Towards a relationship with the Mediterranean countries

Fifteen years ago, the European Union (EU) launched a Common European Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Since then, the CSDP has been the focus of a growing body of political and scholarly evaluations. While most commentators have acknowledged shortfalls in European military capabilities, many remain cautiously optimistic about the CSDP’s future. This article uses economic alliance theory to explain why EU member states have failed, so far, to create a potent common defence policy and to evaluate the policy’s future prospects. It demonstrates, through theoretical, case study-based and statistical analysis, that CSDP is more prone to collective action problems than relevant institutional alternatives, and concludes that the best option for Europeans is to refocus attention fully on cooperation within a NATO framework.     

Is Flexible Integration Harming the Prospect of a Common Acquis?

In the post-Lisbon era and especially since the outburst of the financial and European sovereign debt crisis, the EU has been changing significantly, to the extent that the meaning and the process of integration are being affected. While constitutional asymmetry is a longstanding feature of the EU polity, the real challenge today is the expanding scope and fragmented character of newly established forms of flexibility, and how they are being used politically. The flexible configuration of integration reinforces a trend toward fragmented integration. Flexibility within the EU could become an end in itself, a device to serve a wide range of strategic visions and preferences in sectoral politics.     

广西北部湾经济区全面开放开发：成就、做法及经验

2006年尤其是2008年广西北部湾经济区全面开放开发上升为国家发展战略以来,基础设施建设、重大产业发展、对外开放合作和深化改革等各项工作都取得显著成绩,综合经济实力呈现强劲的增长势头,成为全国区域经济发展的新亮点、开放合作的新高地。本文拟对广西北部湾经济区全面开放开发进行回顾,总结出9个方面的主要做法和5个方面成功经验,对全国各地开放开发具有重要启发。     

把内蒙古建成我国向北开放的重要桥头堡和充满活力的沿边经济带

内蒙古自治区与俄罗斯和蒙古国接壤,是我国向北开放的重要区域。进入20世纪90年代后特别是“十五”时期以来,内蒙古自治区与俄罗斯和蒙古国的边境贸易逐步发展。为把内蒙古自治区建成我国向北开放的重要桥头堡和充满活力的沿边经济带,必须克服单一的外贸观念,由主要对俄、蒙经贸向欧洲市场拓展,由服务本地区发展向服务全国转变,进一步提升内蒙古自治区向北开放水平。     

A distributional theory of economic democracy

In the twentieth century, while political democracy triumphed economic democracy failed both as an idea and in practice. A case for reviving the idea of economic democracy is made in terms of protecting political democracy. Economic democracy has conventionally been understood as a matter of bringing economic power under the control of collective political power. The idea is here reformulated as a matter of redistributing economic power between persons, of giving people a share in economic power directly rather than through elected representatives. Political democracy is assumed, which is to say that political power is under the control of the middle class. The question then is under what conditions the middle class might want and think it could use political power to redistribute economic power. The conclusions are that there is in advanced capitalist democracies considerable scope for the redistribution of economic power between the rich and the middle class. As for the empowerment of the poor, however, anti-poverty policies beyond the containment of poverty are unlikely to emerge today in countries where that did not happen under earlier historical conditions.     

Big Stick,Little Stick: Strategies for Controlling and Combating Environmental Crime

Environmental offences often have rather obscure victims. At the same time, we know that those crimes commonly regarded as the most serious have clearly visible victims. It is difficult for people to relate to environmental offences in the same way as many traditional crimes, and this makes it easier to commit breaches of the environmental regulations. One element in a control strategy ought therefore to be continuous attempts to discover really serious environmental crimes that are easily communicated to the public. Regulations are followed if we believe that others also do so. If we have a sense that cheating is widespread then group solidarity is weakened, and with it the inclination to abide by the rules. How then do individuals and businessmen develop the perception that control measures are working? This happens primarily by means of a perception that observance of the regulations is being monitored. Broadly based control measures and contacts are therefore of considerable importance. By means of risk assessment procedures, interventions can then be concentrated where they are judged to be most necessary. A broad arsenal of measures is needed to persuade companies to observe the regulations; an arsenal from big stick to little stick, from self-regulation and service to administrative sanction charges and criminal offences.     

The King of Farum—A Danish Corruption Tale

With the background knowledge that Denmark is one of the least corrupt nations in the world, this article explores the case of a mayor who for eight years worked ‘miracles’ for ‘his’ municipality but was later revealed to have built this community on circumvention of control mechanisms and laws. For this (and for his overwhelming consumption of expensive wines at the taxpayers’ expense) he was later sentenced to four years of imprisonment. He was not driven by personal economic gain, but more likely by a mixture between creating a municipality of his dreams and the almost absolute power that he ended up with just before the scandal hit the headlines. The case was revealed by two journalists from a yellow newspaper, but very soon police and other authorities as well as his fellow politicians followed up on the revelations, and his former political friends turned their back on him. It is not the story of a mayor who was bribed – but of a mayor who turned out to be ‘corrupt’ in a wider sense of the word.     

Ideas,identity, and institution‐building: From the ‘ASEAN way’ to the ‘Asia‐Pacific way'?

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which the development of multilateral institutions in the Asia‐Pacific region may be viewed as an exercise in identity‐building. It argues that institution‐building in this region is more of a ‘process‐orientated’ phenomenon, rather than simply being an outcome of structural changes in the international system (such as the decline of American hegemony). The process combines universal principles of multilateralism with some of the relatively distinct modes of socialization prevailing in the region. Crucial to the process have been the adaptation of four ideas: ‘cooperative security’, ‘open regionalism’, ‘soft regionalism’, and ‘flexible consensus’. The construction of a regional identity, which may be termed the ‘Asia‐Pacific Way’ has also been facilitated by the avoidance of institutional grand designs and the adoption of a consensual and cautious approach extrapolated from the ‘ASEAN Way’. The final section of the article examines the limitations and dangers of the Asia‐Pacific Way. It concludes with the assertion that while the Asia‐Pacific Way is an over‐generalised, instrumental, and pragmatic approach to regional cooperation, and there remain significant barriers to the development of a collective regional identity that is constitutive of the interests of the actors, it has helped introduce the concept and practice of multilateralism into a previously sceptical region and might have ‘bought’ enough time and space for regional actors to adapt to the demands of multilateralism.     

The challenges of economic integration: the case of shipping in ASEAN countries

Abstract

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has agreed to establish an ASEAN single-shipping market (ASSM) by 2015. This paper aims to assess the impediments in achieving this vision and how they can affect the pace of integration. These impediments include the differences in their national shipping capacity, national shipping policies and regulations, and in their quality of shipping-related infrastructure and institutions. Due to these differences, the economic implications are likely to vary and raise important conceptual and implementation issues. The ASEAN experience could contribute to the understanding of shipping market integration and provide some lessons for other countries.     

Divided but united: explaining nested public support for European integration

Academic and general interest in public support for European Integration is on the rise. Theoretically, the utilitarian, identity, reference, cue-taking and signalling models have been developed to explain this perplexing phenomenon. While these models have been tested, there is no comprehensive up-to-date account of how well they perform separately, relative to each other and across levels. Empirically, this study utilises a data set with 110,873 respondents from the European Social Survey. Methodologically, a multilevel model is used to address causal heterogeneity between levels. The study shows that ‘attitudes towards multiculturalism’ at the individual level and ‘corruption’ at the country level are the strongest predictors. When interacting levels within models, it is demonstrated that individual trust in the national political establishment is being moderated by the level of corruption in a country in influencing support for European integration. On this basis, two models are proposed, named the ‘saviour model’ and the ‘anti-establishment model’.