Search

Begin New Search Content Type Working Paper

11031. Do Regional Organizations Travel? European Integration, Diffusion and the Case of ASEAN

Author:
Anja Jetschke
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
Why do regional organizations share a number of key institutions and policies? Why do regional organizations like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) or the Carribean Community (CARICOM) look like the European Union? And why do we find the norms of the Helsinki Final Act in treaties of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)? The simple answer is that policy solutions developed in the context of regional integration diffuse. The paper contends that regional integration efforts in Europe have had a decisive but often unacknowledged influence on regional cooperation outside of Europe. The influence of European integration on regional organizations beyond Europe will be illustrated with a case that is unsuspicious of having emulated the European integration experience: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Since 1957, Southeast Asian states have selectively taken over policies and institutions from the European context. The most recent adoption, it will be argued, is the ASEAN Charter, in effect since November 2008. In accounting for this adoption, the paper argues that ASEAN members' decision is only partially driven by genuine regional or functional demands. Members borrowed from “abroad” expecting the Charter to provide a policy solution to the cooperation problems members faced. Thus, the paper makes an original general contribution to the existing literature on regional integration: It argues that a full account of regional integration processes needs to take diffusion processes into consideration.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Southeast Asia

11032. Emotions, Media Discourse and the Mobilization of Citizens: Conceptual Considerations and a Plausibility

Author:
Marianne van de Steeg
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
The political game in the European Union has changed. Nowadays, EU issues are politicized in the public mass arena and demand from the European leadership more than the traditional, thin top-down communication. Concerns about the European democratic deficit and the legitimacy of the EU have made it important to engage citizens in EU issues and actively win their support.
Topic:
Civil Society, Regional Cooperation, and Mass Media
Political Geography:
Europe

11033. The Emergence of a European Community of Communication: Insights from Empirical Research on the Europeanization of Public Spheres

Author:
Thomas Risse and Marianne van de Steeg
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
A European public sphere emerges out of Europeanized national public spheres if the following two phenomena are verified. First, if and when the same (European) themes are discussed at the same time with similar frames of reference, meaning structures, and patterns of interpretation across the various media sources. Second, if and when a transnational community of communication emerges in which speakers and listeners recognize each other as legitimate participants in a discourse that frames the issues at stake as common European problems. We present empirical evidence from other scholars and two case studies of our own, namely Eastern enlargement and the sanctions against the Austrian ÖVP/FPÖ-government. The main finding is that at least when European issues are discussed, that a European public sphere is constituted and re-constituted through the discursive connections and debates across borders.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Regional Cooperation, and Mass Media
Political Geography:
Europe

11034. Unpacking the Compliance Puzzle. The Case of Turkey's AKP under EU Conditionality

Author:
Beken Saatçioğlu
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
What explains the EU compliance of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)? Since it came to power in 2002, AKP has launched legislative reforms in order to meet the European Union's political membership criteria (i.e., democracy, rule of law, human rights and minority rights). These reforms are puzzling since they happened in the absence of the two conditions of compliance argued in the literature: (1) credible EU political conditionality, (2) liberal ruling parties in EU candidate states. I argue that AKP's pro-EU reform agenda is explained by neither a belief in the possibility of membership via democratization (credible conditionality) nor liberal political identity. Rather, democratic measures under AKP are instrumentally induced. Two broad political motivations have guided AKP's reform commitment: (1) the electoral incentive to please Turkey's pro-EU membership electorate as well as AKP's conservative/religious constituency eager to see freedom of religion expanded under EU conditionality, (2) the motive to use reforms to weaken domestic secular forces (i.e. the military and high courts) and “survive” as a party with Islamist roots in Turkey's secular political system. The paper supports the argument with evidence gathered from original coding data for both conditionality and compliance as well as process-tracing.
Topic:
Democratization
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Asia

11035. How International Law Standards Pervade Discourse on the Use of Armed Force: Insights into European and US Newspaper Debates between 1990 and 2005

Author:
Swantje Renfordt
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
For almost a decade, 'public legitimacy' has remained largely unaddressed in empirical international relations (IR) analyses of international legalization. Yet, this concept has behavioral consequences. IR scholars for long assume that a belief in the legitimacy of a norm may be one reason for a 'compliance pull' on the international stage. The present study addresses this gap. It suggests a sociological conception of legalization observable in mass media debates and encompassing law's 'public legitimacy', understood as the congruence between legal regulations and discursive practices to that effect that these rules are also accepted by the larger public. This conception is illustrated in European and US newspaper reporting about military interventions in the post-Cold War era (1990-2005). Based on a large-n media analysis, the study not only concludes that an 'international rule of law' frame is heavily diffused across the communicative practices of European and US public spheres. It also shows that two legal norms in particular – human rights and United Nations (UN) multilateralism – generate a shared sense of 'public legitimacy' across the six countries analyzed.
Topic:
International Law and Mass Media
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and United Nations

11036. A New Society in the Making: European Integration and European Social Groups

Author:
Juan Díez Medrano
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
This paper connects with a recent and growing interest in the study of the societal impact of European integration and in the distinction of globalization and European integration effects. The paper uses the Eurobarometer study 67.1 to examine two related issues: 1) the segmentation of national social groups into “national” and “European” segments and 2) the contribution of the European integration process to this segmentation. Through statistical analysis, I argue that there is some segmentation of national social groups and that this segmentation is more advanced at the level of consumer practices than at the level of identification and political attitudes and values. I also contradict prevailing beliefs in showing that although European integration underlies changes in the Europeanization of personal networks in general, its impact may have been greater, or at least as great, on the lower classes than on the middle classes. I propose that the main mediating mechanism for this effect is the cheapening of opportunities for travel in Europe.
Topic:
Globalization and Social Stratification
Political Geography:
Europe

11037. The Transformative Power of Europe Reloaded: The Limits of External Europeanization

Author:
Tanja A. Börzel
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
With the borders of the European Union (EU) moved eastwards, students of Europeanization have been awarded yet another real-world experiment. This paper explores to what extent existing Europeanization approaches travel beyond the EU's border to its South Eastern and Eastern neighbours, which are marked by “bad governance” with regard to both the effectiveness and democratic legitimacy of their domestic institutions. The first part outlines key insights of the literature on “Europeanization West” regarding the outcomes and the mechanism of the domestic impact of the EU. Then, I summarize the main findings of research on “Europeanization East” focusing on factors that have limited or at least qualified the domestic impact of the EU in the ten Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries in comparison to the EU 15 (those that were members before the 2004 enlargement). This paper discusses to what extent the concepts and causal mechanisms need even further qualification when applied to countries, such as the European Neighbourhood Countries (ENC), that are neither willing nor necessarily capable of adapting to Europe and that do not even have the incentive of EU membership to cope with the costs. I will argue that the EU is unlikely to deploy any transformative power in its neighbourhood as long as it does not adjust its “accession tool box” to countries the EU does not want to take on as members. The paper concludes with some considerations on the policy implications of the EU's approach of “move closer but don't touch” which has started to creep into its relations with the Western Balkans and Turkey.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Balkans

11038. Europe as a Symbolic Resource. On the Discursive Space of Political Struggles in Poland

Author:
Artur Lipiński
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the structure of discursive positions pertaining to the relationship between Poland and the European Union (EU). Such a problematization draws on the assumption that Europe is always understood in relation to the nation state and, in turn, the image of the latter is explicitly referred to or can be inferred from the vision of the EU. The analysis of the empirical data has revealed three discursive positions which organize the production of meaning and govern the strategies of representation. The first position represents the EU as a chance for the further modernization of Poland. The second position perceives the EU as the game of interests between sovereign nation states. The task of the nation state is to benefit from cooperation within an extra-state structure and to retain maximum sovereignty at the same time. The third identifies the EU as “a threat” hostile to the nation state and its interests. The chain of equivalence connects the EU with almost all negative social phenomena. The discursive analytical assumptions adopted in the paper help to show how the same topics and words (chance, threat, interests, nation, state, sovereignty, “Europe of fatherlands”, and modernization) acquire different meanings in the context of particular interpretations of other words.
Topic:
Nationalism, Regional Cooperation, Sovereignty, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
Europe and Poland

11039. Does Fairness Matter in Global Governance?

Author:
Hakan Altinay
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Worldwide, there has been a recent increase in expressions of cynicism. We are reminded that all power is hard power, and that being loved or respected is no substitute for being feared. The great power game of nations always continues, we are forewarned, even when a higher goal or rhetoric is evoked. Superpowers are selfish, arbitrary, and dangerous nations, and they should not be embarrassed to be so and not feel constrained by international legitimacy and laws. We are cautioned against assuming that the rise of the world's emerging powers is doing anything to the status of the United States as the sole superpower. Naturally, it would be a folly to think that global public opinion is, in effect, a “second superpower,” or is even a crucial factor. Such concerns are akin to the Lilliputians binding an unsuspecting Gulliver. Anyone harboring naive views needs to be told that good intentions are, at best, a distraction and a nuisance and, at worst, a recipe for disaster, given their imprudence. Cynics prefer to be unconcerned about the achievements of transnational normative actions, such as abolishing the slave trade or establishing the International Criminal Court.
Topic:
Globalization, Post Colonialism, Power Politics, and Governance
Political Geography:
United States

11040. Vulnerable Communities and Community Ownership in Scotland: A review of literature, policy and practice

Author:
Malcolm Sayers and Eddie Follan
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The ownership of assets by communities has gained increasing prominence in recent years as a practical way by which local services can be owned and/or managed by local people. Proponents of community ownership argue that the development of such models contributes to increased community cohesion and confidence, community regeneration and enhanced sustainability through the development of income-generating initiatives.
Topic:
Civil Society and Communism
Political Geography:
Europe and Scotland