Ex Pluribus Unum: Fusion of the European Communities into the European Union

Abstract: This article presents the main legal approaches used in constructing the relationships between the TEU, TEC, TEAC and TECSC and the institutions set up by them. It argues that the dominant approaches which separate the European Union from the European Communities run into serious difficulties when explaining the normative framework and the actual practice of the EU institutions. In contrast, the proposed 'unity thesis' asserts that de lege lata the European Union can be considered one entity from the point of view of the organisation, its actions and its law, The article develops in detail the legal premises and some of the consequences of this thesis.     

Assessing organized crime: Provisional situation report on trafficking in contraband cigarettes

This report has a dual purpose. On one hand it aims at providing an assessment of the cigarette black market in Northwest Europe, based on a review of open source data. On the other hand, it serves to tentatively explore the possibilities for a comprehensive and meaningful assessment of the organized crime situation in this particular sector.     

WORKFARE IN THE 1980s: SUCCESSES AND LIMITS

Between 1981 and 1987 twenty-eight states experimented with workfare programs. By requiring mandatory community service from welfare recipients, the states hoped to reduce welfare caseloads as well as increase community service. Based in part on those program experiences, Congress included the first national workfare requirement in the 1988 welfare reform package (the Family Support Act). This study is the first to attempt to evaluate the implementation and impact of workfare on a national basis. A pooled, cross-section, longitudinal model is used to estimate the effect of workfare on AFDC caseloads. Despite the low level of state-level implementation, the evidence suggests that workfare may have contributed to welfare caseload reductions in the 1980s.     

All Quiet on the Eastern Front? Media Images of the West and Russian Foreign Political Identity1

National and foreign political identities are discursively constructed, not least through the media. Starting from the contention that Europe serves as the main Other used to define the idea of Russia, this article uses media texts (online and press) to analyse how Russia is constructed as a foreign policy actor in relation to Europe and the ‘West’ more generally. In so doing, the article draws on three discourses around Russia’s foreign policy: ‘Russia as Europe’; ‘Russia as part of Greater Europe’; and ‘Russia as Alternative Europe’. The article suggests that discursive developments in the 2000s have paved the way for a return of Cold War discourses in characterising relations between Russia and the West.