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This paper explores the relationship between flexibility in spatial governance partnerships and their legitimacy. While partnerships have become increasingly prevalent, questions have been raised about their accountability or ‘input’ legitimacy. However, recent research highlights how multiple norms of legitimacy exist and how flexible delivery of aspired outcomes may confer ‘output’ legitimacy to governance processes. This paper explores these issues through examining the delivery of a major urban extension at the edge of Cambridge City, in the East of England. It makes the case that a particular dimension of flexibility, namely flexibility in resource deployment, has been crucial to delivering outcomes underpinned by the shared vision of sustainable communities. This suggests that future research on partnerships could benefit from a more refined analysis of the different ways in which flexibility is exercised and how these may enhance or detract from the legitimacy of partnership arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the key questions facing public policy-makers in the European Union in developing policies to stimulate venture capital. The first is how to define when and where public intervention is necessary and justifiable. The second is to identify precise policy objectives. Thirdly, should the public sector take the same or more of the risk and less of the return than the private sector? Then, what instruments should the public sector deploy (equity, grants, guarantees or loans, or a combination)? Finally, when should public intervention cease? The paper considers the experience of instruments at both European and national levels and some of the policy debates. It concludes with reminders that venture capital is not the most appropriate form of finance for all small businesses; that venture capital will not in any case succeed in promoting growth unless an appropriate framework exists also on the demand side to support the emergence of growth companies; and that venture capital in Europe must be complemented by the growth of entrepreneurial finance from other sources, notably business angels, who have played a key role in the US experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper was to understand in which direction policies change in periods of crisis. Do they lead to the hardening of norms or the introduction of softer rules governing public policies? Based on the study of policy change in two periods of economic governance-the 2003-2005 Stability and Growth Pact crisis, and the 2009-2013 economic governance crisis, this article explains why the policy change in the first case led to softer governance mechanisms, while during the second crisis, soft governance mechanisms were transformed into hard law. In applying the multiple streams framework to study these policy changes, we argue that the wider the window of opportunity and the more coherent the coalition of policy entrepreneurs, the higher the possibility for these actors to push in favour of legally constraining norms. Hence, it is not solely the power or capacity of one policy entrepreneur, in this case-the German government-that leads to hardening of soft law, but the coherence of the coalition the policy entrepreneur is able to build. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to report the findings of a series of major international reviews of career guidance, focusing in particular on studies that were carried out in the member states of the European Union. After providing a context and background for these reviews, the paper goes on to consider the way career guidance, when seen from a lifelong perspective, can help address a range of public policy goals, in relation to the needs of both young people and adults. It then highlights some of the key challenges that career guidance services are required to face up to. Key among these challenges are the need to improve access; the need to enhance quality by, among others, improving labour market information and providing better training for guidance staff; the need to allocate adequate funding in order to ensure that service supply meets demand; and the need to have more proactive policy steering, so that career guidance services are part of a well thought-through strategy that brings different providers together in order to offer lifelong support in a truly seamless manner. The paper concludes by stressing the need to better integrate lifelong guidance into lifelong learning strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effects of the Lisbon Strategy on the way in which national executives co-ordinate EU policy at the domestic level. Comparing seven countries (Denmark, the United Kingdom [UK], Austria, Slovenia, Spain, France and Poland) it finds evidence that the Lisbon Strategy has been advancing (further) centralization and politicization in national patterns of EU policy co-ordination, empowering core executives. The Lisbon Strategy's ideational elements ('grand' goals and politically visible targets) as well as organizational requirements (Spring Council, national programming and annual reports) are factors behind this phenomenon. These results have implications for the literature on Europeanization, international politics, and governance studies in what is eminently an empirical research agenda about how far and how changes in international governance architectures affect the redistribution of power within national executives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the process of interests' representation in the EU governance system at the subnational level. The evaluation of this process is based on the case study of preparation of European Constitution during the Convention on the Future of Europe and the following EU Intergovernmental conference (IGC). The article analyses how the representatives of the Committee of the Regions with status of observers in the Convention, and the representatives of subnational level institutions defined and defended their interests and aims that emerged from Maastricht 'regional agenda'. This paper also makes attempts to draw some conclusions: which of the theoretical approaches -- neofunctionalism, intergovermentalism, or multilevel governance is the most appropriate when examining the subnational level impact on EU management processes. The main findings of this article state that relative success of subnational level interests' representation during the process of preparation of European Constitution was determined by several factors. Firstly, the favourable political environment and the openness of EU Member States to the questiona at subnational level. Secondly, the representation at subnational level was clearly mobilised. And thirdly, we can identify the existence of subnational interests' representation leader. This role was clearly assumed by Committee of the Regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to give an overview of the debate and issues pertaining to flexible integration in the 1996 IGC. In order to meet this aim, the article attempts to answer three questions: (1) How has the political and academic debate on flexibility evolved? (2) What are the main examples of flexibility both inside and outside the EU? (3) How could flexibility be managed within the Union's framework? The article argues that the debate on flexibility has emerged mainly for two reasons: first, to cope with the reluctance of some of the current member states to pursue deeper integration and, second, to manage enlargement. It is also suggested that flexibility is the single most important politico-institutional issue of the 1996 IGC. Hence, an essential task for the IGC is to find ways and means to manage flexibility. It is suggested that the principle of flexibility could be articulated in the treaties in the form of a general clause accompanied by separate provisions specific to closer co-operation within each pillar. In addition, ten conditions for the coherent management of flexibility are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the ways in which the precautionary principle has influenced environmental policy development pertaining to climate change. The author is of the opinion that the precautionary principle has done little to combat climate change. The importance of social construction theory and critical realism to an understanding of the principle is emphasized, as the risks of global climate change have direct social consequences. Emphasis is given to the European Union's (EU) handling of the precautionary principle.

Whereas institutional investment accounts for a small proportion of total financing in many EU countries, growth is expected to accelerate in the future, in part owing to pension reform. Such growth may result in important changes in the demand for financial assets and qualitative developments in capital markets, which may impinge on banking's comparative advantages, corporate finance and corporate governance. Simultaneously, the onset of EMU can be expected to give rise to an increased role for securities markets and a lesser role for traditional banking, as well as giving a further boost to institutionalization. The forces unleashed by institutionalization and EMU may complement one another in shifting Europe in the direction of a securitized financial system, characterized by market-based corporate governance practices and away from 'relationship banking'. The transformation would raise a number of policy issues, such as the risk of a 'vacuum' in corporate governance during the transition to a market-based system, the danger of increased risk-taking by banks under competitive pressure and an evolution in the response of the European economy to monetary policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an inescapable relationship between the existence of migration movements and the resulting policies which are adopted by the authorities of the area concerned towards encouraging these movements, or more commonly towards attempting to control or to reduce them. This in turn means that the migration researcher must not only look at the effects of policy and changes in policy, important thought this is, but must also attempt to understand the changing political factors which fuel the formation of policy. This paper aims to bring together some of the wide variety of policy issues and responses which may be observed in Europe at the present time and in the recent past, and in particular to make an assessment of the approaches being taken by the European Union member states as a whole, and also by the so-called Schengen group of member states. This article also attempts to look at the perceptions of these policies and their effects from the point of view of both the western and the "eastern" European countries, as migration policy issues are rarely one-sided. In conclusion, it considers some of the research issues and problems which are raised by geographers and others working in this area, difficulties which might be implied by our possibly flippant title, "Keeping Up with Schengen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of certain important gaps observed in the export marketing literature, a study was conducted to investigate the presence of significant differences in the profile and behaviour between the two generic export market expansion strategic alternatives of concentration and spreading. Following a review of the extant literature, certain firm characteristics, export marketing effort and policy elements, and export-related perception variables were viewed as potentially important discriminating factors between these two approaches. Based upon data generated from a focus on firms in a small EU country, the findings suggest the existence of several significant differences between market concentration and market spreading. These differences facilitate the development of extensive export profiles of concentrators and spreaders. The implications of the study for managers and public policy markers are discussed, and future research directions identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Union (EU) legislation on portability of supplementary pension rights accrued by private-sector migrant workers is at an early stage. The recent directive on this topic, aiming to preserve accrued pension rights at least at the level guaranteed in the case of within-borders mobility, emphasizes the role of country-specific legislation on pension portability issues. This paper analyses EU as well as national pension portability regulation for a representative sample of EU countries, in the light of recent empirical evidence outlining the role of occupational pensions in individual job mobility choices in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The professional community of policy experts takes it for granted that all governments seek to strengthen their policy capacity, considering it a key indicator and requisite of their success. Yet this assumption is far from universal, even in some European Union countries with long and complex institutional histories. If we look at the informed and explicit use of policy analysis tools in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, we have to conclude that this paradigm is not completely integrated into their governmentality. In these countries, three disciplinary approaches warrant especial attention as generators of competencies recognized as usable knowledge for public decisions: 'law,' 'public finance' and 'public administration.' Where the standard operating procedures of democratic institutions appear to be fully defined on the basis of these three categories, the inclusion of the policy perspective encounters major difficulties. In these contexts, the most important obstacle is the fear that the new paradigm will threaten the balance among the constitutional bodies, especially to the detriment of the legislature, and that it will constrict the political leadership. This explains why some countries, such as France and, most recently, Italy, have attempted to resolve the impasse by resorting to the strongest of legitimations: inclusion in their constitutions of public policy evaluation as a function of Parliament. This choice is certainly important, but in itself it does not guarantee recognition of the policy paradigm as a science for democratic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article adapts the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to the European Union (EU) agenda-setting process. Therefore, it defines functional equivalents of the framework's elements in the EU and clarifies which changes in the problem stream and political stream open policy windows. The article probes the usefulness of proposed adaptations by examining the rise of issues contained in the three natural gas directives passed in 1998, 2003, and 2009 on the EU's decision agenda. The findings support the MSF explanation of the first and third gas directives, but not all necessary conditions were met regarding the second gas directive process. Building on these insights, the article enriches MSF scholarship and charts a course for future research that overcomes limitations with adapting the framework to the EU policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest groups differ in the strategies they use to influence public policy. Some mainly try to gain access (i.e., have direct contact with decision makers), whereas others tend to 'go public' by launching campaigns that aim to mobilise the broader public. In this article it is argued that group type - namely the distinction between business associations, professional associations and citizen groups - is a major determinant of the choice of strategy. The effect of group type, however, is conditional on the group's endowment with material resources and the issue context: the differences across group types are largest for resource-rich associations and associations active in distributive policy fields. Original data from surveys of national associations in five European countries ( Austria, Germany, Ireland, Latvia and Spain) enable the assessment of this argument. The theoretical expectations are supported, with the results having relevance for the normative evaluation of political systems and the positive study of interest group influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aim to build better frameworks of the European Union's policy process by taking stock of promising theoretical lenses, assessing their strengths and limitations, and developing robust research agendas. Frameworks may constitute competing policy explanations depending on assumptions they make about institutional and issue complexity. Points of competition and complementarity are identified, leading to a research agenda that specifies which lenses to use and when. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU), with 27 member states, has been a significant promoter of evaluation in Europe. More than a decade of reform and modernization of EU institutions underpins the expansion of evaluation and has shaped evaluation policies. Links between evaluation uptake and policy on the one hand and public management and institutional reform on the other are highlighted. However, it is argued that the emergence of new policy instruments, new substantive policy goals, and institutional dynamics underpinned by competing narratives of the European “project,” help explain how evaluation policy has evolved. The chapter considers how EU evaluation impinges on EU member states. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how an internal deal to tax non-resident EU savings came to depend on the co-operation of non-member jurisdictions. These efforts were both motivated and sabotaged by a policy narrative asserting that increased capital mobility poses a new global imperative for national and regional policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the evidence employed in the CORASON (the cognitive approach to rural sustainable development: the dynamics of expert and lay knowledge) research project of changing rural power relations in the context of sustainability and knowledge use in Europe. It explores what kinds of knowledge contribute to sustainable development in rural development projects and how they are created or empowered, according to the interest and capacity of the different actors involved. The article examines how actors interpret and negotiate the requirement of sustainability. It discusses how the idea and practice of sustainable development can build on local knowledge as a resource for generating activity and for commoditising local goods and service, looking at the potentials of sustainability projects for future rural development, the types of knowledge used in projects and their social sources, dynamics and social availability. It reviews the proliferating project form of management that locks actors into power relations connected to their capacity for knowledge use and discusses the pressure of urban demands on rural sustainability in the context of local autonomy. These issues are elaborated through a study of the interconnection of knowledge and power and the role of the actors in the creating and using knowledge. On the level of public policy, the authors identify the knowledge–power complex as an important factor of decision-making in rural policy and develop a critique of rural policy for its inadequate attention to the interconnection between knowledge, power and interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union embodies a new tier of governance at the European level and one that increasingly impacts upon many issues of contemporary public policy. Yet are people aware, can they identify with the EU and its activities? Do they know why and which policy areas are regulated at the European level, how decisions are made in Brussels, or do they simply feel alienated from the EU? The links between the individual citizen and the EU integration process actually matter more now than at any time in the EU's short history as public opinion has emerged, as seen through a number of referendums, as a potential constraint to the project of 'ever closer union'. The issue of public attitudes towards the EU is an increasingly salient concern for member state governments given the pending referenda in at least nine EU member states on the 'Constitution for Europe'. Yet, the public seem disengaged and the lowest ever turnout (45 per cent) at the European elections in 2004 illustrates a further example of this malaise. This article examines specifically public knowledge of and attitudes towards European integration in Northern Ireland. It reveals a considerable 'information deficit' on all things EU related which manifests itself in high levels of alienation, ignorance and uninterest after some 30 years of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role, powers and future of independent European agencies as an aspect of the current debate surrounding European governance. It argues that the design and implementation of independent agencies in the EU should not be seen as a construct of apolitical administrative engineering or integration but should be interpreted as a central component of political debates regarding the future constitutional structure of the EU vis-à-vis member states. In order to demonstrate the validity of this argument, the article reflects upon five themes (growth, co-ordination, accountability, depoliticization and power) which have arisen as central issues in relation to delegated governance at the national level. These themes are analysed in order to assess the main lessons that could usefully be considered during this critical period of constitutional reflection and design for the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue concerning the institutional reforms among the member countries of the European Union. It highlights different theoretical insights or logics which includes federalism, accountability and the separation of powers wherein both ultimately aim to make proposal that would allow Europe to achieve third democratic transformation, establish democracy beyond the nation-state. However, it notes that the third democratic transformation will be of less effort for the European's institutional framers. Moreover, it declares that formal models are explicitly based on the assumption that actors will pursue their own goals within the limits of their institutional possibilities.

The article discusses the European Union's (EU) existing law and proposal for its vertical order of competences. Vertical competences is described as a source of the public power being exercised by the EU. The subject reflects a strategy for deal with the Union's crisis of legitimacy. Vertical competencies also addresses a core concern of the implementing national authorities and in particular of the German Länder, which is the protection against unnecessary and often dysfunctional infringements on their powers. In addition, some view that the Union's competences steadily erode those of the Member States, thereby endangering their statehood.

This article draws attention to the Commission's use of soft law within the EU state aid regime and discusses how the application of informal policy instruments by the Commission has evolved since the early 1990s. It argues that developments over the past decade have led to a 'hardening' of the regulatory approach applied within the state aid regime, an evolution which seems to run against a more general EU trend towards soft law and the introduction of 'softer' forms of governance. Yet this policy development should not be read simply as a trend from hard law to soft law. Rather, the reconfiguration of policy instruments used in the state aid regime reflects the challenges facing, and the distinctive characteristics defining, this policy area. The article thus begins by introducing and defining soft law. It then provides an overview of the distinctive characteristics of the EU's state aid regime and of Commission rule-making on state aid matters. The article concludes by pointing to two legal 'events' that have altered the Commission's soft law approach and by analysing and drawing out some of the implications of these developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having established itself as a robust level of governance, the European Union now potentially affects its member states in more ways than ever before. Road haulage policy is an area in which a strong impact of European Union policy-making can be expected. Liberalization at the European level contradicts widespread interventionist transport policy traditions of the member states. In this article we ask how France, Germany and Italy, three countries with an interventionist transport policy tradition, are affected by European liberalization. We find that all three countries have abandoned their policy traditions. However, domestic factors were more important than European factors in bringing about this change. European influence did not severely curtail national policy-making autonomy. In transport policy, Europeanization is elusive because national institutional intermediation largely muffled the impact of European policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the agreement on the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe in European Union countries. Key element of the Pact; Emphasis of the policy framing; Consideration of the institutional role of the presidency.

This article examines public policy in the European Union (EU) by drawing upon the framework of policy transfer, which has been recently refined by comparativists, and the concept of isomorphism developed within organizational theory. Three case studies--namely, the single currency, tax policy and media ownership policy--are discussed and compared with the aim of assessing the potential of isomorphism for the analysis of policy diffusion. The author argues that European institutions, which have a serious limitation in terms of legitimacy, stimulate policy transfer by catalyzing isomorphic processes. Policy transfer, however, is constrained when there are no national cases to be imitated. Yet European institutions, most notably the European Commission, can overcome the problem by "inseminating" solutions into national political systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of expertise in European public policy has become the object of a passionate debate. On the one hand, it has been argued that knowledge, in various guises, can foster learning, enlightenment, problem-solving attitudes, and policy change. On the other, the public policy of the European Union (EU) is in the firing line because of its technocratic bias. However, what is meant by technocracy in the case of the EU? How can political scientists be fascinated by the positive input of knowledge, and, at the same time, horrified by technocratic policy-making? The aim of this article is to tackle this puzzle by suggesting a conceptual framework. Concepts such as technocracy, epistemic communities, and bureaucratic politics refer to different modes of the politics of expertise. Empirically, they should be contrasted with the logic of politicization. Case studies discussed in this article suggest that the power of expertise is being counterbalanced by politicization. The conclusion is that the main challenge is neither to preserve an unattainable depoliticized Union nor to assume that politicization will tame technocracy, but to make expertise more accountable in an increasingly politicized environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on European integration has taken a fresh interest in the role of institutions in the policy process. Whereas much of the new institutionalist writing on the European Union (EU) has been very actor-centred, this article takes a more sociological approach that views institutions as the context in which actors are embedded. By shaping actors' expectations and giving legitimacy to certain groups, institutional context affects both policy process and outcomes. A case study of state-aid payments by Saxony to Volkswagen supports the hypothesis that, in order to explain tensions between the Commission and the German authorities in the state-aid field, one needs to complement actor-centred analysis by looking at broader incompatibilities between the institutional logics of Germany's co-operative federalism and centralized decision-making structures in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the analysis of the European Union (EU) politics and policy. Information regarding the contributions of Italian political science to EU studies; Overview of the Single European Act; Details on the macroeconomic policy of Italy.

The conventional view is that interest rates are closely linked internationally and that larger countries determine monetary policy in smaller countries. In this article, Guglielmo Maria Caporale and Geoffrey Williams argue that this stylisation may not be accurate. The fundamental factors determining long-term interest rates are likely to be national rather than international . It may therefore be possible for domestic monetary authorities to pursue an independent interest rate policy indefinitely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

France traditionally attempted to achieve its national objectives via the medium of European integration by means of a strategy of playing a leading role in shaping institutional and policy developments at the European level. Behind this strategy lay a tension between a desire for a strong Europe and an unwillingness to cede national autonomy to European institutions. However, at least until the end of the 1980s, this tension was successfully ignored and France's European policy proved to be relatively successful. Since that time, however, increasing pressures have brought this tension to the fore. Faced with a need to respond to altered circumstances within the European Union (EU), President Chirac has responded uncertainly. As a result, and for the first time since the 1940s, France faces the prospect of losing the leading role it has traditionally played within European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]