inter-municipal cooperation,economies of scale and cost efficiency: an application of stochastic frontier analysis to Dutch municipal tax departments

Inter-municipal cooperation is increasingly popular in European countries. Saving cost is a key motivation. This paper analyses the relation between inter-municipal cooperation and cost efficiency among Dutch municipal tax departments between 2005 and 2012. Motivated by the notion that cost savings are ascribed to scale economies, the relation between cooperation and cost is modelled explicitly through scale. The size of the cooperation is incorporated as a determinant of cost efficiency. The results indicate that inter-municipal cooperation can contribute to reducing cost and that the relation can be explained by scale. Municipalities or cooperations sized around 10,000 inhabitants are estimated up to 30% inefficient. At 60,000 inhabitants, the benefits of scaling are largely exhausted. Other than through scale, municipalities that cooperate are not estimated to operate significantly more or less efficient.     

Human rights and Nubian mobilisation in Egypt: towards recognition of indigeneity

How are global human rights localised in authoritarian societies? How and what human rights discourses are mobilised by indigenous peoples to further their demands? Building upon original fieldwork among Nubian activists in Egypt, this article explores the complexities regarding human rights framing through a discussion of recognition of Nubian indigeneity. The article finds that the history and political experience of Egypt’s Nubians bring about diverging opinions and also limitations as to how, and what, human rights frameworks rights claimants and their supporters are to employ. It argues that Egyptian nationalism not only affects how Nubian activists mobilise in general, but also helps explain the very limited appeals to a global discourse of human rights.     

Advocating for the cause of the “victims of Communism” in the European political space: memory entrepreneurs in interstitial fields

The European Parliament (EP) adopted, between 2004 and 2009, a series of resolutions calling for recognition of Communist crimes and commemoration of their victims. This article focuses on an overlooked aspect of anti-Communist activism, the awareness-raising activities carried out by some Central European Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to perpetuate the cause through networks that enable them to exchange institutional credibility, scientific legitimacy, and policy-oriented knowledge with Institutes of National Memory, parts of academia, and victims associations. Although they use the techniques of expertise and scandalization that are often effective in European institutions, these memory entrepreneurs have largely failed to further their claims in the European Union (EU) after 2009. In line with the turn toward “practice” in EU studies and the increased attention paid to agency in memory politics, this article contends that the conditions of production of their narrative of indictment of Communism accounts for this relative lack of success. Because their demands produced a strong polarization inside the EP while colliding with established Western patterns of remembrance, these MEPs’ reach remains limited to their Conservative peers from the former Eastern bloc. This weak national and ideological representativeness hinders their capacity to impose their vision of the socialist period in the European political space.     

Ethnic Group Identity and the Roma Social Movement: Transnational Organizing Structures of Representation

This paper examines the relationship between European integration and ethnonational demands with the example of selected regions in the European Union (EU). It follows the theoretical premises of new regionalism and explores the ways in which ethnonational groups use the opportunities and resources of European governance to express their identities, material interests, and political demands. Methodologically, it conducts a plausibility probe of the potential effects of European integration on ethnonationalism by testing for regional differences in identities, interests, and political attitudes. The case studies are drawn from the UK (Wales and Scotland), Belgium (Flanders), Austria (Carinthia and Burgenland), Romania (Northwest and Center regions), and Bulgaria (South-Central and South-Eastern regions) as a representative selection of regional interests in the EU. The paper finds that European integration affects ethnonational groups by reinforcing identity construction in the direction of inclusiveness and diversity. Although regional actors are more supportive of the EU than the European publics in general, they also seek access to representation in the authority structures of the state. Based on these findings, the paper concludes that European integration facilitates a growing public acceptance of its resources, in parallel with persisting allegiances to the nation-state, the community, and ethnoregional distinctiveness.     

Income inequality and level of corruption in post-communist European countries between 1995 and 2014

This paper analyses the relationships between income inequality and corruption in Europe and looks specifically at post-communist European countries. The scientific community agrees that there is important relationship between income inequality and corruption and many authors believe that low income inequality is connected to low corruption. According to empirical papers, this is true not only on the European scale, but also on a global scale. In this paper, I test this claim by conducting a multilevel analysis on 39 European countries in the period of 1995–2014. This model ascertains that there are immense differences between post-communist countries and the rest of European countries. The effects of income inequality on the level of corruption are discussed.     

BUILDING SOCIETIES: A QUESTION OF ACCOUNTABILITY?

The investment and mortgage policies and practices of the British building societies affect individuals, neighbourhoods and the economy. Their activities have been subject to serious criticisms. Building societies, however, are scarcely accountable to their members, despite their position as'mutual' organizations; nor are they politically accountable to the electors through the government. The British building societies present a public interest problem. This article questions whether and how they ought to be made accountable for their actions in order to ensure that they further the public interest.     

Jewish-Palestinian Relations in Israel: From Hegemony to Equality?

This article focuses on the relationships between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority in Israel. Opening with a historical perspective that emphasizes the marginality of the minority, the article proceeds to describe empirically that minority's inferior and subservient condition. The third section proposes an elaborate conceptual framework for analyzing politics in deeply divided societies and then applies it to the Israeli case. The final part addresses the possibility of transforming Israel's political system from one that is ethnically hegemonic and democratically flawed into a polity that is open, inclusive, and genuinely democratic. The article identifies ways for effecting such a systemic transformation through individual-based approaches (especially liberal democracy) and group-based designs (consociationalism, multinationalism, federalism, cantonization, and autonomy).     

MANAGING EUROPE FROM AN IRISH PERSPECTIVE: CRITICAL JUNCTURES AND THE INCREASING FORMALIZATION OF THE CORE EXECUTIVE IN IRELAND

This article analyses the management of European Union (EU) business by the Irish core executive. More specifically, it investigates the demands placed by EU membership on the Irish system of public administration and how the system has responded to these demands. Employing an institutionalist analytical framework, the article maps the formal and informal organizational and procedural devices or structures used to manage EU affairs in Ireland, as well as dissecting the key relationships that govern this management process and the role of the domestic agents actively involved in the EU’s governance structure, the cadre or boundary managers. The article also explores in a dynamic way the development of the capacity for the management of EU affairs in Ireland over time. Using the concepts of path dependence and critical junctures, we illuminate how key system‐management decisions became locked‐in over time and we isolate the triggers for significant adaptational change, be they domestic or external. Adaptation to EU business in Ireland was path‐dependent and consisted of gradual incremental adjustment. This system of flexible adaptation generally served Ireland well as the EU’s policy regime expanded and evolved, but in response to the shock rejection of the Nice Treaty by the electorate in 2001, significant formalization of the Irish system occurred with the establishment of new processes and rules for managing relations between the core executive and the EU.     

A two-thirds of success. Poland's post-communist transformation 1989–2009

The progress toward institutional changes should be evaluated through the prism of their influence on a country's development abilities. In Poland, during the twenty years of comprehensive systemic shift, gross domestic product (GDP) has increased more than in any other post-communist country. While judging the transformation progress, not only the improvement of competitiveness and growth in terms of quantity must be taken into account, but also social and cultural aspects. There have been five distinct periods in Poland, from the viewpoint of economic growth. Had there been a better policy coordination of systemic change and socio-economic development, GDP over the periods considered could have increased by a half more. This opportunity has been missed due to the intermittent implementation of wrong economic policies based on wrong economic theories. Poland's transformation can be seen as a success, but only to the extent of two-thirds of its potential.     

Aid as an encounter at the interface: the complexity of the global fight against poverty

International development discourse has recently shifted its focus from top‐down economic adjustment to participative anti‐poverty policy. This shift hints at an acknowledgement of the local complexities within the poverty process and at a need to listen to and develop actions with the ‘poor’. But, whereas the mainstream argument remains couched in a technical framework, we argue that the fight against poverty is inevitably political. Conceptualising the aid industry as a set of global–local interfaces, it follows that a closer look at ‘participation’ in anti‐poverty interventions is needed to come to grips with the political issues involved. Four issues are discussed: the complexity of local ‘participation’, given the ‘polycephalous’ character of third world societies; the power biases in the aid chain; the potential problem of ‘false consciousness’; and the ambiguities of the role of local development brokers. We conclude that anti‐poverty policy is in need of ‘interface experts’, who, through ‘provocation’ can beget ‘participation’.     

Conceptualizing the Tools of Government in Urban Network Governance

The alleged increase in new governance arrangements is often understood as a challenge, since public leaders are considered to be less able to influence and govern when government is only one out of several stakeholders. Some scholars argue that steering in such settings is fundamentally different from steering in a hierarchical context. This article aims to assess how a classic and generic analytical framework to tools of government, the NATO-scheme developed by Christopher Hood, fits in a setting where local governments attempt to influence networks. Based on in-depth studies of nine urban networks in Norway, we have assessed the toolbox and the use of different tools. The article demonstrates that the suggested generic framework makes sense in a network context. Thus, to bridge the classic literature on policy instruments and the growing discourse on meta-governance would probably be beneficial.     

Family Ties and Socio-Economic Outcomes in High vs Low Income Countries

Alesina and Giuliano illustrate that strong family ties lead to lower geographical mobility and reduced labour force participation of young and female individuals. We extend their analysis by arguing that the effect of strong family ties on economic outcomes depends on a country’s level of economic and institutional development. This cross-country heterogeneity arises because strong family ties not only foster traditional family values (which have disruptive effects on economic outcomes), but also provide economically valuable social networks – especially in societies characterised by weak institutions and limited market access. Empirical evidence using the European and World Value Surveys (EVS/WVS) are supportive of our theoretical argument.     

Exchange rate variations and export competitiveness in less developed countries under generalized floating

This paper identifies two basic sources of effective exhange rate (EER) changes under the present system of generalized currency floating and formulates some EER‐based measures of relative export competitiveness in developing countries. These measures are presented and analyzed in terms of their monthly movements and trends over the period from March 1973 to December 1979 for twenty‐three developing countries. Export profitability vis‐à‐vis import‐competing production is shown to have been affected by major currency realignments only to a moderate extent. Normal currency depreciation, both small and large, is found not to lead necessarily to a permanent improvement in export competitiveness. The relationship between the type of exchange rate management and ability of the national authorities to adopt monetary and fiscal policies supportive of real exchange rate adjustment is also empirically examined.     

Can Turkey's state–religion relationship serve as a role model for emerging Arab regimes? A critical assessment

One of the most pressing issues facing Arab societies, in view of the large-scale political transitions taking place in the Middle East, is the status of religion in the state. In this regard, Turkey, a Muslim democratic state, is often offered as a model to follow. The current piece demonstrates that despite the seeming appeal of the Turkish model, it is inadequate for Middle Eastern societies, in which religion plays a significant social role and is a core ingredient of individual and collective identity. This is because the foundations of the Turkish model were artificially imported from the Western experience, and forced from above onto the Turkish populace without much-needed contextual adjustment. This assertion is true not only for the original state-religion model in Turkey, but also for its modified present-day version, which bears to a large extent the burdens of the past. The article concludes by outlining some points that might serve emergent Arab democracies aiming to design a constructive and authentic model of religion and the state.     

The “Rape of Europe”: 2016 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Cologne in hegemonic discourse of Russian media

The article deals with the Russian media coverage of sexual assaults against women during the 2016 New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne. The authors examine it in the frame of discourse of “Gayropa” that represents the EU via changes in gender order of the West European societies. The pro-Kremlin media coverage of the “Rape of Europe” contributes to positioning Russia in the world, maintaining power legitimacy in the country, and supporting gender order in Russian society. The media discourse treats it as an evidence of decline of the European civilization.     

Austerity is Strangling Europe

Because they have failed to address the fundamental economic imbalances within Europe obscured by the single currency, each effort by European leaders so far to resolve the euro crisis has only deepened it. Without a decisive move toward fiscal and political union, accompanied by policies that push productivity and competitiveness toward convergence while closing the democratic deficit, the Eurozone will disintegrate. To discuss the way forward, the Nicolas Berggruen Institute's Council on the Future of Europe met in Rome on May 28 with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. In this section we publish the contributions from that meeting by the former European leaders, scholars and Nobel laureates who are members of the Council.     

A Global Rescue for Europe

Because they have failed to address the fundamental economic imbalances within Europe obscured by the single currency, each effort by European leaders so far to resolve the euro crisis has only deepened it. Without a decisive move toward fiscal and political union, accompanied by policies that push productivity and competitiveness toward convergence while closing the democratic deficit, the Eurozone will disintegrate. To discuss the way forward, the Nicolas Berggruen Institute's Council on the Future of Europe met in Rome on May 28 with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. In this section we publish the contributions from that meeting by the former European leaders, scholars and Nobel laureates who are members of the Council.