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The idea of a political union, as well as an economic union of Europe, beyond free circulation of persons, goods and services, has always been included in the ideals of the building of Europe. However, its de jure formalization only occurs on November 1, 1993, when the Treaty of Maastricht is in force and a new political and strategic actor is in place: the European Union (EU). Since then, literature has "defined" the European Union in order to clearly establish what this UPO - Unidentified Political Object (an expression by Jacques Delors in the 1990s) - is or what it can be. One of the ideas which has been a focus of discussion is that of "legislative actor" (Manners, 2001; 2002), which claims that the European Union has progressed towards normativity, both internally as well as externally, to its close neighbors and its relations with the rest of the world. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on Europe's quality or condition to impose rules. We will begin by systematizing a series of achievements which, according to Manners, lead to the triangle democracy, Human Rights and good governance in the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon on December 13, 2007 and its entering in full force on December 1, 2009. However, this paper does not disregard the fact that the concept "legislative actor" has been (re)worked and perfected by its author and other scholars due to criticism and empirical studies and has thus been altered, enhanced and argued against. Therefore, some concepts will be studied whose arguments will allow us to question the internal and external dimension of the actor European Union. We will also explore the symbolic power of the Union in the development of tools and capacity to be acknowledged as an actor able to face current threats and challenges but whose profile may not be different from other actors in international relations. Finally, we will discuss the impact of the EU having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 on the (re)defining of rules, values and principles and on the present financial crisis in the future of the "economic giant but a political dwarf". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After more than five decades since the problem of the European monetary integration has been introduced into the arena of the politic debates and after almost two decades of changes towards a viable functioning of the Euro Area, it is interesting to make a review of this process and of its main challenges. The paper tries to provide an overall image of the European monetary integration process, evaluating it from the perspective of several elements that are important for this attempt. Besides the presentation of the historical facts from the Euro adoption, the paper also presents some challenges to the process of monetary integration in Europe, on the short-term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The refugees' crisis has set the public agenda on European topics throughout 2015. Considered by many as (another) existential test for the European project, this new type of crisis has triggered frustrations and extreme disappointment, leading to a further aggravation of the already existing intra-EU cleavages, such as those between the West and the East, the "net debtors" (now labeled as the net supporters of the refugees) and the "net creditors" (now intensely recognized as adversaries of migration). Noteworthy, Angela Merkel declared that the refugees' crisis is "testing Europe's mettle" (2015), whereas Jean-Claude Juncker posed that a "blame-game" is shattering the EU, with Member States accusing "each other of not doing enough or of doing the wrong thing" (2015). This paper argues that the European leaders have tacitly fueled - through their emotional and solidarity-centered discourse - the intra-EU cleavages between the Member-States, as well as public attachment to far-right xenophobic ideologies. By means of a combined narratives' and frames' analysis, this paper focuses on the discursive means employed by the European leaders in order to tackle the sensitive topic of the migration crisis. Firstly, some background information about the causes and developments of the migration crisis is presented. Secondly, frames and narratives are approached as two different yet complementary instances of discourse analysis. Lastly, two key discourses given by Angela Merkel and Jean- Claude Juncker are investigated with the purpose of identifying how frames and narratives combine to tell the story of European integration under the pressure of the refugees' flows. [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.)

In this paper, the author introduces the conceptualization process of militant democracy since the 30s of the 20th century until today. Ideas of the founders of this concept, i. e. Karl Loewenstein and Carl Schmitt, are outlined. He points out the extension of this concept and its criticism by other authors. In this regard, the efforts of the political classification of defense of democracy against its ideological enemies are notified. Finally, the author discusses the application of the concept of militant democracy by European democratic states. In more detail, German and Czech defending democracies are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Way of promoting the municipal actors' interests differs across Europe. Southern European model based on the accumulation of mandates, strong personal relationships and the position of mayor as a local leader and northern European model based on indirect interest through interest association can be considered in conformity with classic vertical typology of Page and Goldsmith as the end points of the continuum. The aim of this paper is (1.) to reveal specific way of promoting the interests of Czech municipalities through the phenomenon of „regional patron“ based on empirical research and (2.) to define the position of the Czech Republic as outlined in the continuum. [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]

Recent analyses have demonstrated that personality affects political behavior. According to the mediation hypothesis, the effect of personality on political participation is mediated by classical predictors, such as political interest, internal efficacy, political discussion, or the sense that voting is a civic duty. This paper outlines various paths that link personality traits to two participatory activities: voter turnout in European Parliament elections and participation in protest actions. The hypotheses are tested with data from a large, nationally representative, face-to-face survey of the Spanish population conducted before and after the 2009 European Parliament elections using log-linear path models that are well suited to study indirect relationships. The results clearly confirm that the effects of personality traits on voter turnout and protest participation are sizeable but indirect. They are mediated by attitudinal predictors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Derecho del Estado is the property of Universidad Externado de Colombia 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.)

Along the 20th century, Europe lost its preeminence in international affairs. It was no longer the epicenter of the world, but a mere shadow of its former self. This new Europe was most visible after 1945. During the Cold War, the old continent reached the threshold of its vulnerability, and needed American protection in order to survive, rebuild itself and prosper. After 1989, Europe suffers from security confusion, especially when it comes to its relations with America. Is contemporary Europe capable of ensuring its security without Washington's interventions? Is this scenario desired by the USA, or even by all the European countries? How can the former "axis mundi" redefine itself in terms of security? These are the main questions the present paper is trying to take into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a relational analysis of populism. After placing the rise of contemporary European populism in the post-Cold War context, the static definition of populism as a "thin-centred" and restrictive ideology is exposed. A definition of populism as a process is used, in contrast with the tendency to apply static definitions. The figure of Pablo Iglesias is in this sense presented as an exemplary case that demonstrates the limitations of the use of these static definitions. The EU is also examined as a body that is spearheading the depoliticising processes that provoke the populist reaction - placing the focus on the "New Intergovernmentalism" to interpret the integration dilemmas - and the populist-technocratic and liberal-democratic dichotomies are addressed as historical endosymbioses. Finally, consideration is given to what should be done about the populist impasse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature maintains that not all populisms are equal. Some are seen as projects of regeneration or democratisation because they would incorporate an excluded people; others are movements that would weaken democracy by promoting exclusion (xenophobia and racism). The former is "left-wing populism" while the latter is "right-wing populism". This paper shows that what is central to populism is its model of democracy, not whether it is situated on the right or the left. To do this, an evaluation is made of the democratic balance of populisms in three countries in Europe (Austria, France and Hungary) and three in Latin America (Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela). As will be shown, those of the right have no more contributed to the destruction of democracy than those on the left may be presented as democratising successes; but all represent a profound challenge to liberal democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates qualitative and quantitative evidence of Muslims' European identification in France, Austria and the Netherlands while the far right mobilizes to exclude them from the national culture. In all these states, radical right parties stoked anti-Muslim sentiment during the run-up to the 2016-2017 national elections. The center ostensibly prevailed in each case, but these campaigns further legitimized exclusionary policies toward the religious minority. We assess the difficult political terrain faced by Muslims in Europe, their sense of discrimination, their attitude toward state institutions and their electoral participation. Political parties positioned against multiculturalism and immigration, state-level retrenchment of multicultural policies, and the regularity of terrorist attacks in Europe represent and exacerbate obstacles faced by Muslims in pursuing social, educational and economic progress for themselves and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social Sciences have often claimed the end of religiosity as an explanatory factor of electoral behaviour in Europe. Nevertheless, left and right parties still insert religious and moral issues in the agenda in order to distance themselves from their opponents. This paper shows a comparative study of 34 European democracies examining the extent to which religious voting has diminished since the eighties. Results point to a sharp decline in the levels of religious vote until the nineties, with a revitalization since then in some of the countries of the sample. The analysis also highlights the important role played by the political elite on the activation of religious vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effect that some political actors' behaviours had on the image of the European integration process in Spain during General Franco's dictatorship and its influence on the country's European policy during the democratic transition and the adhesion to the European Economic Community (hereafter EEC). The EEC's condemnation of the Spanish political regime and the pro-European stances assumed by the democratic opposition created a strong bond between the ideas of European integration and democratization in the eyes of the Spanish public. After Franco's death in 1975, joining the EEC was seen as a natural move of the transition to democracy by all political actors and received an overwhelming support from civil society. Consequently, between 1977 and 1985, Spain negotiated its adhesion. Yet, the decision to join the EEC was not just a rational choice in political or economic terms; it was understood as a means to fulfil recognition of the democratization of the country. [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]

Although the construction of a democratic system was not one of the objectives of the founding fathers of the European Union, this organization has nowadays a colegislator parliament directly elected every fi ve years. As elections remain the primary method of participation and democratic legitimization in Europe, representatives of member states have chosen this instrument to improve the legitimacy of the European Community. More than thirty years after the fi rst direct elections, it has become clear that this strategy has not borne fruit. Electoral abstention, already elevated in 1979, has been increasing every new scrutiny. Nevertheless, it seems to us that anxieties concerning this fact within the European Parliament and other European institutions are both exaggerated and counterproductive. This article intends to show that the abstention rate seen in European elections is neither surprising nor as worrisome as it seems if we consider the particularities of the European political system. The paper also seeks to draw some lessons from the European experience considering the future elections for the Mercosur Parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historia Constitucional is the property of Revista Historia Constitucional 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.)

Development of EU social policy has, since the early days of European integration, been systematically related to the efficiency - equity classification of social policy objectives, the equity objective being almost exclusively served by (democratically legitimised) national social and labour market policies. But it has also been shaped by national governments' demands for EU-provided legitimacy, especially with regard to various market confirming - and conforming - policy reforms. Those demands have, in turn, been driven by the domestic political economy of growth and redistribution and, therefore, have been tightly linked to the needs for rescuing the national welfare state. Thus, unsurprisingly, EU social and labour market policy has not developed in a simple evolutionary fashion, instead having followed an erratic course of uneven progress over time and across issue areas. Nevertheless, received accounts of EU social and employment policy have often failed to adequately address - and explain - the host of empirical issues associated with the role of the EU in the domain of employment and social affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on analysis of public opinion towards European integration in Greece, Portugal and Spain, countries known for their positive attitudes toward integration. In particular, the article analyses how public attitudes towards Europe have been formed in these countries. Secondly, it examines the determining factors of citizens' positive attitudes toward integration and shows the types of variables that are essential to understanding the differences between Greeks, Spaniards and the Portuguese. It also examines traditional euro-optimism in these southern countries. The findings show the relevance of identity and the various impacts of party platforms and ideology in attitudes of support for European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter 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.)

Medieval European urbanization presents a line of continuity between earlier cities and modern European urban systems. Yet, many of the spatial, political and economic features of medieval European cities were particular to the Middle Ages, and subsequently changed over the Early Modern Period and Industrial Revolution. There is a long tradition of demographic studies estimating the population sizes of medieval European cities, and comparative analyses of these data have shed much light on the long-term evolution of urban systems. However, the next step—to systematically relate the population size of these cities to their spatial and socioeconomic characteristics—has seldom been taken. This raises a series of interesting questions, as both modern and ancient cities have been observed to obey area-population relationships predicted by settlement scaling theory. To address these questions, we analyze a new dataset for the settled area and population of 173 European cities from the early fourteenth century to determine the relationship between population and settled area. To interpret this data, we develop two related models that lead to differing predictions regarding the quantitative form of the population-area relationship, depending on the level of social mixing present in these cities. Our empirical estimates of model parameters show a strong densification of cities with city population size, consistent with patterns in contemporary cities. Although social life in medieval Europe was orchestrated by hierarchical institutions (e.g., guilds, church, municipal organizations), our results show no statistically significant influence of these institutions on agglomeration effects. The similarities between the empirical patterns of settlement relating area to population observed here support the hypothesis that cities throughout history share common principles of organization that self-consistently relate their socioeconomic networks to structured urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of political, military, and economic programs to improve the national security in Europe. The said programs are expected to make a significant change in the standards of living and to achieve a significant reduction in strategic and conventional armaments. The proposed measures should be properly balanced in each stage so that at no point could any state or group of states gain an important military and political advantage over the participants. In particular, the figures for arms reductions, reparations, and commercial credits are contributors in the military, political, and economic fields.

The report on the governmental performance of a state in terms of democracy in Europe.

Various initiatives to unite the people and the nations of Europe have often met resistance when trying to reach a level of integration that would comprise significant political and cultural components. European authorities have nurtured high hopes that mass media could play a decisive role in creating and securing a form of European public sphere driven by the development of a European media sphere. Despite daring and resolute initiatives, any significant European media sphere has remained as elusive as a comprehensive Europe-wide public sphere. Adding to the complexity of the matter, the articulation between regional, national, and European public and media spheres forms a range of complex configurations. Ultimately, while preserving the budding of transnational media spheres, attention should be shifted toward making existing public spheres more porous while interconnecting them to enhance mutual understanding and empathy among the peoples of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the Institute of Latvian History / Latvijas Vēstures Institūta Žurnāls is the property of University of Latvia, Institute of Latvian History 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.)

Copyright of Horizons of Politics / Horyzonty Polityki is the property of Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow 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.)

A Nordic proverb tells us that a prudent man does not make the goat his gardener. But that is exactly what we have done. In the garden of Europe we have handed over power to the goat of transnational companies and banks and to democratically weakly accountable bureaucrats. The harvest we have reaped is the euro-crisis. I will first present the basic features of what I consider to be the standard view of the political situation in Europe. In the discussion that follows I will try to show that the standard view has made us complicit in empowering the goat. When we see this clearly - what has happened and why it has happened - it will also be relatively easy to agree on responses to the crisis. But clarity of vision is, as we shall see, in this case somewhat hard to attain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the role of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the Euro-Atlantic region as of 2012. It references the public goods theory known as clubs theory, developed by economist James Buchanan. Particular focus is given to issues surrounding the future of the OSCE, its identity, and its structure. According to the author, the main challenges facing the OSCE are concerned with political will and with Russia's attitude towards the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Details on the purposes and membership of the OSCE, as well as its relationship with other regional organizations, are presented. Other topics include economic integration and legal personality.

The article focuses on interregnum, a term used by Italian philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci that denotes a time-lag separating the death of one royal sovereign from the enthronement of the successor. It discusses the sovereignty and risk in the European government. It relates the separation between institutions of power and those of politics. It also describes the life-saving role played by immigrants in the fast aging Europe.

Issues of gender, international diplomacy, and architectural style conjoin in Margaret of Austria's design of Brou church in Savoy. Raised by several of the most powerful women in Europe, Margaret honed her diplomatic skills during negotiations with England's Henry VII, gaining personal authority and dynastic power expressed within Brou's décor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is an attempt to show that one of the remnants of the "Cold War", manifested in the default knowledge, is the current paradigm of the "dialogue" of the humanisms, paradigm in which "dialogue" means confrontation. This "confrontation of humanisms" is mainly due not to material causes, but to spiritual factors: on the one hand, it is due to the decisive influence of the current political ideologies, how they manage to impose "the grid" by which the ideological alternative and the dialogue with the others are perceived; on the other hand, it is due to some intrinsic factors of the mere humanisms in opposition (competition). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a simple formal model that can explain why and how European states engaged in the negotiation of federalist treaties in the fields of European defense and security. Using the non-cooperative model of multilateral bargaining derived from the Stahl-Rubinstein game, we show that the specific sequencing of treaty negotiations adopted by federalists explains why, against all odds, states preferred federalist-inspired treaties to intergovernmental treaties. We argue that federalists succeeded in convincing states to sign their treaties, rather than alternative treaties, by spreading the risk of rejection attached to various components of European security treaties into successive periods of negotiations, a process that they repeated in each new round of negotiation. In doing so, we show that Jean Monnet and his transnational network of European federalists had an influence on the process of EU integration because they segmented treaties into components with different probabilities of acceptance, and structured the different rounds of negotiations of these components by starting with the less risky ones, rather than because they convinced states to change their preferences and adopt federalist treaties instead of intergovernmental treaties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central aim of this work is to present some ideas of Europe in Central and Eastern Europe through three phases, the Soviet period, the pre-accession (the the EU) period and, finally, the post-accession period. Throughout those periods, Central and Eastern European states faced different conditions and challenges however Europe consistently remained a point of reference in the states' intellectual and political reflections. This work is meant to contribute to understanding the rationale and reason behind the policy directions chosen in CEE in the later half of the 20th and formative part of the 21st centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Electronic Turkish Studies is the property of Electronic Turkish Studies 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.)

An essay is presented on the similarities and differences in the languages and translation works of philosophers Etienne Balibar and Paul Ricoeur in Europe. Balibar's essay about vanishing Europe reveals his thoughts on the concrete meaning of European citizenship, and a democratic Europe. Balibar and Ricoeur have written about the political condition in Europe specifically on the transfers of sovereignty.

Background: Studies on political ideology and health have found associations between individual ideology and health as well as between ecological measures of political ideology and health. Individual ideology and aggregate measures such as political regimes, however, were never examined simultaneously. Methodology/Principal Findings: Using adjusted logistic multilevel models to analyze data on individuals from 29 European countries and Israel, we found that individual ideology and political regime are independently associated with self-rated health. Individuals with rightwing ideologies report better health than leftwing individuals. Respondents from Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics report poorer health than individuals from social democratic, liberal, Christian conservative, and former Mediterranean dictatorship countries. In contrast to individual ideology and political regimes, country level aggregations of individual ideology are not related to reporting poor health. Conclusions/Significance: This study shows that although both individual political ideology and contextual political regime are independently associated with individuals' self-rated health, individual political ideology appears to be more strongly associated with self-rated health than political regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights regarding the political context of good governance in Europe. The author says that the terminology surrounding good governance was considered to be related with the development policy in countries such as the Sub-Saharan Africa during the 1990s. The author mentions that the legal concept of good governance in Europe begins with the political challenges developed from the expansion of the European Union into 27 countries. The author cites that the judiciary sector in Europe had played an important function in the implementation of good governance as well as with the fundamental rights. Moreover, the author adds that good governance can be implement through the administration of justice in a nation.

The article presents an exploration into the historical development and rise of political economy within seventeenth century Europe. Details are given contextually citing the transition of older governance paradigms to economic and financially-minded concerns. The rise of accountants and finance minsters within European administrations is also noted. The relationship between humanism and accounting is discussed. The locus shift of economic thought from the marketplace to the state is also examined in-depth. Particular examples are given through the governance of Holland, France, and England.

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]

The article presents a comprehensive investigation into the relations between political elites and mass public opinion regarding attitudes towards European Union integration. The systematic study called the Intune project attempts to map the conceptions of identity and their multiple interconnections among elites, citizens, and the mass media considered crucial to the construction of a European identity. A comparison of Central and Eastern European post-communist countries and Southern Europe in terms of identity and representation as two basic dimensions of the European integration process is described.

Old Regime polities typically suffered from fiscal fragmentation and absolutist rule. By the start of World War I, however, many such countries had centralized institutions and limited government. This article uses a new panel data set to perform a statistical analysis of political regimes and public revenues in Europe from 1650 to 1913. Panel regressions indicate that centralized and limited regimes were associated with significantly higher revenues than fragmented and absolutist ones. Structural break tests also suggest close relationships between major turning points in revenue series and political transformations. [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]

This study considers whether and to what extent defections from a government coalition are punished. The study employs data on coalitions in eastern and western Europe from 1950 through 2006. The results show that if a coalition breaks due to conflict between partners or if one party withdraws from it, subsequent inclusion of the conflicting parties in the same coalition becomes less likely. Additional tests demonstrate that this effect occurs because defectors are punished by their former coalition partners. Another extension of the main analysis shows that rather than becoming pariah parties, defectors lose credibility only in the eyes of their former coalition partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on William Hazlit's response to the linguistic theorizing of John Tooke related to philosophical philology in the 18th century in Europe. It notes that the response of Hazlitt to the works of Tooke was more that subtle and more selective than the standard interpretation allows. The response of Hazlitt to the linguistic work of Tooke may also show something of the manner in which nationalism and radical politics developed during the period 1780-1830 in the Great Britain. Furthermore, Hazlitt's remark suggests that the etymological method of Tooke ceases to the assistance when the general tasks of constructing linguistic theory for language in its entirety is attempted.