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This article concentrates on the relationship between neofunctionalist reasoning and the study of collective identities. Recent research confirms what Ernst B. Haas already knew in 1958, namely, that transferring loyalty to Europe and the EU is possible without giving up one's national (or regional or local or gender) identities. But preliminary results challenge the assumption that the transfer of loyalties on to the European level simply followed from the material benefits received through European integration. At the same time, the evidence suggests that socialization into European identity works not so much through transnational processes or through exposure to European institutions, but on the national levels in a process whereby Europeanness or 'becoming European' is gradually being embedded in understandings of national identities. This latter reasoning also sheds light on the double puzzle of European integration, i.e. the persistent balance in the EU's constitution-building between supranational and intergovernmental institutions, on the one hand, and the lagging behind of foreign/defense affairs in European integration, on the other. If national processes and collective understandings are crucial to understanding the Europeanization of national identities, this will lead to uneven and varied degrees to which Europe can be embedded in collective identities. Federal states with respective constitutional traditions change their collective understandings more easily to include Europe and orientations toward supranationalism than unitary and centralized states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Haas's original neofunctionalist theory did not give express consideration to the role of law in the integration process. However, neofunctionalism had an intuitive resonance for legal scholars who generally assumed that law played an important part in advancing European integration. Political science scholarship which has addressed the role of law, on the other hand, has usually either (e.g. in neorealist accounts) taken law to be a functional tool serving the political process, or (e.g. in neofunctionalist analyses) examined only a limited dimension of law, focusing primarily on courts and on legal rather than political integration. However, a promising research agenda on the dynamics of European integration - examples of which, building on Haas's work, have recently begun to appear - could develop if legal scholars paid more attention to the empirical methodologies and explanatory theories of political science, and if political scientists adopted a less reductionist and more nuanced account of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Europe, the scholarly reputation of Ernst B. Haas is inseparably linked to the vicissitudes of something called 'neofunctionalism'. It is as the founding father of a distinct approach to explaining the dynamics of European integration that he is so well known. This article explicates the strengths and weaknesses of his contribution and explores some changes that should be inserted to make it more relevant to understanding the contemporary politics of the EU. It concludes that, while everyone recognizes that no single theory or approach can explain everything one would like to know and predict about the EU, a revised 'neo-neo' version may still be the best place to start. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do governments comply with costly rulings handed down by international courts? This article focuses upon governmental compliance with ECJ rulings. The argument is that we cannot explain compliance based solely upon the instrumental calculations of actors, but must also incorporate the normative dimension of law into our compliance model to explain why actors feel 'compelled' to follow ECJ rulings even in the absence of manifest instrumental incentives. At the same time we must not lose sight of the significant analytical insights of instrumental models. An integrative compliance model is therefore created based upon Giddens structuration theory which argues that both instrumental and normative concerns motivate governmental actors in their compliance calculations. The analytical value-added of the model is illustrated upon the Working Time Directive case, where the instrumental strategy of the British government was blatant non- compliance, but where the social costs of breaking what was perceived to be `the law' weighed greater. The conclusions discuss the broader applicability of the integrative compliance model to broader patterns of compliance in the EU, and governmental compliance with the rulings of other international courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the allocation of regulatory authority in the EU. By introducing the concept of a `regulatory regime', it criticizes not only earlier accounts of the EU `regulatory state', but also current delegation approaches. As a starting point, it identifies a dilemma for the EU regulatory policy. Despite the rising need for uniform EU-level rules in the internal market, the bulk of formal powers and the institutional focus of regulatory activities continue to be located at the national level. This results in a supranational regulatory gap. Our thesis is that this gap is partly filled by transnational regulatory networks. Under certain conditions, regulatory networks offer a back road to the informal Europeanization of government regulation. However, the informalization of governance is vulnerable to strong distributive conflict, and, if effective, it raises unresolved problems of democratic legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diplomacy as a framework of principles, rules and organized patterns of behaviour regulating interstate relations in the Westphalian system of states is challenged by the process of European integration. This article conceptualizes diplomacy and its change using two new institutionalist perspectives that provide us with complementary insights into the nature of diplomacy as an institution. These are then applied to the study of diplomacy in the EU. The process of European integration is shown as challenging the institution of diplomacy at three levels: (a) the intra-European bilateral relations; (b) the multilateral setting of the Council; and (c) the emerging capacity of the EU to conduct external diplomatic relations with third states. The article assesses change in and of diplomacy at these levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest groups have responded to European integration with varied and multi-level adjustment strategies. This article examines the Europeanization of national and regional Italian business associations as they respond to the challenge of EMU and deeper economic integration. A panel survey and analysis of available data indicate that European considerations are plainly evident in interest group goals, strategies, activities, and organization, and that interest group attention to European issues has been increasing. The research does not find neatly ordered patterns of interest group activity in Europe, but rather, a complex mix of pressure group strategies, including multi-level lobbying, consistent with multi-level governance models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing amount of attention has been devoted to understanding the process of Europeanization, although little has been done to identify its implications for local government. Since local government organizations have been increasingly involved in EU funding, this provides an interesting setting for an analysis of Europeanization. This article describes the EU funding process in a series of ten in-depth case studies of European local governments (five in England and five in Italy). It identifies changes within local government, which emerge from the EU funding competition. It then shows how the above changes represent part of a phenomenon of Europeanization. The main research proposition derived from the inductive empirical research is that the EU funding process is a driving force of Europeanization. The study contributes to the Europeanization literature by focusing on the local government level. It also provides some understanding of Italian local government, which represents an under-researched subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The change in Italy's main regional policy (for the south) in the course of the 1990s provides a prima facie case of Europeanization tout court for scholars of Europeanization. A new policy was adopted that was evidently inspired by the European regional policy launched in 1988. However, examining Europeanization only from a top-down perspective (in terms of policy outcome) provides a limited insight into the process. A bottom-up approach that evaluates the impact of Europeanization through a temporal dimension of change, integrating the Europeanized and domestic effects, allows a more precise assessment of the degree to which Europeanization may have caused or reinforced a process of change in Italian southern policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe's economic governance is not only highly complex, but also increasingly inefficient and therefore unsustainable in the long run. This conclusion is reached from the theory of collective action and the difficulties in democratic legitimacy. The solution would be the creation of a European government accountable to European citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the debate on the domestic consequences of European integration by focusing on three aspects often neglected in the literature. First, while most works deal with the policy dimension of Europeanization, we develop a set of research hypotheses on its polity and politics implications. Its consequences on the institutions of the decision-making process, on élite conflictuality and on domestic power configuration are examined. Secondly, close attention is paid to the transmission mechanisms at work by comparing the effects of 'direct' and 'indirect' Europeanization to a control case where European influences are only minimal. Thirdly, we provide empirical evidence from a non-EU member country (Switzerland), a type of state for which the consequences of Europeanization are still little explored. Based on a quantitative network analysis, our empirical tests reveal some important differences in the effects of direct and indirect Europeanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The open method of co-ordination's (OMC's) emphasis on transparency, democratic participation and learning has led to a particular interest in this governance mechanism from the perspective of deliberative democracy. This article analyses the ‘democratic’ dimension of the OMC from a normative and an empirical perspective. We first present relevant theories of deliberative democracy, from which we derive a list of normative criteria, which we then use to explore the democratic quality of the OMC in the areas of employment and pensions. The empirical analysis reveals that there are important differences in the democratic quality of the OMC between these two areas, but that, ultimately, the OMC (as yet) does not live up to its own democratic ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benchmarking offers actors a means of resolving the horizontal and vertical collective action problems that often bedevil the development and implementation of decision-making. It has assumed a vital role in the EU's ‘open method of co-ordination’ with its focus on the identification and dissemination of ‘best practice’ through mutual learning and peer review, offering new solutions for policy management in an increasingly complex, diverse and uncertain environment. Yet the evolution of benchmarking from management tool to regulatory instrument is also problematic, and not just because it remains conceptually ambiguous and technically difficult to effect in practice. More fundamentally, the mechanisms of control that underpin benchmarking in large companies are generally unavailable to public policy-makers. As a result, benchmarking must be looser at EU level, and perhaps ultimately viewed as a complementary rather than an alternative form of regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to establish an analytical framework for studying the impact of the open method of co-ordination (OMC) on three levels of political action within the EU, namely the policy, politics and polity. First, the article examines the novelties of the OMC vis-à-vis the soft law tradition in the EU, and looks at how the three dominant logics of co-ordination are linked to diverse modes of the OMC. The subsequent sections focus on the potential impact of the OMC on the policy and politics dimensions of the EU. Theoretically inspired assumptions about policy learning and partial delegation of power are the driving forces behind the inquiry. The article then scrutinizes the potential constitutional dimension of the OMC. Finally, it discusses the theoretical challenges that the OMC poses for our understanding of the EU as a polity and the concept of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies a Foucauldian analytics of government to recent developments in the European Union (EU), focusing particularly on open methods of co-ordination (OMCs) in the EU. It argues that in the perspective of an analytics of government, the open method of co-ordination can fruitfully be understood as ‘advanced liberal government’, a particular conceptualization of government constituted of ‘practices of liberty’. These practices continuously presuppose, depend on and enable their subjects — in the case of the OMC most often the relevant national government agencies. At the same time, however, they shape and reshape them. There is thus a dual nature to the open method which is typical of advanced liberal government: the method enables and opens up new possibilities for its subjects and at the same time restrains these subjects as they are subjected to a certain calculative and disciplinary regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the dynamics of financial accountability in the European Union. Financial accountability is a subset of administrative accountability and contributes to parliamentary accountability. Following an analysis of the meaning of financial accountability, the article explores the emergence and evolution of the European Court of Auditors, the "financial conscience' of the Union. It traces the establishment of the Court and the growing salience of financial management in the Union. The work of the Court became entwined in the drama of political accountability in the Union that led to the resignation of the Santer Commission in March 1999. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from a deliberately limited topic - the Committees of Independent Experts - this article looks at the tensions between the different models of democracy in the EU. It shows that the parliamentary model of democracy remains subject to serious limits in the EU. The creation of the Committees of Independent Experts is the direct outcome of the European Parliament's inability to implement formal mechanisms of parliamentary control, such as censure or Temporary Committees of Inquiry. In calling for experts to control and assess the Commission, the European Parliament itself has shown the importance in the EU of non- parliamentary control procedures. Better adapted to the institutional structure of the EU than the classical parliamentary instruments, these procedures, based on " wise men', remain questionable with respect to the principle of accountability. Their legitimacy is fragile because they can easily be led away from their aims, or even captured by the very actors they are meant to control, outside of any public deliberation. They cannot yet be considered sufficient elements of a new normative system which would suffice to ensure the development of a supranational democracy in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the transformations which have taken place in perceptions of the "comitology' system at European level. Whereas committees were initially conceived of as an instrument of intergovernmental control over the Commission, the evidence suggests that their functioning is generally consensual and that the Commission is among the most influential actors in committees. This explains the recent shift in the discussions over the committees' control function: the key issue is no longer how to preserve the Commission's autonomy from committees' interference, but rather how committees themselves can be kept under control, and by whom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Ombudsman is a new kind of "agent', whose status and role remain unclear. On the one hand, it is formally a parliamentary body, designed to strengthen the control of EU institutions and administrations by MEPs; on the other hand, the profile and role of this organ is close to that of a court. This article argues that the hybrid nature of this organ is the reason for its success. The powers of the Ombudsman, limited as they are, give him the opportunity to combine the instruments of parliamentary scrutiny and judicial control in an original way. As such it is well equipped to scrutinize those agents which cannot be submitted to classic parliamentary controls without losing their independence, and thereby helps to reconcile executive delegation with parliamentary democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) is a "composite' democracy which features diverse forms of democratic legitimation: vertical legitimation through parliamentary representation in the European Parliament; executive representation through delegates of democratically elected governments in the Council of Ministers; horizontal mutual control among member states; associative and expert representation (delegation) in policy networks; and, finally, individual rights-based legitimacy. The argument developed in this article will proceed in four steps: first, the various strands of democratic legitimation are described while locating transparency, and access to information in the overall context of attempts at democratic legitimation in the EU. In the second step, the programme to increase transparency is specified in more detail. In the third step, a discussion gauges the compatibility of the relationship between access to information and transparency, on the one hand, and the central components of European democratic legitimation, on the other. In a fourth and final step, normative conclusions will be drawn with respect to the possible functions that access to information and transparency - bearing in mind the compatibility of the individual components - serve in the context of Europe's composite democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The setting-up of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) is studied, exploring the genesis and the institutionalization of a new paradigm in European policy, the "protection of the Communities' financial interests', in the context of increasing public anxiety regarding issues of security. It is argued that the European Commission actually took advantage of being cast as the scapegoat in the 1999 crisis by progressively strengthening its own powers within the third pillar, progressing towards the construction of a single judicial area in Europe. In that respect, anti-fraud fighting is both a means and a strategy to reinforce the legitimacy of European governance. Nevertheless, such a strategy is risky when we observe that the effectiveness of European anti-fraud policy is highly dependent on the operational means mobilized by the member states, strictly managed by intergovernmental rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the EU is not a state, and not likely to become one in the foreseeable future, it cannot rely on classic institutional devices - parliamentary or presidential regimes - to curb its democratic deficit. The EU is characterized as a form of multi-level governance with diffuse mechanisms of democratic control. Such a process of democratization is nevertheless not efficient enough to be called democratic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a legal point of view, European integration concerned the citizens at a very early stage. This explains why law specialists have always tended to deny the fact that there would be any democratic deficit in the EU. They underline the various legal ways the Court of Justice can be asked by any member state or private individual to pass a judgment over the legality of acts adopted by the EC, and even to challenge some of the decisions made by its institutions. However, such researchers do not propose much quantitative or qualitative analysis of individual direct litigation. The aim of this article is to go beyond legal reasoning and to assess the concrete possibilities for citizens to go to the Court. The analysis reveals a great asymmetry between the capacity of European citizens to resort to European law and shows that the impact of the ECJ on the democratization of the EU is, at least in that respect, marginal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We miss the significance of the advent of the Euro for European political, economic, and social order if we ignore its identity dimension. Money has always been a symbolic marker in nation-building efforts and is strongly related to collective national identities. This article makes two interrelated causal claims. On the one hand, the introduction of Euro bills and coins has already begun to affect Euroland citizens' identification with the EU and Europe in general. The Euro makes Europe real and reifies it as a political order, since it provides a visible link from Brussels to the daily lives of the citizens. On the other hand, existing collective identities pertaining to the nation-state explain to a large degree how comfortable people feel using and dealing with the Euro. The variation in attitudes between the Italian enthusiasm for the Euro, the German ambivalence about it, and the widespread British opposition can be accounted for by the differences in collective understandings and identification patterns with the nation-state and Europe. In sum, the causal arrows from the Euro to collective identities run both ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Has there been a trend towards a 'European administrative space', understood as convergence on a common European model? How can we recognize an EAS if one has emerged? A methodological purist can with good reason argue that we lack the concepts, methodology and data to answer such questions. A more pragmatic approach is to accept that the public administration is a key institution of government and that understanding administrative change is an important part of comprehending ongoing transformations in the European political order. So far no unitary administrative model has emerged and differentiation is still a core characteristic. Yet administrative variance and disparities have been reduced. Common institutions have been established. Domestic ones have been adapted to European standards and administrative law has been harmonized. The challenge then is to develop analytical models with explanatory power that gives a better comprehension of administrative change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Codecision has dramatically increased the level of interaction and interdependence between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Under Maastricht the two institutions were able to agree on a set of shared norms and rules to manage the interdependence arising from the conciliation procedure. The expansion and simplification of codecision under Amsterdam since May 1999 has started to generate significant strains on the further development of those norms and rules. In particular, it has provoked tension between the competing claims of efficiency and democracy in the framing of legislation. The way in which this is resolved will contribute substantially to the future institutional architecture of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the 1999 Tampere summit, EU member states committed themselves to developing a comprehensive immigration and asylum policy. Although directives harmonizing border controls or anti-discrimination instruments have been adopted, it remains an incomplete and complex European policy area. This article seeks to explain the timing, form and content of this new domain. It combines the insights of March and Olsen's "garbage can' model with a sociological approach that emphasizes power competition among actors in the same field. Diverse actors have seized upon EU opportunities. Law and order officials in charge of migration control seeking to gain autonomy in intergovernmental settings linked their action to the single market and transnational crime. NGOs providing expertise to Commission units seeking competence in non-economic areas jumped on the "social exclusion' bandwagon by proposing anti-discrimination legislation. These developments - superimposed on policies regarding free movement of workers and services - are thus often contradictory and adhocratic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The volume examines changes in regulatory rules, organizations and policies across several European countries and policy domains, why these changes have taken place and their consequences. The 'regulatory state' hypothesis suggests that regulatory reforms involve a new mode of governance in Europe, with alterations in state functions, political arenas, institutions, actors and policy styles. The volume finds that although several features put forward by the 'regulatory state' model have spread, they remain limited and there is great diversity across countries and domains. It analyses the reasons for this, notably variation in international pressures for change and mediation by national factors. It looks at the effects of regulatory reform on participation in regulatory politics, relationships among actors, economic, social and market outcomes. An analytical framework based on different 'regulatory regimes' offers the best route forward to analyse regulatory reform across countries and sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three aspects of the life of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) after delegation are examined: their independence from elected officials, their relationship with regulatees; their decision-making processes. The article suggests that IRAs enjoy considerable insulation from elected politicians in terms of party politicization and tenure. The evidence for relations between IRAs and business regulatees is more mixed: the two have been relatively separate in terms of the professional origins and destinations of senior IRA staff and, in some countries, there has been considerable legal conflict between them. However, in an important and visible field such as merger control, IRAs have undertaken little activity. The greatest changes introduced by IRAs have been in decision-making processes, which they have opened up, in contrast to closed processes before delegation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Denmark and the Netherlands are often cited as models of successful active labour market policies. This 'employment miracle' has been credited to the new active labour market policy which is seen as a possible model for other European countries. One could even say that 'activation policy' is seen as a 'third way' to overcome the difficult dilemma between equality and employment and has become a dominant policy fashion, spread by such agencies as the European Commission and the OECD. However, if we take a closer look at the evaluations of the actual effects of the activation policy, there is not much evidence to substantiate this interpretation. An alternative interpretation is that job miracles are much more a result of fortunate macro-economic conditions than successful supply side policy. Nevertheless, both national and international policy-makers seem entrapped in a policy paradigm of structural unemployment that intensifies and spreads questionable activation policies. In that respect 'activation policies' are an excellent case of the intensification of European policy transfer and the path-dependent 'bounded' rationality of policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for the institutionalization of European 'civic competence': the institutional capacity of European citizens qua social equals to be actively engaged in the governance of the EU. It claims that a novel approach is needed to bridge the institutional and sociopsychological aspects of the EU's democratic pathology through the construction of a multi-level civic space to enhance the governing capacity of European citizens, whilst creating a particular normative order for an input-oriented legitimacy to emerge. It is also argued that recent, managerial-type reforms failed to transform a shadowy political space into a purposeful res publica: a community of free and equal citizens which is able to navigate the normative orientations of European civic society through a principled public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between the configuration of core executive institutions, with a particular focus on the position of the prime minister and finance minister, and fiscal performance, defined in terms of the maintenance of aggregate fiscal discipline and the predictability of the budgetary process. The study covers post-communist Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. The first wave of institutional reform in these countries followed the transition to democracy and was essentially negative in its impact. It eliminated communist-era institutions that competed with the prime minister and the minister of finance, but left the two in a relatively weak position vis-à-vis their cabinet colleagues. This led to poor performance and serious fiscal crises in the mid-1990s. The second wave of institutional reform arose in response to the fiscal crises and created a more centralized configuration of executive institutions, producing significantly better fiscal performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the institutionalization of central ministerial executives in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland since the late 1980s. Under communism, the policy formation and arbitration function of the central state apparatus was weakly developed; at the same time, the state bureaucracy was comprehensively politicized, as personnel policy emphasized political loyalty and reliability. In policy terms, state administration was 'under-politicized', in personnel terms 'over-politicized'. Against this background, the key challenge of post-communist executive institutionalization has been to 'governmentalize' the executive, i.e. to build up its policy-making capacity and to professionalize its staff. Executive reform has, accordingly, centred on attempts to concentrate policy formation in the central executive; to create a capable core executive around the prime minister and the minister of finance; and to establish a career civil service. But this reform agenda has yielded mixed results and the configuration of central executives remains unstable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of European integration on the central executives, i.e. the central government and the ministerial bureaucracy, of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia (CEEC-5) by distinguishing five stages of 'Europeanization'. The EU pressures candidates to reform their national administrations in anticipation of membership. These pressures are not uniform, but involve different 'mechanisms of Europeanization' and modes of governance. National reactions and solutions do not converge, not least because there is no single model of national administration in the EU itself. Moreover, the EU does not offer a precise administrative target zone for the adaptation process. In the current membership negotiations, the central executives of the CEEC-5 play a dominant role. This could reinforce a trend towards the strengthening of officials at the expense of other political actors in the EU policy cycle after accession. Anticipated EU membership is a driving force for administrative reform, but the candidate countries still need medium-term strategies for developing into efficient multi-level players in the European policy-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two main perspectives dominate in the study of central state administration in post-communist CEE: modernization and Europeanization. These perspectives can be characterized with reference to main drivers of administrative change: developmental objectives; the conceptualization of current institutional arrangements; and the decisive actor constellations that are thought to shape administrative trajectories. Modernization and Europeanization capture important aspects of the development of post-communist public administration; but they also suffer from limitations in their descriptive, conceptual and explanatory power. Against this background, it is proposed to enrich the study of public administration in CEE by seeking inspiration from comparative public administration, especially as it applies to southern Europe and Latin America. Such a broadening of the analytical purview may, in particular, help to redirect attention to the substantive openness of administrative transition and to the growing diversity of institutional arrangements in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the goal of market integration has not actually been challenged in recent years, it has nevertheless increasingly come to be considered incomplete and in need of complementary goals which serve the general interest by promoting social cohesion and equality. The debate has been conducted in various areas, such as in the fight against unemployment and poverty and in the provision of public utilities. In the latter case, regarding the provision of energy, water, communication and transport, the debate was sparked by the privatization of public monopolies and their infrastructure networks, and the deregulation of service provision. The network industries, which had traditionally been shielded from competition and were run within national boundaries, were dramatically transformed. This change, which in some countries resulted from European legislation, was meant to induce more producer competition, improved productivity, more consumer choice in the supply of network services, and lower prices. However, it has triggered concerns over the maintenance of general-interest goals in service provision, i.e. over safeguarding the accessibility, equality, continuity, security and affordability of these services after liberalization. There is a general political consensus that communicating by voice telephony, enjoying a certain degree of mobility, and using energy are basic needs which should be guaranteed and that firms operating in network industries should thus be subject to 'public-service' objectives. This contribution raises the questions: why, and to what extent, does a conflict exist between economic liberalization and general-interest goals in the first place? I then turn to the role of European policy-making, which aims at striking a balance between the poles of market integration and competition, on the one hand, and the provision of public services, on the other. What are the existing European policies and how do they fare when measured against these two goals? I then focus on the central question of the analysis: how can the pro-general-interest decisions at the cross-sectoral and sectoral level (in energy, telecommunications and rail) be accounted for in terms of the interaction of the formal political and legal actors involved in shaping the outcomes at the European level? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do firms select different international venues for cooperation in setting standards? Specifically,why do firms choose regional or bilateral strategies for standard-setting, when global standard-setting institutions already exist? We argue that while strong economic reasons exist for setting compatible international standards, the standard-setting process is often used more as a competitive tool than as a means of expanding networks and markets internationally. Moreover, the selection of a standards strategy also depends on the standard-setting institutions available to firms. Institutions that provide firms with a higher level of influence either through the exclusion of rivals or by advantageous decision-making mechanisms are more likely to be selected as part of the firm's strategy. Thus, it is the interaction of interests and political institutions that best explains why overlapping and competing strategies are often chosen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study offers an in-depth analysis of the Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM) standard, a network compatibility standard for digital cellular mobile telecommunications in Europe. It highlights the central role played by governance in securing the successful adoption of GSM in Europe, detailing the complex coordination process among an arrayof actors, private and public, at different levels. The study concludes by showing the striking difference between the European experience and the non-cooperative process of adopting digital mobile standards in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do legitimating discourses matter for a country's successful adjustment to economic policy change? Or can adjustment more simply be explained by the interplay of economic and political interests, path dependency, or cultural framing? This article argues that discourse - defined as constituting both a set of policy ideas and values and an interactive process of policy construction and communication - matters, and that it can be shown in some instances to exert a causal influence over and above the interplay of interests, institutions, and culture. In illustration, the article examines critical shifts in the political-economic discourses and policy programs of France and Britain, presenting them as matched cases. It finds that while in Britain the presence of an effective legitimating discourse accompanying economic policy change proved transformative, in France the absence of such a discourse until relatively recently proved problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of growing economic globalization and rapid technological changes governance in the field of information and communication policy increasingly requires policy co-ordination across multiple arenas, not only including vertical co-ordination across different institutional levels, but also horizontal coordination across different policy sectors. In view of these new co-ordination demands the mediation and accommodation of heterogeneous interest positions at the interfaces of various institutional levels and sectoral boundaries become a crucial governance function. The specific political, economic and technological conditions underlying information and communication technology policy favour this function being carried out by European interest associations - a development which coincides with significant strengthening and structural integration of the system of European interest representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the characteristics of the social policy of the European Community. Coexistence and entanglement of governmental negotiations and collective bargaining; Agreements between management and labor; Establishment of transnational structure.

The 'new regulatory state' became a major issue in debates on the development of statehood at the end of the twentieth century. While most Western democracies have experienced dramatic changes in their state - societal arrangements, it seems not at all clear to what extent the transition countries of Eastern and Central Europe are going through a similar process. While it is obvious that privatization and deregulation in these countries are a necessary precondition for their economic recovery, it remains questionable whether this implies at the same time the establishment of new regulatory regimes. Our examination of the transport sector illustrates that it is difficult to argue that new regulatory regimes in Eastern and Central Europe automatically parallel developments in Western Europe. Rather, the transition countries tend to make innovative use of regulatory policies and regimes where socially acceptable, but at the same time preserve significant features of their socialist heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1970s childcare provision and policy varied markedly between European Community member states. A number of subsequent developments including the growing numbers of working mothers and single-parent families, shifts in national welfare and labour market policy priorities, developments in European Union (EU) childcare policy and the impact of feminism might be expected to have encouraged convergence. This article uses available comparative data to demonstrate both the extent and the limits of convergence in practice. It suggests possible reasons for the limitations to convergence including the limited impact of feminism and of EU childcare initiatives, national variations in women's working patterns and lone motherhood and especially in the resilience of policy orientations embedded in different kinds of welfare regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses modes and options of citizenship in Europe. Analysis on the process of the institutionalization of citizenship; Benefits of citizenship to foreigners; Institutional challenges to citizenship.

The resignation of the Santer Commission has brought the longstanding debate about Commission reform to the front of the EU agenda. The issues for Commission reform include the redefinition of its roles in all three pillars, how its President is appointed, the role of vice-presidents, the number of Commissioners, collegiality and the right of censure. In all these areas the reform agenda has remained the same for twenty-five years, because previous efforts to reform have been partial and the evolution of the Commission's role and functions has never been linked to a fully-fledged reform concept. But if there are hopes that the current attempts will be more successful, there are also doubts about the resolve of member states to make a practical success of their stated intentions. A review of the issues in light of the appointment of the Prodi Commission shows that the jury is still out on Commission reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines domestic policy responses to processes of 'Europeanization' by discussing recent reforms in competition law in the UK and Germany. The article argues that the concept of 'lesson-drawing' can be usefully employed in the discussion policy reforms which use as their referent a 'European model'. The article provides a detailed account of the reform processes and investigates the extent of Europeanization in policy content. It is suggested that while the 'tunes' of competition policy may have become more similar, they remain nationally distinct. The analysis finally offers some suggestions about lesson-drawing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research on supranational autonomy in the European Union (EU) is predominantly concerned with political and judicial agenda-setting, whereas the supranational institutions' capacity to exert independent influence in post-decisional enforcement has received more limited attention. Employing principal-agent analysis, this article explores an important component of the supranational institutions' efforts to boost EU enforcement during the last decade - the European Court of Justice's (ECJ's) establishment of the principle of state liability in conflict with the explicit wishes of national governments. This case suggests that the supranational institutions may exercise independent influence not only through agenda-setting, but also by moving the enforcement of state compliance beyond governments' original intentions when delegating supervisory competences. Tracing the attempts of member states to undo or limit the effects of the ECJ's actions, the article confirms the limits of treaty revision as a sanction, but suggests that state inaction at the national level constitutes a form of sanction which should not be neglected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces constructivist approaches to research on European integration. While stressing middle-range theory, it recognizes that meta-theoretical choices also matter for theorizing and analysing European integration. Tracing developments in the philosophy of science and in international relations theory, social constructivism is introduced as a way of establishing the 'middle ground' in juxtaposition to rationalism and reflectivism - not as a grand theory for the study of European integration. Crucial aspects of the integration process - polity formation through rules and norms, the transformation of identities, the role of ideas and the uses of language - are thereby opened up to systematic inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union is pursuing a competitive and sustainable development model that combines insights from environmental as well as economic analysis. The rhetoric of this model is attractive: European development should be 'sustainable' both in terms of its use of labour and environmental resources, and in terms of the location of economic activity. European policy, therefore, should encourage industries to use more labour and fewer resources, as well as to create jobs at the local level in order to internalize market externalities. Despite the appeal of such rhetoric, the implementation of this new development model poses both analytical and distributional concerns: the assumptions of environmental and economic analysis come into theoretical contradiction and the economic effects of the policy are socially undesirable. The solution is to abandon the competitive and sustainable development model, and to pursue competitive growth and sustainable resource use as separate policy objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of economic and monetary union (EMU) is often interpreted as the logical outcome of structural trends, macroeconomic consensus, or grand geopolitical bargains. This article argues, however, that such views miss an essential dimension of the EMU process, namely the political strategy developed within the European Commission in order to achieve that goal. As part of their integrationist agenda, Commission officials selectively marshaled the political and economic significance of Europe's emerging Single Market. Thus, over time, they induced key actors to re-articulate their preferences in terms of monetary union. The article discusses the two main facets of the Commission's strategy, i.e. the politics of monetary sovereignty and the politics of monetary orthodoxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]