The many faces of EU committee governance

Committees linking national administrations and the EU level play a crucial role at all stages of the EU policy process. The literature tends to portray this group system as a coherent mass, characterised by expert-oriented ‘deliberative supranationalism’, a term developed through studies of comitology (implementation) committees. This article builds on survey data of 218 national officials in 14 member states who have attended EU committee meetings. These groups exhibit important common features: expert knowledge rather than country size plays a pivotal role in the decision making process; across types of committee, participants evoke multiple allegiances and identities. In spite of loyalty to national institutions, there is also a sense of belonging to the committees as such, though with significant variation among types of committee. Council and comitology groups are strongly intergovernmental, while Commission committees seem more multi-faceted. The primary aim here is to give an empirical account, but the main observations are interpreted from an institutional and organisational perspective.     

The Trouble in Mali—corruption,collusion, resistance

The combined force of the 2012 coup in Bamako and the rebellion in the north entailed an unmasking of Mali. What had been presented as a showcase of democracy, good governance, and peace and reconciliation proved to be a facade for institutional weakness and mismanagement. The collusion between regional and national ‘big man’ interests that the crisis revealed showed little if any respect for human security and development. This article will analyse the causes of the crisis and the strategies of key actors, including the Islamist rebels. The consequences of and responses to the conflict will also be addressed before the article ends with some tentative conclusions concerning the future stability of Mali and the Sahel region. The article is based on the authors’ long engagement with Mali, spanning more than a decade, but the most recent material presented is based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted there in February and March 2013.     

Changing the ‘front line’ to meet citizen needs

Public services need to be re‐designed to meet citizens’ needs and to become more accountable. The role of the ‘front line’ is crucial in this. It is the pivotal point on the ‘see‐saw’ connecting ‘the public’ and the ‘back line’ of national and local public service agencies. This article compares the experience of Sweden and the UK in designing new ‘front lines’ through ‘decentralisation’ and ‘one‐stop shops’. It concludes that these initiatives can help to meet citizen needs and that citizens notice the difference. Committed support from the ‘back line’ is crucial for success. Active democratic involvement of both politicians and local residents is also essential.     

Managing the mixed economy in Central and Eastern Europe: Democratic politics and the role of the public sector

The central argument of this article is that the introduction of democracy and the transition to a market economy in Central and Eastern European countries is producing contradictory and even perverse effects on these societies. These effects are enlarging the micro‐macro paradox of politics and inducing political instability. Instead of focusing on the economic problems or institutionalizing democracy only, it is argued, one should elaborate more fully the relationship between democratic decision‐making, societal needs and wants in civil society and the public organization of policy‐making. In this article an attempt is made to conceptualize these relations by using the principal/agent approach. In addition various models of welfare capitalism and public sector management are discussed and their implications for East European countries. The main conclusion is that the model of the ‘mixed economy’ is not only appropriate, but also that it contributes to a better understanding of the present problems of democratization in this part of the world. In particular the role of the democratic principal and the position of public agents appear to be crucial.     

Technology transfer model for Austrian higher education institutions

The aim of this paper is to present the findings of a PhD research (Heinzl 2007, Unpublished PhD Thesis) conducted on the Universities of Applied Sciences in Austria. Four of the models that emerge from this research are: Generic Technology Transfer Model (Sect. 5.1); Idiosyncrasies Model for the Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences (Sect. 5.2); Idiosyncrasies-Technology Transfer Effects Model (Sect. 5.3); Idiosyncrasies-Technology Transfer Cumulated Effects Model (Sect. 5.3). The primary and secondary research methods employed for this study are: literature survey, focus groups, participant observation, and interviews. The findings of the research contribute to a conceptual design of a technology transfer system which aims to enhance the higher education institutions’ technology transfer performance.     

Campaigns,political mobility,and communication

We study the interdependence between campaign contributions, the candidates’ positions, and electoral outcomes. In our model, a candidate who moves away from his firmly established position towards a more risky one generates costs for the voters. Campaign contributions allow the candidates to reduce these mobility costs. We show that if donations were prohibited, then a unique equilibrium regarding the position choices of candidates would exist. With unrestricted financing of political campaigns, two equilibria emerge, depending on whether a majority of interest groups runs to support the leftist or rightist candidate. Interest groups may finance candidates whose position is far away from their own ideal point. The equilibria generate a variety of new features of campaign games, and may help identify the objective functions of candidates empirically.     

Democratic Performance of Parties and Legitimacy in Europe

This article analyses the development of legitimacy across 20 European democracies (1990–2010). The claim is that the democratic performance of parties affects levels of legitimacy. A conceptual and empirical discussion is presented to establish this relationship. Democratic performance is characterised by trusting parties to be responsive to the electorate and responsible in government. Legitimacy is defined as a composite measure representing satisfaction with parties, compliance with the rule of law as well as voter turnout and willingness to protest. The responsiveness of parties appears less representative on public concerns and governmental responsibility appears closer to party interests than to the general interest. Hence, a ‘democratic deficit’ seems to have emerged across Europe, manifested by more electoral volatility, new parties and alternation in government and lower survival rates of governments. This negatively affects trust in parties, parliament and government efficacy. Hence, party behaviour has not strongly contributed to political legitimacy since the 1990s.     

Bounded Rationality in Transposition Processes: The Case of the European Patients’ Rights Directive

Studies explaining the timeliness and correctness of the transposition of EU directives into national legislation have provided rather inconclusive findings. They do not offer a clear-cut prediction concerning the transposition of the patients’ rights directive, which is one of the first that concerns the organisation and financing of national healthcare systems. This article applies the perspective of bounded rationality to explain (irregularities in) the timely and correct transposition of EU directives. The cognitive and organisational constraints long posited by the bounded rationality perspective may affect the commonly employed explanatory factors of administrative capacities, misfit and the heterogeneity of preferences among veto players. To prevent retrospective rationalisation of the transposition process, this paper traces this process as it unfolded in Denmark and the Netherlands. As bounded rationality is apparent in the transposition processes in these relatively well-organised countries, future transposition studies should devote greater consideration to the bounded rationality perspective.