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3251. Spinoza, Locke, and the Limits of Dutch Toleration

Author:
Geoffrey A. Gorham
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
The Netherlands' reputation as a bastion of religious and political toleration has been tested in the last decade by the rise of indigenous anti-immigrant political movements. These movements are fueled not only by simple xenophobia and racism, amplified in the wake of September 11, but also by the seemingly sincere sentiment that the Netherlands, the most densely populated nation in Europe, cannot sustain historical immigration levels: “Holland is full.” But another important component of anti-immigrant rhetoric is conceptual or ideological rather than practical, and trades on the tolerant self-image of the Dutch: toleration does not extend to the intolerant. Muslim immigrants are the usual target of this argument, who are accused of harboring theocratic, patriarchal, homophobic, and anti-Christian or anti-Jewish convictions and designs. Such rhetoric raises important and complex questions about how social and political ideals like toleration, freedom, and equality—as much as idolatry, infidelity, and heresy—are conditioned by the structures of social and economic power in which they historically emerge. That is to say, does the ideal of “toleration” in practice merely reinforce the boundaries of what is “tolerable” within the dominant culture?
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Europe, Netherlands, and Holland

3252. Bioracism, or, Spiritual Evolutionism

Author:
A. Kiarina Kordela
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
On November 10, 2004, eight days after the murder of the film director Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, Etienne Balibar was invited to Radboud University in Nijmegen, the oldest city in the Netherlands, to offer that year's Alexander von Humboldt Lecture in Human Geography. The title of his talk, which was subsequently translated and published in several European languages, was “Europe as Borderland,” indicating that far from “being a solution or a prospect,” “the issue of citizenship and cosmopolitanism” in Europe must be based on the fact that “Europe currently exists as a borderland.” By this, Balibar means that “the question of 'borders'…is central when we reflect about citizenship and, more generally, political association”; and the question of borders itself in turn presupposes “address[ing] the issue of political spaces” as a means of representing specifically “European borders” (194).
Topic:
International Security
Political Geography:
Europe and Netherlands

3253. Do Germans support the euro?

Author:
Daniel Gros and Felix Roth
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
This paper analyses public support for the euro in Germany. Drawing from the results of regular Eurobarometer surveys, it finds that the ongoing financial and sovereign debt crisis has reduced support for the euro among German citizens, but not dramatically so – at least not yet. In the 1990s, the German public was sceptical towards the euro. But since the introduction of euro banknotes and coins, a clear majority of citizens supports the euro – despite the financial and sovereign debt crisis. Moreover, on average, support for the euro is at a similar level in Germany as it is elsewhere in the euro area.
Topic:
Economics, Regional Cooperation, Monetary Policy, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

3254. The Enduring Popularity of the Euro throughout the Crisis

Author:
Felix Roth, Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann D., and Lars Jonung
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
This paper analyses the evolution of public support for the euro from 1990 to 2011, using a popularity function approach, focusing on the most recent period of the financial and sovereign debt crisis. Exploring a huge database of close to half a million observations covering the 12 original euro area member countries, we find that the ongoing crisis has only marginally reduced citizens' support for the euro – at least so far. This result is in stark contrast to the sharp fall in public trust in the European Central Bank. We conclude that the crisis has hardly dented popular support for the euro while the central bank supplying the single currency has lost sharply in public trust. Thus, the euro appears to have established a credibility of its own – separate from the institutional framework behind the euro.
Topic:
Economics, Regional Cooperation, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe

3255. Fiscal Asymmetries and the Survival of the Euro Zone

Author:
Paul R. Masson
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The independence of the European Central Bank (ECB), seemingly guaranteed by its statutes, is presently under attack. The ECB has been led to acquire large amounts of government debt of the weaker euro zone members, both to help contain their interest costs and to help protect the solvency of banks throughout the zone that hold their debt. This paper presents a model of a dependent central bank that internalizes the government's budget constraint. Using a Barro-Gordon framework, the model embodies both the desire to stimulate output and to provide monetary financing to governments. As a result of the inability to pre-commit to first-best policies, the central bank produces excess inflation — a tendency partially reduced in a monetary union. The model implies that not only shock asymmetries, but also fiscal asymmetries, are important in the membership calculus of desirable monetary unions. On the basis of this framework, calibrated to euro zone data, the current membership is shown not to be optimal: other members would benefit from the expulsion of several countries, notably Greece, Italy and France. A narrow monetary union centred around Germany is sometimes mooted as a preferable alternative, especially if it could guarantee central bank independence. However, simulation results suggest that such a narrow monetary union would not be in Germany's interest: though better than the euro zone with a dependent central bank, it would not internalize enough trade to make it more attractive than the resumption of monetary autonomy by Germany.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Monetary Policy, and Governance
Political Geography:
Europe, Greece, France, Germany, and Italy

3256. Europe's declining role in the G-20: What role for the EU in the club of the most important powers?

Author:
Juha Jokela
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Europe and the EU have played an influential role in the development and decision-making of the Group of Twenty (G-20). Europe's influence in shaping the developments in the group and, more broadly, in global governance is, however, declining. The G-20 Summit in Cannes provided Europe with an opportunity to re-assert its leadership. Its aspirations were, however, overshadowed by internal divisions heightened by the deepening European sovereign debt crisis. Even prior to the current crisis, the increasing global competition and decrease in standing turned EU members inward-looking. Instead of a further Europeanization of foreign policy and external relations, many have observed a tendency to re-nationalize European policy-making. This tendency will make it increasingly difficult for Europe to secure its standing and adapt to the on going transition of the world's economic and political power. Europe should reinvigorate its commitment to a joint external action as a matter of priority. The key question for Europe is whether it will manage to Europeanize the G-20 and gear it towards the multilateral principles which lie at the heart of European integration; or whether we will see the opposite process, namely a 'G-ization' of the EU in the sense of major(European)powers dominating increasingly informal European and global decision-making. It is in Europe's interests to further institutionalize the G-20 and tie it to the formal multilateral architecture of the world economy and politics.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Governance
Political Geography:
Europe

3257. Governing the blue-green Baltic Sea: Societal challenges of marine eutrophication prevention

Author:
Mia Pihlajamäki and Nina Tynkkynen
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The PROBALT report identifies the challenges of Baltic Sea eutrophication governance and scrutinises past, ongoing and planned efforts to meet these challenges at the European Union and national levels, as well as within the Baltic Sea regional cooperation regime HELCOM. Considering that the Baltic Sea has been the focus of environmental management efforts for 40 years, it is surprising that in reality the ecological state of the Baltic Sea is not improving. This implies that protective efforts such as international and national policies and regulations, as well as their implementation, have not been effective enough.
Topic:
Environment, International Law, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe

3258. U.S. Missile Defence Site in Europe as an Aliance Security Dilemma

Author:
Lukáš KANTOR
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Obrana a strategie (Defence & Strategy)
Institution:
University of Defence
Abstract:
The main aim of this article is to provide a more solid theoretical anchor for numerous past and present debates about the various versions of American missile defence in Europe. The author claims that the neo-realism's concept of alliance security dilemma is the most appropriate framework for Czech, Polish, Romanian, and EU-wide experts'reflections and political decisions regarding the possible accepting of elements of American or NATO missile defence. Under appreciated explanatory power of the concept of the alliance's security dilemma is illustrated in the text on the case of the original Bush's plan of the so-called third pillar in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Topic:
Security and NATO
Political Geography:
United States, America, Europe, Poland, Rome, and Czech Republic

3259. Good Governance and Bad Neighbors? The Limits of the Transformative Power of Europe

Author:
Tanja A. Börzel and Vera van Hüllen
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
The EU\'s Eastern Enlargement is considered to be one of the (few) successful experiments of promoting good – both effective and legitimate – governance. By contrast, the EU\'s transformative power appears to be weak or non-existent vis-à-vis its (old) neighbors in the South and its (new) neighbors in the East. Both are not only marked by \'bad governance\' but also lack a (credible) membership perspective. While the Western Balkans and Turkey have made significant progress towards good governance, both with regard to government effectiveness and democratic legitimacy, the European Neighborhood Countries (ENCs) appear to be stuck in transition or never got that far in the first place. Even when the effectiveness of their governance institutions has improved, they remain well behind the other regions and especially their democratic legitimacy is still wanting or even in decline. The paper shows that there is a correlation between an EU membership perspective and the successful transformation of neighboring countries. Therefore, it has been argued that the ineffectiveness of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is due to the lack of this \'golden carrot\'. However, we argue that the prospects of EU membership stabilizes rather than drives the move towards effective and legitimate governance in candidate countries. Thus, a membership perspective is unlikely to either turn around negative or speed up positive developments in the EU\'s neighborhood. Even if the ENCs received a membership perspective, it would be unlikely to push them significantly towards democratic and effective governance as long as there is no endogenously driven process of change. Given the EU\'s preference for stability and state-building, the ENP does not provide an alternative for promoting good governance either. The ENP clearly lacks transformative power and where it might have some domestic impact, it risks consolidating rather than undermining authoritarian regimes by helping to strengthen their capacities for effective governance.
Topic:
Democratization, Regional Cooperation, and Governance
Political Geography:
Europe and Turkey

3260. Organizing Regulatory Convergence Outside the EU Setting Policy-Specific Conditionality and Building Domestic Capacities.

Author:
Julia Langbein
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
Why is regulatory convergence towards EU rules more successful in some policy fields than in others within one EU neighboring country? By comparing Ukraine\'s convergence towards EU rules in the field of shareholders\' rights and technical standards, I challenge prominent explanations for policy change outside the EU that empha¬size misfit and adaptational costs, the institutionalization of EU rules or policy-specific conditionality. In order to deal with the shortcomings of these explanations, it is necessary to disaggregate incentives and capacities of various domestic actors within the particular policy fields. I argue that regulatory convergence in EU neighboring countries is more likely if external actors combine the application of policy-specific conditionality, such as access to the European market, with multiplex capacity-building measures that diversify demand among domestic state regulators and firms and empower them to make their claims.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe and Ukraine