Clinching the ‘Return to Europe’: The Referendums on EU Accession in Estonia and Latvia

There are two salient features of the referendums on EU membership in Estonia and Latvia. Firstly, the results with decisive pro-EU majorities went easily beyond expectations based on previous opinion poll trends, where these two Baltic states had shown less public enthusiasm for integration than other Central and East European countries. This fact owed much to convincing arguments about abandoning international isolation and about geopolitical choice, with strong historical overtones. The anti-accession cause in both countries suffered from various weaknesses even though, in Estonia though not in Latvia, Eurosceptical attitudes were in evidence. Secondly, there was much less support for EU entry among the strong Russian minorities in both countries. This difference was partly due to the higher incidence of economic circumstances in determining voting behaviour but also to the fact that pro-EU (hence, pro-West) arguments were implicitly and sometimes explicitly unfriendly to Russia. In turn, this also showed that the Soviet legacy was particular to these Baltic countries compared with other accession states from CEE.     

Does politics matter?

Nomination: Comparative politics matters by Geoffrey K. Roberts, p.99
Reflections: Does politics matter? Increasing complexity and renewed challenges by Frank Castles & Robert D. McKinlay, p.102     

The Conservatives and the Civil Service: ‘One Step Forward,Two Steps Back’?

The period since 1979 has witnessed more radical change in the civil service than in any other peacetime era in its history. Such has been the order of change that Lord Bancroft, the former Head of the Home Civil Service, has suggested that the civil service was in danger of being 'demolished' and of there being a return to the ills of the 'unreformed' service before the 1850s. This would be to take the 'two steps back' of the article's title before the Northcote-Trevelyan report and the Warren Fisher era. Against the background of this possible outcome, this article evaluates the Next Steps programme and the other initiatives promoted by recent Conservative governments, before concluding that the requirements of the work and a markedly unified career civil service need not be compatible, and that there is at least the possibility that the various changes when fully implemented could represent 'one step forward'.     

Making Room at the Negotiating Table: The Growth of Diplomacy between Nation-State Governments and Non-State Economic Entities

The study of diplomacy has traditionally focused on relationships and interactions between the governments of nation-states, empires, principalities, and similar politicies. This state-centric view has been challenged in recent times by scholars who have sought to take into account the proliferation of different types of actors in the international arena. This paper address diplomacy between governments and non-state economic entities, a broad category of bodies extending from multilateral economic institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and GATT/World Trade Organization to consultative and knowledge-generating bodies such as the World Economic Forum and International Chamber of Commerce.