European Human Rights Law and the Normalisation of the ‘Closed Material Procedure’: Limit or Source?

Once a legal abnormality that was criticised on human rights grounds, the closed material procedure (CMP) has now become the main mechanism for dealing with allegedly sensitive security information in the UK. This article considers the role of European human rights law in that process. It argues that the CMP can be conceptualised as the product of human rights law, which has developed so as to legalise and normalise its use, and that this process is symptomatic of a deeper inter‐relationship between human rights law and the preservation of states' security interests, which renders the former inherently unsuitable for dealing with security phenomena.     

The Differential Empowering Effects of Europeanization on the Autonomy of National Agencies

This article examines the influence of Europeanization on the relationship between ministries and agencies at the national level. The core argument is that the differentiated nature of the international environment (with policy development often transferred to the international level and policy implementation left at the national level) transforms national agencies into policy‐developing actors that shape policies without being directly influenced by their national political principals. The increasingly common involvement of national agencies in European policymaking processes thereby increases these agencies' policy‐development autonomy but does not change their role in policy implementation. We examine this argument by testing an innovative hypothesis—the differentiation hypothesis—on a combined data set of German and Dutch national agencies. Our empirical findings support the hypothesis in both countries, suggesting that similar effects can be expected in other contexts in which semiautonomous agencies are involved in transnational policymaking.     

"对欧洲一体化和东亚合作的再思考"会议综述

为研究欧洲和亚洲的新形势和地区一体化进程的最新进展,亚欧基金会(ASEF)、外交学院(CFAU)与中国国际关系学会(CNAIS)于2006年11月13-14日在中国北京共同组织了为期两天的题为“对欧洲一体化和东亚合作的再思考”的会议。来自39个亚欧会议成员国的近70名学者、政府官员和记者与会。会议开幕式由外交学院常务副院长秦亚青教授主持,中国外交部国际司吴海龙司长和亚欧基金会执行主席赵源一(Wonil Cho)大使致开幕词。欧洲委员会驻华代表团团长赛日·安博(Serge Abou)大使发表了主旨演讲,论述了欧洲地区一体化进程中政治和制度层面的问题…     

How do Asians evaluate Europe’s strategic involvement in East Asia?

Europe is neither in the centre of Southeast Asia’s nor of Northeast Asia’s strategic interest. For both, Asians and Europeans it has been equally difficult to articulate their visions of each other’s role in security matters. However, Asia recognizes positively the EU’s civilian dominated approach in peacekeeping missions, e.g. in East Timor or in Aceh. Europe’s contribution to the Asia Regional Forum has been rather modest. But due to the increasing importance of comprehensive security, Europe’s experiences as a soft power could well change this position, provided both sides pay more attention to the constraints of the two regions. China as the major power in the region is somehow caught between the devil and the deep blue sea: on one side, it neither wants nor expects Europe to play a strategic role in East Asia. On the other, it would like to see Europe to become a power of its own in a China-US-EU triangle. This paper is based on a speech given by the author in Paris/France on 8th December 2006 at a conference on ‘French and European Strategic Interests in East Asia’ organised by the ‘Asia Centre’ with the support of the Secrétariat général de la défense nationale (SGDN). Mr. Norbert von Hofmann is an independent consultant on Southeast Asian-European co-operation in Germany. Formerly he was the Head of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Office for Regional Cooperation in Southeast Asia in Singapore.     

Family Law and Social Law: Reciprocal Dependency in a Comparative Perspective

This article examines aspects of the relationship between sociallaw and family law in Sweden, Norway and Great Britain. It considershow family law provisions can affect the distribution of publicfinancial support, and also the way systems of public financialsupport can affect families.     

Red Tape: Developing and Validating a New Job‐Centered Measure

Red tape studies typically focus on burdensome rules that have negative effects on organizations, as perceived by managers. The one‐item general red tape scale is representative of this approach. However, scholars have called for improved measures that address the scale's shortcomings. This article introduces a new measurement scale that features (1) red tape as a two‐dimensional construct that includes compliance burden and lack of functionality and (2) a job‐centered approach that measures red tape as experienced by employees in their jobs rather than more generally in the organization. A set of survey questions derived from interviews with government employees was validated using data from 1,203 government employees. The findings indicate that the two‐dimensional job‐centered red tape scale is reliable and valid. The authors conclude that this measure can improve research and be used by managers for a “quick scan” to detect the location and severity of red tape.     

Racial Minority Women and Criminal Justice Responses to Domestic Violence

Racialized minority women’s experiences with Canadian specialized criminal justice responses to domestic violence have seldom been documented. Informed by an intersectionality framework, this qualitative study presents the struggles of 14 racial minority women from three Canadian cities and their experiences with the police and criminal court’s response to their partner’s acts of domestic violence. The results focus on how well specialized criminal justice responses address the needs of these women and protect them from further violence. Factors that facilitate or deter these women from approaching the criminal justice system for help are highlighted. The implications of these women’s narratives for criminal justice responses to domestic violence are discussed.