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Reforms weakening the power of local units, such as municipal amalgamations, have been high on the agenda in many European countries for some time. The political rationale for this trend is often cast in terms of administrative efficiency. As Chandler (2008) points out, if the justification of local government is purely expediential, it is quite legitimate for the central government to control and arrange the local level in a way which makes it most efficient in fulfilling its expediential aims. In contrast, ethical justifications of local government value this institution because it fulfils some morally desirable purpose in itself, regardless of its value to the central government. If there are any valid ethical justifications for local government they would put restrictions upon the justifiability of the central government to interfere in the activities of local government. In this paper we construct a normative theory of local government by developing an ethical justification of the local level. The basic idea is that the same foundational value - individual moral autonomy - constitutes the normative cornerstone of both democracy and the right to local autonomy. The implication of this argument is that if we value democracy, we must also value strong local government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade and a half has seen a proliferation of studies on the determinants of public support for the European Union among its national publics. Scholars have analyzed economic, political, informational, and identity factors as influences. There has been considerably less exploration of cultural factors, most notably religion, in these analyses. In this paper, we follow up on our previous work exploring the impact of confessional culture and religious commitment on support for the EU, expanding the purview from the early member states to the more recent accessions and candidate countries. Using Eurobarometer 65.2 (2006), we examine the role that religion plays in shaping public attitudes, while simultaneously controlling for factors identified by other theories. We conclude that religion still shapes attitudes toward European integration, but in different ways and to different degrees in various parts of the Union. Among the early member states, Catholics—especially committed ones—are still more supportive of the Union than Protestants, a result confirming our earlier findings. In more recent accessions to the EU, however, the influence of religion is weaker and assumes different configurations. Finally, age cohort analysis reveals that even in the early member nations, religion is losing its ability to shape public attitudes on European integration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper actually presents a (very) first version of the introduction to the planned edited book Romania in the European Union: Challenges, Pathways, and Prospects (working title). As such, it presently also doubles as a larger project description. Four general issues actually need to be faced and taken into consideration when approaching Romania as a EU member: 1) Romania's (traditional) position as a "special case" in the political and social science literature and the (continuing) vagaries of its post-1989 internal development; 2) the general problematic of EU membership after "1989"; 3) the institutional and policy-relevant issues and terms that are presently available for tracking Romania's EU membership; and 4) the possible implications that Romania's EU membership can have on the general development of the EU and the possible impact that the study of Romania's EU membership can have on the study of European integration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate the impact of the print media on attitudes to European integration and European Monetary Union during the General Election campaign in Britain in 2001. We find that newspapers do have an impact on attitudes to Europe, but that these effects are relatively small. Identification with a political party is found to exert greater influence on public opinion, and when individuals receive reinforcing cueing information from both parties and the media these effects are stronger still. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study which investigated the circumstances under which subsidies influence public opinion and perceptions on politics in the European Union. It explored the evidence that can affect the party system and political competition in EU countries. It described the allocation of direct public funding for political parties. It noted that political analysts argue against the impact of political subsidies.