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Increased support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) adds to the difficulties that the issue of European integration causes for the British Conservative Party. A hard Eurosceptic party supporting withdrawal from the European Union (EU), UKIP is winning support from disaffected Conservatives and intensifying divisions with the Conservative parliamentary party on the EU issue. This paper examines how the EU issue has re-emerged as a difficult and divisive one for the Conservatives. It firstly explores the challenge posed by UKIP and the Conservative response, drawing on the literature on competition between niche and mainstream parties. The paper then examines the extent to which the Conservatives have pursued a soft Eurosceptic policy while in coalition with the more pro-integration Liberal Democrats, divisions between hard and soft Eurosceptics within the Conservative Party, and the limits of Cameron's modernisation project in relation to the EU issue. Finally, the paper considers the significance of Cameron's January 2013 announcement that a Conservative government elected in 2015 would seek a 'new settlement' between the UK and EU and then hold an 'in-out' referendum. The paper draws on data from interviews with MPs, MEPs and party officials conducted by the authors, as well as our own surveys of parliamentary candidates, analysis of manifestos and YouGov and British Election Study data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions many European countries have begun to develop adaptation strategies. However, developing and implementing these is not easy due to all kind of institutional complexities. Many of the current governance institutions are the product of times in which the climate issue was hardly of any importance. This paper deals with the question if our institutions are able to adapt to climate change. The paper presents a theoretical framework to assess the capacity of institutions to deal with climate adaption and applies it to adaptation strategies in four different European Countries: the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Finland and Sweden. It concludes that institutions in these countries provide the basic qualities to adapt. Using the theoretical framework, five institutional weaknesses have been identified which can cause tensions on the long term: 1) the lack of openness of the political system towards learning and variety; 2) the strong onesided reliance on scientific experts; 3) the tension between top down policy development and bottom-up implementation; 4) the institutionalized mistrust in the problem solving capacity of civil society and 5) the wickedness of reserving funding for the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Departing from the holistic, cross-national approach of much of the previous research into public opinion on European integration, this article offers a comparative analysis of French and British public opinion on the EU in the post- Maastricht era. In particular, it examines the effects of individual utilitarian appraisals on EU support and considers whether extant national socio-economic records and attachments to particular socio-economic models moderate these effects. Using Eurobarometer data, it is thus demonstrated that in a context of increased visibility and politicisation of the EU in France and the UK, citizens' individual benefits extracted from European integration are a source of EU support for both countries - and are playing an ever-increasing role - but that source of support is nevertheless less powerful for British citizens than for French citizens. The utilitarian argument as a vector of EU support is ultimately delimited by the national socioeconomic situation of each nation and the type of EU model favoured by French and British individuals. In the light of these findings the paper concludes that EU policy makers need to devise flexible modes of integration whilst achieving positive outcomes in the socio-economic sphere if they are to satisfy both national publics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Captured by the term "multilevel governance", an important international trend over the past 30 years has been the shifting exercise of political authority away from the traditional nation-state; both upwards to international institutions such as the European Union as well as downwards to increasingly empowered sub-national governments. While the changing loci of authority is widely lauded as valuable for effective responses to emerging policy challenges, a little studied implication is that these changes may undermine democratic accountability because voters are unable to determine which level of government to hold accountable for policy outcomes. This paper draws on the well-established parameters of the economic voting model; incumbent governments' are rewarded (punished) for good (bad) economic conditions. In the context of multi-level governance and changing patterns of authority, the ability of voters to successfully hold governments' accountable for economic conditions is likely to be undermined because they are unsure who is most responsible. This proposition will be tested using data from the 2001 British Election Study, which asked respondents: 'which of the following is most responsible for how Britain's economy has been doing: the British government, the European Union or both?' If voters are able to successfully hold the British government accountable, economic voting should be strongest amongst respondents who believe that the British government is most responsible for Britain's economy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Britain has frequently been portrayed as a ?reluctant European?. But does this mean that it is also a reluctant supranationalist? This question is explored: (a) by contextualising the type of supranationalism experienced within the European Union by reference to a range of other examples; (b) by examining historic British attitudes to supranationalism, and British experience of supranational entities on rather different lines from that of the EU. In the process issues of sovereignty, management and accountability within supranational entities are also considered. The paper concludes by arguing that Britain is not a reluctant supranationalist. The key variable is seen as the way in which sovereignty is handled ambiguously in the EU, whilst it is argued that supranationalism in the British imagination and experience has used ambiguity for other purposes, but the locus of sovereignty has been clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the relationships between policy, public opinion and the media, through an examination of the agenda-setting functions of print media in Great Britain and France on the latest round of European Union (EU) enlargement. It examines if the frames the media apply to enlargement translate into patterns the public uses to interpret it.

Presents a study which focused on the outcome of British influence on the European Union environmental policy. Differences in the policy styles developed by the European democracies; Origin of environmental management standards; Concentration of British firms on cultural as opposed to technical solutions in environmental management.

Europeanization has brought radical change to the governance practices of all EU member-states, which have in turn clashed with traditional ideas about democracy. These changes in practices and challenges to ideas have profoundly affected all EU member states, but some more so than others, largely as a question of ?institutional fit.? The EU, as a ?compound? supranational polity in which governing activity is highly diffused through multiple authorities, has been more disruptive to ?simple? national polities such as Britain and France, in which governing activity has traditionally been channeled through a single authority, than to ?compound? national polities such as Germany and Italy, in which it has traditionally also been diffused through multiple authorities. The main problem for EU member-states, however, is not so much that practices have changed and that ideas have been challenged than that national leaders have generally failed to come up with new ideas and discourse that reflect the new Europeanized realities. But here, too, institutional differences matter, although to differing effect. Simple polities have greater potential for speaking to changes in practices and challenges to ideas, were they to so choose, because their concentration of authority ensures them a more elaborate ?communicative? discourse to the general public, in which they are better able to speak in one voice and to convey a single message than more compound national polities, let alone the EU, given the number of potentially authoritative voices with differing messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]