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In this paper I identify whether budgets in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States are punctuated and investigate the variation in budget punctuations over time. Building on stochastic process methods, I find that budgets in all four cases exhibit mostly incremental changes punctuated by extreme shifts. In order to explain variation in budget punctuations over time, I rely on two models: partisan control of government and partisan distance of the assembly. The two models are tested using national budgetary data across all government functions for the four countries from the mid-1960s to 1989. I find that greater distance in strength and ideology among parties leads to increases in the degree of punctuations in the German and the British cases, whereas there is some evidence for the partisan control model in the American cases. In the Danish cases, partisan distance reduces the degree of budget punctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europeanization, differentiated from European integration as the impact of European policies on national policies, practices, and politics, has had differing effects on EU member states, depending upon a number of independent variables. These include the constraints imposed by EU decisions in any given policy area, that is, whether the decisions demand that countries follow highly specified rules of implementation, less specified rules, suggested rules, or no rules at all. But adjustment also depends upon certain mediating factors, including countries' vulnerability to global as well as European economic pressures, their political institutional capacity to respond as necessary, the 'fit' of European policies with national policy legacies and preferences, and the discourses that influence policy preferences by changing perceptions of economic vulnerabilities and policies and thereby enhance capacity. Only by putting the decision constraints together with the mediating factors can we adequately explain countries' differential policy outcomes, whether inertia, absorption, or transformation. To illustrate, this paper considers three countries, France, Britain, and Germany, across a representative range of economic policy areas, including monetary policy, financial services, telecommunications, electricity, transport, and mutual recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past few years have witnessed the emergence of new actors and ideas in agri-food politics discussed under the heading ‘post-exceptionalism’. Yet our knowledge about which political actors promote a shift from exceptionalism toward post-exceptionalism is limited. How supportive are political parties of post-exceptionalism? Which political parties support a strong form for post-exceptionalism and which a weak one? To examine these research questions, the study concentrates on Germany and the United Kingdom. It shows that the green parties in Germany and the United Kingdom are the strongest advocates of opening up policy-making in the agri-food sector to new actors and of proposing policies that span across the boundaries of this policy sector. Parties that are more closely aligned with farmers’ interests tend to support weaker forms of post-exceptionalism. What also matters for explaining the parties’ positions on post-exceptionalism is how strongly they support state intervention in the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution analyses the experience of the European Union (EU) with mutual recognition in the single market for goods and the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) as examples of multi-centred governance. In how far is it possible to respond to the functional needs for transborder mobility while protecting the choices of demoi and individual rights? Does the experience in the EU show that recognition of diversity is an alternative to harmonization and unity? The single goods market has developed far-reaching vertical elements falling short of a multi-centred regime. With a duty to recognize all rules, it may become meaningless to determine own rules. The EAW, in contrast, operates as a horizontal system but violates the rights of individuals, while honouring those of demoi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on economic patriotism has so far focused on public policy and only marginally addressed the role of non-state actors. This contribution seeks to fill this gap. It examines the emergence of a European economic patriotism discourse among trade union representatives at General Motors since the late 1990s, which underpinned the operation of the company's ‘European works council’, a statutory body of employee representation mandated by a 1994 European Union directive. It argues that the new trade union emphasis on ‘European interests’ vis-à-vis subsidiaries in other world regions, and vis-à-vis GM's global headquarter in Detroit, reflected a (partial) ‘upward shift’ of patriotism from the national to the European level in response to corporate globalization. It also highlights the limited and fragile nature of European patriotism, which was severely challenged during the recent global economic crisis [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

European Union (EU) patient mobility law creates destabilization rights: rights for citizens that would, if consistently applied, destabilize law, administration and finance for healthcare systems across the EU. This article focuses on the responses of the destabilized organizations and their efforts to restabilize their legal situation. We argue that it takes place through two decisions: a decision about whether or not to change procedures in response to the new right; and a decision about whether or not to lobby to circumscribe the new right. Our qualitative research in Germany and the UK found some differences in responses, but across the board the incumbent organizations and governments opted for very limited compliance and considerable engagement in EU politics as their preferred strategy for responding to the new destabilization rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This papa seeks to develop a new understanding of the implementation of EU policies as a mixed process of both Europeanization and domestication. While some scholars equate the implementation of EU policies with Europeanization, this fails to capture the dominance of national factors and the relative impact of EU policies. The implementation of EU policies is best conceptualized as a blend of effective EU influence over domestic policy choices in a given policy area - defined as Europeanization - and of domestic choices of non-prescribed or non-recommended policy options in the same policy area - which is termed domestication. Domestication and Europeanization usually work as complementary forces. These concepts are employed for art analysis of the implementation of the 1990 EU Directive on Access to Environmental information in Ireland, Britain and Germany. [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]

A central problem for improving the implementation effectiveness of European legislation lies in the impact of national administrative traditions. The dependence on national administrations for implementing European policies implies that the formal transposition and practical application of supranational policies are crucially influenced by administrative traditions prevalent in a certain policy field, which may differ substantially from country to country. Focusing on the implementation of EU environmental policy in Britain and Germany, it is the objective of this article to investigate the interplay of national administrative traditions and European policy implementation in closer detail. The main argument is that the extent to which administrative traditions affect implementation effectiveness is less dependent on the 'real' costs of adaptation than on the level of embeddedness of existing structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the EU Presidency plays a more important role than is generally assumed. It is not so much that the incumbent Presidency may try to 'push through' legislation close to the national interests but that it has an important role in fostering the Europeanization of national environmental policy-making. Holding the Presidency creates strong pressures to achieve agreement and fosters a subtle but important learning process about the European and national dimensions of policy problems. This is one of the main reasons why national objectives and 'styles' tend more often to give way to 'European thinking' about environmental policy when the Presidency is held. National differences in running the Presidency become more apparent during informal Councils which do not make decisions directly resulting in legislation. It will be shown that there appears to be little difference overall in the way the British and German governments run their respective Presidencies despite considerable differences in their national 'styles' of environmental policy- making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]