Campaigning on an upper level? Individual campaigning in the 2009 European Parliament elections in its determinants

Election campaigns are not only party campaigns, but depend to a significant degree on the efforts and activities of individual candidates. While some country-specific analyses of candidate campaigning have been done, large-N comparative studies are missing. The 2009 European Election Candidate Study, conducted in all 27 EU countries, does allow for such a comparative analysis. On the basis of this data, the article takes a closer look at three core components of individual campaigns and their respective determinants: duration, intensity, and the use of different campaign tools. Our findings show that only a combination of factors on the individual, party, and country level is able to explain significant amounts of the observed variance in each of the core components.     

The design of international trade agreements: Introducing a new dataset

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have been proliferating for the last twenty years. A large literature has studied various aspects of this phenomenon. Until recently, however, many large-N studies have paid only scant attention to variation across PTAs in terms of content and design. Our contribution to this literature is a new dataset on the design of trade agreements that is the most comprehensive in terms of both variables coded and agreements covered. We illustrate the dataset’s usefulness in re-visiting the questions if and to what extent PTAs impact trade flows. The analysis shows that on average PTAs increase trade flows, but that this effect is largely driven by deep agreements. In addition, we provide evidence that provisions that tackle behind-the-border regulation matter for trade flows. The dataset’s contribution is not limited to the PTA literature, however. Broader debates on topics such as institutional design and the legalization of international relations will also benefit from the novel data.     

Shame on you,John! Laws,stigmatization, and the demand for sex

The present article contributes to the literature on prostitution by shedding light on the effects of the criminalization of buying sex on the amount of prostitution bought, as well as on the proposed theoretical mechanisms underlying this change. We find indications that criminalizing the buying of sex may decrease the quantity of sex bought. While we find that stigma influences the demand for sex, we do not find that stigma increases as a result of the law. Therefore, the possible reduced quantity of sex bought is probably due to the more direct risk of getting caught.     

Judicial Interpretation or Judicial Activism? The Legacy of Rationalism in the Studies of the European Court of Justice

During the last two decades, law as a factor in European integration has attracted great scientific interest. Numerous studies and theoretical analyses have been published that have undertaken the task of examining and explaining the role of law in the progress of integration. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in particular, as Europe's judiciary body, draws much attention in this context. However, the inflexible, mechanistic and universalistic notion of rationality that these works employ leads to serious misinterpretations and unjustified criticism regarding the role the ECJ takes in the course of integration. Within the frameworks of contemporary approaches, the Court is perceived as just one more political player among other actors and institutions, able to shape the EU in the pursuit of its own rational interests. By outlining the theoretical concept of context rationality, this article shows that the logics of law and judicial lawmaking are based on a non‐trivial and non‐political rationality and cannot be understood appropriately without paying attention to the context of European law.     

Book Review

Book reviewed in this article: Unwelcome Strangers: American Identity and the Turn Against Immigration by David M. Reimers. Immigration and Citizenship in the 21st Century edited by Noah M. J. Pickus.