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Why Defend Something I Don’t Agree with? Conflicts within the Commission and Legislative Amendments in Trilogues
Full text linkThis article aims to examine the effect of intra-institutional conflicts in the European Commission on the extent of changes made to legislative proposals in trilogue negotiations. We develop and test three hypotheses related to how conflicts within the Commission, namely that intra-institutional disagreements during policy formulation (h1), and potential conflicts with previous (h2) or subsequent (h3) colleges of commissioners, increase the number of amendments to the Commission’s proposal adopted in trilogues. To test our hypotheses, we use a new dataset measuring the number of changes between Commission proposals and adopted legislation for 216 legislative acts negotiated between 2012 and 2019 by means of text-mining techniques. It is important to note that we control for differences between the Commission’s proposals and the co-legislators’ positions in order to distinguish between an effect on preferences anticipation and on the negotiations proper. Our results indicate that intra-institutional conflicts affect the Commission’s anticipation of the co-legislators’ positions. The effect on its behaviour in trilogues, that is, after the legislative proposal has been tabled, is less clear. Regarding the latter, only the number of Directorates-General involved is significantly linked with the number of amendments tabled. These findings suggest that while intra-institutional disagreements affect the Commission’s role in trilogues, the range of preferences is more important than the intensity of conflicts
Crisis-Induced Leadership: Exploring the Role of the EU Commission in the EU–Jordan Compact
Full text linkThe EU–Jordan Compact (hereafter Compact) has been identified as being a groundbreaking, comprehensive approach to global refugee protection. Thus far, research on this underexplored case has mainly focused on the effects of the Compact. The policy process leading to the adoption of the Compact, as well as the motivations of the EU (i.e., the main donor), remain blackboxed. This article explores how the migration crisis affected the EU Commission’s ability to create coordinated, strategic action in external policy. It does so by tracing the internal EU negotiations and developing a causal model that explains how the Commission could overcome silos and efficiently draft a policy proposal linking the issues of migration and trade. The analysis is based on 13 original in-depth interviews with EU representatives. The article contributes to crisisification theory by presenting a mechanism that explains how the Commission can make use of crises. The Commission created cohesion by reframing the crisis, identifying the relevant policy tools with which to address it, and by reframing the responsibilities of the relevant directorate-general. Furthermore, by utilizing the urgency of the crisis, the Commission enabled rapid policy drafting and created an explicit linkage between refugee policy and trade policy. This linkage provided the member states with the motivation to adopt the proposal as a solution to the ongoing migration crisis
Islamist and Nativist Reactionary Radicalisation in Europe
Full text linkIn this article, the term “radicalisation” is discussed as a process that appears to be a defensive and reactionary response of various individuals suffering from social, economic, and political forms of exclusion, subordination, alienation, humiliation, and isolation. To that effect, the article challenges the mainstream understanding of radicalisation. In doing so, the work concentrates on the elaboration of reactionary radicalisation processes of self-identified Muslim youth and self-identified native youth residing in Europe. The main reason behind the selection of these two groups is the assumption that both groups are co-radicalizing each other in the contemporary world that is defined by the ascendance of a civilizational political discourse since the war in the Balkans in the 1990s. Based on the findings of in-depth interviews conducted with youngsters from both groups in Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, the work demonstrates that the main drivers of the radicalisation processes of these two groups cannot be explicated through the reproduction of civilizational, cultural, and religious differences. Instead, the drivers of radicalisation for both groups are very identical as they are both socio-economically, politically, and psychologically deprived of certain elements constrained by the flows of globalization and dominant forms of neo-liberal governance
Resilient Institutions: The Impact of Rule Change on Policy Outputs in European Union Decision-Making Processes
Full text linkThe evolution of the inter-institutional balance of powers has been a constant feature of the European integration process. Therefore, this thematic issue reopens these theoretical and empirical discussions by looking at an underexploited angle of research, namely the impact of rule change on policy outputs. We offer a discussion on how to theorise rule change, actors’ behaviour, and their impact on policy outputs. We also examine the links between theory and methods, noting the strengths and weaknesses of different methods for the study of institutional and policy change. We draw on the contributions of this thematic issue to delineate further paths to push forward the current frontiers in EU decision-making research
A New Research Agenda: How European Institutions Influence Law-Making in Justice and Home Affairs
Full text linkThe article presents a dataset on the legislative procedure in European Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) and a new method of data processeing. The dataset contains information on 529 procedures proposed between January 1998 and December 2017. For each of the legislative proposals, the dataset identifies the main elements of the legislative procedure (e.g., dates, types of procedure, directory codes and subcodes, actors, voting results, amendments, legal basis, etc.) and the changes introduced at each step of the legislative process from the text proposed by the European Commission to the final version published in the Official Journal of the European Union. This information has been gathered using text mining techniques. The dataset is relevant for a broad range of research questions regarding the EU decision-making process in JHA related to the balance of powers between European institutional actors and their capacity to influence the legislative outputs
Angry Reactionary Narcissists? Anger Activates the Link Between Narcissism and Right-Populist Party Support
Full text linkEven though previous research connected personality traits and support for radical-right populist parties (RRP), the question of which mechanisms connect these concepts is still underexplored. In particular, we focus on narcissistic rivalry, a maladaptive path of grandiose narcissism. Drawing on the affective intelligence framework and the narcissistic admiration and rivalry concept, we propose that the effect of rival narcissism on vote choice for the German Alternative für Deutschland is mediated by reactionary political orientations and activated by anger. Drawing on 2017 data from the mixed-mode representative GESIS panel (N = 2,552 & 1,901), we employ moderated mediation analyses. We show that reactionary political orientations mediate the relationship between narcissistic rivalry and RRP support. However, high levels of generalised anger are needed to activate the relationship between personality, reactionary values, and RRP support, whereas the mediating role of anti-immigrant sentiment is not affected by anger. Our study emphasises the role of anger in RRP support, thus showing that anger might explain why only some people with a specific predisposition support RRPs. The study also stresses the complexity of the relationship between personality, value orientations, and political behaviour
Industrial Infrastructure: Translocal Planning for Global Production in Ethiopia and Argentina
Full text linkCurrent development and re-development of industrial areas cannot be adequately understood without taking into account the organisational structures and logistics of commodity production on a planetary scale. Global production networks contribute not only to the reconfiguration of urban spatial and economic structures in many places, but they also give rise to novel transnational actor constellations, thus reconfiguring planning processes. This article explores such constellations and their urban outcomes by investigating two current cases of industrial development linked with multilateral transport-infrastructure provisioning in Ethiopia and Argentina. In both cases, international partners are involved, in particular with stakeholders based in China playing significant roles. In Mekelle, Ethiopia, we focus on the establishment of a commodity hub through the implementation of new industry parks for global garment production and road and rail connections to international seaports. In the Rosario metropolitan area in Argentina, major cargo rail and port facilities are under development to expand the country’s most important ports for soybean export. By mapping the physical architectures of the industrial and infrastructure complexes and their urban contexts and tracing the translocal actor constellations involved in infrastructure provisioning and operation, we analyse the spatial impacts of the projects as well as the related implications for planning governance. The article contributes to emergent scholarship and theorisations of urban infrastructure and global production networks, as well as policy mobility and the transnational constitution of planning knowledge and practices
The New Distribution: Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Large Distribution Warehouse Premises in England and Wales
Full text linkThis research addresses the deficit of empirical investigation of changes in industrial and warehouse property markets in the UK. It uses business rates (rating list) data for England and Wales to reveal changes in the quantum and distribution of premises over the last decade. Spatio-temporal analysis using geographical information systems identifies where new industrial and warehouse premises have been developed and examines spatial changes in the distribution of premises between the two sectors. The research focuses on the development of new large distribution warehouses (LDWs) to investigate whether there is a new pattern of warehouse premises located in close proximity to junctions on the national highway network. Findings confirm the emergence of a dynamic distribution warehouse property market where “super sheds” have been developed in areas with high levels of multi-modal connectivity. The comprehensive spatio-temporal analysis of all industrial and warehouse premises in England and Wales reconfigures the previously recognised Midlands “Golden Triangle” of distribution warehouses to a “Golden Pointer” and reveals the emergence of a rival “Northern Dumbbell” of distribution warehouse premises in the North of England. Further analysis using isochrones confirms that 85% of the population of Great Britain is situated within four hours average heavy goods vehicle drive time of these two concentrations of super sheds and over 60% of all LDWs floorspace is within 30 minutes’ drive of intermodal rail freight interchanges
Steering in Governance: Evolutionary Perspectives
Full text linkSteering has negative connotations nowadays in many discussions on governance, policy, politics and planning. The associations with the modernist state project linger on. At the same time, a rethinking of what is possible by means of policy and planning, what is possible through governance, which forms of change and which pursuits of common goods still make sense, in an era of cynicism about steering yet also high steering expectations, seems eminently useful. Between laissez faire and blue-print planning are many paths which can be walked. In this thematic issue, we highlight the value of evolutionary understandings of governance and of governance in society, in order to grasp which self-transformations of governance systems are more likely than others and which governance tools and ideas stand a better chance than others in a particular context. We pay particular attention to Evolutionary Governance Theory (EGT) as a perspective on governance which delineates steering options as stemming from a set of co-evolutions in governance. Understanding steering options requires, for EGT, path mapping of unique governance paths, as well as context mapping, the external contexts relevant for the mode of reproduction of the governance system in case. A rethinking of steering in governance, through the lens of EGT, can shed a light on governance for innovation, sustainability transitions, new forms of participation and self-organization. For EGT, co-evolutions and dependencies, not only limit but also shape possibilities of steering, per path and per domain of governance and policy
What Is the Role of the Government in Wildlife Policy? Evolutionary Governance Perspective
Full text linkWith the growing populations and range of large wild mammals in Europe, wildlife governance has grown in importance and provoked social conflicts, pressuring policy-makers to provide adequate policy responses. Some countries chose decentralised approaches, while others retain traditional top-down mechanisms. However, evolutionary mechanisms behind those changes and their impact on steering have attracted relatively little attention. We investigated the evolution of the governance of three wildlife species (European bison, moose, and wolf) in Poland (1945–2020) to map their existing paths and explore external and internal factors influencing steering patterns. The results suggest that despite the persistent dominance of state-centred governance and top-down hierarchical instruments characteristic for a post-socialist country, steering involved intense and often informal communication with influential actors. A growing diversity of actors and discourses in wildlife governance increased the state’s steering options and improved conservation outcomes. Concurrently, the government’s steering shifted from concrete policy results to managing tensions and interests within the field. These transformations helped to retain the effectiveness of steering in the changing context, while retaining state-dominated governance