European integration assessed in the light of the ‘rules vs. standards debate’

The interplay of various legal systems in the European Union (EU) has long triggered a debate on the tension between uniformity and diversity of Member States’ (MS) laws. This debate takes place among European legal scholars and is also paralleled by economic scholars, e.g. in the ambit of the ‘theory of federalism’. This paper takes an innovative perspective on the discrepancy between ‘centralized’ and ‘decentralized’ law-making in the EU by assessing it with the help of the rules versus standards debate. When should the EU legislator grant the national legislator leeway in the formulation of new laws and when should all be fixed ex ante at European level? The literature on the ‘optimal shape of legal norms’ shall be revisited in the light of law-making in the EU, centrally dealing with the question how much discretion shall be given to the national legislator; and under which circumstances. This paper enhances the established decisive factors for the choice of a rule or a standard in a national setting (complexity, volatility, judges’ specialization and frequency of application) by two new crucial factors (switching costs and the benefit of uniformity in terms of information costs) in order to assess law-making policies at EU level.     

Alcohol intoxicated eyewitnesses' memory of intimate partner violence

Alcohol affects memory in many, and mostly negative, ways. This is a problem in legal contexts as many witnesses are alcohol intoxicated when taking part of the critical event. However, research is sparse regarding how, and under what circumstances, the reports of alcohol intoxicated witnesses differ from those of sober witnesses. This study investigated whether alcohol intoxicated and sober eyewitnesses differ regarding completeness, accuracy, and type of information reported, as well as whether gender influenced these variables. Eighty-seven healthy men (n = 44) and women (n = 43) received either an alcoholic beverage (0.7 g/kg) or a control (juice) in a laboratory setting before viewing a film picturing intimate partner violence. Ten minutes after viewing the film, they were interviewed. Reports by alcohol intoxicated women were less complete, but as accurate, as sober women's. In contrast, intoxicated and sober men did not differ regarding completeness or accuracy. Furthermore, compared with sober women, intoxicated women reported fewer actions but no difference was found between the groups regarding reported objects. At this moderate dose, alcohol affected women's reports more than men's, which may be because alcohol affects attention and memory consolidation more clearly at a lower dose for women than for men.     

Book reviews

Magocsi has held the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto for three decades during which he has devoted himself to both Ukrainian and Rusyn history. Critics of Magocsi, particularly in the Ukrainian diaspora in North America, focus on his Rusyn publications while ignoring his great contribution to Ukrainian history which remains unparalleled among other Western historians of Ukraine and other Chairs of Ukrainian History and academic institutions.     

Energy and Security in Long-Term Defence Planning: Scenario Analysis for the Swedish Armed Forces

Abstract

The competition for energy resources, as well as the closely related climate change problems, imply a number of global security consequences. A methodology to include energy aspects in long-term defence planning, based on broad civilian scenario approaches, is proposed. The study has been carried out by the Swedish Defence Research Agency, as commissioned by the Swedish Armed Forces, resulting in a number of future mission scenarios highlighting e.g. new challanges and tasks, as well as the need for new capabilities and equipment.     

Demography and democracy: the impact of youth cohort size on democratic stability in the world

The traditional explanations for the survival of democratic systems mostly include economic and cultural variables. Only rarely has attention been given to the age structure of a society. This article introduces a hypothesis involving the ‘youth bulge’ concept popular in conflict studies. It is hypothesized that democratic countries with proportionally large male youth cohorts are more likely to become dictatorships than societies with a smaller share of young men. A causal link between demography and democracy is assumed to exist because young men are the protagonists of virtually all violent political action as well as political extremism with a potential to threaten democracy. Strong evidence supporting the hypothesis is found using data for 110 countries in the period from 1972–2009.     

Assets and neighborhoods: The role of individual assets in neighborhood revitalization

Abstract

Asset‐building strategies—including individual development accounts, homeownership programs, and microenterprise development—became increasingly popular in the 1990s. Although research has demonstrated how assets produce individual benefits, less is known about the extent to which these benefits induce positive place‐based effects. We develop a model of the relationship between individual asset‐building strategies and neighborhood revitalization in order to inform future empirical work and help ensure that asset accumulation and neighborhood revitalization are mutually reinforcing. Our model emphasizes the conditions and programmatic factors that may encourage and discourage the transfer of benefits from individuals to neighborhoods.

Examples from case studies of four community‐based organizations suggest that the likelihood of neighborhood spillovers may be increased if policies and practices aim to “manage” the returns from the individual asset, retain asset holders, provide reinvestment conduits, track local purchasing power, and create additional opportunities for collective action.     

Quasi-Contractual Ministerial Steering of State Agencies: Its Intensity,Modes, and How Agency Characteristics Matter

ABSTRACT:

This article demonstrates the value of conceptualizing four ideal types when studying ministries’ contract steering of state agencies—relational, double-whammy, performance, and behavioral steering—each defined by its combination of input- and output-oriented steering. In the system under study—Norway—about half of all agencies are subjected to steering with a clear profile; the other half are not. The two profiles often dismissed or overlooked in existing research—relational and double-whammy steering—are most common. Thus, introducing a contract regime has not meant a clear shift from input to output control, as posited by some. Most agency characteristics under study—size, age, political salience, and tasks—have significant effects on the likelihood that an agency is subjected to one type of steering or another. Still, the analysis suggests that agency-level characteristics constrain ministerial choice about which steering to practice only to a limited extent.     

Valence politics and electoral choice in a new democracy: The case of Taiwan

After two peaceful alternations of political power in a single decade, Taiwan is a democratic success story, demonstrating levels of party competition, turnout rates and patterns of civic engagement similar to those in mature Western democracies. What factors drive electoral choice in Taiwan's new democracy? This paper addresses this question by testing rival models of voting behavior using the Taiwan Elections and Democratization Study (TEDS) 2008 presidential election survey data and the 2010 mayoral election survey data. Analyses show that, similar to their counterparts in mature democracies, Taiwanese voters place more emphasis on the performance of political parties and their leaders in delivering policies designed to address valence issues concerning broadly shared policy goals than on position issues or more general ideological stances that divide the electorate. Findings demonstrating the strength of the valence politics model of electoral choice in Taiwan closely resemble the results of analyses of competing models of voting behavior in Western countries such as Great Britain and the United States.