The opposition deficit in EU accountability: Evidence from over 20 years of plenary debate in four member states

Debates about the European Union's democratic legitimacy put national parliaments into the spotlight. Do they enhance democratic accountability by offering visible debates and electoral choice about multilevel governance? To support such accountability, saliency of EU affairs in the plenary ought to be responsive to developments in EU governance, has to be linked to decision‐making moments and should feature a balance between government and opposition. The recent literature discusses various partisan incentives that support or undermine these criteria, but analyses integrating these arguments are rare. This article provides a novel comparative perspective by studying the patterns of public EU emphasis in more than 2.5 million plenary speeches from the German Bundestag, the British House of Commons, the Dutch Tweede Kamer and the Spanish Congreso de los Diputados over a prolonged period from 1991 to 2015. It documents that parliamentary actors are by and large responsive to EU authority and its exercise where especially intergovernmental moments of decision making spark plenary EU salience. But the salience of EU issues is mainly driven by government parties, decreases in election time and is negatively related to public Euroscepticism. The article concludes that national parliaments have only partially succeeded in enhancing EU accountability and suffer from an opposition deficit in particular.     

Motherhood and Extradomestic Work in Urban Mexico

Abstract— This article analyses the meanings attributed by Mexican women of different social classes to motherhood and extradomestic work, as well as life experiences of family planning and child care. Information for the study was provided by 79 in-depth interviews with women who were either married or living with a partner who contributed regularly to the family income. The findings suggest that cultural norms regarding motherhood change far more slowly in urban Mexico than child-rearing or fertility control practices. Many women from different social classes still consider motherhood as their main source of identity and only a very educated and privileged group speaks with ambivalence regarding their mother's role. In contrast, more women are ready to accept child-care substitutes, especially if they find satisfaction in extradomestic activities, or carry them out because of personal or family necessities. Finally, the analysis points out that most urban women in Mexico, particularly the younger and more educated cohorts, are very much aware of the costs involved in children's education and rearing, and have acted accordingly, using contraceptives and limiting their family sizes. 0 1997 Society for Latin American Studies     

REGULATORY RED TAPE AND PRIVATE FIRM PERFORMANCE

Regulation may obstruct dynamic adaptation, innovative power, and entrepreneurial activity. On the other hand, regulation could be interpreted as a phenomenon which society just has to learn to live with, and which otherwise does no real economic harm. This article explores both of these hypotheses. We study the impact of three dimensions of regulatory red tape on the performance of private companies: regulation cost, regulation change, and regulation inconsistency. We analyse unique survey data from 530 Dutch private companies. The results show that regulation cost, inconsistency, and change limit sales turnover growth, and that regulation change hampers market competition performance.     

China's Diplomacy Promotes a Human Community with a Shared Future

THIS year China celebrates the centenary anni-versary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC).Leading up to the commemora-tion,many international analysts have already started to debate Chinas new foreign policy and its impact on the international order.This debate has two motivating factors.The first and most important is the prediction that the Chinese economy will surpass the American economy before 2030.The other factor is the role of Chinese diplomacy in combating the pandemic,through which China has helped more than 100 coun-tries in COVID-19 prevention,control,and vaccination,in contrast to the U.S'.lackluster responses to the pan-demic.This is not a discussion about the world's lead-ership profiles but a global governance model for the     

TRAITS AND STATES: INTEGRATING PERSONALITY AND AFFECT INTO A MODEL OF CRIMINAL DECISION MAKING*

We propose and test a model of criminal decision making that integrates the individual differences perspective with research and theorizing on proximal factors. The individual differences perspective is operationalized using the recent HEXACO personality structure. This structure incorporates the main personality traits, but it carries the advantage of also incorporating Self‐Control within its personality sphere, and an additional trait termed Honesty‐Humility. Furthermore, the model offers a new perspective on proximal predictors, “states,” of criminal decisions by adding affect (i.e., feelings) to the rational choice–crime equation. The proposed model is tested using scenario data from a representative sample of the Dutch population in terms of gender, age, education level, and province (N = 495). As predicted by the model, personality was both directly and indirectly related to criminal decision making. Specifically, the traits Emotionality, Self‐Control, and Honesty‐Humility were mediated by both affect and rational choice variables. Conscientiousness operated only indirectly on criminal decision making via rational choice. Together, the findings support a trait‐state model of criminal decision making.     

Changing policy views at the local level: The effect of age, generations and policy-periods in five European countries

Abstract.  This article addresses the question of how far turnover among those who make policy is relevant for understanding changing policy views. Does age or generation determine changing attitudes about policy making, or does the period in which new policy makers get dominant positions determine changes in attitudes? The research is based on a survey conducted in 1989, and repeated in 1996 and 2000, among local politicians and senior administrators in Sweden, the Netherlands, Russia, Lithuania and Belarus. The conclusion is that period-effects account for a large portion of attitude change among local policy makers. This can be explained by their perceptions of the urgency of policy problems with which their municipalities are confronted.