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Aviation is a prime example of a policy area where the clash over supranational regulatory responsibilities had pronounced economic repercussions. In this article, we examine the economic effects of the European Commission's struggle to obtain competences in international air transport. Stock market reactions to key events in the political conflict between 1995 and 2004 unravel whether investor beliefs about the distribution of power in the EU follow the basic conjectures of neofunctionalism, intergovernmentalism or institutionalism. The event studies show that particularly judicial proceedings and the involvement of the ECJ send credible integration signals to financial markets. This supports the hypothesis that investors consider the subtleties of the EU's decision-making apparatus carefully and only react to developments that definitively alter the political regime and thus also the market situation. These findings are in line with an institutionalist interpretation of a reform that has radically changed the international aviation regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates, by drawing on Barry's distinction between ‘power’ and ‘luck’, the predictive accuracy of competing bargaining models. We explore whether models that take various facets of political power into account predict legislative outcomes more precisely than purely preference-based models like the Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS). Our empirical examination compares how well different formal models predict the outcome of 66 legislative decisions made within the European Union (EU). A model that considers the saliency actors attach to a contested issue performs best among all the models under examination. Although resource-based models provide less accurate forecasts on average, they offer relatively precise point predictions. The analysis also shows that domestic constraints are not a particularly important bargaining resource in legislative decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the ways in which the research management apparatus set up by the European Commission and national-level research foundations contributes to the publication gap of European political science vis-à-vis the United States. I identify four structural problems in the allocation of money to individuals and institutions and derive two main recommendations from them. First, reviewers should be members of a merit-oriented European Academy of Political Science rather than stem from a group of arbitrarily chosen scholars. Second, the European Consortium for Political Research should seriously consider the introduction of individual membership and competitive leadership elections.European Political Science (2007) 6, 160–168. doi:10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210125 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The worldwide departmental ranking by Simon Hix and national performance evaluations have dramatically shown that European political science is not sufficiently competitive at the global level. This symposium analyses why this is the case and what kind of reform measures should be introduced to move beyond this dire state of affairs. The authors detail the problems in four domains – (i) funding of teaching and research; (ii) the ‘market’ for political science education; (iii) career development, salaries, and tenure decision-making; and (iv) the publication behaviour of European political scientists. Each contribution concludes with suggestions about how the situation could be improved.European Political Science (2007) 6, 156–159. doi:10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210124 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]