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This paper analyses the incentives of party activists to become involved in the party life. In the last decades, the research on party activism has developed several and relevant works that shed light to the topic. However, a strong division from the beginning between the American and European approaches has limited the scope of their results, eroding the potential of the comparative analysis between both partisan worlds. Our paper is an attempt to overcome this lack. Using data from party activists in two Spanish political parties, the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Popular Party (PP), and the California Democratic Party (CADEM), we propose two main hypothesis: a) the different types of party membership (more formal in Europe than in the US) affects the incentives of party activists to become involved; b) these incentives influences differently in US and Europe to the degree of internal activism. We considered two different typologies to measure incentives proposed by J.Q. Wilson and A. Panebianco. The empirical analysis employs data from people attending the recent party conventions and congresses in those parties. Our results are somewhat mixed overall. Although some significant differences in incentives and activism arises, the general comparison shows that party activists are not so different as the traditional American 'exceptionalism' and European 'regionalism' have assumed so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses an often neglected question in labor market research: to which extent do outcomes aggregated on the national level disguise occupational diversity in employment conditions? In particular, how and why do occupational groups differ with regard to the incidence of non-standard employment? To explore these questions, the paper derives a detailed occupational scheme from the literature, capturing the variety of labor market outcomes within countries. In a second step, the scheme is theoretically linked to the topic of non-standard work. It is argued that different degrees of skill specificity across occupational groups produce diverging incentives for flexible and long-term employment, respectively. This leads to the expectation of (some) service-sector occupations showing stronger tendencies towards non-standard employment than those in the industrial sector. Based on European and German micro data, the categorization is used to decompose various labor market indicators. The results clearly demonstrate the unequal incidence of non-standard employment along the lines of the suggested categorization. Moreover, the longitudinal perspective suggests that traditionally functioning occupational groups will be crowded out by more destandardized ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about gay rights as human rights is presented which is prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in Seattle, Washington, from September 1-4, 2011. The paper discusses topics including the institutionalization of gay rights as human rights within international human rights norms in Europe, the U.S. and the United Nations (UN).

The superpowers' Cold War nuclear arsenals have been frequently mocked as "arsenals of folly" that greatly exceeded the requirements of deterrence. This paper instead demonstrates that the U.S. arsenal was principally driven by the political economy of U.S. military commitments to Europe. Ultimately the least bad option for the United States given constraints was to plausibly threaten nuclear first use, which in turn required plausible damage limitation by destroying Soviet nuclear forces. This paper demonstrates that this logic inexorably drove U.S. nuclear doctrine and posture, and in fact had the desired effect on the Soviet leadership of making nuclear first use seem plausible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper confronts a significant dilemma in efforts to define the character of national identity. On the one hand, there is a long-standing scholarly tradition that distinguishes "civic" from "ethnic" conceptions of nationhood, associating them with the western world and the rest of the world (variously defined) respectively. This seems to coincide with a sharp difference in state attitudes towards minorities that separate two parts of Europe-the formerly communist states of central and eastern Europe and the longer established democracies of western Europe. On the other hand, careful empirical, survey-based study of the issue and qualitative analysis of various forms of national identification suggest that in reality there are few differences between the articulation of nationalist self-definition from one big global zone to another. The paper seeks to resolve this tension by redefining the two conceptions of nationhood as ideal types, elements of each of which may be found in every country; it draws attention to the difficulty of measuring ethnic identification in western Europe in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern secularism, as theorized by prominent liberal philosophers such as John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, prescribes that the state should treat all religions equally on condition that they and their adherents relinquish their theocratic aspirations and recognize the political sovereignty and superiority of man-made law. Convinced that the secular bargain undermines the moral virtue of society and its members, a small, fragmented, but nevertheless conspicuous number of Islamists in Europe prefers to observe Islamic law in all walks of life, private and public. Alarmed by Islamists and informed by Orientalist readings of Islam, an increasingly vehement and vociferous contingent of Islamophobes avers that Islam is inherently incompatible with democracy and urges European governments to treat neither Islam nor Muslims equally, but rather suspiciously as real or potential threats to the wellbeing of European societies. In contrast, advocates of Euro-Islam insist that Islam can be reformed, like Christianity, to meet the requirements of modern secularism. This paper contends that elements of all three of these vying positions have found their way into policymaking targeting Muslims in several European lands. The resulting inconsistency and contradiction - what I call policy "messiness" - corroborate the process of "mutual fragilization" theorized by Charles Taylor in which actors facing radical value pluralism develop solicitude regarding their own principles as well as greater tolerance for ambivalence. The latter, in particular, creates what Homi Bhabha terms a "third space" from which actors confronting cultural pluralism can freely and constructively explore cross-fertilizations and hybrid combinations with the potential to yield yet unimagined approaches and solutions to the problems of "super-diversity." Just such creative hybridity does the paper identify among a younger generation of European Muslims whom many observers dub "post-Islamists." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the incentives of party activists to become involved in the party life. In the last decades, the research on party activism has developed several and relevant works that shed light to the topic. However, a strong division from the beginning between the American and European approaches has limited the scope of their results, eroding the potential of the comparative analysis between both partisan worlds. Our paper is an attempt to overcome this lack. Using data from party activists in two Spanish political parties, the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Popular Party (PP), and the California Democratic Party (CADEM), we propose two main hypothesis: a) the different types of party membership (more formal in Europe than in the US) affects the incentives of party activists to become involved; b) these incentives influences differently in US and Europe to the degree of internal activism. We considered two different typologies to measure incentives proposed by J.Q. Wilson and A. Panebianco. The empirical analysis employs data from people attending the recent party conventions and congresses in those parties. Our results are somewhat mixed overall. Although some significant differences in incentives and activism arises, the general comparison shows that party activists are not so different as the traditional American 'exceptionalism' and European 'regionalism' have assumed so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last ten years (2002-2012), the relations between the EU, Algeria, Mali and Mauritania have shifted from traditional trade and development to migration and security issues. In order to understand the recent shift in the European political agenda in controlling migration flows from Africa, the research analyzes the dynamic network structure of political relations between the EU, Algeria, Mali, and Mauritania. The research questions focus on the extent to which the EU has altered the structure of power through the establishment of external actors in the region, as well as the extent to which these networks represent a significant role in the formulation and implementation of national migration and border security policies in these African countries. The network analysis approach is used in order to test the centrality of actors in the region and their effective role in the implementation of national policies. The research argues that in the process of securing the European borders from unwanted migrants, the EU, on behalf of specific Member States, has altered the centrality of power within the network and managed to effectively internalize mechanisms of power through the administrative practices of these non-European States. Furthermore, the paper hypothesizes those nodes that are in or close to the center of the network have a higher degree of power and influence among other actors in relation to migration and border-security activities. By observing specific patterns of interaction (i.e. event participation) between officials (government and non-government), the paper claims that those external actors frequently involved in the various stages of policymaking have a greater level of influence on the formulation of migration-related policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how international trade, investment, and migration affect establishment-level standard weekly hours in Europe. These aspects of globalization have offsetting implications that make it unclear whether it spurs, reduces, or has little net effect on standard hours. To explore these possibilities, the paper analyzes a survey of a large sample of establishments in eighteen European countries. The analysis reveals and explains significant diversity in how different "faces" of globalization affect weekly hours. Establishments in sectors facing more trade and investment tend to have neither shorter nor longer work weeks. But those in net import-competing sectors and having more foreign-born employees tend to have higher standard hours than other enterprises. Finally, collective bargaining over working hours may mediate the effects of globalization, particularly trade: establishments without collective-bargaining agreements increase their standard hours in response to trade, while those establishments with such agreements are less likely to so respond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensified globalization and the demands on government that are created by it make studying public administration comparatively - how the field is defined, how comparative issues are framed, what subjects are addressed, and what research designs and methods of data collection and analysis are employed - a timely and worthwhile endeavor. To assess the nature and scope of the field of Comparative Public Administration (CPA), this paper identifies and codes for content 69 articles published in refereed journals between 2005 and 2009 that are comparative in nature, that is, the article must concern two or more geographical regions. This could be across nations (at national or subnational level), groups of nations (OECD, G8) or across continents. To be included among the 69, the article must also be relevant for public administration. Four significant attributes of the articles that were coded are highlighted here. First, a majority of the articles referenced the context of institutions or administrative processes, and the major subjects that frequently organized an article were reform, including New Public Management, and budgeting and finance. Second, these comparative public administration articles were dominated by studies of the United States and Europe. Third, three of our every four articles in our sample either attempted to establish linkages between independent and dependent variables or described those variables. In slightly more than one of every four articles that we examined authors tested causal relationships among variables. Fourth, the vast majority of articles that we coded for content made use of existing or secondary data; interview and survey data were rarely used. Furthermore, we found that 15 percent of the authors in our sample used sophisticated statistical methods. In slightly more than half of the articles qualitative methods were used. Among other things, the uses of theory, method, and data in the 69 CPA articles published between 2005 and 2009 differ markedly from how they were used in the published journal articles that Van Wart and Cayer (1990) coded for content twenty years ago. The paper concludes with a set of seven recommendations for future comparative public administration research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the electoral effects of corruption allegation in parliamentary electoral campaigns in Europe 1983-2007. Firstly, the paper examines the individual parties' electoral performances and secondly the survival rate of the governments. The results show firstly that parties that accuse their opponents for being corrupt are much more successful than parties that focus on other issues, under control for the position of the party (incumbent or in opposition) and for the actual level of corruption and secondly that governments tend to fall much more frequently when facing corruption charges, again under control for the level of corruption. The analysis also reveals that corruption scandals that are not politicized, i.e. brought up by a political party during the electoral campaign, have a negligent effect on governmental survival rate. Only when the issue is politicized does it have an impact. It thus seems that the politicization of political corruption has an independent effect on the electoral outcome and to a higher extent than previous research suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The signature pedagogy of political science has remained static for many decades in European universities. However, the character of the student body has altered radically. The challenge for lecturers is to motivate (and inspire) a body of students who are increasingly job oriented and less likely to value education for the sake of education. This paper will outline and reflect on two different projects designed to increase student engagement in 2009. Yair (2000) observed that student engagement tends to be higher when students are involved in active forms of learning. Both projects were designed with active and participatory learning at their core. Teaching for Understanding acted as an overarching framework. The first project brought students directly into the national political arena. The Department of Government organised for the Constitutional Review Committee of the Joint Houses of Parliament to hold a public consultation session in the University. Students participated in the project to prepare a policy submission on the reform of the electoral system. The project was designed to directly engage undergraduate students in research, which would also contribute to a national policy debate on electoral reform. Students became policy experts through their research and policy sessions. They then made oral and written contributions to the Constitutional Committee. Their contributions have been recorded in the parliamentary record. In the second project, students engaged with the academic publishing process. An undergraduate learning journal was established and this allowed research and research related skills to be integrated into the undergraduate learning experience. The project took students through the entire process of research; from proposal, to designing their programme of enquiry, editing and finally, publication as a journal article. Geiger (2002) described 'peer effects' as students learning from one another. Students participated in publishing workshops and were equal partners on the editorial panel. An essential part of the undergraduate journal is the student ownership and leadership of the project. There are interesting parallels between both projects. At the heart of both projects was a desire to engage undergraduates in active political science research and participation. They contributed to the creation of a learning community between faculty, students and policy makers. In particular, the undergraduate learning journal will sustain the integration of research, teaching and learning within the Department. The exchange of ideas and feedback that this relationship engendered allowed faculty and students to learn from one another, and develop a scholarly environment that is beneficial for all concerned. This paper will outline the steps in each of the projects and assess the extent to which students engaged with national debates on electoral reform and the academic publishing process. It will present evidence from student surveys and interviews to demonstrate that students were enthused by the projects. The paper will conclude with the faculty reflections on the projects and the extent to which objectives and learning outcomes were achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political Representation at the European level is organized around two principles: the territorial one and the partisan. Earlier studies have shown that the MEPs decide very much along partisan lines as long as bread-and-butter issues are concerned. When it comes to European issues, the national dimension plays an important role. The paper elaborates the distribution of styles and foci of representation, tests some explanation for the choice of style and focus, and finally investigates the impact of style of representation on the choice of foci and the character of campaign strategies. The paper shows that in a potential choice situation of colliding interests, the style orientations have a strong constraining effect on focus, and that it matters for political practice if candidates and MEPs regard themselves as trustees, party's or voters' delegate. The paper will use unique data from the PIREDEU project, namely the survey among the candidates (and elected) to the European Parliament 2009 in 27 countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a new trend in recent reforms of Bismarckian pension systems in Europe and Japan. It aims at revising the conventional argument that emphasizes the concertation between business and labor and at shedding a new light on the role of party politics in welfare states. In advanced democracies, the overhaul of pension system is one of the principle agendas of welfare and economic reforms. However, according to existing researches, fundamental reform is rare, if any, in Bismarckian pension systems because the very characteristics of the system (a pay-as-you-go scheme, highly occupational segmentation, and a high-replacement rate) create costly financial barriers and generate strong veto players against reform. Under such a condition in the era of "welfare state retrenchment", the only possiblity is step-by-step reform based on the blame-avoidance approach to gain consensus from many veto players. The result is piecemeal amendaments in pension finance and institutions, conducted through concertation among key interest groups, especially business and labor. Recent reforms in several countries (France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Japan), however, do not fit into this line of argument. These countries have recently experienced large-scale, comprehensive reforms by unifying fragmented schemes into integrated, fully-funded schemes. Strikingly, these reforms were mostly government-led, and carried out without the consensus among major societal actors. The conventional argument on concertation cannot explain this change. To explain this development of pension reforms, this paper presents a new theoretical framework that focuses on a two-dimensinal consensus-gaining strategies for policymakers. Policymakers simultaneously try to obtain support from major interest groups ("corporatist arena"), on the one hand, and from political parties ("electoral arena"), on the other. The core of this argument is that policy makers in Bismarckian pension countries need not necesarrily compromise with interest groups to fend off their vetoes. They can also rely on the support from political parties to overcome their vetoes. They count on either of these two types of support, or sometimes mix them to implement pension reforms. This analysis clearly depicts the changing nature of recent reforms of Bismarckian pension system. The similarities and the differences found in case studies in terms of the mix of the two types of consensus-building have implications on the literature on varieties of capitalism in these countries. It also sheds a new light on the importancce party politics plays in institutional reform in a political system with multiple vetoes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended to frame and describe a novel method of political party positioning within the European Union and beyond. Ever since the groundbreaking work by Downs in the 1950s, political scientists have derived a variety of methods to empirically determine the position of parties on scales varying between policy positions or between ideologies. Today, two sets of techniques dominate this research domain: expert surveys and manifesto/programme coding. What is common to both techniques is that the positioning is done by professionals outside the parties, i.e. by qualified researchers in expert surveys and in manifesto coding. Up to now, the parties have never been asked to position themselves. Through the EU Profiler project, a large-scale, interdisciplinary and pan- European research endeavour, some 300 political parties within the European Union (and in a number of neighbouring countries) have been offered the possibility to place themselves on 30 political issues related to party competition in the 2009 European elections. The resulting data will offer unique opportunities for comparing the accuracy and efficiency among party positioning techniques, exploring for the first time and in a systematic way the auto-positioning of political parties throughout Europe. This paper will offer insights into the conceptual design and practical application of this new method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For nearly four decades, coordinated market economies (CMEs) reigned in much of continental Europe and its most hegemonic exemplar was the Federal Republic of Germany. However, for the past twenty years conventional wisdom argued that this institution-based form of capitalism was exhausted and that neoliberal economic models were much more appropriate. But the 2008 international financial crisis and world wide recession have put a brake on calls for more neoliberalism. The paper argues that the rush to neoliberalism ignored deeper and much more basic issues: Why were these German and continental European organized capitalist institutions created in the first place? What ideas created and sustained them? What purpose did they serve? Which actors and social forces embodied them? The institutional and philosophical core of the creation of this model in the 19th century and its successful resurrection under more democratic auspices in the post-WWII years have powerful foundations. These CME institutions were founded at moments of economic crisis, precisely because liberal markets had failed or were woefully inadequate. Once activated, they were based upon the capacity to mobilize physical and human resources and to find comparative advantage without neglecting social infrastructure (Thelen 2004). Are these no longer relevant policy goals in the 21st century? To investigate more fully whether Germany and the EU nations with similar CME models would be wise to embrace their recent turn to neoliberalism rather than attempting to rebuild the spirit - but not the letter - of earlier forms of coordinated market policies, I will test the theory of path-dependent comparative historical institutionalism to ask whether a deeply embedded set of institutional structures, founded on a set of ideas requiring broad-scale and coordinated action that have twice before during the past one hundred and fifty years grown and then faltered, can do so again. The paper probes a question crucial not only for Germany and its role as the economic engine of the EU, but for industrialized democracies more generally. Is this form of organized capitalism - with deep, sticky and path-dependent late-19th century roots - capable of producing a 21st century political economy framework within the EU that can approximate the sustained economic growth, democratic political accountability, and social security and commitment to equality that characterized the developed democracies of western Europe in the second half of the 20th century? Put differently, is this a path toward a renewed European social model? The purpose for using this path-dependent historical institutional analysis is to discern if the institutional logic (comprising durable institutional structures and flexible visionary ideas) from these two earlier periods that could be resuscitated and/or reinvigorated to serve as foundations for a 21st century organized capitalist regime. The answer is not yet clear. In that sense, this inquiry is also joining a forty year old theoretical debate about whether institutions are sclerotic impediments to change (Olson 1965) or whether they can be imbued with properties of dynamic adaptation (Hirschman 1970). The specific indicators to be identified from these two earlier periods are those that comprise an institutional logic that built and reinforced the organized capitalist regimes and pre-empted and/or rejected dominant laissez-faire patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about European politics and society is presented which is prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association Conference, in Toronto, Ontario, on September 2-6, 2009. The paper discusses topics including the institutional multiplicity of democracy, and the choice of fair elections through the comparison of two electoral episodes in Portuguese history.

A conference paper about Russia's strategic energy interaction is presented which is prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association Conference, in Toronto, Ontario, on September 2-6, 2009. The paper discusses topics including the recent Russia-Georgia war and gas cut-off to Ukraine and Europe, and Russia's mixed record with energy diplomacy.

A conference paper about transatlantic visa politics is presented which is prepared for presentation at the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, in Toronto, Ontario, from September 3-6, 2009. The paper discusses topics including the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), diplomacy between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its European counterparts, and the book "The New World Order," by Anne Marie Slaughter.

Surprisingly, the cross-national diffusion of contention over political regimes has slowed down greatly over the last 200 years. Yet at the same time, its rate of success in triggering democratic transitions has increased as clearly. What accounts for these inverse trends and the negative correlation underlying them? After refuting arguments that highlight modernization and globalization, the rise of nationalism, rational learning, and the appeal of norms and values, this paper develops a novel explanation that rests on cognitivepsychological insights and invokes secular organizational developments. In the 19th century, before political parties had arisen, it fell to common people to decide on whether to join challenges to established autocrats. Short on reliable information and political experience, these citizens relied on inferential shortcuts that induced them to follow external precedents of successful regime changes rashly; yet this very rashness, which bred challenges in unfavorable situations, led to limited success. After the rise of parties, by contrast, common people take cues from organizational leaders, who command more information and experience. Before emulating an external precedent and challenging their own rulers, leaders therefore wait for propitious circumstances. For this reason, regime contention in the 20th century diffuses more slowly yet attains higher rates of success. The paper documents these arguments by analyzing the spread of the 1848 revolutions, the impact of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, and the third wave of democratization, exemplified by Chile's transition to democracy during the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western European countries differ according to the ways in which they organize local government, not least in the manner in which mayors are selected, in the mayors' statutory positions and responsibilities, and the institutional relations between the council and the mayor/executive board. The institutional arrangements have been modified in several countries. Focal question in the paper is whether the institutional reforms have resulted in a revitalization of local politics and democracy. A first measure to revitalize local politics is a separation of local political powers. In Germany, the UK, Italy, and the Netherlands powers of the council as the representation of the citizenry at the one hand, and the Mayor or the Executive Board at the other, have been separated. They now both have their more or less exclusive statutory powers, tasks and responsibilities, in some cases resulting from the introduction of directly elected mayors. Question then is, whether these policies lead to a revitalization of local politics. Secondly, in a number of Western European countries governments have introduced direct elections for the mayor's office. Despite differences between countries, in all cases the assumption is, that direct mayoral elections do make a difference and that directly elected mayors will appear to be strong leaders. Question, however is to what extent is mayoral performance affected by selection procedures and the statutory position of the mayoral office? The results of a number of comparative empirical studies will be presented in the paper. It will become clear that there are huge differences in mayoral performance. Several factors influencing that performance will be identified. The most important conclusion is that mayoral selection procedures and statutory positions do affect mayoral performance, although not as much as expected. Other factors are at stake. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of external impulses on European democratization from 1830 to 1940. It distinguishes three types of diffusion, namely (1) the gradual spread of values and norms; (2) the diffusion of instrumental knowledge about the design of political institutions; and (3) the spread of situational judgments about the feasibility of initiating political change. The latter type of external impulse, derived from the attainment of substantial change in another polity, can produce dramatic waves of regime contention. But since the actual distribution of power in emulating countries often differs from the frontrunner, these conflicts produce various types of results. The paper discusses four types of outcomes of diffusion, namely (1) successful replication; (2) preemptive reform; (3) abortive replication; and (4) blockage of replication efforts. The latter two outcomes help explain why in European history, not only political liberalism and democracy diffused, but during certain time periods authoritarianism, corporatism, and fascism spread as well. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely argued that European leaders wishing to improve the competitiveness of their economies must emulate the harsh and regressive neo-liberal policies associated with the Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Margaret Thatcher. The choice is between neo-liberal reform and no reform. My paper challenges this gloomy understanding. Between neo-liberal reform and no reform, a number of European countries have pursued a course of what I call "progressive liberal" reform. By "progressive liberalism," I mean policies that appropriate the goals of neo-liberalism, but pursue these goals in a manner that preserves or even enhances equality and protections for the disadvantaged. After reviewing the challenges that economic liberalization poses to progressive parties, my paper examines progressive liberal reforms in three areas: reductions in social spending, tax cuts, and labor market flexibilization. For each case, I proceed in four steps: 1) I first define the traditional leftist position that opposes liberalizing reform; 2) I next present the neo-liberal position, which favors liberalizing reform with regressive distributional implications; 3) I then show that the liberalizing reform in question harbors a progressive potential; 4) Finally, I describe how the reform has been implemented in practice, in a particular European context, so as to capture many of the benefits associated with neo-liberalism, while safeguarding progressive values and the needs of low-income and disadvantaged groups. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about religious symbols in public places and the post-9/11 controversies about the compatibility of Islam and democracy within and beyond Europe indicate the coming of a major new conflict area in liberal democracies. This paper starts with the observation of an ongoing and in some respects increasing significance of religion in the politics of Western democracies and links it to processes of pluralization and globalization, which in turn are related to migration moves across the world. Based on a typology of nationality codes in 19 Western democracies, the paper asks what role religion, understood as confessional legacy, individual religiosity, institutional actors and Christian parties, play in shaping citizenship policies. It follows the "family of nations" concept in comparative policy research (Castles) and argues that the interplay of nation building, religious traditions and church-state-relations brings religion back into this highly secular policy domain. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Professor Bull has mentioned, the title of this panel is, "The New Special Relationship?: post-Gaullist France and America." The title of my paper is, "Washington, Sarkozy, and the Defense of Europe." My title is both consistent and misleading. Consistent because in some respects I treat defense issues in the paper; misleading because I go beyond that focus to mention the defense of Europe and Western civilization in a broader sense. This is partly because of my current proclivities, as manifested in my most recent book, "La Republique de Dieu," published in Paris earlier this year. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper diagnoses public opinion in the US and the four European countries on the three cases of use of force undertaken in the post-Cold War era - Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001) and Iraqi Wars (2003). Taking a comprehensive view of the existing polling an aggregate analytical method is devised to map out and explain what generates 'support for use of force' in the US and the EU4 (UK, France, Germany and Italy). Three theories of public opinion and use of force are empirically tested. Firstly, the principal policy objectives thesis mirrors the differences in primary policy objectives of military actions. Secondly, the ends and means calculus thesis argues that public support is generated by utilitarian calculations of costs and benefits of military operations. Lastly, the interrelationship approach to leadership effect thesis originates in the indispensable role of leader in moulding public opinion and the impact of leadership popularity on diagnosis of public support for the use of force. Incorporating alternative variables into a multidimensional approach to public opinion on use of force this paper argues that the while the presence of the legitimate recognition and the absence of risks in military operation are sine qua non for Europeans to support wars which foment the coercive foreign policy restraint objective; Americans tend to evaluate wars more cost-aversively. Taken as a whole, this paper analyses 'European' participation to the US-led use of force from mass public opinion level through statistical investigation of aggregate public opinion survey data (1998-2004). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper tests a "bifurcation" hypothesis that in much of Europe a relatively small number of firms have moved into a new institutional context, or "rules of the game," that are largely common, international institutions and practices, while the large majority of firms continue to operate in a more slowly evolving set of domestic institutions or rules. Since firms operating in the newer, international "model" are typically large firms, firm size is used as a proxy. Empirically this paper focuses on the changing nature of the relationship between firms on the one hand, and banks and financial markets on the other. It finds preliminary evidence to support the bifurcation hypothesis, but also that national patterns of firm finance are still distinct. Bifurcation is theorized to have significant implications for the maintenance of coordination in coordinated market economies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has focused attention on the diversity and complexity of civil-social life in Russia and post-communist Europe, undermining normative and 'communist-legacy' explanations of the weakness of civil society in that region, and underlining the need for theory-building that is both generalizable and sensitive to the specifics of each individual case. This paper attempts to take another step in that direction, exploring how the ways in which elites in semi-authoritarian regimes compete for power - and the social meaning of the power they are competing for - shape the development of civil society. Examining elements of civil society, the paper presents evidence from extensive field research of key variations in the relationship between civic activism and power and argues that these variations can be traced back to crucial differences in the competitive incentives political elites in each context. Specifically, the prospects for civil society appear better when elites - even closed, corrupt and authoritarian elites - are forced to engage one way or another with society at large. The paper will argue that elite-led state-society engagement, regardless of its nature, is essential to building the framework on which citizens construct notions of justice and right, while disengagement and elite autonomy significantly impede the development of civic identities. Indeed, the evidence in comparative perspective suggests that civil society may do better when it is repressed than when it is simply ignored. This, then, points to the disengaged nature of the contemporary Russian regime, rather than its authoritarianism, as a major explanatory factor in the weakness of civil society in that country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hannah Arendt conceptualizes an evolving "crisis of state sovereignty" and related "perplexities of the rights of man". This paper examines how Arendt addresses the problem by developing ideas for a new federal and republican Europe which may serve as a model for a democratic renewal with universalistic ties. While citizenship rights, according to Arendt, must be defined and limited, Arendt suggests a post-national decoupling of state and nation. Her conceptual foundations of cosmopolitan Euro-Republicanism also point to a new universal political responsibility and post-sovereign politics in the global age. The paper demonstrates that Arendt's reflections provide approaches to mediate the tensions between the two essential claims of liberal democracy, namely democratic self-rule and universalism. Arendt, it is argued, helps to theorize and justify the EU as a post-national political community in its own right but also provides a framework for a critical theory of the European Union and its shortcomings. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourses take place in many political, judicial and societal arenas within and beyond nation-states. However, we still know little on the conditions, under which they matter. When do discourses facilitate ideational changes and allow for outcomes beyond lowest-common denominator solutions? This paper focuses on cases, in which governments violated international law knowingly and willingly in the first place and maintain non-compliance despite they were detected and infringement procedures were initiated. Since governmental policy interests are eminently strong and rigidly pointing towards non-compliance, states cannot easily be talked into compliance with a norm interpretation beyond the lowest common denominator. In focusing on these least likely cases for successful discourses, this paper addresses the following questions: How can infringement cases, in which governments stubbornly maintain non-compliance, be resolved? Can judicial discourses induce compliance and if so, under which conditions? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the view that globalization is rendering all developed political economies hybrids, this paper argues that it is still useful to speak of distinctive varieties of capitalism. It substantiates that view by putting the process of 'globalization' in a longer historical perspective that explores the response of four political economies to changes in the international economy since 1945. The cases of Britain, France, Germany and Sweden are examined to assess how each responded to economic challenges in the 1950s, late 1960s-1970s, and 1990s-2000s with an emphasis on three types of problems: the work problem, the wage problem, and the problem of total factor productivity. The paper finds that shifts in the international monetary regime and changes endogenous to the existing institutional structure of the economy were as important as exogenous shocks in posing challenges to the economy and that existing institutions conditioned the nature of the response of firms and governments. It concludes that varieties of capitalism continue to display some distinctive features of importance to economic performance and the distribution of well-being and that those varieties can usefully be thought of as the basis for institutionally-conditioned adjustment paths. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we focus on the recent evolution of finance capital - on developments in the ownership of enterprises, the funding of enterprise investment and the appropriation of enterprise surpluses -- in Europe's four leading economies: Britain, Germany, France and Italy. Between them, these four countries capture much of the diversity that is regarded as such a distinctive feature of finance capital in Europe in the postwar period. They also cover the gamut of experience in terms of the change and stability that capitalist economies have experienced in recent years. Finally, what has happened in these four countries provides important insight into developments in finance capital in Europe as a whole since, taken together, they account for an important share of economic and financial activity in the region. Although changes in finance capital in Europe have been widely discussed, there is considerable disagreement about what has actually occurred. Therefore, our first challenge is to systematically identify the characteristics and extent of change that has taken place in the ownership of enterprises, their funding as well as the distribution of their surpluses. The second challenge taken up in this paper is to explain the causes of the change and stability that we identify and the mechanisms through which they have come about. Our third and final concern is to understand the broader implications of developments in finance capital for the structure and dynamics of European capitalism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extraordinary and highly consequential electoral successes of radical right parties in Western Europe in the last couple of decades are well documented. The evidence on how these parties' successes are associated with their anti-immigrant appeals invites the conclusion that such appeals are an easy way to electoral success for minor parties willing to exploit this issue. This paper argues that this is not so, since it is nearly impossible for minor parties to make credible appeals to voters on the immigration issue unless they have reputational shields-a legacy that can be used to fend off accusations of racism and extremism. Not many minor parties deciding to run on the anti-immigrant ticket, it turns out, have such reputational shields. This paper presents newly collected evidence to show that six out of seven anti-immigrant parties failed to achieve sustained electoral success in a period when Europe was in an immigration crisis. It furthermore shows that six out of the seven parties that did succeed had reputational shields, while none of the 34 parties that failed possessed them. It is concluded that this striking evidence consistent with the reputational shields hypothesis suggests an important avenue for future research on the politics of immigration in Western Europ ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is analyzing the 'realist' support for the current regime as well as the support for democracy as a set of 'idealist' principles in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It is also analyzing political support for non-democratic regimes as alternatives to democratic governance. The main conclusion of this paper is that mass public support for democracy as best form of government is encompassing an absolute majority of citizens in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia and Belarus as well as a relative majority of the Russian citizens. Political support for the current regimes is declining between 1992 and 2002 and collapsing in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Armenia. This collapse of public support for the current political regime contributed to the 'revolutions' in Georgia and Ukraine. The share of supporters for authoritarian regimes in Russia and the other post-Soviet countries decreased from about one third to one fifth of the respective electorates. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Tilly has famously argued that "war makes states," and he has described the emergence and increasing dominance of a particular kind of state - the "national" or "consolidated" state -- in Europe from 990 to 1990 (1985, 170). In this paper, I consider whether Tilly's argument can be applied to understand what it will take to make and preserve states in the 21st century. I argue that, although Tilly argues that international, military, and economic conditions were vital to the emergence and dominance of European states from 990 to 1990, his treatment of these variables is too contingent and ad hoc to yield testable hypotheses about state birth and survival. Moreover, his ruminations about the future of the state suggest that Tilly himself does not expect his conclusions to travel. To move from description to prediction, it is necessary to develop a systematic understanding of contextual conditions such as international anarchy, polarity, and prevailing military and economic technologies. At the end of the paper, I summarize the approach I have taken to this problem, as well as my preliminary findings, which suggest that these conditions continue to influence state formation and survival. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that efforts by international donors, in particular the EU, to build the capacity of environmental NGOs across post-socialist Europe, has less to do with fostering democratic stability and civil society, and more to do with establishing new epistemic communities. Amongst critics, the technocratic, apolitical and rather benign term 'capacity-building' has become code for the transformation and undermining of 'local' knowledge, the disregard for existing 'capacities', the construction of new networks of experts, and the importation of rationalities based on west European discourses and constructions of ecological risk, sustainable development and policy responses. Not surprisingly, the weaker the post-socialist state - legacies of ethnic conflict, the severity of economic collapse - the greater the extent to which capacity-building assistance seeks to transform policy communities, actors and networks. From the perspective of Bosnia-Herzegovina it is argued that the limitations of environmental capacity building assistance are due in large part to the failure of donors to distinguish between different 'capacities', and their insistence on prioritising the development of project grant expertise and organisational management know how over and above other developmental needs. The paper illustrates the extent to which environmental movement organisations either require very basic developmental assistance, or need more bespoke support that will enable them to engage effectively in political and legal contestation with the state. However, assistance for the development of either 'capacity' is rarely available from donor agencies.The paper concludes that whilst aspects of environmental capacity building assistance are clearly having a positive impact, the rigidity of donor aid, and the framework of project grants as the mechanism for delivering assistance, are limiting the impact to a narrow elite of organisations, of which some are neither non-governmental, nor linked to indigenous local environmental networks within civil society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper employs multilevel modeling to assess the importance of income inequality on the demand for redistribution in a sample of 22 European countries. The paper is important for two lines of research; comparative public opinion research, and research of the comparative political economy of redistribution. With regard to the latter, I find, in accordance with the Meltzer-Richard model, that income inequality is positively associated with redistribution demand. Previous research has shown that (pre-transfer) income inequality is not a strong predictor of cross-country differences in redistribution among developed countries. The results in this paper indicate that this is not because redistribution demand is insensitive to inequality levels. With regard to comparative public opinion research, the results reveal that income inequality and religious fractionalization are important country-level predictors of individual redistribution demand, whereas I find no support for the welfare state regime hypothesis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Habermas points out in the Liberating Power of Symbols political conflicts are nowadays "increasingly defined from a cultural standpoint." Thus, concludes the German philosopher "intercultural understanding" becomes a task (maybe a project and a process in the manner in which both Kant and Habermas define the Enlightenment) to be achieved. Habermas considers this to be a task that is facing the Europeans, namely, the "intercultural understanding between the world of Islam and the Judeo-Christian West." However, it seems that Europe faces the problem of intercultural understanding not as an external task, but fundamentally as internal. What is at stake for Europe is the meaning of the concept itself of "Europeans," a concept that Habermas takes for granted in assigning the task for "we, Europeans," as he makes the call. This takes us even deeper to the level of what maybe Nietzsche was already looking for, before the project of an European Union ever have been conceived, namely a way to overcome the "pathological estrangement which the insanity of nationality has induced," the "shortsighted and quick-handed politicians who are at the top today with the help of this insanity," and their "separatist policies." All these elements, according to Nietzsche, make us blind to the task of preparing a "new synthesis" and of anticipating "experimentally the European of the future." Intercultural understanding as a type of politics is a task. It is not a given. It is also an internal task. It brings under question first the "subject" of the enterprise, before problematizing the other. Also, and most fundamentally, it is not only a critical task, but it is a creative task. It requires a new synthesis. The assumption that my paper makes is that this new form of politics centered on producing intercultural understanding through the production of new syntheses and criteria for understanding and judging reality should be associated with an understanding of political power that emphasizes its imaginative depth and reach, its imaginative capacity. It is the purpose of this paper to construct, with the help of Hannah Arendt's political philosophy, a concept of imaginative political power. Arendt's conception of political power needs to be understood in connection with what she considers the event of the 20th century, the existence of totalitarian movements and political regimes. Only in connection with this event can the meaning of political creativity for Arendt and the emphasis she places on the importance of this type of creativity be understood. Also, Arendt's notion of political creativity is connected with her concept of imagination. The assumption my paper makes is that imagination should be seen as another type of power, similar to the powers of forgiveness and promise. The power of imagination is connected with forgiveness and promise. I am making the point that the power of imagination is foundational for both the powers of promise and forgivenessAt the same time, an imaginative type of power needs to include not only action, but also, and I will argue more importantly, judgment. I agree with Villa that judgment is the other, very important, side of action for Arendt. Thus Arendt's concept of political power needs to be understood in connection with both action and judgment. Thus, since imagination is a central feature of political (and historical) judgment for Arendt and since political power needs to be understood in connection with both action and judgment, my assumption is that imagination should be seen as a central feature of political power as well. The overall assumption I make is that the manner in which Arendt understands political power is connected to the very important role the notion of world plays for her... ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public opinion scholars have long stressed the importance of interpersonal communication and opinion leadership in the diffusion of opinions. Individuals who are more engaged in political discourse tend to act as an indicator of future trends in the opinions of a general population. Using data from Eurobarometers 58.1, 59.1, and 60.1, this paper will discuss the trends of anti-Americanism among the people of Europe, and show how opinion leaders forecast trends in anti-Americanism. After offering a definition of anti-Americanism, this paper will argue that, consistent with a multi-step model of information flow, opinion leaders should adjust their views about the United States earliest, distinguishing their opinions from the rest of the population. As these views diffuse among the less engaged, the gap of anti-Americanism between opinion leaders and the rest of the population should become less obvious. Initial analyses suggest that, consistent with expectations, opinion leadership does appear to predict trends in anti-Americanism among the people of Europe. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central question in the study of democratic polities is the extent to which elite opinion about public policy shapes and potentially manipulates public opinion on those issues. Existing empirical estimates of the effect of elite communication on individual opinion formation are, however, characterized by a number of serious methodological problems, and consequently, there is little in the way of compelling evidence that elites actually influence individual opinions. This paper proposes an identification strategy for estimating the causal effect of elite messages on public support for European integration employing instrumental variable estimation. The paper presents three main empirical results. First, we find that more negative elite messages about European integration do indeed decrease public support for Europe. Our analysis suggests that OLS estimates that ignore the endogeneity, omitted variables, and measurement problems that typically occur in estimating the effects of elite communication are biased, underestimating the magnitude of the effect of elite messages by fifty percent. Second, we find no evidence that this effect of elite messages varies for more politically aware individuals. Third, our estimates are inconsistent with a mainstreaming effect in which political awareness increases support for Europe in those political settings in which elites have a favorable consensus on the benefits of integration. This result is in sharp contrast to the OLS analysis that incorrectly suggests a mainstreaming effect. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of all the issues that democratic, trade union, and left wing political parties have tried to address in capitalist societies, the most difficult to challenge has been the issue of capital investment, from private investment to even their own pensions. Democratic and popular forces have been quite successful in establishing welfare states, forming trade unions, imposing regulatory controls on market activity, and achieving modest degrees of worker participation (at least in the most advanced industrialized democracies). Yet they have been generally incapable of obtaining any influence ? let alone control ? over the location of investment in these societies. This paper will examine the possibilities of raising questions of social democratic influence over private and pension investment in Western Europe. By examining the historic contours of the 20th century debates in Germany and Sweden, the two countries where the debate went the farthest, I hope to generate hypotheses as to whether this policy option might represent a viable tactic by the contemporary democratic left to both the pension and democratic deficit issues in Western Europe generally, and the EU specifically. Germany and Sweden have been chosen as critical case studies because their experiences can likely offer useful guidance about the concrete limits to utility of this approach. This paper is divided into three sections. First, it analyzes the issue of investment and private control and shows how difficult it has been for democratic societies to challenge private interests on this core issue. Despite the growing predominance of collective funds (e.g. private pensions and public social insurance funds), democratic societies have never been able to ?democratize? investment decisions. The general arguments raised against such radical proposals by traditional controllers of investment have been that they too directly challenge ?managerial autonomy? or, alternatively, such radical steps are unnecessary because the free choice of individuals to decide where to invest is the essence of individualistic shareholder democracy. Second, the paper looks at the origins of German and Swedish attempts to democratize investment via two different paths and two different kinds of political institutions. It then analyzes their evolution through the 1970s and 1980s and suggests why they ultimately were unsuccessful in achieving their respective goals. Third, the paper concludes with some speculative consideration ? and perhaps more questions than answers ? on the relationship between democracy and investment in societies, such as those in Western Europe and/or the EU, that are both democratic and capitalist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the establishment of the Copenhagen criteria for membership in 1993 the European Community has entered a complex process of guiding Eastern European countries on their way back to Europe. The substance of this process consisted in institutional models and behavioral patterns delivery, which through the mechanics of conditionality, timing and bargaining was expected to produce substantial effects on national governance systems . This paper aims to present this experiment as a distinct governance mode in the EU based on conditionality about institutional performance and political timing. It further argues that as a top down governance process accession affects domestic policy making and institutional building efforts, but is limited to formal institutional choices. Actual institutional performance in candidate countries is predefined by previous and existing formal and informal institutional structures, political actor?s interests and reform capacity. The paper further proposes a more governance oriented approach in researching the substance of accession process and its outcomes in a transformational context. It combines vertical and horizontal analytical tools for discovering at one hand the substance of accession conditionality as a distinct governance structure. On the other hand it takes a closer look at two economic policy sectors for examining the actual functioning of the accession conditionality at domestic level in a given accession country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the role of party system in the outcome of pension reform in Central and Eastern Europe. Mapping party positions in a bi-dimensional space, in which one dimension is left-right and the second is a nationalist-authoritarian vs. cosmopolitan-libertarian dimension, allows predicting the likely pro-reform and anti-reform coalitions. The success of reform in the long-run depends on the types of coalitions that can form and the existence of a minimal consensus between the major left and right parties on the basic blueprint of reform. A roll call analysis of voting in the Polish Sejm brings evidence for the dimensionality of the political space, legislators? ideal points, and the formation of pro-reform and anti-reform coalitions. Results are compared with party positions given by expert evaluations. The study compares Poland?s chances of reform success with those of Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Unlike the existing literature, which emphasizes the role of crises and international pressures in the outcome of pension reform, this paper argues that the demand-side factors are of limited relevance. It also finds that the concentration of power is a poor predictor of the outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the new institutional architecture of Eastern Europe. It extends Lijphart?s study of democratic institutions to fourteen new democracies in Eastern Europe. In his analysis of advanced democracies, Lijphart found that ten institutional variables cluster on two clearly separate dimensions. This clustering does not occur in the new democracies of Eastern Europe; they do not fall clearly into Lijphart?s consensus and majoritarian camps. On the executives-parties dimension, Eastern European countries are basically consensus except for highly majoritarian forms of interest group representation. On the federal-unity dimension, they are even more divided. While they tend to have unitary, unicameral governments (both majoritarian traits), they have adopted highly consensual modes of constitutional amendment, judicial review, and central banks. While Lijphart suggests that his two types of democracy have a logical coherence, this paper attributes these hybrids to the circumstances prevailing at the time when new institutions were adopted. In particular, communist legacies and international conditions have influenced the choice of new institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to examine the possible outcomes of the combination of liberalizing Middle Eastern political systems and Islamist oppositions. It does so by examining the broader phenomenon of liberalizing political systems integrating religious oppositions. This involves an examination of the earlier precedent of the passage of Catholic confessional parties and their constituencies in nineteenth century Europe from being protagonists of the Church?s opposition to the tenets of liberalism toward becoming pro-system political parties with Christian roots and inspiration, the post-WWII Christian democratic parties. The paper argues that this passage from opposition to reconciliation with liberalism in the European context entailed key processes involving (1) a dialectical relationship between liberals & religionists in the context of a liberalizing system, and (2) a gradual expansion of the religious party beyond religious and confessional lines. The Arab Middle Eastern context by contrast exhibits a process of limited liberalization from above in which liberals are a weak or quasi-non-existent force, resulting in the near absence of a dialectical process of elite challenges, negotiations and accommodation between liberals and religionists. In that context, the principal actors in influencing the religion-and-politics configuration in the political system are authoritarian states and religionists. The expansion of Islamist parties beyond religious issue concerns is in evidence but is limited in scope in part as a function of the constraints imposed by the authoritarian states. Based on this analysis, the paper introduces the theoretical argument that the process of democratic transition needs to be conceptualized as having a parallel process involving the transition of religious constituencies inimical to the religion-and-politics liberal formulae in the direction of an accommodation to new equilibria concerning the relative role of religion in public life, thus marking a transition of support from divine sovereignty toward popular sovereignty. Such a parallel transition it is argued, is not unproblematic and is contingent upon the nature of the democratic transition itself or the problems stalling its emergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the impact of semi-presidential regimes on governance, delegation and accountability by examining under which conditions presidents take over from assemblies in these regimes, and form presidentially chosen technical cabinets. One interpretation is that these episodes of presidential governance illustrate the agency risks inherent in semi-presidentialism: delegation to two electoral agents creates tensions, which presidents may in the worst-case scenario resolve by marginalizing the assembly. A second interpretation is that these technical cabinets illustrate the flexibility of semi-presidential regimes in generating a wide variety of governance solutions, from president-led to fully assembly based cabinets. Alternatively, the formation of technical cabinets may reflect the staying power of initial historical choices, and the path dependence of politicians? subsequent decisions. This paper offers the first empirical assessment of the conditions under which presidents take control over governments and the implications which this has for governance, delegation and accountability in what has recently become Europe?s most commonly chosen regime type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The restructuring of governments in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has not led to the emergence of uniform cabinet structures across the region. The paper addresses the issue of a persistent variation in cabinet ministerial organization and size across countries and over time. It advances a patronage-based theory of cabinet formation. The central claim is that the extent of clientelistic structuring of the party system, the parliamentary/semi-presidential constitutional divide, and the character of a governing coalition have a systematic effect on politicians? willingness to proliferate cabinet ministerial positions or to maintain already oversized cabinets. To support this claim the paper specifies and tests a number of hypotheses about the effects of political, institutional, and structural variables on the evolution of cabinet organization in the region. The evidence suggests that constitutional design and party system clientelism have a significant impact on changes in cabinet organization and size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at measuring the process of democratization, subdivided into the liberalization of the autocratic regime, the mode of transition, and the consolidation of democracy. The ca. 30 countries included in the study are situated in different regions in the world, mainly Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Republics, and Latin America. Most of them have experienced transitions away from different types of autocracies since 1974. However, we also include some countries from the Middle East and Northern Africa, which are, at best, in an embryonic stage of liberalization. The concepts will be measured in the form of a scalogram. Two coders assign scores for 27 indicators measured on an annual basis. Thus, the data provides a comparative measure of the level of liberalization and consolidation each country has achieved at any point in time over the period 1974-2000. In addition to this, each country’s mode of transition can be identified. The major task of our paper consists in exploring this cross-sectional, time series data to reveal their ‘patterns’. Such an investigation will be mainly guided by the question of how the different aspects of the complex processes of liberalization and consolidation are related to each other over time and space. One main finding is that our data both on liberalization and consolidation has a one-dimensional structure. Based on this finding, we can create scales of liberalization and consolidation. We find that most countries from Central and Eastern Europe perform comparatively well. Not only do they reach the same high levels of liberalization and consolidation like the Southern European cases, but they also do so in a much shorter time span than Spain, Portugal, Greece, or any of the Latin American cases in the 70s and 80s [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the construction of the European minority rights regime in the 1990s. It asks why the regime contains imprecise norms, ‘soft’ law and weak institutions. More specifically, it asks why international institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have not pushed for stronger agreements and for the legalization of minority rights at the European level. This is puzzling given that activists often seek legalization in order to gain leverage in domestic politics. Furthermore, the normative environment in which European politics took place could have empowered activism in favor of the construction of a stronger regime on minority rights. International NGOs have lobbied for monitoring procedures of state compliance with European agreements, which allow the participation of NGOs and of minority groups. Nevertheless, they have not advocated the legalization or greater standardization of minority rights at the European level. In the Council of Europe, a significant debate occurred around the drafting and signing of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM). According to the available evidence, the final document adopted reflected the lowest common denominator of the preferences of the member states. The paper finds that international NGOs recognize that, in the task of mediating between governments and minority groups, ‘soft’ law and imprecise norms are effective because of their flexibility. Furthermore, soft instruments may contain a greater number of provisions and principles, while legally binding agreements with effective enforcement usually include a narrower array of rights. In terms of the debate within the Council of Europe, the argument for legalization of minority rights was forcefully supported by the organization’s Parliamentary Assembly, but rejected by the Council of Ministers. The difference of opinion between the two bodies remains after a decade of discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of European economic integration and European norms on the rights of minority groups in Estonian and Latvian ethnic politics in the 1990s. By the end of the 1990s, Estonia and Latvia amended the citizenship and language policies of the early 1990s, while maintaining the principle of the ethnically based state. The main incentive for policy reform came from the prospect of European Union (EU) membership. The international norms on minority rights, developed mostly after the end of the Cold War, have complemented the incentive of EU membership. Estonia was quicker to respond to the incentive of European Union (EU) membership than Latvia. The domestic consensus on market reforms and membership in the West have enabled the Estonian elites to form coalitions necessary to adopt the minority policy changes required for EU membership. In Latvia, a consensus on EU membership is also present. Nevertheless, the prominent role of extremist nationalist in Latvian politics has often weakened government coalitions and slowed down the process of both economic and minority policy reform. The European norms on minority rights have played a greater role in Latvian deliberations on policy reform. Latvian centrists have referred to European norms to justify their compliance with EU membership criteria. In Estonia, the strong domestic consensus on EU membership and lack of debate on the citizenship and language policies has meant that European norms have not played a significant role. Estonian elites complied with EU recommendations when it was clear that compliance was required for membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]