民主政治、民众心理与两次世界大战间欧洲国际秩序的解体

民主政治的核心原则是主权在民,即人民有权定期地、公开地投票决定重大事务或选举国家官员。在这一制度原则下,多数民众所持有的一致性的心理认识对民主国家的对内及对外政策具有极强的形塑作用。两次世界大战间的欧洲主要大国均是实行民主政治制度。在这段时期,英、法两国民众的和平主义情绪通过民主政治过程的作用,使两国的对德政策表现出”绥靖”的特征。而德国民众的复仇主义情绪则使希特勒在民主选举中成功当选,并使德国的对外政策向改变既有秩序的方向彻底转变。和平主义情绪和复仇主义情绪经过民主政治过程的相互作用,最终导致了两次世界大战间欧洲国际秩序的解体。     

Reshaping EU Attitudes? The Case of Social Democratic and Radical Left Parties in Spain and Italy

Since the beginning of the Great Recession, the issue of European integration has become increasingly salient in many European polities. The European left has adopted a different stance toward European integration, both in terms of economic and welfare‐state integration. On the one hand, radical left parties (RLPs) have always opposed a process of integration dominated by neoliberal logic; on the other hand, the social democratic parties (SDPs) have appeared as one of the main pro‐EU party families, identifying the EU as a privileged space in which to promote the building of a European social model. In this paper, we propose a binary comparison between RLPs and SDPs in Italy and Spain with a qualitative content analysis methodology. Our results show that albeit the crisis brought SDPs closer to a Eurocritical stance vis‐à‐vis the social‐Europe, this dimension along with the political integration are still dividing issues for the RLPs and SDPs families.     

Building something beautiful with stones: How regions adapt to,shape and transform the EU opportunity structure

The literature on the relationship between regions and the European Union (EU) has generated three important insights. First, research has found that the EU empowers as well as disempowers regions. Second, studies have demonstrated that regions adapt to the EU opportunity structure. Third, scholars have discovered that regions also change the EU opportunity structure. However, the three dimensions are rarely brought together. To examine the mutual influence and constant interaction between the three, the article applies a strategic-relational approach to regional action within the EU. Using the empirical example of the EU macro-regional strategy for the Alpine region, the article shows how regional motivations, differential opportunities and constraints and strategies of adaptation and transformation interact. The conclusions imply that both opportunity structures and regional strategies together produce the mosaic of rules, resources, relationships and ideas that makes up the EU.     

Choosing channels. Intra-state and extra-state strategies of Belgian subnational authorities in response to the European Semester

Europeanization literature has found that, in general, subnational authorities prefer to target the EU indirectly via member state channels. This article tests whether these findings hold in the non-legislative domain of the European Semester. With respect to the Belgian case, the article concludes that all Belgian subnational authorities indeed primarily use the cooperative intra-state channels as a response to the domestic division of competences and the EU decision-making procedures. It also finds that in addition especially Flanders invests substantially in extra-state strategies towards EU institutions. The article concludes that stronger time constraints, lower compliance pressure and the more politically salient issues of the European Semester trigger the most prosperous and identity prone region to adopt additional extra-state channels on top of the dominant intra-state channels.     

International diffusion of regulatory governance: EU actorness in public procurement

This paper attempts to go beyond actor‐centered explanations of the European Union's (EU) presence in regulatory politics by examining the role of the EU in the diffusion of regulatory norms and practices. We explore the international diffusion of public procurement policy, to which multiple organizations and especially the EU and the World Trade Organization have made an active contribution. Using the “opportunity‐presence‐capability” scheme, we argue that the EU is actively co‐shaping the global agenda on public procurement, mainly as a result of the “opportunity” and “presence” dimensions of its global actorness and its role in the horizontal diffusion of public procurement regulations between international organizations. For “EU as a global actor” literature to offer valuable explanations, an in‐depth analysis of its relationship with other international organizations, such as the World Trade Organization, reveals significant interactions and the co‐shaping of policy agendas.     

Sovereignty at stake? The European Commission's proposal for a Defence and Security Procurement Directive

The Defence and Security Procurement Directive (DSDP) is the first supranational policy in the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and represents a departure from the standard understanding of the CSDP as intergovernmental. Whilst the member states were initially against such an initiative, the Defence Directive was eventually proposed in the Council in 2007 and accepted in July 2009. This paper examines why European Union member states changed their position on the proposal for a DSDP between 2004 and 2007. The analysis builds upon two hypotheses that aim to account for this change in position. Providing new insight into the views of the member states, the study finds that the member states accepted the Directive due to a sense of obligation to respect internal market rules, and further discusses the theoretical implications of these findings.     

Online Mobilization in Comparative Perspective: Digital Appeals and Political Engagement in Germany,Italy, and the United Kingdom

This study analyzes the relationship between online voter mobilization and political engagement in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom during the 2014 European election campaign. Internet surveys of samples representatives of these countries’ populations with Internet access show that respondents who received an invitation to vote for a party or candidate via e-mail or social media engaged in a significantly higher number of political activities than those who did not. Moreover, the relationship between mobilization and engagement was stronger among those who followed the campaign less attentively, as well as in countries where overall levels of engagement with the campaign were lower (Germany and the United Kingdom) than where they were higher (Italy). These findings indicate that online mobilization may contribute to closing gaps in political engagement at both individual and aggregate levels, and thus suggest that digital media may contribute to reviving democratic citizenship.     

Planning for Brexit: the Case of the 1975 Referendum

Both during and since the 2016 referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union, concerns were raised as to the absence of contingency planning within Whitehall. This situation was in direct contrast with 1975, when extensive planning took place for the possibility of a vote to leave the European Community. However, there has been little in the way of detailed analysis of the contingency planning undertaken in 1975. Using archival evidence of the Wilson government's preparations, this article highlights the complex challenge that withdrawal would have posed for the UK in 1975, the tensions that existed between the political imperative for a swift withdrawal, in the event of a leave vote, and the civil service's concerns as to whether such a withdrawal was deliverable. Finally, it shows how dependent the UK's position would have been on the approach taken by the other members of the EC.     

Gender Quotas for Corporate Boards: Depoliticizing Gender and the Economy

Gender quotas for corporate boards can be seen as a way of drawing attention to gendered power within the economy as well as a way to democratize the economy, yet the debate about them has focused on the economic and business benefits of gender equality rather than on gender justice or democracy. This article examines how women’s under-representation in economic decision-making was constituted as an economic problem in the European Union’s gender-equality policies and how the economization of the debate on gender quotas for corporate boards affects understandings of gender equality and the economy. The article contributes to research on gender and neoliberalism through developing an approach for analysing the depoliticizing effects of economized gender-equality discourses. It argues that the depoliticized understandings of gender and the economy put forward in the debate water down the politicizing potential of the proposed EU gender-balance directive and that the debate about gender quotas has enhanced the neoliberalization and corporatization of EU gender-equality discourse.     

The European Union Global Strategy: What Kind of Foreign Policy Identity?

Some dismiss the recent EU Global Strategy as a “triumph of hope over experience”, an impracticable and therefore ultimately irrelevant statement; others are enthusiastic about what they see as perseverance and renewed ambition in the face of the present crisis. Although the 2016 Strategy appears more modest than its 2003 predecessor in operational terms, the range of deliberations that fed into it and the quality of the document itself demonstrate a greater maturity of reflection on foreign policy. A critical reading of the document shows that concepts such as normative power and differentiated inclusion of neighbours in the EU’s system of governance have all but disappeared. The emerging EU identity appears to be debilitated by the centrifugal processes of internal contestation and a drastically downsized claim for external power projection. An alternative plan for action will have to deal with the Union’s vulnerabilities and carve out a role that is distinct, yet in line with this new self-understanding.