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The word 'governance' has become an increasingly central policy motif in the European Union and elsewhere yet its meanings are ambiguous and often poorly understood. This article examines the genealogy of that concept focusing in particular on the European Commission's claim to have developed a new, more open and progressive model of 'European governance'. The paper is set out in four steps. The first analyses the European Commission's claims for 'governance' as a concept integral to its new vision for Europe. The second interrogates some of the conflicting definitions and meanings inherent in the term and examines the highly selective paradigm of governance that has been developed in official Commission discourse. The third addresses two specific areas where the Commission's governance model has been applied: the Green paper on The Future of Parliamentary Democracy and the Open Method of Coordination. The fourth turns to analyse these findings using critical social theory. I conclude that far from laying the grounds for a more inclusive, participatory and democratic political order, the Commission's model to governance represents a form of neoliberal governmentality that is actually undermining democratic government and promoting a politics of exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The main purpose of the paper is to analyse the issue of detention of asylum seekers, a common practice of many states today. Although states have the right to detain aliens due to illegal entry or stay, according to the international human right law, as well as to the European and national legislation no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile Analysis in the paper is based on the legal method of research and interpretation of legal acts and other sources of law, namely treaties, European legislation (acquis on asylum and related matters and legal acts of the Council of Europe on asylum, in particular the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights) and the Croatian legislation on asylum and aliens. The special attention is given to the analyses of the level of harmonization of Croatian legislation and practice with international and European standards. In line with the conclusion that Croatian legislation is not fully harmonised with these standards, the paper contains proposals de lege ferenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the principles of mutual recognition and mutual trust in the area of justice and home affairs, with which the current Member States are supposed to comply and which are so vigorously applied in the Western Balkans. The growing importance of these principles both for the Member States and the candidate and potential candidate countries will be discussed, since the pre-accession framework is a very powerful tool to export these values and principles to the Western Balkans. In addition, the paper will argue that on the one hand the EU is aware that the current Member States do not comply with these values and principles and the tools available to force the Member States to comply are very weak. On the other hand, the Western Balkan countries are not allowed one step further towards membership if they do not comply with these values and principles. This illustrates that the EU has double standards in the application of its values and principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to go beyond the popular and sometimes quite vague discourse about open and safe borders in the Balkans and about the active role of the EU in the south-eastern periphery of the continent. It tries to look at the real problems and structural conditions that (pre-)determine the nature of borders in this part of Europe. More concretely, it analyses the issues of legitimacy, security and democracy that influence the countries of the region to have borders operating in a relatively normal and predictable way. Moreover, the reform of SEE borders is perceived as part and parcel of the process of (a) European integration and (b) of state-building, democracy and security in this part of the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quinquennial Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference represents a highly important event from the perspective of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Though not a party to the treaty itself, the EU has made a consistent effort since the 1990s to coordinate the positions of its member states and achieve higher visibility in the NPT review process. The aim of this article is to examine the role of the EU in the 2015 NPT Review Conference deliberations. Drawing on on-site observations, statements and in-depth research interviews, it argues that the recent institutional changes notwithstanding, the influence of the EU as a distinct actor in the NPT context remains very limited, and the EU's common position is in bigger disarray than ever before. This year's Review Conference demonstrated the widening rift between the member states, in particular in the area of nuclear disarmament and the related issues. The inability to maintain a coherent common position limits the EU 'actorness' and impedes its striving for relevance in the NPT forums. The dynamics outlined in this article further highlight the limits of the EU CFSP in security matters in which the national positions of individual member states are as divergent as in the case of nuclear disarmament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the influence and status of the Central and Eastern European states within an enlarged European Union. It analyses two European Union policy negotiations: the Services Directive and the European Union's Financial Crisis Rescue Plan. Central to understanding the influence of a member state within negotiations are its economic size and knowledge of the Brussels policy-making apparatus. Nevertheless, as the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe have gained experience of the European Union policy negotiation process, they remain limited in their ability to influence outcomes. Therefore it can be concluded that while knowledge during negotiations is a necessary condition for successfully influencing outcome, alone it is insufficient because economic weight is particularly pertinent to those outcomes. As a result, the status of the new member states within the European Union is best described as being that of a junior partner, despite the assumed parity of Union membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, there is an important consensus regarding the fact that regions have lost their attraction in terms of European studies. This leads us to the following paradox: while the metaphor "Europe of the Regions" that had such great resonance in the 1990s has become discredited, the degree of regional commitment with the EU has been constantly rising. Nowadays, the EU is enmeshed in a crisis that is not only of an economic and financial nature, but also a crisis of democracy. In this context, it seems appropriate to 'recover' this study on the role of regions in the European system of governance. This paper alms, on the one hand, to review the evolution of the role of regions in the European system of governance, and on the other, to explore the way in which this role has been dealt with in the European integration literature. Its ultimate goal is to understand what the future prospects are for regions within the integration process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The most recent EU member states seem to have important Renewable Energy Sources (RES) potential. However, they have serious structural difficulties in development and integration of RES policies. Indeed, the balanced development of RES between the member states is urgent today. The penetration of the RES in these member states is related to the existence of an appropriate environment (political, economical, social, and technological). The current paper is based on an analytical review and specific PEST analysis aiming to assess the current RES environment and the progress so far in each of these most recent EU members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do citizens who strongly exhibit populist attitudes support direct democracy? Existing studies tend to claim that populists support direct democracy because of their stealth-democratic orientation or argue that stealth democrats want direct democracy due to the populist nature of stealth-democratic attitudes. Yet, albeit both populists and stealth democrats reject elite rule, they prefer direct democracy for different reasons. Populists support direct democracy as a means to implement the volonté générale, whereas stealth democrats view it as holding politicians accountable for ineffective policy solutions. Our analysis of representative survey data in four European democracies (France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) reveals that individuals with stronger populist attitudes indeed support direct democracy more than citizens with no strong populist attitudes. This effect is observed when controlling for stealth-democratic orientations and when using a measure separating the feature populism shares with stealth democracy – anti-elitism – from the one unique to populism, people-centrism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains variation in tax outcomes between European states? Previous studies emphasise the role played by political institutions, but focus mostly on the input side of politics - how access to power and policy making is structured - and the institutions of relatively recent times. It is argued in this article that output-side institutions related to the implementation of political decisions also matter and have deep institutional origins. As the classic literature has argued, the early modern period from 1450 to 1800 was formative for the development of fiscal capacity, but European states diverged in the stock of capacity they acquired. This article tests whether these differences still affect contemporary tax outcomes using a novel measure of fiscal capacity, based on the age, extent and quality of state-administered cadastral records. The empirical analysis shows that, on average, countries with higher early modern fiscal capacity have higher tax revenue today, compared to countries with lower early modern fiscal capacity. This association is robust to different model specifications and alternative measurements. The findings have important policy implications as they indicate how deeply the current fiscal problems of the continent are entrenched, but also point to what needs to be prioritised within ongoing tax reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The politics of fiscal consolidation in thirteen European countries are statistically analysed. Based on the political economy literature, political factors are identified that explain for the consolidation. Variables are selected representing strength of government and political orientation, and fiscal consolidation is distinguished into spending cuts and cuts in administration. The statistical analysis of political explanations for cutbacks hardly yields significant results and nor does the analysis of fiscal and economic effects of consolidation. The analysis of political effects of consolidation does lead to significant results. Some earlier political economic findings are not supported for our sample of thirteen European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Politics & Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Innovations in European Union (EU) policy making have produced a distinctive, novel mode of policy that combines components of participatory and multi-level governance for policy implementation. In this manuscript we provide a conceptualization of what we term the EU's ‘mandated participatory planning’ (MPP) approach. This approach is increasingly used to implement EU directives, mandating the explicit formulation of certain plans or programmes on mostly subnational or cross-national levels. Drawing on three empirical examples from (mostly) environmental policy, we argue that analysing MPP as such is useful to help identify challenges and possibilities for EU policy making. Our framework provides a means to organize inquiry and compare disparate policies, and to more broadly understand the integration of policy, planning and implementation. This perspective, in turn, sheds fresh light on familiar concepts at the intersections of multi-level governance, policy implementation and participatory governance, namely multilayer implementation, participatory implementation and polycentric governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Some argue that the direct representative relationship between voters and party elites is difficult to establish in transition democracies. In part, the difficulty stems from the fact that parties may have a hard time discerning the preferences of their respective voter coalitions. In the case of EU integration, parties may have additional incentives to disregard the interests of the public in the hope of securing benefits associated with their country's membership of the EU. In this article we investigate the extent of party responsiveness on EU integration issues in early transition years in central and eastern European countries. We find that while mainstream parties do consistently show more support for EU integration, we find no evidence that parties, in fact, track their voters. The lack of responsiveness cannot, however, be explained by the general instability of public and party positions, nor can this absence of a relationship be satisfactorily captured by low salience of the EU in the transition years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of national legislatures in European integration first received serious attention in the mid-1990s in connection with debates on the EU's democratic deficit. Since then, both academics and politicians have entered a lively debate on how best to involve national parliaments in EU affairs. The purpose of this article is to examine critically the state of research on the role of national parliaments in European integration and to use that existing knowledge to suggest avenues for further research. The main argument is that through focusing almost exclusively on scrutiny of European affairs, the literature has failed to acknowledge the multiple constraints that impact on legislatures. There is a demand for more theory-driven analyses of actual behaviour that extend beyond describing formal procedures and organisational choices. Future research should also pay more attention to the strategies of political parties and to the incentives of individual MPs to become involved in European affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union is presently constructing a new model of regional cooperation that includes not only economic objectives but also social, cultural and environmental agendas. One of the main challenges this project faces is the development of closer ties to neighbouring states without offering outright membership to the EU. As a result, however, cooperation and security-oriented agendas of the EU will automatically compete with each other for influence. The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) can be thus understood in terms of an ongoing project of re-territorialisation that combines traditional geopolitical concerns and a 'politics of regional difference' with a post-national focus on mutual interdependence and partnership. Evidence for the consequences of these competing territorialities will be presented from the results of European research on civil society networks between the EU and neighbouring states. The focus will be on EU-Ukrainian relations within the ENP context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EC directives must be transposed into the national legal order of the member states within a specified deadline. Although member states are obliged to notify their transposition measures, they often fail to comply with these deadlines. Distinguishing between domestic and EU-related factors, this study examines transposition failure and delay of EC directives from 1986 to 2002. Notification failure is found to be more likely when there is conflict between the member states during the EU legislative process. National patterns of transposition timeliness are shown to vary significantly, and higher levels of complexity and increased use of parliamentary legislation, as well as more federalist and pluralist structures, contribute to delayed compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers news briefs related to politics and social conditions in Europe in 2008. In June, 2008, the European Union (EU) agreed on an employment policy. The European Commission passed a resolution for immigration laws and political assylum for immigrants. The EU's Lisbon Treaty was accepted by all member nations except Ireland.

The article presents a discussion on the European model of regional and political integration. The primary objective of European integration was to establish economic solidarity between states so as to prevent any competition while preserving their independence and sovereignty. The European integration process was greatly helped by the demographic balance between the member countries of the European Union. The potential generalization of the European model can be evaluated through an analysis of its past and present influence on other regional integration processes.

Focuses on problems related to the development of a constitutional draft for European Union countries. Flaws and limitations of the constitutional draft; Characteristics of an effective constitutional document; Significance of language terms used in the draft constitution.

The article focuses on the language rights and the Community law in the European Union (EU) states. It states that multilingualism is one of the defining characteristics of Europe and it should remain in the constantly evolving model of the country's political structure. It explores the status of languages in the EU, the recognition of linguistic diversity, and the arguments on language rights as general principles of Community law.