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In recent years, scholarship on postfunctionalism in European integration has drawn attention to how processes of Europeanisation are not restricted to policymakers, but exist equally (if not more significantly) in the quotidian. The 2016–2020 Brexit process and debates on the relationship between national identity and 'Europeanness' urge a new consideration of how Europeanisation is narrated in everyday discourses. This paper analyses British fictional portrayals of the EEC and EU and posits a new theoretical framework of 'Imperial Gothic 2.0'. Pre-2016 representations of the EU were entirely dystopian. But post-2016, Brex-Lit fiction has reversed this trend and the EU now appears as a flawless utopia. Early twentieth-century 'Imperial Gothic' saw popular fiction defined by themes of British decline and oppression by foreign powers; a century later, Brex-Lit has resurrected these themes by narrating Britain in terminal decline, reflecting cultural anxieties, a reversal of Self and Other, and a loss of identities. This 'Imperial Gothic 2.0' reveals anxieties which reflect and influence political action, and reveals the extent to which imaginations and narratives of the EU have transformed from depictions of a distant, technocratic entity used for comedy or conspiracy, into a site of intense emotional affiliation, nostalgia, anticipation, and regret. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Teaching Innovations / Inovacije u Nastavi is the property of University of Belgrade, Faculty of Teacher Education 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.)

As a result of the major pressure exerted by the COVID-19 pandemic and its management on students and teachers, the EU member states and institutions face the necessity to accelerate the digitalization of education. The EU interventions in this field open the debate on whether digital education will be another subject of Europeanisation as the supranational institutions are acquiring more competences, and whether a new European policy approach was generated by the pandemic. Therefore, the paper investigates whether the COVID crisis represents a major shift in the Europeanisation of digital education in the EU. We will thus try to assess this transformation by analysing the impact of the crisis on digital education, showcasing Romania and the manner in which the national government designed its public policies against the background of the EU positions, recommendations and measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies / Sodobna Pedagogika is the property of Association of Slovenian Educationalists 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.)

How has the Europeanisation of football at the level of governance (due to for example the effects of the Bosman ruling and the formation of the UEFA Champions League) – influenced the identities of football fans? This paper explores how such structural Europeanisation in football is influencing identifications among fans. Based on an analysis of articulations in selected online message boards, we distil the positioning of fans towards 'Europe' in football, and the factors which shape it. We control for three main avenues of impact: the club level, the league level, and the societal context. Our inquiry is based on a set of paired comparisons of fan scenes for football clubs in four different European countries. Results show that the factor carrying the most explanatory power is the club's participation in European-level competition. Although this broadly confirms a 'contact hypothesis' – according to which the more fans are exposed to cross-border contacts, the less relevance they attribute to aspects of national belonging – significant variations of how frequent exposure to European-level competition translates into more Europeanised perceptions do exist. For European identity studies, the work corroborates that a lifeworld arena such as football can foster Europeanised identifications, albeit not in a uniform manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of growing nationalisms and Euroscepticism, this paper develops the original concept of 'Everyday Europeanhood' on a theoretical level, building on related concepts, such as Skey and Antonsich's 'Everyday Nationhood', Billig's 'Banal Nationalism', Anderson's 'Imagined Communities' and Beck's 'Cosmopolitan Vision'. It applies the concept to the European Universities Initiative (EUI), seen as a tool to promote European identity, based on a common sense of belonging conveyed through everyday practice, among students and staff in European University Alliances. It is argued that, in the light of previous top-down European initiatives designed to symbolically reinforce a sense of shared European identity, the EUI seems more in phase with bottom-up 'everyday' processes of identity development. Taking the European University Alliance 'FORTHEM' as an example, core features, aspects, actions and outputs achieved so far within this alliance are categorised in the light of four dimensions of 'Everyday Europeanhood': 'Talking Europe', 'Choosing Europe', 'Performing Europe' and 'Consuming Europe'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of EU rural development policies and imaginaries have entailed that rural areas in Europe and their residents have been assigned specific roles concerning local responsibility and identities when it comes to attaining positive territorial development. The paper approaches the rationality of rural development as community-led through a lens of Governmentality and Europeanisation to explore how the local alignment of actions and government rationalities are linked. The presented research outlines rural development discourse first in EU rural policy and then at the local level through an analysis of text data published by a local development association. The paper traces the linkage between the two institutional levels and establishes how the success of rural development is not only to constitute issues and themes in a particular form but also to have these embedded locally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the temporalities of EU investments into Southeast European (SEE) roads. Road construction and maintenance and related institutional frameworks, regulation, and project planning signify different modes of infrastructural time. Roads carry narratives of development and progress, but they also confront visions of desired futures with ruins of forgotten pasts. Promises of infrastructural potential intersect with project cycles, financial flows, and construction timelines, and work delays and material malfunctions. As such, infrastructures are a productive entry point to understanding how Europeanisation works through different temporalizing practices and techniques. The paper maps complex temporalities and temporal politics that shape infrastructural development and showcases how Europeanisation works also outside of promises of linear progress to EU membership on the one hand and corresponding classifications of absent futures on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Western Balkans EU candidate countries face rule of law challenges far more serious than Hungary or Poland did at the time of their accessions in 2004. Despite extensive EU conditionality and support, with 16% of EU pre-structural funds dedicated between 2014 and 2020 to rule of law projects, governance indicators show no substantial change. The European Court of Auditors (ECA) also found little impact in advancing the rule of law in the candidate countries in the Western Balkans. The European Commission, however, does report signs of progress. By drawing on public procurement data from the two sectors concentrating most public expenditure, namely health and construction, between the years 2017 and 2019, this paper solves the dilemma of how allegedly successful reforms can happen without much impact. By directly measuring government favouritism in procurement, before and after EU-driven reforms, the paper finds that evolution has so far been limited despite proving the effect of certain interventions. The paradox is explained by providing evidence of versatile behaviour by the main rent owners and the increasing discretionary power of Albania's governing party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying qualitative methods, this paper examines the burgeoning of quality assurance databases, processes and networks of actors in the field of higher education in Europe. Our main argument is that there has been a move from the Bologna Process being the near singular focus for European-level coordination and harmonisation of higher education, towards the making of a much more diverse and complex quality assurance and evaluation infrastructure. This infrastructure involves a range of distinct but interdependent actors and processes and contains explicit and implicit interlinkages with the production of wider policy agendas, such as the rise of the European Education Area. The aim of this paper is to analyse the growth and complexity of Quality Assurance (QA) in higher education (HE) in Europe, as a way of understanding the multifaceted and continuously developing process of Europeanisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article serves as an introduction to a Special Issue focusing on the nature, trajectories, and boundaries of contemporary European Union (EU) education governance. The Special Issue comprises four papers, which draw on original empirical research and employ different theoretical outlooks and methodologies. This introductory article situates these papers in the current scholarship on EU governance and Europeanisation. Arguing that the papers together demonstrate the significant advance of Europeanisation in the governing of European education systems since the late 1990s, we discuss the epistemic gains, complementarities and emphases of the four papers. Finally, we identify pertinent issues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking religious education as an important indicator in evaluating religious freedom in a country, this paper focuses on the religion courses in Turkey in order to evaluate Europeanisation and religious freedom in the country. The EU Commission's recent progress reports indicated that the conduct of religious courses in Turkey is incompatible with EU norms. Although important legal arrangements have been made in accordance with the adoption of minority rights in Turkey, it seems more difficult for change to happen in an ideological issue such as education. As religious freedom is an important value for the European Union, this paper aims to explore the impact of Europeanisation on the state of religious education in Turkey and the extent of Turkey's compliance with the European norms in a highly debated area like religious education. It also aims, in a broader sense, to shed a light on the place of religion in the national identity of Turkey today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Croatian & Comparative Public Administration is the property of Institut za Javnu Upravu 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.)

How do members of regional parliaments engage in EU policymaking? This paper examines how and why members of the Walloon, Flemish and Brussels regional parliaments vary in their EU-contacting activities, by adapting a German survey. Belgium makes a relevant case, as the 'in foro interno, in foro externo' principle entitles regions to conduct foreign policy, including EU affairs in those areas they possess internal competency. Our data show that the level of EU-contacting activities of Belgian regional parliamentarians is overall low, mainly directed towards informational activities and taking place in the direct environment of the parliamentarians. The variation in EU-related activities is best explained by individual-level factors such as the perceived salience of Europe for their own careers, their perceived influence on EU policymaking and their position towards European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union's Recovery and Resilience Facility is an unprecedented investment opportunity for economic modernisation. However, while the supranational European Commission assumes considerable influence over the design of national Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs), there is substantial diversity among RRPs. This paper analyses the interaction between national governments and the Commission in the coordinative RRP design process. We argue that national policy preferences, rooted in the partisan profiles of governing coalitions, ultimately explain variation in RRP content. We analyse the policymaking process in three semi-peripheral economies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) – Estonia, Romania, and Slovakia. CEE countries are especially suitable because as expected rule-takers, they function as least likely cases for the relevance of government agency, i.e., national partisanship. Through elite interviews, we trace various elements of each RRP to specific positions of governing coalitions and, with national variation, the Commission's ability to impose its own policy preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, the Visegrad Four (V4) shifted from normative conformity with the West to pursue a counter-hegemonic strategy in relation to the EU. Explaining the 'why's' behind the non-conformity stance, the paper adopts discourse analysis to explain the rise of modern-day sub-regionalism within the political borders of the EU. The European migration crisis catalyzed a discursive clash between members of the V4 on one hand and actors within the European Institutions on the other. This has led to an identity redefinition within the V4, igniting a process of sub-regional reaffirmation. Other than being a complementary sub-regional grouping, the paper finds and coins a new category of sub-regionalism, 'opportunistic sub-regionalism' to explain the dialectic relationship between the EU and V4. We find that this alternative form of sub-regionalist grouping is linked to observable attempts at achieving a level of sub-regional actorship to influence decision making in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While European governance of individual policy sectors has received considerable academic scrutiny, less attention has been paid to the development of intersectoral coordination. This paper charts the emergence of a supranational boundary-spanning policy regime (BSPR) in education and employment in Europe. By looking at issues, ideas, interests and institutions, we gain a deeper understanding of the conditions for the emergence and further institutionalisation of European intersectoral coordination in education and employment from the 1990s onwards. The study relies on semi-structured interviews with European policy-makers in education and employment and EU policy documents. We analyse how endogenous and exogenous factors frame (policy) issues that contribute to the emergence and further strengthening of intersectoral coordination, the extent to which ideas for European education and employment stress intersectoral policy designs, how interests support or hinder intersectoral work, and which institutions are developed with an intersectoral reasoning. We find that endogenous forces (rather than exogenous ones) played a significant role in the emergence of a European BSPR in education and employment. Structural aspects and policy instruments (institutions), alongside ideas and interests, then contribute to the institutionalisation of the European BSPR in education and employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the relationship of planning systems and related processes of institutional change. It evaluates the persistence and change of the German planning system with a focus on recent impacts of Europeanisation. It shows that the ability to transform institutional patterns of spatial planning in Germany is rather limited. The German planning system has not undergone revolutionary shifts during the last five decades, but it is 'by-passed' by a new and mostly informal planning sphere recently. The latter is triggered by financial incentives bound to European structural funds and characterized by a strong focus on experimental spatial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a small and new EU member state Croatia had little to contribute to Brexit, which occurred just a few years after the country's accession to the EU. Stemming from its size, its pre-existing relations with the UK and its drive to learn to operate within the EU, Croatia is no outlier in the literature on small states' foreign policy. This paper analyses the behaviour of Croatia during Brexit and adds to the literature on small states. First, it analyses whether and to what extent Croatia opted for one or more of the following strategies: seeking shelter, hiding or hedging during the Brexit negotiations. Second, it examines the logics underpinning the aforementioned strategies (logic of consequences vs. logic of appropriateness). Third, it scrutinizes Brexit's impact on the Europeanisation of Croatia's foreign and defence policies and possible advancement or undermining of this Europeanisation process. We focus on both policy-uploading and policy-downloading dimensions of Europeanisation, thus contributing to the literature on Europeanisation. Our research is based on existing literature, second-hand sources such as official documents and statements, and the primary data collected through semi-structured interviews with eight persons who either shaped the Croatian foreign and defence policies or were well-informed about them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is an international initiative for the harmonisation of higher education (HE) systems in 49 countries. Literature about UK's participation in the EHEA is limited, and the role of EHEA's membership for the UK, particularly after the end of the Brexit transitional period, has not been researched. The originality of the study reported in this paper is in addressing this gap by exploring the perspectives of key UK HE actors on the strategic significance of UK's memberships in the EHEA post-2020 for the UK. The paper draws on the theoretical ideas of rational choice neo-institutionalism, differentiated Europeanisation and internationalisation, and a thematic analysis of 19 official communications of key stakeholders and six in-depth interviews with their representatives. The findings contribute to filling in a significant gap in the literature about Bologna in the UK in making a distinction between its two memberships in the EHEA and the differences and complexities of the roles they play in constructing UK's overarching agenda in HE particularly in the post-Brexit context. The article has also contributed to the literature about Bologna more widely, presenting an investigation into differentiated Europeanisation that has been taking place within one unique post-EU country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European integration has reshaped the space for domestic industrial policies, foreclosing protectionist strategies, and instead promoting liberal industrial policies aimed at creating an integrated and competitive European market. Such Europeanisation proceeded further in East European states, which display more transnationalised growth models and rely on EU compliant industrial policies more than the West. The paper argues that the EU enlargement strategy played a key role in this Europeanisation, through a combination of conditionality, financial assistance and institution building. The EU helped tilt the domestic political balance in favour of development strategies based upon foreign direct investment (FDI) and it increased the capacities of East European states to use generous and EU compliant state aid as a key industrial policy tool. The resulting economic transnationalization locked-in policy transformation. While rising economic nationalism challenges such transnationalization at the margins, the core of East European growth models and industrial policies persist years after accession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2004 accession to the European Union (EU), Poland, like many other post-communist countries, have gone through a significant process of convergence to the EU institutions, laws and processes. In this process, the European values, policies and institutions have become an important reference point for the legitimacy of major national system reforms. In education, there have been a significant number of reforms aligned with 'European standards' as integration with the EU was seen as a priority for Poland's national interest. This paper is interested in the changing policy discourses that have been defining and legitimising Poland's education policy objectives, with a particular attention given to the idea of 'quality education' and the role of education. In this way, it is also interested in the processes of Europeanisation and de-Europeanisation – turning away from 'EU-isation' of policies. The emerging picture from the analysis illustrates the tensions between the neoliberal and populist policy discourses pursued by a variety of Polish governments, including significant policy shifts under the government of the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) (Law and Justice) coalition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the Europeanisation processes that take place in the post-socialist Eastern European space, focusing on the case of Timisoara, Romania. In the analysed case, the adoption of EU cultural policies is instrumental in driving economic growth and urban development. The study focuses on how EU cultural policies integrate into the urban regeneration strategies, aiming to make cities more attractive to the creative classes who usually have higher consumption capacities and are key actors in urban development. Timișoara’s designation as one of the cities to hold the European Capital of Culture title in 2023 and its hosting of the Art Encounters Biennial amplify these dynamics by bringing upfront the capitalist market logic within the cultural field. In this context, there is also observed a subtle withdrawal of state’s responsibility in the act of educating and mediating the public, while private institutions are increasingly taking over this role. Overall, the paper showcases the shift towards a neoliberal orientation within the local cultural strategy while also underlining its effects within the two mega-events analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After some promise in the 1990s, European unions have grown increasingly disillusioned with regard to the results of EU social policy and EU social dialogue. The paper analyses the extent and reasons of this disillusion by looking at the impact on social dialogue of the Active Inclusion Recommendation launched by the European Commission at the outset of the economic crisis in 2008. The Recommendation led to a tripartite framework agreement at the EU level in 2010 (the only such agreement in a decade), which was then to be implemented at national and regional levels. With a multilevel governance approach, the paper looks at the extent to which social dialogue on Active Inclusion at the EU level, in six EU countries (France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK) and six regions (Rhône-Alpes, Lombardy, Lower Silesia, Catalonia, West Sweden and Greater Manchester) within those countries was somehow revitalised. The analysis, looking at both top-down and bottom-up processes and based on documentary analysis and interviews, shows that the initiative displays ambiguities similar to those of typical composite EU principles, such as famously the case of 'flexicurity'. The multilevel governance of the EU, including the interaction between 'soft' employment policies and evolving 'hard' Eurogovernance tools, and with poor horizontal and vertical coordination, resulted in multiple distortions of the principle and, over time, to frustration. Unions' engagement varies by level, country and region, reflecting both traditional national approaches and the local perception of 'active inclusion' as an opportunity. Although trade unions were more welcoming of 'active inclusion' than they had been for flexicurity, similar related threats and opportunities led to modest achievements and a gradual fading of the idea at the European and national levels, with some more opportunities however at the regional level. The paper concludes that, if trade unions want to engage with the idea of a European Social Model and with Eurogovernance, they could develop stronger networks among regional organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(2), 833-855 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. - II. Expanding the single market with(out) the EU enlargement. - II.1 EEA contribution. - II.2 CEECs transformative experience. - III. WB-EU economic integration and (limited) access to the single market. - III.1 SAP as a (new) frame of enlargement. - III.2 Way forward perspectives. - IV. Concluding remarks. | (Abstract) The promised European future for the Western Balkans still seems to be distant and uncertain, in spite of the many geo-strategic, political, economic and security arguments in favour of completing the process of unification. On the one side, the European integration process through economic and political reforms should lead these countries to become EU members and set high expectations of what the prospects of membership should deliver in the region. On the other hand, the countries are still far from ready for membership while the EU political commitment is not accompanied by more tangible action which questions the credibility of enlargement policy. Over the recent years, there is a growing need for a renewed narrative to revive and sustain the incentives for the states of the Western Balkans to continue their European integration journey and overcome an apparent impasse over accession prospects. The main argument of this Article is whether the EU accession process with regard to the Western Balkans can be reinforced in a manner of a merit-based process that offers a credible goal by granting access to the EU single market as an interim accession goal that inspires real change, while reducing the sense that further EU enlargement is risky endeavour. In order to provide a relevant conclusion, the Article reviews the economic effects of previous rounds of enlargements and the relevant instruments employed towards the Western Balkans, to examine the plausible limitations and prospects.

Since the nineties, urban areas have assumed a growing importance in EU Cohesion Policy. This process, which is being implemented through various political steps and policy instruments, has led cities to be recognised as key elements in the promotion of balanced development. After decades of planning experiments at different territorial scales, however, the extent to which EU urban policy has contributed to regional development is currently under debate. This paper seeks to describe the evolution of the urban dimension within EU Cohesion Policy, with a focus on the role of cities in those countries and regions experiencing development problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to contribute to an overall understanding of the phenomenon of globalisation of higher education. Given that in our country the globalisation of higher education has been approached without attempting to provide a more comprehensive definition of the phenomenon, in the first part of the paper, the basic elements and domains that provide the basis for a more complete definition of the globalisation of higher education will be listed and a difference will be made in relation to similar phenomena, such as internationalisation and Europeanisation. Apart from a more comprehensive understanding of globalisation by pointing out its epistemological foundations in the papers from the end of the 20th century, which the domestic scientific public did not pay enough attention to, the paper also provides an overview of approaches to the study of the impact of globalisation on higher education, both the initial ones, which were developed by international organisations, and the academic ones, which enabled a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of globalisation of higher education. By contributing to a more comprehensive definition of the observed phenomenon, in this paper we intend to contribute to a broader understanding of the phenomenon of globalisation relative to the current view in which globalisation is understood as a modern phenomenon and its impact on higher education is observed after a certain period in which it supposedly arises. The paper affirms the claim that globalisation is just a new name for a phenomenon that has existed in modern civilisation for much longer than the end of the 20th century, and the expansion of higher education contributed to its genesis.

The paper discusses the development of Spanish Vocational Education and Training (VET) over the past four decades and the extent to which and ways in which joining the European Economic Communities in 1986 contributed to the transformation of Spain's VET system. The paper is structured in five sections: the justification of our choice of Europeanisation as a theoretical approach, a presentation of the system prior to accession into the European Union (EU), a description of the European VET policy defined in the Bruges-Copenhagen process, and an examination of changes in the Spanish VET at the turn of the century. The relations between the European and Spanish VET policies are then discussed in view of Europeanisation theory, particularly considering their specification in terms of the National Qualification Framework approved in 2002 and the European Qualification Framework (EQF) established in 2008 to examine adaptation and accommodation. The paper finishes by discussing how top-down and bottom-up trends based on the theory of Europeanisation have resulted in the current Spanish VET system adhering to its own national identity while converging with European recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe currently seeking EU membership, Poland brings into sharp focus the strengths and weaknesses of the EU's classical method of enlargement This paper explores these strengths and weaknesses by examining how the tools of the EU's pre‐accession strategy, the Europe Agreement, the ‘White Paper on the Internal Market, and the Accession Partnership have leveraged change within Poland. The paper reviews the legal and administrative changes that have already been undertaken as a response to the Europeanisation process. It argues that whilst legal harmonisation is far advanced, more fundamental issues of implementation and enforcement of the acquis remain to be dealt with. The paper concludes that whilst the pre‐accession strategy acts as a discipline on the reform process, it limits the extent to which Polish reform preferences can be accommodated. This will affect the progress of accession negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the dissolution of the centralized economic systems, the Western Balkans have embarked on a gradual integration into the European Union. This entailed the introduction of new legislation, the assimilation of novel concepts and ideas, and the adoption of instruments and operational methods. This adaptation has permeated several sectors. While the EU’s jurisdiction does not explicitly extend to spatial planning, it has cast its shadow on this field. This paper undertakes a twofold mission. First, it traverses the cultural, institutional, and territorial spheres to unearth the tangible evidence of the Europeanisation of spatial planning in the region. Secondly, it delves into the subtle resistance mechanisms to external pressures that have also contributed to shaping spatial planning and land use. The confluence of evidence showcases that, despite being exposed to pervasive European influences, the evolution of spatial planning in the Western Balkans remains intrinsically tethered to historical paths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic conditionality has been one of the main drivers of accession Europeanisation and a foreign policy instrument of the European Union's democracy promotion in third countries through its enlargement policy. In an era of rising autocratisation, however, the normative influence of the EU is increasingly questioned as to whether it continues to be a driver of democratisation. Focusing on one of Turkey's Christian communities, Armenians, this paper aims at analysing the impact of EU candidacy period between 1999-2022 on the minority policies of Turkey. It employs the concepts of counter-conduct and governmentality to analyse the dynamics through which the Turkish government seeks to uproot and reverse the Europeanisation in minority rights, and how this counter-conduct works in the case of Armenian community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on three of the Central and Eastern European countries - Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary - the paper investigates the evolution of spatial planning systems and the introduction of strategic planning practices from the beginning of the post-communist transition in the early 1990s to the present. It sheds new light on this issue by applying the conceptual lens of historical institutionalism to explain this process and elucidate the role of the accession to the European Union (EU) as a catalyst for change. In particular, the paper identifies and analyses the critical junctures at which path dependencies emerged and later constrained the capacity of the regional and local actors to adjust to the EU Cohesion Policy framework and engage in strategic planning as part of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Europeanisation literature, the fact that judgements of the European Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) can have an impact on national politics is no longer controversial. The paper shifts the focus towards administrative bodies and asks about the impact of CJEU case law on them. It establishes three different possible categories to describe the relationship between judicial politics and European and national administrative bodies: dialogue, subordination and indifference. The paper argues that access to courts is one crucial factor for a dialogical relationship. In contrast to the European Commission, national administrative bodies are less equipped to engage with the CJEU. The case study on social and environmental considerations in German public procurement decisions demonstrates that the relationship between national administrative bodies and the CJEU might be best described as one of indifference. National administrative bodies' focal point is mainly the national implementation of EU law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europeanisation is a process whereby EU institutions and policies influence national institutions and policies within the various Member States. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the Croatian public procurement reform in 2011 was caused by the European Union, domestic variables or by diffusion and interdependence of both. The paper argues that the Croatian public procurement reform was caused by diffusion and interdependence between both the European Union and national institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the Europeanisation of Kosovo by focusing on conditionality and deliberation as EU enlargement tools. Despite the high presence of EU institutions in Kosovo, the EU does not recognize Kosovo as a country, but offers the possibility of integration as it currently does for all other Western Balkan countries. This paper analyses the way in which the EU applies conditionality towards Kosovo in the pre-accession period and the extent to which this is combined with deliberation. In order to measure conditionality and deliberation, I take as a case study the Stabilization Association Process Dialogue Meeting between EU and Kosovo. For conditionality I present my own methodology, whereas for deliberation I apply Discourse Quality Index (DQI). I conclude, that EU uses deliberation in the process of conditionality, whereas Kosovo representatives use conditionality very rarely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an account of how the European Union (EU), and notably the European Commission (EC), has become an actor in its own right in the field of the reform of administration and public services management in Europe, by developing an approach to support Member States in their initiatives to improve public administration and public services. We qualify this process – occurred over the period 2000-2021, with a tremendous acceleration in the second decade – as a twofold paradigmatic change: because (i) this is a novel field of action for the EU itself; and because (ii) the very logic driving the EU role shifted dramatically from a logic of conditionality (or compliance with aspects of the acquis) in the early phase to a radically different logic of enabling and facilitating administrative reforms, on the ground, in a later phase and prospectively. We interpret the paradigmatic shift that has occurred through a combination of theoretical perspectives: policy learning; policy entrepreneurship within the Commission; the opening of an opportunity window for policy change to occur; and the consolidation of a new policy sub-system in the field. We deem this change to constitute a step forward in the process of European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Administrative Science / KözigazgatásTudomány is the property of Universitas-Gyor Nonprofit Ltd. 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.)

This paper explores whether the lead candidates process for the European Commission's Presidency (Spitzenkandidat) increases the Europeanisation of national public spheres to a certain extent. National public spheres are likely to be Europeanised when simultaneous discussions of the same topics take place across member states and under the same criteria of relevance. Focusing on the media-related public sphere, the research employs quantitative content analysis and qualitative frame analysis in the German, Luxembourgish, French, Belgian, Spanish, Italian, Greek, and British press for the 2014 and 2019 European elections. While in 2014, the salience of the Spitzenkandidat process was relevantly high, despite certain country- and media-specific variations, in 2019, the press coverage dropped off by almost half. At the same time, most of the selected newspapers reported on the issue using the same criteria of relevance, namely, similar frames and meaning structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past 25 years have seen an unprecedented Europeanisation of the structures and governance in football across the continent. A European (and global) transfer market for players and managers has become the norm and a pan-European league system has been established that regularly exposes supporters to transnational competitions and players from all over Europe. At the same time, manifold typologies of football fans have been established, distinguishing groups of fans based on, for example, fan intensity, fan behaviour or their attitudes towards different actors in the field. The attitudes towards Europe and the self-identification of these fans within Europeanised football have not played a role in any of these typologies so far. This paper steps into that void and develops a typology of football fans in (Western) Europe that takes their attitudes towards Europeanisation as a point of departure. Based on data from an online survey among fans of first league clubs in England, France, Austria and Germany, two dimensions are identified as key categories: the intensity of fandom, and fans' attitudes towards Europeanisation – which here manifests as a divide between the national/local belonging versus appreciating diversity and transnational spaces/developments or more succinctly, a divide between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism. Our analysis uncovers the existence of four types of fans: occasional cosmopolitans, occasional communitarians, frequent cosmopolitans and frequent communitarians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a sociological analysis of the knowledge and actors that have become central to international assessments, the paper focuses on the processes that influence the production of shared narratives and agendas, adopting the position that their existence is not organic, but rather the product of undertakings that often fabricate and manage, rather than strive for 'real' consensus. The paper suggests that limiting the analysis to the role of travel and exchanges of experts and policy-makers in the making of policy is, in fact, the construction of an 'ideal-type' of an international policy-making world. Recent research on these encounters suggests that one needs to focus on actors' conflict and struggles, rather than processes of 'collective puzzling'. Using the concept of 'political work', as well as elements of Bourdieu's field theory, the paper shows the ways that international comparative testing in the field of education has not only offered policy-makers with much needed data to govern, but has in fact almost fused the realms of knowledge and policy; expertise and the selling of undisputed, universal policy solutions have now drifted into one single entity and function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU's normative promotion is a keystone in the arch of its Foreign and Security Policy, reflected in establishing a "ring of friends" in its neighbourhood. However, the EU's normative impact in these countries is often hindered by domestic constraints. Conversely, deeper socialisation through persuasion and "learning" may advance towards the promotion of EU norms better. By tracing the "learning" component of the EU's external perceptions in its Eastern (Ukraine) and Southern (Israel and Palestine) neighbourhoods, this paper elaborates upon the receptiveness of EU norms. Considering the specific attention that the ENP draws towards the support of civil society, this paper focuses on "learning" narratives of EU norms among civil society elites in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine as the key targets of EU assistance – with a particular focus on various conceptualisations of learning in the learning process. Notwithstanding perceptions of the EU as a normative power, we find that the learning processes remain too complex to be captured within a single theoretical framework. Whereas communicative rationality implies learning about each other's identities through rational arguing, our analysis demonstrates that identity performance is one of the most emotive and crucial factors in perceptions of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to the EU leads to a process of policy convergence in which member states' institutions and policy cultures become increasingly adapted to align with an EU governance system. Especially in EU environmental policy, knowledge and expertise are key aspects of the institutions and policy cultures that are adapted in this process, which ideally results in the alignment of EU policy and administrative arrangements of member states. This paper offers a historical analysis of the Nitrates Directive's implementation in Poland and shows how increasing convergence of Polish institutions and cultures of expertise with EU policy occurred in response to the directive's requirements. The results highlight that (1) knowledge and expertise are central to policy convergence processes and that (2) institutions and cultures of expertise are entwined in 'infrastructures of expertise'. The paper concludes with a call for more consideration of the science-policy interface in policy convergence processes related to Europeanisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the changes within the profession of political science in Europe. The first part of the paper outlines the emerging integrated academic labour market in Europe and the accompanying process of convergence around shared professional benchmarks. The main observation here is the increasing influence competitive meritocracy has on our profession. The second part of the paper deals with some of the structural barriers European political science faces in such a competitive market. The final part of the paper outlines ways by which to surpass these structural barriers and attain a competitive academic profile while doing a Ph.D. at a typical European university.European Political Science (2009) 8, 151–161. doi:10.1057/eps.2009.3 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of policy styles in policymaking has attracted renewed scholarly interest in recent years. One of the central debates in this literature revolves around the question of how to reconcile archetype national policy styles with considerable differences in modus operandi across policy sectors. A sector-specific feature that is considered a key determinant of the manifestation of archetype national policy styles in the European Union is the degree of Europeanisation of policy sectors. This paper picks up this suggestion by addressing the question of whether and how Europeanisation affects the degree to which features of an archetype national policy style are manifest within a sector. We address this question by exploring sectoral policy styles in agricultural and food-related public health policymaking across three EU Member States: The Netherlands, the United Kingdom (England), and France. Our findings suggest that the degree of Europeanisation of a policy sector does prove an important condition that helps to understand the relationship between national and sectoral policy styles. More specifically, Europeanisation has the strongest effect when sectors face a higher adaptation pressure, i.e., when there is a larger misfit between sectoral regimes and EU-induced institutional demands. We suggest various promising avenues of future research on this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porto has long been a site of experimentation in the field of European urban policies, implemented through different initiatives and supported by EU funding. The paper describes the different urban regeneration experiences that have been undertaken by the city, analyses the nature of the policy instruments which have been implemented, and in what ways they relate to local policy-making, governance and development. What emerges from this analysis is a more complex perspective of the relationship between local/national/European policies, which needs a broader understanding of local processes to understand the emergence and transfer of the holistic approach promoted by the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]