The European Court of Justice as a Federator

The European Court of Justice is often seen as the motor ofEuropean legal integration because it "constitutionalized "the treaties establishing the European Communities (EC) throughits jurisprudence. In reality though, the Court's role has ratherbeen that of a promotor or provocateur because the member statesand the national courts have been, by and large, cooperativepartners in this process, and many of the political consequencesof the Court's rulings have been hidden in its legal language.The Court will likely be careful in the future about continuingits judicial activism with the same vigor. Since the Treatyon European Union, many politically divisive issues are potentiallyopen to the Court's interpretation. In addition, the cooperativeattitude, by member states and the national courts, is no longerguaranteed.     

Does court-supervised reorganization work? Evidence from post-confirmation firm failure

Unlike the US Chapter 11, the Belgian reorganization legislation requires that distressed firms remain temporarily under court-supervision during the post-confirmation stage. Using a hand-collected sample of firms, we analyze the likelihood of business failure and the time to failure during this period. Less viable firms are more likely to fail and do faster so, indicating relatively effective reorganization proceedings. Firms that are indebted to highly secured banks or owe high sums of unpaid taxes are more likely to fail. Judicial discretion affects the likelihood of failure only in a subsample of sole proprietorships.     

The uneasy case for rehabilitating small firms under the 1997-reorganization law in Belgium: evidence from reorganization plans

Using a sample of small Belgian firms that reorganized under the 1997 Law on Judicial Composition, I empirically review the law??s effectiveness to rehabilitate distressed debtors. The econometric findings show that firms with less pre-bankruptcy operational losses and a better cash position are more likely to successfully execute their reorganization plan and that certain debt restructuring measures can contribute to firm rescue. Despite these positive findings, many firms still failed to reorganise under the 1997-reorganization law, which resulted in constant criticism on its effectiveness leading up to its recent replacement in 2009. My data also shows that within the former reorganization procedure the Belgian debtor was faced with high debt instalment payments compared to international practice and that successful plan execution relied too much on the uncertain realization of the operational cash flow projections. In discussing the legal framework of the new Law on Corporate Continuity enacted in 2009??replacing the 1997-law??I argue that this new law is a more effective legislation to save distressed businesses.     

How legislative gender quotas affect the gender gap in campaign spending: an analysis of the federal and regional elections in Belgium

Research on the link between gender and campaign finance in proportional electoral systems suggests that the campaign expenses of female parliamentary candidates are significantly lower than those of male candidates. On the basis of data on 10,436 candidates for nine consecutive elections in Belgium (1991–2014), this article examines whether there is indeed a gender gap in campaign expenses, and in particular whether this coincides with the introduction of legislative quota laws in the Belgian flexible-list system. We distinguish between realistic candidates that run for election from winnable list positions and unrealistic candidates running from lower ranked positions. The results show that, among unrealistic candidates, the gender gap in campaign spending arose again after the introduction of more severe gender quotas. With regard to realistic list positions, however, the significant difference between male and female candidates in the most strict quota phase disappeared, indicating that female realistic candidates were able to catch up financially with their male counterparts. The Belgian experience could provide useful insights for other countries with flexible-list systems regarding the implementation of legislative gender quotas.     

The direct PM election and the institutional presidentialisation of parliamentary systems

The direct PM election model features as an ‘empty cell’ in typologies of political regimes. A more fine grained analysis of the model shows that it depends on the choices made on three institutional parameters (object of the election, electoral system, legislative/executive relationship) whether it constitutes a distinct regime type. A comparison of nine examples confirms that the label of a direct PM election covers a wide array of institutional designs. A direct PM election may involve a full-fledged presidentialisation, but it may also imply a marginal adaptation of the parliamentary system. The model can only be considered as an intermediate regime type when it combines the exclusive electoral origin of the executive with a parliamentary legislative/executive relationship.     

Perceptions of Parenting in Daily Life: Adolescent-Parent Differences and Associations with Adolescent Affect

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Adolescents can perceive parenting quite differently than parents themselves and these discrepancies may relate to adolescent well-being. The current study aimed...     

Differentiated Distributive Justice Preferences? Configurations of Preferences for Equality,Equity and Need in Three Welfare Domains

Social Justice Research - Empirical public opinion research on distributive justice often does not acknowledge that individuals’ social justice preferences may strongly depend on the...     

Identity Processes and Coping Strategies in College Students: Short-Term Longitudinal Dynamics and the Role of Personality

Coping strategies and identity processes are hypothesized to influence one another over time. This three-wave longitudinal study (N?=?458; 84.9% women) examined, for the first time, how and to what extent identity processes (i.e., commitment making, identification with commitment, exploration in breadth, exploration in depth, and ruminative exploration) and coping strategies (i.e., problem solving, social support seeking, and avoidance) predicted one another over time. Cross-lagged analyses indicated that processes of identity exploration seemed especially to be intertwined with different coping strategies over time, suggesting that identity exploration may resemble problem-solving behavior on the pathway to an achieved identity. Commitment processes were found to be influenced by certain coping strategies, although identification with commitment also negatively influenced avoidance coping. These temporal sequences remained significant when controlling for baseline levels of Big Five personality traits. Hence, evidence was obtained for reciprocal pathways indicating that coping strategies and identity processes reinforce one another over time in college students.     

Killing People,Dividing a Nation? Analyzing Student Perceptions of the Boko Haram Crisis in Nigeria

The causes and consequences of the Boko Haram insurgency as well as its possible solutions have been subjected to different interpretations among scholars, politicians, and journalists. Little is known, however, about how the Nigerian populace thinks about the uprising. The present study contributes to the literature on Boko Haram by analyzing the perceptions of Nigerian students vis-à-vis Boko Haram's agenda and the government's response. The results demonstrate a north–south divide with Christians or Igbo and Muslims or Hausa-Fulani holding different ideas on the causes of the crisis, being differently affected by it, and slightly disagreeing on the desirability of military government responses. In conclusion, perceptions on Boko Haram lay bare ethno-religious fault lines reflecting existing grievances, thereby possibly undermining efforts at nation-building and peaceful coexistence in the multi-ethnic Nigerian society.