Conclusion

Author(s):  
Katharina Zimmermann

Chapter 9 concludes the book by summarizing the main arguments and findings, by highlighting the main limitations and conclusion, and by discussing broader implications for EU policies. The chapter recapitulates the three types of local responses to the ESF and argues that these findings shed innovative light on Europeanisation studies, as they show that usages of European resources and EU-induced change are two different phenomena, that the subjective perception of local actors need to be taken into account, that the character of the ESF as an integrated governance tool deserves greater attention in research, and that a de-nationalised perspective can be highly fruitful and helps to overcome the still persistent methodological nationalism in Europeanisation and welfare state research. Chapter 9 furthermore argues that the the study’s findings do not suggest greater accountability and stricter implementation procedures for the ESF as policy lessons, but that the role of the local level and its interaction with the EU should be strengthened and politicised, hence transforming the existing ‘bypasses’ into main routes of Europeanisation.

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 679-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Røhnebæk

This article is based on a research project that explores the proliferation of information and communication technology (ICT) in public services. Furthermore, the research explores how the enhanced presence of ICT relates to efforts to increas-ingly individualise the service delivery. It can be argued that enhanced individualisation requires increased levels of discretion and flexibility. At the same time, this flexibility needs to be implemented within a standardized framework to ensure due process and to meet demands for efficiency. As local-level work practices in the public services are increasingly being enabled through ICT, the information systems can thus be seen to offer ’standardized flexibility’. Hence, the information systems work as both enablers of flexibility and as controllers of the same. This research explores how this duality manifests empirically at the local-level of the Norwegian employment and welfare services (NAV). It focuses on the in-terface of the information systems and local-level employees. In this article, I portray the role of the information system, Arena, with regard to how the front-line employees structure and organize their work. This portrayal reveals that the information system reflects an ideal world which is out of tune with local working conditions. The employees are thus facing gaps between the ideals of the system and their actual work context. The main purpose of the paper is to illustrate how the employees deal with this gap; I identify three types of responses and strategies. Moreover, I suggest that the relationship between the information systems and different kinds of local responses may be fruitfully analysed by drawing an analogy with choreography and dancing. The second purpose of this article is thus to outline how the metaphor of choreography may provide a suitable theoretical lens for analysing ICT-enabled standardization of work.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Longo

AbstractThis Article analyzes the state of democracy in the EU through the study of the European Citizens’ Initiative. The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) represents one of the main ways the European institutions chose during the making of the European Convention, and then reproduced in the Lisbon Treaty, to beat populism by bringing decision-making closer to the citizens and promoting a new legitimization of Europe’s political unity. This Article starts by arguing that if one wants to understand European versions of populism it is necessary to pay attention to the reason why “democratic deficit” and “Euroscepticism” are predominant problems that the European Union is facing. It then analyzes the implementation of the ECI and the main issues of this instrument of democratization pointing at three flaws: a) the problem of e-democracy; b) the difficulty of stimulating large participation of civil society and people for the purposes of the ECIs; c) the cumbersome role of the EU Commission and the difficulties to ensure a real participatory instrument for the European citizens. From the analysis of the ECI this Article first advocates for a more robust public sphere in Europe as indispensable ground for a supranational democracy; second, it supports the revision of the ECI procedural aspects to transform it into a viable channel for amending EU policies in a more democratic way; third, this Article participates in the debate over the brand of democracy most suited to EU governance and polity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 967-990
Author(s):  
Elif Topal Demiroğlu

This article focuses on the increasing role of cities and local governments in migration governance through following the increasing “local turn” approach in migration studies in recent years. Turkey, which has a long immigration history and by far the largest immigration population of the country with massive Syrian immigration which started in particular in 2011, cities and local governments have developed different local governance arrangements by which they are trying to produce answers to the diversity brought about by immigration. Local responses differ in terms of scope, actor, approach and method. In this study, how and why the municipalities produce different responses are discussed in the context of the role of the municipalities and the common methods that local responses share despite the same legal framework and being a part of Istanbul metropolitan area. Thus, based on the analysis of the field study conducted in six districts of Istanbul, it has been revealed that the answers given to migration and immigrants are shaped in the context of a high informality and compulsory governance.


2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas P. Funk

Abstract. The initiation of the beatification process of catholic stigmatist Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth/Bavaria (1898–1962) in February 2005 marks the beginning of the touristic marketing of her birth place in the context of EU-regionalization. In the case concerned, I argue, the Postsecular emerges in the evolution of new forms of EU-regional governance and in the controversial valorisation of a catholic popular cult as cultural heritage. I examine postsecular placemaking in Konnersreuth as a process, in which actors of the local civil society, the official church and the EU bureaucracy stage Therese Neumann by the valorisation of her material heritage, by sacralization and profanation. In doing this, actors renegotiate boundaries and transitions between the religious and the secular sphere, as well as between the regional, the global and the singular universality of grace. In their productions of space, local actors mediate between tourist and spiritual experiences of authenticity, between the popular demand for heritage and the awaiting for the religious event of grace. The postsecular, I argue, emerges in the insistence of parts of the local civil society to authorize the deceased Therese Neumann herself as an – though unwilling – supranatural actor in the placemaking process and in their legitimation of their own (un-)willingness to participate in the sacralization and touristification of their heritage with the will of the stigmatist. The article shows, how religious belief can play the role of a ressource as well as a disruptive factor in postsecular placemaking processes and neoliberal governing by community.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-73
Author(s):  
K.A.C. O’Rourke

Summary The GeoNOMOS model introduced in Part I, is a qualitative descriptive taxonomy updating traditional notions of sovereignty for this century and was generally applied to the 2016–2018 BREXIT divorce negotiations between the U.K. and the remaining 27EU suggesting a reintegration and redefinition of the legitimate expression of sovereignty in the region.[Diagram 01] The taxonomy depicts a framework of liberty that functions simultaneously within the core function of the State at the intersection of a vertical axis depicting a State’s domestic operation and a horizontal axis depicting the State function as part of an international community of States. The GeoNOMOS confirms two primary roles for the 21st century sovereign State: [1] to protect participatory democracy based on individual liberty. This is generally accomplished by the State supporting broad diversity and its cultural heritage as well as fully funded, functional and integrated domestic institutions along its vertical axis, and [2]to promote an enterprise of law supporting a global society of economic traders along its horizontal axis. This primary role of the State occurs at its core when all three essential capital resources –economic capital, social capital, and human capital – remain highly integrated and in balance. Part II specifically highlights economic capital development and utilization at the core function of the State – a shifting dynamic that has influenced most all of the BREXIT 2017–2019 negotiations to date. The December 2018 EU – BREXIT Withdrawal Agreement a Declaration repeatedly failed U.K. parliamentary adoption between January – June 2019 forcing Theresa May’s resignation as Prime Minister. The most contentious quagmire of the BREXIT Withdrawal Agreement was in the structuring of rules of law around regulating economic capital, financial markets, and global marketplace function for any future UK – EU partnership. The political chaos around BREXIT was feared by the EU political elite in terms of its disruptive impact on the May 2019 European Parliament elections and future EU budget planning and priorities. But the 2019 EU Parliament election was already a process divided on questions of political party legitimacy since 2014 with a deepening of the “politic of resentment” on the Continent between 2016–2018.The EUP elections of May 2019 have caused the biggest political shift in the EU for forty years. Part II engages this “politic of resentment” best described as a steady rise of populism across the region and Continent that challenges the post-World War II notions of liberal democracy, the values of EU solidarity, and the traditional role of the “welfare state.” More to the point, the U.K. electorate was not the only EU member outlining an action plan based on its politic of resentment in the 2016–2018 national election cycles – electoral politics in Greece, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Germany, France, Czech Republic, and Spain aggressively promoted rights of sovereign States. These national elections and the 2019 EUP elections attacked fragmented EU economic policy and highlighted the democratic imbalances of EU institutions in their day-to-day operations. These calls for an institutional “course correction” within the EU are shattering fifty years of solidarity and crying out for a redefinition of democracy and new rules of law for economic models relevant to the 21st century. Economic, legal, and historical research by Piketty, Rodrik, Grewal, and others who support democracy, point to documented gaps in economic capital at the level of the State, in global capital formation and in growing wealth inequality, all alarming trends which are part of the “politic of resentment”. Their research calls for creating a new 21st century legal constitution for capitalism as a course correction for the first legal constitution for capitalism, eg, colonialism. Picketty and Grewal argue new approaches are needed to replace both the post-war “welfare State” [1945–1979]and now, the capitalist ideology of neoliberalism [c.1980–2010], decried as defunct even by the International Monetary Fund. Part II suggests a legal reconfiguration for economic capital development and utilization –one operating inside the GeoNOMOS framework of liberty, first to support its four cornerstones and its enterprise of law and, then, based on those choice sets, to design a new paradigm for capitalist globalization in the marketplace.1


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  

Abstract The plenary will continue the debate on The future of Public Health in Europe introduced in the previous plenary, tackling the role of the EU and its institutions in ensuring that health is addressed in all EU policies. The EU is firmly committed to implementing the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals through its range of institutional mechanisms. Incoming Commission President von der Leyen has pledged to refocus the European Semester ‘to make sure we stay on track with our SDGs’. These developments, together with the broad recognition of the central role of health in the SDGs and the momentum given by the new EU policy cycle presents a unique window of opportunity to critically reappraise the role of health in the EC, which, at least, on paper makes for an ideal Health in All Policies institution. The first keynote by Director General Anne Bucher, DG SANTE, will draw on the ‘hot of the press’ results of the November 2019 State of Health in the EU exercise, including the EU Country Health Profiles and the Commission Staff Companion Report. She will highlight the main health and health system challenges faced by EU Member States—ranging from the burden posed by preventable mortality to the vaccination crisis and the resilience of the health workforce. Prof. Scott Greer’s keynote will contend that to tackle these challenges we need to go beyond Public Health Article 168 and its subsidiarity corset. He will speak to the need to proactively employ the much stronger (health) policy tools within the large body of EU law underlying the internal market and to draw on the EU’s newfound role in fiscal governance such as through the European semester. Prof. Greer will draw on the innovative results of the new edition of the seminal study ‘Everything you always wanted to know about European Union health policies but were afraid to ask’ which will be distributed to participants. The following panel will debate on the practical implementation and political economy questions arising from the plenary’s postulates. Prof. John Middleton, ASPHER’s president, will address the implications for the Public Health profession such as training in public health leadership, overhauling public health competencies or indeed the understanding of the public health profession itself. The second panellist will address the political economy implications of bringing health across EU policies and how to bypass the complexities of working across policy sectors in the EU institutions. The panel will actively interact with the participating audience through a range of innovative ways. Panellists Anne Bucher DG SANTE, European Commission Scott L. Greer Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan John Middleton The Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPHER)


2013 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 904-940 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Petersen ◽  
Jørn Henrik Petersen

This contribution analyzes the views held by Danish and Norwegian church people regarding the welfare state, as expressed in the period when the general debate on the welfare state culminated in both countries. Generally speaking, religion played a relatively limited role in international welfare state research, which can be referred to as “blind to religion.” Tough socio-economic variables, well-established political actors, and government interests dominate the field. There are examples of religion as one among many variables, but when it has been ascribed explanatory value, it predominantly has been in relation to southern and continental European welfare models, because the focus has been on Catholicism. In recent years, the frequently mentioned “cultural turn” has made its entrance into comparative welfare research; yet, even then culture and religion are often assigned a modest role in “the black box,” which is invoked when the “harder” data are insufficient. Most recently, historians and church historians have launched a discussion on the Lutheran Nordic welfare state, but so far this discussion has not analyzed empirically the role of the church in the golden age of the welfare state. In this article, we go directly to those involved and examine what the church actors really felt about the post-war welfare state.


2018 ◽  
pp. 163-179
Author(s):  
Oskar Wolski

Smart Villages is an approach to rural development which has been under discussion in the EU as one of the subthemes that the ENRD is working on. For this reason, the Thematic Group (TG) on Smart Villages was launched in 2017. Since then it has been contributing to the definition of smart villages, discussing the changes in rural development policy and opportunities for providing support for smart villages, exchanging experience and best practices in smart rural development, and serving as a forum for dialogue between various rural stakeholders. This paper outlines the discussion held during the selected meetings of the TG and briefly indicates the academic background of the approach discussed. Its aim was to present Smart Villages in terms of EU policy. Hence, the paper presents the genesis of the EU debate, highlights some of the dilemmas of the definition of smart villages, indicates the role of the territorial governments and the EU in creating the conditions for implementing the approach, and shows the selected examples of smart rural development. Smart Villages is an alternative way of thinking about the quality of rural life, and it seems to respond to the way the EU policy is evolving. However, it calls for better tailored tools and instruments, which applies both to EU policies and national/regional sources. It also calls for regional and local governments to play their role in the process.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-130
Author(s):  
Gavrilov Doina

AbstractThe EU decision-making process is one that has changed over time with the Treaties, with the extension, modification of EU policies and the areas where the EU is acting. In addition to the above, in 2016 we have one more reason to add to the changing of the decisional process “-Brexit”- a political turnaround that stimulates new changes at the decision-making level and raises questions about the future of the European Union. Federalists claim that these events will lead to a strengthening of the Union, and euro-skeptics claim that this is a step towards breaking the Union. Two years after the Brexit started, the European Union continues to remain a prominent actor in the international arena, but another question is being raised: “Will EU institutions act on the same principles? Or will there be changes in the decision-making process?”. In this article, we will analyse the state coalitions in the decision-making process, and the role of Brexit in forming coalitions for establishing a decisional balance in the European Council. Following the analysis of the power rapport in the European Council, we refer to small and medium-sized states that work together closely to counterbalance the decisions of the big states, and the new coalitions to achieve their goals in the new political context.


Author(s):  
Katharina Zimmermann

Chapter 2 discusses the characteristics of and the relationship between European and local social and employment policies. It starts with an overview on EU cohesion policy and characterises the ESF as a specific governance tool which nowadays combines financial, programmatic and procedural aspects in a unique manner. In a second step, the chapter discusses the crucial role of the local level in current activation policies. Chapter 2 argues that the local level deserves specific attention and should not be subsumed under national welfare systems. Furthermore, the streamlined EU cohesion policy and particularly the ESF establish a stronger direct link between the European and the local level and confront local actors with new opportunities and challenges.


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