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pComparative studies using a rational choice approach have successfully explained variation in the degree of institutional parliamentary strength in EU affairs, but they perform less well with regard to explaining both actual parliamentary behaviour and variation thereof. The paper therefore develops an explanation for parliamentary behaviour based on agency theory and the model of delegation. The aim is to enrich rational choice approaches, which have so far focused mainly on the preference of re-election and have therefore - at least implicitly - conceptualised parliamentarians as agents of their voters or parties. In parliamentary systems, however, MPs are not only agents of the voters (or parties), but also principals of the government. The paper is based on Strøm's rational choice institutionalist conception of parliamentary roles as 'routines, driven by reasons (preferences), and constrained by rules' (Strøm 1997: 158), but uses Merton's concept of 'role-sets' (Merton 1957) to analyse parliamentary agent- and principal-relationships as different elements of the role-set 'MP' associated with specific routines driven by specific preferences. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This papers seeks to examine the role of external actors within the democratization efforts of post-Soviet eastern Europe.Much scholarship has focused on the domestic conditions which can breed democratic norms, however,little is discussed of the role of external actors wtihin democratic transitions. This is becoming an increasingly important question due to the growing interdependence between the consolidated democracies of Europe and North America and the emerging democracies of the former Soviet Union.This paper seeks to explore and analyze the role of the European Union within the democratizating states of eastern Europe.The EU has provided much in the way of technical and financial assistance, however,due to the implementation of competing and divergent policies with regards to democratic promotion this institution has fostered the emergence of 'two worlds' within eastern Europe.The EU has succesfully promoted democratic norms within states such as Poland and the Baltic republics,while stifling democratic promotion within states falling under the auspices of the European Neighbourhood Policy.Due to the institutional and domestic interests of EU member states,the EU can no longer serve as a tool democratic promotion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies levels official development aid and pre-accession assistance provided by the European Commission by assessing the economic, political and institutional factors that determine why such assistance varies by recipient countries and years. Using ODA commitments, ODA disbursements, as well as pre-accession aid provided through the Phare and Cards programs as dependent variables, the paper analyses data for 153 countries over the 1970-2006 time period. The analysis reveals that while donors often ignore the receiving country’s needs with respect to political development, the latter’s economic needs significantly affect level of assistance. The analysis also shows ODA recipient countries that are former colonies of the EU member states receive higher levels of assistance simply because of their colonial past as well as when their former colonial power holds the rotating presidency of the European Council. Donor economic interests, expressed in trade relations, however, are among the most consistent and substantively significant explanations of aid variation, i.e. countries with larger share of the EU’s world exports receive higher levels of assistance than recipients that tend to imports less from the EU. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a large-scale empirical analysis of interest group influence on EU policy-making across a wide range of issues. The explanation of policy outcomes as well as the democratic legitimacy of the EU crucially depends on how much influence interest groups have and how influence is distributed among them. However, only few studies have addressed the question of influence and most are limited to case studies focusing only on one single issue. Recent literature however suggests that interest group influence varies considerably across issues. It is assumed that influence is not a mere function of interest group characteristics, but strongly shaped by the issue context. The lack of large-N studies controling for issue variables is mainly due to methodological difficulties in measuring influence. Hence, this paper employs a new approach: Drawing on quantitative text analysis performed with Wordfish, policy preferences of interest groups will be compared with the policy output in order to identify the winners and the losers of the decision-making process. While controling for interest group characteristics, the effect of issue-related variables on interest group influence will be tested across 20 policy issues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how European level deliberations affect individual opinions, and how this translates into domestic public policies. It looks at deliberation as a way to investigate non-coercive modes of governance in the European Union, in particular the Open Method of Coordination and uses the Bologna Process, designed to create a European Higher Education Area, as an example. This paper suggests a theoretical framework inspired by political philosophy to understand the impact of deliberation on individual attitudes and policies. It also uses multiple lenses of analyses, relying on participants' surveys, a case study of deliberations leading to the Sorbonne declaration of 25 May 1998 and an analysis of domestic implementation to understand how deliberation affects many levels of policy-making. Results show that individuals change opinions in Bologna Process deliberations toward a more economically liberal perspective. This change transfers into domestic reforms because European and domestic deliberations are connected: the arguments learnt in European deliberations are used in domestic deliberations. But the extent of change depends on the level of entrenchment of the issue and personal interests. Those results lead to inferences on the way to achieve consequential deliberative decision-making in the Open Method of Coordination in conclusion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changes in political, social, and economic climates in Eastern European countries in the beginning of 1990s redefined understanding of journalism and influenced journalistic practices. To illuminate journalism professionalization process in Slovakia, this paper examines the role of journalism perceived by Slovak media professionals. The paper discusses the definitions of good journalism found in scholarly literature and compares those to the definitions of good journalism provided by Slovak media professionals.The data presented in this paper was collected in Slovakia in the spring of 1999. Politically, this time in Slovakia is a fruitful one to look at the press. The October 1998 parliamentary election in Slovakia, just five months prior to the NATO bombing action in Yugoslavia, had changed the nation's ruling party, and the response to the NATO bombing highlighted public opinion and tensions on topics that had been influential in the hotly debated election. These included Slovakia's entry into the European Union, its entry into NATO, its relationships with Western Europe, its relationships with Russia, its relationships with other Slavic states, and the appropriate models for government and media relationships. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on support for the European integration process note that a serious threat to such support is the presence of a strong national identity that perceives the EU negatively. The integration process in Europe has included policies of devolution, tapping into regional identities and strengthening these sub-national entities to the detriment of the governments of the member-states. An empirical question arises: Is there a relationship between regional attachment and support for the European integration process that can be observed in the European Union? Using Eurobarometer survey results, this paper develops and tests a theory connecting regional attachment and support for the EU. The paper builds on previous research on euroskepticism and support for the EU to establish the causal link between regional attachment and support for European integration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the actions taken at EU level to eliminate discrimination much remains to be done. This situation is due in part to the fact that even though equality between women and men is protected by law, this remains premised on a traditional notion of gender contract and thus substantive equality has yet to be fully achieved..x000d.The past decade has also witnessed dramatic changes in the EU’s methods of regulation with the development of new modes of governance. .x000d.This paper identifies and explores the main characteristics of EC gender equality policy and legislation such as, for example, the progressive development of what is known as the (traditional) acquis communautaire, the use of ‘soft’ policy measures and a turn towards new modes of governance to complement the traditional approach both within the Community institutions and vis-à-vis the Member States. .x000d.In doing so the paper seeks to illustrate how legal discourse and method, its conceptual framework and more specifically the structured language in which doctrine is formulated and discussed by judges and lawyers is gendered and ends up representing, paradoxically, a significant obstacle to the pursuit of substantive equality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Turkey's relations with the European Union from December 1997 to December 2004 to understand the major dynamics behind the recent democratization and human rights reforms in Turkey. For this purpose, the study focuses on three factors: (1) the impact of EU, particularly the Copenhagen conditionality (2) the government structure (coalition vs. majority government) (3) the governing party's/parties' commitment level to the EU membership goal. The comparison across three periods of Turkey-EU relations (1997-1999, 1999-2002, 2002-2004) makes it possible to identify the relative significance of each factor for the reforms. In combining the international and domestic origins of Turkey's political reforms, the paper emphasizes the central importance of the domestic-international linkages for theoretical and policy purposes.The study uses (comparative) case study method to observe whether the theoretical framework proposed in this paper successfully applies to the cases. A temporal comparison across the three different periods of Turkey-EU relations is expected to show the relative salience of each explanatory factor to understand the development of Turkey's democratization and human rights reforms. In doing so, the paper looks at how EU conditionality has affected the Turkish political elite (government and parties) in realizing the reforms. In other words, how the Turkish elite have taken EU conditionality into account in handling the reforms. For this purpose, the study uses the statements made by prime ministers, party leaders, and the members of parliament. Also, it draws on the European Council decisions, and the European Commission reports. To measure the explanatory factors and the dependent variable, the following sources will be utilized: the EU harmonization law packages, the adoption of civil and penal code, the constitutional amendments, the establishment of new institutions regarding the EU membership process, the statements by Turkish officials, the Commission reports, the views of Turkish columnists, party programs, government programs, Turkey's National Program for the adoption of EU acquis, and the Freedom House ratings for civil liberties and political rights. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic argument of the paper is that the success of the Bologna Process is not due to state actions such as legislation, but to the actions of civil society and market forces. The theoretical argument is thus that the successful progress of the Bologna Process is not a result of top-down efforts, but of bottom-up mechanisms.The paper is a contribution to the debate on the identification of the forces which are driving European integration; while many argue that efforts of national governments and their legislation are leading to the successful development of the European-level policies of higher education, there are just as many who argue that these successes are not due to the state governments' efforts, but rather to neoliberal market forces which were effectively unleashed through policies resulting from intergovernmental agreements and cooperation, effectively arguing that governments' efforts are only indirectly responsible for the successful coordination and development of European-level higher education policies. To support the argument of the latter, this paper will focus on the activities of national and European accreditation agencies and their role in the realization of the European Higher Education Area. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks what kind of an effect the importation of EU environmental policy will have on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. What are the costs and benefits of pursuing an entirely centralized EU environmental policy. Objections have frequently been raised about defining environmental policy through universalized international standards (see e.g. Bhagwati, 1994). The paper finds that the adoption of EU environmental regulations is likely to result in a significant diversion of financial and administrative resources away from potentially more important Central and East European policy objectives. Moreover, current levels of pollution in these countries do not warrant such exorbitant expenditures. In fact, measured in per capita terms, the emission levels of most major pollutants are comparable those in other EU countries. Finally, given the relatively weak development of civil society, NGO?s and Green parties in these countries, little will be done to define and defend an alternative environmental agenda. In this regard, the importation of EU policy is likely to dampen already weak environmental movements, divert attention from more pressing environmental problems, and divert attention and resources from the necessity of economic development. The consequences are likely to be long term and potentially unfavorable for the Central and East European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the Committee of the Regions (COR) of the European Union (EU) at three levels: first, in its opinion issuing capacity, as it expresses the views of its members on porposed and existing EU legislation and policies; second, in its role in representing local and regional authorities institutionally within the EU; and third, how it manifests or embodies the principle of subsidiarity in the EU. After a brief description of the COR’s opinion writing powers, the first part of the paper examines the opinions issued by the COR. Opinions from 1996 through 2002, are categorized in the paper’s analysis, by (COR) Commission or policy area, and by whether the opinion is mandatory or self-initiated (the latter have increased in number and arguably indicate where the COR would like to have a greater say). From this analysis a sense of the COR’s priorities can be gained, and, by determining whether there are significant differences by (national) rapporteur, whether there are important national differences within the COR. The paper concludes that there are differences, but that a COR position nevertheless obtains. The second part of the paper briefly describes the membership of the COR, its elected local and government members; but more importantly, begins to address, and identifies, whether and on which issues (of COR responsibility) the respective national governments of the members support or don’t the COR’s efforts to expand its writ. A number of generalizations are offered that relate national government type, federal or unitary (or some variation) and support for or opposition to a greater role for the COR - and through the COR for constituent local and regional governments. The final part of the paper elaborates on how the COR embodies, in theory and in EU treaty and law, the principle of subsidiarity: that is, the paper spells out how the principle of subsidiarity implies more than national sovereignty, or national autonomy vis-a-vis the EU, but a significant representative role for local and regional authorities at the supra-national level in the EU. The paper relies primarily on EU documents, particularly from the COR, but including as well relevant provisions in EU treaties and law; secondary empirical, historical, and philosophical sources are also relied on, particularly in the analysis of COR opinion writing and in treating the origins and applications of the concept of subsidiarity.This [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SITUATION: MINORITY RIGHTS AND EU ACCESSION With the exception of Belarus and Russia, all post-communist European countries have expressed their desire to join the European Union. While eight of those countries are now set to join the EU next year, the non-accession countries of Eastern Europe continue to adjust their domestic policies in accordance with perceived EU requirements in preparation for eventual membership. This paper will look at which minority rights policies states need to adopt, if any, for acceptance in the EU. While economic criteria and the political criteria of Human Rights and Democracy are relatively clear, distinct requirements for minority rights remain elusive. Which policies need to be followed for acceptance in the European Union? RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: THREE GROUPS FOR COMPARISON (i) EU MEMBER-STATES; (ii) CURRENT ACCESSION COUNTRIES; (iii) NON-ACCESSION COUNTRIES This research paper is a comparative analysis of various European states and analyzes three distinct blocs of countries to understand both which minority policies are required for acceptance in the EU and how far away the non-accession countries are from that goal. First, the paper looks at EU member-states to discover if there is any common policy inside Europe with respect to national or ethnic minorities; by exploring EU-wide policies, we can learn more about what will be expected of future members. Ascertaining member-state policies is accomplished by analyzing EU-wide documents as well as national legislation from member-states. Second, the paper looks at the eight post-communist EU-accession countries and their experience over the past 13 years. What demands were placed on these countries vis-à-vis their minorities? What lessons can be drawn and what standards have been created? Third, the paper looks at the non-accession post-communist countries themselves, selecting a few case studies from South-East Europe and the former Soviet Union to compare their legislation with those of the first two groups. LACK OF STANDARDS This paper will show no common standards exist regarding minorities inside the EU; the only applicable standards are those connected with human rights Moreover, while the EU has established distinct criteria for potential members, we can actually draw very few concrete policy measures from the accession countries’ experience. Aside from a vague prescription for “inclusive” rights found in the Copenhagen Criteria, no minority rights policies were uniformly made conditional for invitations to join the Union. This lack of enforced rights exists in spite of the gravity attached to ethnic conflicts this past decade, and despite the foreign policy priority given to minority issues after the internecine wars witnessed in the post-communist region. More importantly perhaps, this paper will demonstrate that pressure to protect minorities that does exist is not based on any normative principles of minority protection, but rather guided by the political goal of international stability on the European continent. In fact, all policy demands have been and continue to be ad hoc measures applied inconsistently to different East European countries depending entirely on specific concerns related to individual countries and their minorities’ ability to mobilize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do regional communities of states, such as the European Union, respond to non-member states that wish to join? Conventional theories of regional integration imply that such decisions are driven by member states’ calculations of how enlargement will affect their domestic interests. This paper explores the alternative hypothesis that transnational networks of non-state actors can exert a significant impact on these decisions by raising the public salience of particular constructions of the community’s social purpose. The paper illustrates this point with data from a study of the European Community’s debate over and ultimate rejection of Spain’s first application in the early 1960s, and discusses the implications of this case for recent waves of EU enlargement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores policy convergence across member states resulting from the implementation of EU environmental directives. This is accomplished through an examination of the increasing competence and activism of the European Commission and Court of Justice with regard to two countries in a representative environmental case, Waste directives. We offer a framework for understanding the larger population of EU environmental directives, which we believe may be representative of legislation governing EU single market integration as a whole. Grounded in the work of EC integration theorists, this paper then identifies variables relevant for further study in the context of a pooled cross-sectional time series model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advance of the political and economic situation in the European Union there has been a huge number of transactions involving parts in different countries of the European Union. With this, the number of disputes has grown a lot and the importance of the ECJ to solve these disputes increased tremendously. The number of justices was increased in order to handle the bigger number of cases and the legislation involving European countries has also increased. Of course that is it essential that the nations accept the decision of the ECJ as binding and non-conflicting with the decisions of their own national court decisions. The ECJ has had decisions pro environment and pro Europen Union. The decisions analyzed in the paper are good examples of this position. As in any country, the role of a strong well developed Judiciary power is absolutely necessary for the reality of Europe nowadays. The Luxembourg based court has been mostly in favor of international business. It is important to mention that the Court is neutral and applies the European legislation, which absolutely sponsors international business and the protection of environment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the EU elephant accepts another pack into its jungle, it might lack the resources to teach all its members. To assess a stage of learning, this paper examines the impact that type of interest has on the Europeanization of interest group discours ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that the EU, NATO, and the US reexamine their procedures for promoting integration and democratization in the Western Balkans to conform to the realities and changing expectations in the region. This reexamination would involve a reassertion by the West to commit to the region's nations individually, and not just collectively; to re-conceptualize and develop new systematic plans that will capitalize upon each sponsoring group's capabilities and assets; and to pledge to work cooperatively to assist each nation in the Western Balkans to overcome their respective deficiencies and complete an autonomous series of nation-specific transformation processes. The plan also criticizes the focus on Western Balkan regional association as a precondition for integration and inclusion in the Western architecture and recommends that pressures to associate regionally are premature and counterproductive to the democratization aims. It also emphasizes that even in the most difficult regional case (i.e. Serbia), there are real opportunities for a breakthrough and progress. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a two-level game approach to explain the normative character of the EU’s CFSP. Analyzing the role of democracy and human rights values in the second pillar, it identifies three causal factors that shape the normatively driven policy-making:.x000d.On the supply side, first,under the unanimous voting setting, the final outcomes reflect either a lowest common denominator according to which the idealized and commonly accepted norms would generate little resistance, or a ‘creative ambiguity’, a deliberately designed strategy by member states with vaguely stated foreign policy objectives which members can and do interpret differently when they have to act. Second, the high number of veto points, by decreasing issue ownership and spreading responsibility hinder any effort to define concrete interests or possession goals from normatively driven milieu goals..x000d.On the demand side,high levels of domestic support for common foreign policy lead political leaders to give broad promises and set objectives that conform to the preferences of their constituencies such as protecting human rights. The potential benefits stemming from higher domestic support both for the governmental parties and the EU integration easily offset the costs. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Hafner-Burton's argument on trade agreements, namely that coercion is more effective than persuasion for influencing state compliance with international human right standards, and test this argument within the context of the Lome Conventions/Cotonou Agreement between the EU and the ACP group of developing nations. The particular evolution of the Lome Conventions/Cotonou Agreement provides an excellent opportunity to test this argument for three important reasons: ACP participation in the Lome Conventions Cotonou is not subject to the selection bias problem; the gradual incorporation of human rights standards into the agreements allows the effects of persuasion versus coercion can be tested independently while controlling for institutional factors; the differentiated treatment of political standards in the Cotonou Agreement allows independent effects of persuasion versus coercion to be determined. Using OLS, a statistical model designed to the essential and fundamental elements of the agreement assesses the level of compliances with these elements for both ACP and non-ACP developing countries (n = 148). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares and contrasts the discourses and practices of intra-EU migration in France and the UK. In both, emigration and immigration are significant and contemporary facts of national life; in each, traditional patterns are being challenged; and in both cases, scare-mongering in this regard has been a dominant feature of recent discourse. In particular, the free movement of people associated with the 2004 and 2007 (but especially 2004) enlargements of the EU posed specific policy challenges to political leaders and local communities alike. In France, the phenomenon contributed to the rejection of the EU’s Constitutional Treaty; in the UK, the government failed first to predict the numbers of economic migrants from East Europe, and then to count them once they had arrived. Both countries, finally, are experiencing significant cross-Channel mobility: a microcosm of intra-EU migration per se. France is for sale, it would appear (cheap houses), while the French are for hire (cheap labour). These stereotypes should tell us something about the range of political discourses we can expect when exploring the characteristics of intra-EU mobility, and the relations between movement on the one hand, and public policy on the other. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There seems to be a consensus in the EU literature that change is difficult to achieve in the budget of the enlarged EU. The purpose of this paper is to answer the question: is there a deadlock in the EU budgetary negotiations? The answer is that enlargement has unlocked the deadlock on the EU budget by changing the preferences of the net contributors. Using a rational choice historical institutional approach with formal theory, I create a model that shows that, as new countries join the EU, the outcome on the budget goes out of deadlock through the influence of net contributors and their making use of issue-linkages in negotiations to obtain agreement on new institutions. Even though conflict between players is high, issue-linkage offers a way out of deadlock. As enlargement progressed, the issue of 'net balance' became more and more salient for the main contributors to the EU budget; in successive rounds of negotiations, this salience determined them to use issue-linkage in position exchanges in order to obtain a favorable agreement - change the budgetary rules in their favor. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low voter turnout in elections to the European Parliament has often been interpreted as a low level of support for the European Union (EU). This paper challenges this preconception. Applying Dahl's (2000) concept of democratic paradox, it suggests that general support for the EU as a systemic framework of civic and economic liberties can be associated with low levels of individual involvement in the system (political interest and participation). The main hypotheses are that this paradox can be explained with low levels of perceived party system polarization on the question of European unification and perceived or objective positive performance of the national government and economy. These propositions are tested via multilevel mixed effects logistic regressions using the 2004 European Election Study and contextual data from the World Bank. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on transition and democratization was for long dominated by internal explanatory factors such as economic performance, civil society, institutions, etc. Only recently have external actors' democratizing efforts - like those of the US and the EU - been incorporated. But the perspective remains too narrow, since only 'positive' external actors are considered, while possible 'negative' actors are left aside. This paper attempts to rectify the imbalance by analyzing a 'negative' case - Russia. First, an analytical framework that can be used to analyze both positive and negative actors' actions and effects is introduced. Then, the framework's applicability is illustrated by analyzing Russia's influence in the 'Near Abroad'. The analysis shows how Russia, primarily, weakens democratic perspectives in the countries of the post-Soviet area. Finally, on the basis of this analysis I discuss the implications that this 'negative' influence has for the success of the EU's Neighborhood Policy. It is argued that although Russia is a major hindrance to the West's democratizing efforts in the short run, the power-politics approach is undermining its influence capacity in the longer run. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU has agreed with the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe transitional periods for the free movement of workers. However Sweden, the UK and Ireland opened their labour markets already in 2004. Nearly 250.000 people a year took their chance to migrate to the EU 15 countries. This paper examines the macroeconomic consequences of this process using a CGE model of the mayor sending country Poland and the main destination country, the UK. Within the model unemployment which is a kind of catalyser of the macroeconomic effects is reflected by a wage curve. .x000d.I find that migration leads to a rising GDP in the UK and a falling GDP in Poland. .x000d.Nevertheless, these common results do not reflect that polish workers transfer a huge fraction of their earnings to their home country. Therefore, remittances as a specific kind of savings are introduced in the model. The results are quite interesting. Remittances can offset the negative impact of emigration from Poland and enhance the standard of living there. We observe a strong GDP and exchange rate effect leading to a sharp decline of wage differentials between the sending and receiving country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the Cold War, the new security threats and the broadened security agendas of actors has created a suitable atmosphere for rethinking and revitalizing the sphere and the limits of regional orders in the international politics. The relatively successful story of Western security identity and practices at home and abroad, and the European Union’s precedence intensified this trend by creating a kind of imagined criteria for the regional security orders. However, still the links between the global and regional security as well as the meaning of regional order are not yet clear. Though one can only observe what kind of security mechanisms (balancing, cooperation, competition, or conflict etc…) have dominated in the regional domain. Asian regional security order- if there is any- stands as a real test case for observing how kind of regional security order will rise from these plural and competing security mechanisms. In order to trace the possibility of regional security order outside of western world, this brief paper aims to evaluate the security regionalism in the Eastern/southeastern Asia and tries to make some assessments on question of whether the ARF or EAS has been close to represent Asian security order. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many conflicts arise because of the lack of trust among states. Where does trust come from and how is one to measure it? Is trust the conviction that the other has benevolent intentions or is it based on the observations of the other’s harmless behavior? This paper will explore if trust is a cause or a by-product of cooperation. If trust proves to be a consequence of successful cooperation, then policy makers can hope for overcoming mistrust with small concessions and agreements. Cooperation is difficult even among states with common interests and the same ideology. Small steps and concessions build trust. Based on previous successful interaction, states learn how to trust and not only accept to offer larger concessions, but over time identities and interests can be changed. Thus, repetitive interaction games could explain early successful cooperation in the case of the European states, while further deepening of cooperation towards unsought of levels of supra-state activity can be explained on the verification of trustworthiness over a longer period of time. This is relevant for all international and regional organizations because it sheds light on the value of initial repetitive interaction in building trust and cooperation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How stable are the party systems of Eastern European democracies, which are member-states of the European Union? In this paper, I apply the criteria and framework for identifying institutionalized party systems first employed by Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully (1995) in Latin American democracies and later modified by Michelle Kuenzi and Gina Lambright (2001) to examine African democracies. I utilize two of the four components of the original framework that are applicable to the selected cases, party competition and party roots in society, with party competition (volatility) first divided similarly in the manner of Allan Sikk (2005) and Eleanor Powell and Joshua Tucker (2008) and then considered as a single value. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few scholars have used a clear systematic analysis to examine the relationship between regional integration and foreign direct investment in Europe and Latin America. Debate remains on the direction of the causal relationship between foreign direct investment and regional integration. In an effort to resolve this debate, this study will analyze regional integration in Europe and Latin America and each state’s respective level of foreign direct investment for the time period 1990-2004. Event history analysis is employed to test the hypothesis that those countries with high levels of foreign direct investment will integrate into regional economic agreements at a faster pace. Forty-one Central/Eastern European and Latin American countries are included in this study. All countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, which have complete data available, are used for study in this paper. Because of the potential for an endogeneity problem, it is necessary to control for the following variables: gross domestic product per capita, trade openness, and the level of democracy for each state. A Cox regression shows that we should expect Latin American countries to integrate at a faster pace. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing number of recent attempts to theorize why IOs expand, there has been a historical neglect of theorizing the variation in 'selection' of accession countries and 'timing' of enlargement. Establishing a theoretical framework elucidating the 'selection' variation, the paper presents an explanation of the European Union's (EU) 2004 enlargement. This study takes Schimmelfennig's 'rhetorical entrapment' as the point of departure and offers socialization as an instrument used by both an applicant country and EU member states. The former strategically uses socialization to advance her chances of accession, which means both recognition of her European identity and access to the material resources available to EU members only. For member countries, on the other hand, socialization not only helps strengthen their collective identity and legitimacy (because the adoption of the constitutive norms of the community by an outside country is evidence of the EU's persuasive power) but also allows member countries to 'screen' and 'constrain' the applicant in a way that serves their best interests. Therefore, socialization is defined as a perceived means, rather than genuine process, used by both the EU and accession states to justify their rational calculations. Accordingly, in contrary to what the Copenhagen Criteria require, the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) that could credibly signal their enthusiasm to be EU members as a result of their rational calculations, accessed the Union even before they completed rule and norm internalization. Their membership, in return, provided the Union with the 'socialization' excuse to constrain the newcomers even after their accession. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) adds an EU dimension to national policies, no competences are shifted to the EU level. In addition, the OMC promises to involve a broad range of (non-)state actors, among which parliamentarians. Scholars have studied the OMC employment and OMC social inclusion and showed that the OMC breaks this promise by having an effect on the national policy making process outside of the control of national parliaments. This paper does not limit itself to the study of employment and social affairs and investigates the involvement of the Dutch parliament in six OMCs and explains the observed variation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the European Council agreement on the Financial Perspectives 2007-2013, the European Commission must provide by the end of 2009 a review of the European Union budget. The purpose of the review is to better align the priorities and policies of the Union with its current challenges. Cohesion Policy, the second largest item in the EU budget, is often criticised for insufficient impact in reducing the gaps of development among the European regions. However, the Member States' positions expressed in the consultation process that preceded the review indicate that there is a general mood among the national governments to preserve Cohesion Policy's main objectives. Consequently, change is expected only on the edges.This paper argues that Cohesion Policy has been characterised by two lock-ins: the logic of solidarity and the logic of equity. The logic of equity, in particular, has given Cohesion Policy political dimensions, transforming the policy in a tool used as a catalyst for agreement among the Member States on budgetary issues. Using historical institutionalism, the analysis tracks the impact of the two logics from the creation of the policy to the present consultation on the EU budget review, in order to argue for the political dimensions of the policy and the limits of its reforms. Subsequently the possible reform scenarios are analysed. Despite its inefficiency, there will not be sufficient scope for Cohesion Policy reform, unless the European Commission manages to capture in its proposal new dimensions of national interests and to re-define the understanding of the logic of equity. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What accounts for the willingness of major European powers to institutionalize integrationist bargains through delegation and pooling of sovereignty? One explanation may rest upon the Schelling Conjecture, that actors may be able to improve their outcomes in distributive bargaining situations by constraining their own options. This paper analyzes the results of bilateral distributive bargaining between European Union member states and non-European third states before the implementation of various European agreements delegating and pooling sovereignty in the areas of monetary, fiscal, and trade policy. Those results are compared with distributive bargaining results after institutionalization. I characterize the decision to institutionalize as a strategic move in a nested game and use a formal model derived from the Nash Bargaining Solution to demonstrate the gains the European state can hope to capture through self-constraint. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using party position data of European national political parties, the paper examines political party support and resistance for continued security and foreign policy integration in the European Union. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine the similarities and differences of values between the citizens of the EU15 and new members based on the European Values Surveys and the World Values Surveys of the European Values Surveys of waves 1-5. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper theorizes that the success of European Integration thus far can largely be attributed to the ability of European political elites to limit the forces of democracy among the European citizenry; it further questions the likelihood that this 'democratic deficit' can continue to sustain.Using Comparative Manifesto data from 1945 - 2003, this research explores two primary hypotheses. The first asserts that the expansion of the EU - in size and scope - from its original five members in 1952, to the core of fifteen members in 1995, largely resulted from the ability of political elites to limit the scope of EU deliberation at the domestic level. The second hypothesis explores the possibility that the motivation for support (opposition) of the EU among citizens of Western Europe (the EU15) may be shifting from a purely economic cost-benefit analysis to a cost-benefit analysis that increasingly intertwines considerations of economic well-being with those of cultural homogeneity, and argues that such a shift will limit the degree to which elites can continue to control the reigns of integration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that previous literature has focused too narrowly on the institutional limitations to democratic responsiveness, to the neglect of the cultural-identity concerns raised in democratic theory. I provide and test a framework for conceptualizing identity, and noting its determinants, which takes into account a variety of factors previously addressed in the literature on EU support. Eurobarometer survey data is utilized in a multi-level model, allowing for the simultaneous consideration of both individual-level and state-level theories of identity formation. Identity development is found to be primarily influenced by diffuse elements of policy support and latent socialization mechanisms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents original data on the use of a mechanism for differentiated application of European legislation. It further explores the effect of such diversity accommodating procedures on EU integration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on attitudes toward EU integration in Poland before and after accession, suggesting a model for Central and Eastern European countries. The aim is to present new research directions with the use of a mixed method approach. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of New Public Management in European Union integration, focusing particularly on administrative reform efforts in the Republic of Montenegro. Terry questions NPM and its values in the cultivation of a democratic culture. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the process of EU legislative decision-making using event history analysis. The innovations concern a theoretical foundation for the time spent and the provided empirical evidence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes anticipation effects in legislative politics. Estimating count and survival models we show how the perspective of enlargement impacts on EU decision-making. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances a path dependent explanation of the EU’s decision to start the accession negotiations with Turkey on October 3, 2005. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws comparisons between integration efforts in Europe and South America. The comparison points to several universal conditions for the causes, origins, development and, specifically in South America, the future of the integration effort. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legislative speeches are an important part of parliamentary activity in the European Parliament. This paper presents new data on the allocation of speaking time in the EP, including a new survey of European party groups and a statistical analysis of speeches during the 5th European Parliament (1999-2004). Contrary to common assumptions in the EP literature, our findings suggest that party groups do not punish dissenters by limiting their speaking time on the floor despite their formal power to do so. Instead, party mavericks take the floor significantly more often than party faithfuls. We argue that there is an institutional explanation of parliamentary debates. Speaking time actually serves as a communication outlet for dissenting MEPs to put the reasons for their defection on the public record, in particular when there is a conflict between the national party and the European political group. The electoral disconnection between European party groups and the European electorate does not motivate the groups to prevent those dissenters from taking the floor. It does not matter whether dissenters denigrate the party label as this has little effect on the party's prospects as a whole. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is imitation significant for institutional evolution in the European Union (EU)? This paper argues that it is. It explains why and how imitation leads to the transfer of organizations from national polities to the EU structure. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, authors discuss Turkey’s EU membership process, starting from 1960's until 2007, with special attention to Erdogan government, and try to find out influence and contributions of the process on the consolidation of Turkish democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

.This paper investigates the effects of referendums on news coverage of the European Constitutional Treaty (ECT) and on the emergence of a trans-national media discourse. In order to do so it draws on the content analysis of sixteen daily newspapers from France, Spain, Italy and Britain. Results show that referendums affected both the visibility of the ECT and the quality of coverage. They also suggest that by increasing the salience of EU issues, referendums can lead to the development of a trans-national public sphere. The 'domesticisation' of EU affairs and the 'polarisation' of political elites at referendum time are examined as possible explanations for these patterns. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the multilateral part of intergovernmental relations in Spain. It examines the design and performance of the Sectorial Conferences and the participation of both Central Government and Autonomous Communities in the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the progression from religions norms to institutional design in European national parliaments. Ideas from the Protestant Reformation shape attitudes toward supranational organizations, which affect parliamentary responses to the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]