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31. Decision-making under Pressure: The Negotiation of the Biometric Passports Regulation in the Council

Author:
Jonathan P. Aus
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
This paper accounts for the so-called Biometric Passports Regulation of the European Community. Formally adopted by the Council of the European Union (EU) in December of 2004, the Biometric Passports Regulation prescribes the compulsory biometric “enrollment” of all EU citizens applying for a new passport or passport renewal. Member States fully participating in the Schengen regime and Schengen-affiliated third countries like Norway are obliged to include two biometric identifiers into their citizens' passports by the end of June 2009. Schengen-made “e-Passports” will contain a chip storing a facial scan of the passport holder and two of his or her fingerprints.
Topic:
Security and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe and Norway

32. Domestic Politics and Referendums on the Constitutional Treaty

Author:
Gemma Mateo González
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
How can the decision of ten member states to subject the Constitutional Treaty of the European Union (EU) to a referendum be explained? Recently, some scholars have considered the need to give legitimacy to the decisions of the EU as one of the principal motivations for holding referendums. An empirical analysis of the motivations behind the decisions in favour of referendums uncovers a completely different reality, however. Political actor s used the possibility to hold referendums about European matters in a strategic way to strengthen their positions in the domestic context rather than to correct the democratic deficit of the EU. The analysis of a database with the positions of all the political parties represented in the national parliaments of the twenty-five member states confirms this point.
Topic:
Politics, Sovereignty, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe

33. Participatory Governance and European Administrative Law: New Legal Benchmarks for the New European Public Order

Author:
Rainer Nickel
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
European Governance is more than just a policy instrument without legal significance. Its regulatory sub-divisions, such as Comitology, the Lamfalussy procedure, and the growing number of European administrative agencies, have colonized substantive parts of the law-shaping and law-making processes. This contribution argues that European Governance is a distinct phenomenon that cannot be easily reconciled with traditional notions of legislation and administration, but needs to be theorized differently. Accordingly, its legal shape has to be adjusted to this new situation, too. Neither a - still only vaguely defined - concept of 'accountability', nor a non-binding policy concept of 'good governance' can fill this gap.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

34. A Constitutional Basis for Effective External Action?

Author:
Marise Cremona
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
This paper will appear in Genèse et Destinée de la Constitution Européenne Commentaire du traité établissant une Constitution pour l'Europe à la lumière des travaux préparatoires et perspectives d' avenir edited by Giuliano Amato, Hervé Bribosia and Bruno De Witte. It seeks to assess, on a selective basis, the provisions in the Constitutional Treaty which relate to the Union's external action. In doing so it considers issues of consistency, competence, the partial integration of the pillars and remaining questions concerning the legal nature of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Common Security and Defence Policy, the procedures for concluding international agreements and the common commercial policy. Institutional aspects of external action, and in particular the creation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, are considered elsewhere in the volume and are therefore not covered here. Consideration is also given to the extent to which it would be possible, and/or desirable, to incorporate the changes made by the Constitutional Treaty into a revised text or an alternative Treaty.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe

35. The power of norms in the transposition of EU directives

Author:
Antoaneta Dimitrova and Mark Rhinard
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
Transposition research provides an excellent opportunity to bring new data to bear on two of the most dominant theoretical approaches to European Union studies: rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism. Yet the goal of comparable testing is hampered by the underspecified nature of the sociological perspective. This paper takes some steps towards identifying and operationalising a sociological explanation of the transposition of EU directives. Examining an array of alternatives, we single out an approach that focuses on the transmission of norms as a way to explain transposition delay and content changes, and on persuasion to help explain norm change over time. To probe the validity of our explanation, we apply it to a case study of the transposition of two anti-discrimination directives from 2000 in Slovakia. In short, our paper aims to move forward the search for a testable sociological framework in EU studies, while offering an operational approach to studying the process of transposing EU directives.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Slovakia

36. The access of business interests to European Union institutions: notes towards a theory

Author:
Rainer Eising
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
The unequal access of interest organizations to the EU institutions is often associated with biased European politics. Nonetheless, systematic accounts of interest group access are rare. Rooted in the organizational theory of resource dependencies and drawing on a survey of 800 EU and national business associations, the article presents a broad conception of European political exchange to explain the contact patterns. Ordinal regressions indicate that three dimensions shape these patterns–organizational characteristics, sectoral-economic features, and national modes of interest intermediation. Nonetheless, EU interest intermediation displays only very few general traits–these are the division of labor among EU and national associations, the economic clout, the financial resources and the expertise of interest groups as well as their political mobilization when they face of EU regulation. Else, the interaction patterns vary along the EU institutions and their levels of decision-making underscoring the importance of the institutional opportunity structure.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

37. Conjunctural Causation in Comparative Case-Oriented Research: Exploring the Scope Conditions of Rationalist and Institutionalist Causal Mechanisms

Author:
Jonathan P. Aus
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
This paper highlights one of the major benefits of qualitative comparative methodology as applied within a "small-N" research design, namely its potential use for specifying the scope conditions of (theoretically competing) causal mechanisms. It is argued that the identification of set-theoretic relationships, multiple paths, and analytic efforts in typological mapping can make valuable contributions to the elaboration and further development of middle-range theory.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe

38. Administering information: Eurostat and statistical integration

Author:
Ulf Sverdrup
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
This chapter analyses the processes and dynamics of institution building in the European Union (EU). While most studies of EU institution building have dealt with the birth and evolution of key institutions, such as the legislatives, the executives or the courts, the focus is here on a different aspect of democratic governance: the informational foundation of the EU. The chapter examines developments and changes in the organization of numerical information in the EU, in particular the role of Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Commission. How and to what extent can we observe the emergence of a pan-European informational system? How and to what extent has the European information system in Europe interacted and worked together with national statistical institutes?
Topic:
Democratization, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

39. Making and Breaking the Rules: French policy on EU "gouvernement économique" and the Stability and Growth Pact

Author:
David J. Howarth
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
The failure of the Raffarin Government to respect the Stability and Growth Pact (Stability Pact, SP), its call for the Pact's reconceptualisation, reform of the management of the Euro-zone's monetary policy and EU-level reflation should be seen not as a significant change in French policy on 'gouvernement économique' (that is, EU-level economic governance (GE) but as a reassertion of long standing but contradictory French preferences. French policy-makers have been caught in a dilemma with regard to the construction of the Economic dimension of EMU between two strong preferences: on the one hand the supranational consequences of a dirigiste approach to macro-economic policy and, on the other hand, a Gaullist reflex to retain sovereignty as much as possible and to insist upon intergovernmentalism in EU-level macroeconomic policy-making. The 'price stability' function of GE as embodied by the Maastricht Treaty rules on convergence and the SP has been consistently marginalized in the discourse of French governments of both the Right and Left. Rather EG has been presented in five overlapping ways which can all be seen in terms of the paradox of the French pursuit of both reinforced macroeconomic policy coordination at the EU level yet also national margin of manoeuvre through intergovernmental policy making. Crucially, this paradox also explains the lack of clarity and inconsistency in French pronouncements on GE. Most elements of the 2002 Commission and Ecofin SP reform proposals and the precise elements of the Pact reform finally agreed in March 2005 met with French approval given that they render the SP more flexible allowing greater margin of manoeuvre in the development and implementation of the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPG) and the application of the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP), thus better meeting French intergovernmentalist preferences on EG but undermining the coordination of national macroeconomic policies that could contribute to an effective policy mix with the ECB's monetary policy.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

40. It's the Process Stupid! Process Tracing in the Study of European and International Politics

Author:
Jeffrey T. Checkel
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Research Papers Archive
Abstract:
Process tracing is in, acquiring near buzz-word status in certain circles. Europeanists do it; IR scholars do it – all with the goal of bringing theory closer to what really goes on in the world. This makes our scholarship more policy relevant and increases the reliability of our findings - non-trivial advantages, for sure. Yet, such benefits do not come without costs. In particular, proponents of process tracing should be wary of losing sight of the big picture, be aware of the method's significant data requirements, and recognize certain epistemological traps inherent in its application.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe