Domestic legislatures and international human rights law: Legislating on religious symbols in Europe

This article examines the dynamics of domestic legislatures' application of international human rights law. Specifically, this article asks the following: What factors shape how domestic legislatures apply international human rights law while they enact national law and policy? Lawmakers have a variety of motives for invoking and deliberating international law. Given these motives, the article identifies two factors — civil society actors and legal experts and the flexibility of international law — that are likely to contribute to if and how national legislatures interpret and apply international human rights law while legislating. These factors are examined through case studies on religion in schools in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. This article argues civil society actors and legal experts and the flexibility of international law inform lawmakers' estimation of political costs related to compliance and thus how they apply international human rights law to domestic legislation.     

Channelling Protest in Illiberal Regimes: The Cuban Case since the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Abstract

As part of the strategy for better governance, the European Commission has taken steps towards improved consultation and dialogue on European Union (EU) policy with interested parties. Opening up the policy process and getting interest groups involved are considered important for the democratic legitimacy of EU policy making. This article examines the public Internet consultation on the Commission proposal for a new European chemicals policy, the so-called REACH system. Being one of the most consulted issues in EU history, the chemicals policy review is considered as a critical test for the participatory mechanisms provided by the European Communities. By analysing more than 6000 contributions to the consultation, it is demonstrated that it invited broad participation, although industry was considerably better represented than NGOs and other civil society associations. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of participants were national actors from the largest member states rather than transnational actors. It is concluded that online consultations can invite broad participation in EU policy shaping but it is unlikely to bring about equal participation from different group of actors. Therefore it raises concern when measured against standards of democratic governance.     

The EU Fundamental Rights Policy as a Source of Euroscepticism

This article analyzes how the development of the European Union (EU) fundamental rights policy feeds Euroscepticism—and notably political Euroscepticism—within segments of national political elites in EU Member States. More specifically, it argues that this relatively new policy also gives rise to a new form of political Euroscepticism, which has been defined as “value-based Euroscepticism,” e.g., the perception that the EU via its fundamental rights policy, unduly interferes in matters where value systems and core domestic preferences on ethical issues are at stake. This happens in a context where the EU is resented, by some segments of political elites, for allegedly empowering diverse groups (such as ethnic minorities, immigrants' associations, judges, and so on) at the expense of popular sovereignty. This resentment is exacerbated by the fact that national governments are increasingly submitted to the critical assessment of EU-level actors (e.g., the European Parliament or the European Commission) in terms of democratic credentials.     

Reimagining civil society in conflict: Findings from post-2001 Afghanistan

What is the meaning and role of civil society in Afghanistan? And what contribution could civil society actors make to promoting peace and political reform? Drawing on a research and dialogue project conducted in 2009–2012, this article explores local understandings and practices of civil society in Afghanistan, and examines their relationship to security and social change. It argues that studying civil society can help shed light on the changing dynamics of political authority and security in the country, as well as offer new avenues for promoting progressive change. The article addresses some of the conceptual and analytical limitations of dominant narratives about civil society in conflict-affected environments, demonstrating how they tend to neglect certain forms of agency that have the potential to be transformative.     

The politics of Artificial Intelligence regulation and governance reform in the European Union

This paper explores political drivers and policy process of the reform of the framework for Artificial Intelligence regulation and governance in the European Union (EU). Since 2017, the EU has been developing an integrated policy to tighten control and to ensure consumer protection and fundamental rights. This policy reform is theoretically interesting, raising the question of which conceptual approaches better explain it, and it is also empirically relevant, addressing the link between risk regulation and digital market integration in Europe. This paper explores the policy reform mainly by using two case study methods—process tracing and congruence procedure—using a variety of primary and secondary sources. It evaluates the analytical leverage of three theoretical frameworks and a set of derived testable hypotheses concerning the co-evolution of global economic competition, institutional structure, and policy preferences of domestic actors in shaping incremental approach to AI regulation in the EU. It is argued that all three are key drivers shaping the reform and explain the various stages of the policymaking process, namely problem definition, agenda-setting, and decision-making, as well as the main features of the outcome.

     

Macro-regional strategies of the European Union (EU) and experimentalist design of multi-level governance: the case of the EU strategy for the Danube region

Placed within EU Cohesion policy and its objective of European territorial cooperation, macro-regional strategies of the European Union (EU) aim to improve functional cooperation and coherence across policy sectors at different levels of governance, involving both member and partner states, as well as public and private actors from the subnational level and civil society in a given ‘macro-region’. In forging a ‘macro-regional’ approach, the EU commits to only using existing legislative frameworks, financial programmes and institutions. By applying the analytical lens of multi-level and experimentalist governance (EG), and using the EU Strategy for the Danube Region as a case, this article shows that ‘macro-regional’ actors have been activated at various scales and locked in a recursive process of EG. In order to make the macro-regional experiment sustainable, it will be important to ensure that monitoring and comparative review of implementation experience functions effectively and that partner countries, subnational authorities and civil societies have a voice in what is, by and large, an intergovernmental strategy.     

Stalemate and Stagnation in Turkish Democratization: The Role of Civil Society and Political Parties

Both civil society organizations (CSOs) and political parties are expected to be vital actors in democratic societies, yet the ideal relationship between the two types of groups has not been fully explored. This article analyses how the interaction between CSOs and political parties has affected democratic consolidation in contemporary Turkey. Through personal interviews with leaders of both types of groups, the study finds that traditional power relations have shifted to include a greater number of political actors. Islamists, who were previously peripheral in politics, have joined the traditionally dominant secular nationalists at the ‘centre’ of political power. However, instead of increased pluralism, the study finds Turkish society now polarized along secularist/Islamist lines, both in political parties and among CSOs. While restrictions against non-governmental organizations have been lifted in recent years and the number of groups has grown, most are still viewed as ‘arms’ of political parties, lacking an independent voice and political power. These findings suggest that the civil society sector in Turkey is underdeveloped and unable to contribute positively to the democratization process.     

Policy Entrepreneurship,Policy Opportunism,and EU Conditionality: The AKP and TÜSİAD Experience in Turkey

This article examines the relationship between European Union (EU) conditionality for membership and policy entrepreneurship in a candidate country. In Turkey, EU conditionality opened a window of opportunity for policy reform by lowering the political costs of controversial reforms. The study demonstrates that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association (TÜS?AD) responded to a window of opportunity by advocating a series of reforms that represented a bold challenge to the traditionally reform‐averse and Euro‐skeptic political culture in Turkey. The study finds a difference in the duration of both actors' commitment to reforms. To explain this difference, we distinguish between policy entrepreneurs, who are actors with a long time horizon, and policy opportunists, who are actors with a short time horizon. The policy implication of this finding is that the European Commission's expectations of the AKP government to deliver the necessary reforms may be too optimistic.     

Civil Society Perspectives on Humanitarian Intervention

This article explores the multiple roles played by civil society actors in relation to policy debates relating to whether to advocate or oppose humanitarian intervention under a variety of specific circumstances or in general. There is no consistent civil society viewpoint, but rather a range of disagreements relating to whether there exists a genuine imminent threat of humanitarian catastrophe, whether the political will exists to intervene in a manner that protects a threatened population, and whether a reliance on force for humanitarian ends should ever be supported in the absence of a mandate from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Most civil society voices prefer to assess each case on its own rather than to be for or against humanitarian intervention as a general proposition. A consensus would look favourably upon humanitarian intervention endorsed by the UNSC. The problems arise where such an endorsement is not obtainable. The NATO War of 1999 to safeguard the endangered Albanian population of Kosovo illustrates the positive case for humanitarian intervention as there appeared to be an imminent threat and there existed a sufficient political will to make it seem likely that an intervention could attain its goals. The absence of support from the UNSC in this instance was offset by the participation by the UN after the fact in the work of economic and political reconstruction, although the precedent set by this use of non-defensive force has kept the Kosovo undertaking controversial. In contrast to Kosovo, civil society actors throughout the world generally rejected the claimed humanitarian justifications for the Iraq War. At this time civil society is split on the question as to whether ever to encourage humanitarian intervention undertaken absent a green light in advance from the UN.     

The Political Foundations of the Eurocracy

This article explores the politics behind the design of EU regulatory institutions. The EU has established an extensive ‘Eurocracy’ outside of the Commission hierarchy, including over 30 European agencies and a number of networks of national regulatory authorities (NRAs). The article examines the politics of institutional choice in the EU, explaining why EU policy-makers create agencies in some policy areas, while opting for looser regulatory networks in others. It shows that the design of EU regulatory institutions – ‘the Eurocracy’ – is driven not by functional imperatives but by political considerations related to distributional conflict and the influence of supranational actors.     

Dillon's Rule Under the Burger Court: The Municipal Liability Cases

Under the Burger Court, the constitutional relationship betweenstates and their municipalities has been examined primarilyin cases involving private suits initiated against municipalitiesunder federal antitrust and civil rights statutes. Since theCourt's 1943 Parker v. Brown decision, it had been presumedthat municipalities as political subdivisions of states wereas immune as their states from tort liability under the ShermanAntitrust Act. The Burger Court, however, ruled that municipalitiesare not automatically immunized from tort liability simply becauseof their status as political subdivisions unless they can demonstratethat their actions were undertaken pursuant to an expressedstate policy. After 1980, the Court continued to uphold thevulnerability of municipalities to private suits authorizedby federal statutes, but moved to narrow the types of remedyappropriate under common law. The Burger Court did not, therefore,address the more fundamental question of whether municipalitiesas public actors should be liable to private damages in thecourse of their public functions.     

The Politics of 'Eurocratic' Structure and the New European Agencies

The establishment of agencies at the European level is one of the most notable recent developments in EU regulatory policy. This article examines how politics has shaped the design of EU regulatory agencies. Building on the American politics literature on delegation, the article explains how principal-agent concerns and political compromise have influenced agency design in the EU context; shows how conflicts between the EU's primary legislative actors - the Council and the Parliament - and its primary executive actor - the Commission - have influenced the design of new bureaucratic agencies; and discusses how the growing power of the European Parliament as a political principal has changed the politics of agency design.     

The Effects of ‘Social Expectation’ on the Development of Civil Society in Japan

The European Union (EU) stands out among the major trading powers for its significant and dramatic response to new demands for access and participation in its external trade policymaking process. A spectacular range of mechanisms designed to increase the involvement of civil society organizations, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), have been introduced recently. This article examines whether these new political opportunities in the EU have an impact on the trade processes and policy outcomes by revisiting a case that has been celebrated as indicative of the potential of global civil society to promote social justice—the Access to Medicines campaign. The findings show that although NGOs were instrumental in providing education, raising awareness, and giving a voice to broader societal concerns about the social and health-related aspects of the proposed trade deals, their impact on policy outcomes was limited. EU policymakers did not pursue policies that placed public health concerns over stringent intellectual property right protection, despite NGO involvement in the external trade policymaking process. I argue that the robust liberal and legal epistemic foundations of the international trade regime effectively hamstrung NGO efforts to move the external trade policies in more sustainable and just directions. These findings have broad implications for the power of epistemes and their ability to enable and delimit NGO agency in global economic governance.     

Between Detachment and Responsiveness: Civil Servants in Europe and North America

The article shows that civil servants who believe that the long-term interest of society is best served by their detached policy advice to policy-makers also hold on to their opinion more than any other actor involved in policy development. However, more civil servants currently emphasise responsiveness, at the expense of detached analysis, owing to increased exposure to international consultancy and forums. As a consequence, the attitude of civil servants in developing public policy is more likely to be indistinguishable from that of actors who have political functions, without significant variation from country to country. Evidence supporting this argument is provided by an analysis of the results of a survey first conducted in 2006 and repeated in 2008. The two waves of the survey drew responses from civil servants, interest group representatives and non-governmental experts who contribute to biotechnology policy development in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and the European Union.     

Schattschneider in Brussels: How Policy Conflict Reshaped the Biotechnology Agenda in the European Union

This article asks why the European Commission lost control over the policy process in one of the most contested areas of policy-making in the European Union in recent years. The article finds that after years of vigorous political controversy over the framing of the issues at stake, the EU finally shifted into a Schattschneiderian mode of politics. The policy conflict expanded dramatically and a previously unrelated set of actors and interests united along new lines of policy debate. The analysis underscores how the political mode of EU decision-making can shift during the process of policy-making. In particular, it stresses how policy conflicts affect the mobilisation and demobilisation of political contestants and the realignment of political actors in the European Union.     

Europeanisation and social movements: The case of the Stop TTIP campaign

Over the past years, the economic crisis has significantly challenged the ways through which social movements have conceptualised and interacted with European Union institutions and policies. Although valuable research on the Europeanisation of movements has already been conducted, finding moderate numbers of Europeanised protests and actors, more recent studies on the subject have been limited to austerity measures and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has been investigated more from a trade unions’ or an international relations perspective. In this article, the TTIP is used as a very promising case study to analyse social movements’ Europeanisation – that is, their capacity to mobilise referring to European issues, targets and identities. Furthermore, the TTIP is a crucial test case because it concerns a policy area (foreign trade) which falls under the exclusive competence of the EU. In addition, political opportunities for civil society actors are ‘closed’ in that negotiations are kept ‘secret’ and discussed mainly within the European Council, and it is difficult to mobilise a large public on such a technical issue. So why and how has this movement become ‘Europeanised’? This comparative study tests the Europeanisation hypothesis with a protest event analysis on anti‐TTIP mobilisation in six European countries (Italy, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria) at the EU level in the period 2014–2016 (for a total of 784 events) and uses semi‐structured interviews in Brussels with key representatives of the movement and policy makers. The findings show that there is strong adaptation of social movements to multilevel governance – with the growing presence of not only purely European actors, but also European targets, mobilisations and transnational movement networks – with a ‘differential Europeanisation’. Not only do the paths of Europeanisation vary from country to country (and type of actor), but they are also influenced by the interplay between the political opportunities at the EU and domestic levels.     

The Durability of EU Civil Service Policy in Central and Eastern Europe after Accession

This article examines the post‐accession durability of EU civil service policy in Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs). Civil service professionalization was a condition for EU membership but the European Commission has no particular sanctions available if CEECs reverse pre‐accession reforms after gaining membership. Comparing eight CEECs that joined the EU in 2004, the article finds that post‐accession civil service developments are characterized by great diversity. The three Baltic States continued civil service reforms, while Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia are classified as cases of post‐accession reform reversal. The post‐accession pathway of Hungary is identified as a case of reform reorientation. The diversity in post‐accession pathways was almost exclusively the result of domestic political constellations, in particular, patterns of government alternation after accession. There were hardly any factors that could have locked in the level of professionalization that had been reached at the time of accession.     

Participation,Dialogue, and Civic Engagement: Understanding the Role of Organized Civil Society in Promoting Active Citizenship in the European Union

Abstract

This article looks at current policies concerning the civic and political participation of youths, women, migrants, and minorities in the European Union. It highlights the ways in which active citizenship and civic engagement have become a political priority for European institutions. Representation of local policy actors at the supranational level and strategies for the inclusion of civil society provide a platform for evaluating the impact of Europeanization at the national and subnational level. The article focuses on key discourses and narratives associated with specific policy frames (e.g. European citizenship, European social policies, and the European public sphere (EPS)). Some of the key questions addressed by the article are: What are the strategies that are employed, both by the European institutions in Brussels and organized civil society (OCS), to enhance participation and reciprocal communication? What vision of governance do practices such as active engagement and civil dialogue represent? Drawing on current theories of governance, our article contributes to the debate about the EPS by evaluating the role of OCS in bridging the gap between European institutions and national polities. Equally, our focus on traditionally marginal groups provides a platform for assessing the institutionalization of the ‘European social dimension’.     

Who inhabits the European public sphere? Winners and losers, supporters and opponents in Europeanised political debates

Abstract.  European integration shifts the distribution of political opportunities to influence public debates, improving the relative influence of some collective actors, and weakening that of others. This article investigates which actors profit from and which actors stand to lose from the Europeanisation of political communication in mass-mediated public spheres. Furthermore, it asks to what extent these effects of Europeanisation can help one to understand collective actors' evaluation of European institutions and the integration process. Data is analysed on some 20,000 political claims by a variety of collective actors, drawn from 28 newspapers in seven European countries in the period 1990–2002, across seven different issue fields with varying degrees of EU policy-making power. The results show that government and executive actors are by far the most important beneficiaries of the Europeanisation of public debates compared to legislative and party actors, and even more so compared to civil society actors, who are extremely weakly represented in Europeanised public debates. The stronger is the type of Europeanisation that is considered, the stronger are these biases. For most actors, a close correspondence is found between how Europeanisation affects their influence in the public debate, on the one hand, and their public support for, or opposition to, European institutions and the integration process, on the other.     

New Citizens and Old Politics in Peru

The article presents an analysis of the disjunction between civil and political society in Perú and its consequences in the collapse of the political parties and the rise of an authoritarian regime. It explains how citizenship developed as social rights in the realm of Peruvian civil society before the population gained access to full civil and political rights. This situation diminished the capacity of Peruvian citizens to have their own political representation and created a distance between Peru's civil and political societies, making it difficult for the population to hold politicians accountable for their actions in government and the opposition. This situation proved particularly serious when the country went through a period of deep economic crisis and extended political violence during the 1980s. The breach between civil and political society destroyed the prestige of politicians and democracy, paving the way for an authoritarian cuadillo who dismissed representation with promises of "direct communication with the people" and harsh solutions to the problems of economic crisis and political violence.