Civil security in the EU: national persistence versus EU ambitions?

Noting that European Union (EU) institutions are increasingly engaged in civil protection in the member states, security governance is used as an analytical framework to assess the depth of EU engagement in delivering civil security. It is shown that a state-centric approach is no longer adequate to understand the provision of civil security across Europe. To varying degrees, the EU has acquired responsibilities to facilitate, coordinate, manage, and regulate civil security, whether before or after a civil crisis occurs. The analysis demonstrates that, whilst intergovernmental practices and inter-state cooperation remain salient features of civil security, the responsibilities undertaken by the EU institutions across the entire policy spectrum are more substantial than a strictly intergovernmental perspective would suggest.     

Equilibrium in multicandidate probabilistic spatial voting

This paper presents a multicandidate spatial model of probabilistic voting in which voter utility functions contain a random element specific to each candidate. The model assumes no abstentions, sincere voting, and the maximization of expected vote by each candidate. We derive a sufficient condition for concavity of the candidate expected vote function with which the existence of equilibrium is related to the degree of voter uncertainty. We show that, under concavity, convergent equilibrium exists at a “minimum-sum point” at which total distances from all voter ideal points are minimized. We then discuss the location of convergent equilibrium for various measures of distance. In our examples, computer analysis indicates that non-convergent equilibria are only locally stable and disappear as voter uncertainty increases.     

New horizons in EU–Japan security cooperation

Asia Europe Journal - Alongside the EU–Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), a Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) between the EU and Japan entered into force in 2019. Whereas the EPA...     

Public commitment strategies in intergovernmental negotiations on the EU Constitutional Treaty

We analyze the impact of public commitment strategies as bargaining tools in the negotiations on the EU Constitutional Treaty using a sequential-bargaining model with incomplete information. The analysis suggests selection bias in observable public commitments with respect to the kind of issues that are publicly challenged as well as the kind of governments that will ‘go public’. Public commitments are more likely under high uncertainty over audience costs. Further, the effect of public commitments on the duration and outcome of negotiation is conditional as well. In our empirical analysis, where we analyze the intergovernmental stage of the negotiations on the European Constitutional Treaty, we find strong empirical support for each of our theoretical predictions. Governments were most likely to commit publicly if they represented a domestic constituency that was negative about the EU Constitution and, at the same time, contained many undecided respondents. Moreover, these public commitments were generally quickly accommodated. In contrast, public commitments were less likely to lead to any changes if they were made by governments representing a domestic constituency that was relatively positive about the draft Constitution or negative and decided. In the latter case, however, public statements made bargaining deadlock more likely.