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The article advances a new explanation of the role of administrative capacity in compliance with European Union (EU) rules. I argue that strong administrative capacity fosters not only compliance but creative compliance where capable civil servants aid determined governments in following formal EU rules while challenging their substance. I develop this argument by comparing two new member states that increased levels of state aid post-crisis but on different types: 'neoliberal' Estonia reporting proportionally more on 'bad' vertical aid than purportedly 'illiberal' Hungary. Drawing on original empirical data, I explain that Hungary has engaged in more creative compliance due to more cohesive ideological commitment to state intervention (a will) and stronger administrative capacity to achieve objectives while minimizing EU scrutiny and sanction (a way). Creative compliance with single market rules presents another challenge to the EU's ability to enforce uniform rules to ensure a 'level playing field' within the single market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines UK government positions on the regulation of transnational labour in the context of Brexit. Through an analysis of EU regulations on posted workers - the practice whereby a company based in one EU member state sends workers to carry out a service in another EU member state - the paper argues that the UK has consistently advocated further liberalisation of transnational labour markets in EU level decision-making, a position consistent with promoting increasingly 'flexible' labour markets at home. Brexit marks a turning point. Demands from British workers for stronger protection against liberalising pressure help explain the UK's recent shift towards relaxing its opposition to 'market-correcting' EU initiatives like the revised posted worker directive. Brexit provides a window of opportunity for the revitalisation of 'Social Europe' in the EU-27, without a longstanding veto player at the bargaining table, but one more likely focused more on upholding national labour protections than initiating new supranational policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is a significant clinical problem in immunocompromised individuals such as organ transplant recipients, although the mechanism remains unknown because of the lack of an animal model. We successfully developed a pig model of chronic HEV infection and examined immune correlates leading to chronicity. The conditions of immunocompromised patients were mimicked by treating pigs with an immunosuppressive regimen including cyclosporine, azathioprine and prednisolone. Immunocompromised pigs infected with HEV progressed to chronicity, because 8/10 drug-treated HEV-infected pigs continued fecal virus shedding beyond the acute phase of infection, whereas the majority (7/10) of mock-treated HEV-infected pigs cleared fecal viral shedding at 8 wk postinfection. During chronic infection, serum levels of the liver enzyme γ-glutamyl transferase and fecal virus shedding were significantly higher in immunocompromised HEV-infected pigs. To identify potential immune correlates of chronic infection, we determined serum levels of cytokines and cell-mediated immune responses in pigs. Results showed that HEV infection of immunocompromised pigs reduced the serum levels of Th1 cytokines IL-2 and IL-12 and Th2 cytokines IL-4 and IL-10, particularly during the acute phase of infection. Furthermore IFN-γ-specific CD4+ T-cell responses were reduced in immunocompromised pigs during the acute phase of infection, but TNF-α-specific CD8+ T-cell responses increased during the chronic phase of infection. Thus, active suppression of cell-mediated immune responses under immunocompromised conditions may facilitate the establishment of chronic HEV infection. This pig model will aid in delineating the mechanisms of chronic HEV infection and in developing effective therapeutics against chronic hepatitis E. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some argue that European financial services regulation is witnessing a shift from a ‘market-making’ to a ‘market-shaping’ paradigm after the global financial crisis. This so-called ‘new’ political economy explanation stresses the role of ideas to understand this change. We consider this claim by providing an in-depth examination of recent European hedge fund legislation from the perspective of two key ‘market-making’ coalition members: the UK government and the hedge fund industry. We accept that the legislation represents a set-back for the ‘market-makers’ but question whether it represents a victory for the ‘market-shapers’. Moreover, we cast doubt on the causal role of ideas, calling for a domestic politics approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article shows how the European Commission cultivates policy shifts toward a particular idea of a common European Higher Education Area by using its considerable financial leverage. By making European Union (EU) funding dependent on grant recipients meeting certain strategically selected conditions, the Commission creates new incentive structures for domestic actors, in this case higher education institutions (HEIs), with two important consequences. First, the Commission turns universities into agents for its policies: Universities lobby governments to pass legislation, which would allow them to conform to Commission requirements. Second, HEIs try to comply with the Commission's requirements even in the absence of compatible national frameworks, thereby leapfrogging policy decisions on the national level. Describing this as a 'soft' mechanism for achieving convergence, as Open Method of Coordination accounts posit, overlooks the fundamentally non-negotiable nature of the process from the participants' perspective and considerably underestimates the Commission's real influence. We examine this argument through a case study of an EU-funded higher education program, Erasmus Mundus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns that eastward enlargement will spur a race to the bottom in wages and social protection figured prominently in two cases before the ECJ: Laval and Viking. Each case considered whether industrial action to uphold collective bargaining agreements violate single market laws. Government observations divided between old and new Member States, with the former supporting the unions' position and the latter the employers'. With the ECJ ultimately ruling with the employers and against the expressed preferences of most old Member States and unions, the rulings furthered the cause of liberalization in the enlarged EU, but also mobilized political opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many theoretical approaches to Europeanization of EU applicant states portray the process as top-down: governing elites in applicant states conform to EU conditions, constituents provide a permissive consensus and all applicant states converge toward a single EU model. Such approaches direct less attention to how Europeanization is a dynamic, contradictory and contestable process. This case study considers how common pressures of Europeanization both constrain and enable domestic politics in particular domestic fields. We focus on two sites of Europeanization in Slovenia: political debates surrounding the restructuring of the Slovenian banking sector and political turmoil over the sale of Slovenian breweries to foreign investors. In both cases, domestic societal actors managed to hinder and, in one case, halt, the full-scale liberalization and privatization of the Slovenian economy. These actors not only appealed to nationalist interests, namely the preservation of Slovenia's gradualist or nationalist–capitalist development path; they also framed these political struggles within a larger European political sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of Balkanist discourse in Tudman's Croatia. Todorova's concept of Balkanism provides a useful theoretical framework through which to explore the deployment of Balkanist stereotypes against Croatia by Western leaders. Balkanism also illuminates the ways in which Croatians used many of these same Balkan stereotypes to differentiate themselves from their neighbors to the south and east. Through an exami- nation of Croatian newspaper columns, government documents and speeches, and political cartoons from the 1990s, this article analyzes how Balkanist interpretations and representations played an integral role in the construction of Croatian national identity and the mobilization of Croatians around a variety of political agendas. The objective of this article is not, however, simply to document the deployment of Balkanist stereotypes against or within Croatia. The second component of the article suggests ways in which Croatia's liminal position between ‘Europe’ and the ‘Balkans’ might serve as an ideal standpoint from which one might challenge the binary oppositions of Balkanism and begin to reimagine the Balkans, redirecting these categories as a site of political engagement and critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on regional sex trafficking in the Balkans. Economic and human rights issues.

Focuses on income composition of the United States House districts from 1962 to 1996 and how partisan outcomes are related to these variations. Income and political divisions; District-level analyses; Political conditions, party positions and public images of parties; Income, party and the importance of region; Diversity of districts over time; Race, income and party outcomes.

Describes the cell surface exposure and protease insensitivity of Borrelia burgdorferi lipoproteins of the Erp family. Potential for interaction of Erp proteins with vertebrate proteins; Production of Erp-specific antibodies; Inhibition of bacterial growth by Erp-directed antibodies.