New horizons in EU–Japan security cooperation

Asia Europe Journal - Alongside the EU–Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), a Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) between the EU and Japan entered into force in 2019. Whereas the EPA...     

The unanimity rule revisited: the case of revisions of hybrid constitutions

Unsolved issues of efficient public investment in stochastic-dynamic models of the economy are examined using results from incomplete markets general equilibrium theory. The analysis delivers two previously unarticulated findings. First, the equilibrium interest rate can be used to bound the socially optimal discount rate for a public investment. Second, a new non-market mechanism (CRM) that is welfare improving over alternatives in the Groves class is introduced. The second finding amends the well-known characterization theorem of Green and Laffont (Incentives in Public Decision-Making, North-Holland, New York, 1979) and identifies a new class of direct-revelation mechanisms for public goods provision in stochastic-dynamic settings.     

Reassessing the Influence of Party Groups on Individual Members of the European Parliament

This paper reassesses the way in which the voting behaviour of individual members of the European Parliament (EP) is influenced by their national and European party delegations. It does so within the previously used framework of one agent with two principals. First, it shows that the previous literature was unable to fully fathom the mechanisms through which the tripartite principal–agent relationship works. Second, it develops a model that looks solely at the votes contested between the European and the national group and the results of the test correct many of the findings of the previous literature. The paper also develops a new theoretical framework of vote cohesion in which the national and European groups are motivated by group norms and external incentives. Finally, the analysis of roll-call votes from the sixth EP finds that the new members from Central and Eastern Europe are more likely to stay with their European group than the members from Western Europe.     

Common Security and Defence Policy peace operations in the Western Balkans: impact and lessons learned

Abstract

Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions have increased substantially in number, functions and geographic spread since their inception in 2003. Despite their expansion in numbers and scope, especially in the Western Balkans, few systematic assessments of the contributions that CSDP missions make to peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts have been undertaken to date. This article addresses that lacuna by assessing the contributions CSDP missions have made in recent years to peacekeeping and peacebuilding in the Western Balkans. It explores whether CSDP missions in that region: make an intrinsic contribution to peacekeeping and peacebuilding in those countries or merely profit (or take credit) from the initial groundwork laid by United Nations (UN) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) missions; are adequately coordinated within the European Union (EU) and between the EU and other international organisations, including NATO; are sufficiently embedded or effectively linked to other EU instruments, such as the Stability and Association Process to the Western Balkans; and engender adequate elite or public support or ‘ownership’ in these countries.     

Security governance in a comparative regional perspective

This article aims to explore the relationship between domestic economic and political conditions and the performance of 14 regional organizations over a range of security provisions. It argues that the willingness of member states to increase the range of security provisions of a regional organization is influenced by the combination of high levels of economic and political development and low levels of dispersion among the members of a regional organization. In order to evaluate this assumption, two aspects of regional organizations are explored. The first is to examine the development of security governance provisions of 14 regional organizations as well as the levels of empowerment or autonomy of those organizations. The second is to analyze how six economic and political variables influence the range of security provisions and the degree of empowerment of regional organizations. The final part of the article examines how regional organizations play a significant role in stimulating and reproducing regional governance orders.