scholarly journals The Polarization of Trust in the European Parliament, 2002 - 2016

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Cornelius Bauer ◽  
Davide Morisi
Keyword(s):  
The Elderly ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Member States ◽  
Institutional Legitimacy ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
Over Time

Scholars usually investigate how average levels of trust in EU institutions vary across countries and over time. Focusing on mean levels, however, ignores distributional properties that might be equally relevant for institutional legitimacy and, more broadly, democratic stability. In this study we investigate how the distribution of trust in the European Parliament (EP) has changed over time and across EU member states. Drawing on pooled cross-sectional data from the European Social Survey for the period 2002–2016, we find that confidence in the EP has not only declined over time but also polarized, since citizens have increasingly moved away from the “average citizen”. This polarizing trend has occurred especially in peripheral EU member states that suffered the most from the economic crisis. Furthermore, we find that trust has polarized especially among the young versus the elderly and the employed versus the unemployed. These findings have implications for EU institutions, whose legitimacy might be eroded in a highly polarized society.

scholarly journals Comparison of national cross-sectional breast-feeding surveys by maternal education in Europe (2006–2016)

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 848-861 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahesh Sarki ◽  
Alexandr Parlesak ◽  
Aileen Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Breast Feeding ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Education Level ◽  
Feeding Rates ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Member States ◽  
Mandatory Education ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Low Education

AbstractObjectiveBreast-feeding is an important determinant of health of mothers and their offspring. The present study aimed to compare breast-feeding rates across Europe disaggregated by maternal education and establish what proportion achieves at least 50 % exclusive breast-feeding (EBF) at 6 months.Design/SettingSecondary analysis of national or sub-national studies’ breast-feeding data for EU Member States plus Norway and Iceland, published in 2006–2016. Nineteen EU Member States plus Norway reported rates of EBF and any breast-feeding disaggregated by maternal education, of which only thirteen could be matched to the International Standard Classification of Education.ParticipantsMothers and their infants aged 0–12 months.ResultsData on EBF rates at 6 and 4 months were found in only four and six countries, respectively. At 6 months, EBF rates of 49 % in Slovakia and 44 % in Hungary were closest to WHO’s target of at least 50 % EBF. At 4 months, mothers with high education level in Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany had the highest EBF rates (71, 52 and 50 %, respectively). Mothers with low education level were less likely to initiate breast-feeding and cessation occurred early. The inequality gap ranged from 63 % in Irish mothers to no gap or very low levels of inequality in Poland, Sweden and Norway.ConclusionsMore mothers with high, compared with low, education initiate breast-feeding and practise EBF for longer. More European policies should be targeted to protect, support and promote breast-feeding, especially among mothers with only mandatory education.

scholarly journals Zastoupení členských zemí v Evropském parlamentu po volbách 2019

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jakub Charvát
Keyword(s):  
Political Representation ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Member States ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Spatial Aspect ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Eu

Modern democratic political systems are hardly conceivable without political representation. This also applies to the European Union, a unique international organisation with a directly elected and fully-fledged assembly representing the EU citizens. Because geography is central to the operation of almost all electoral systems and the European Parliament is the first transnational assembly based on the Member States representation, the paper explores the spatial aspect of the composition of the European Parliament resulting from the 2019 election. The representation in the European Parliament may be degressively proportional, which implies malapportionment of seats across the EU Member States. The paper, thus, seeks to quantify the malapportionment in the 2019 election at both the aggregate level (by the adaption of Loosemore and Hanby´s distortion index) and individual level (advantage ratio and the value of a vote). It concludes malapportionment was just below 14,5% of the total seats in 2019 while the 2019 election did not bring the degressively proportional representation in the European Parliament as required by the Lisbon Treaty.

Part I Rationales for State Aid Rules, 2 Evolution of Aid in the EU: Classifying Different Types of Countries, and the Financial and Economic Crisis

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kreuschitz Viktor ◽  
Nehl Hanns Peter
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Aggregate Data ◽  
European Market ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Single European Market ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the evolution of (non-crisis) aid in the EU-27 since 1992, which serves as a basis to assess the similarities and differences between the practices of granting aid in EU Member States. Aggregate data for the EU-27 as a whole suggests that Member States have given a smaller percentage of their GDP as aid over time, which might be regarded as reflective of the view that they are accepting the need for its reduction and its control in the single European market. While declining in the first half of the 1990s, aid levels peaked in 1997, only to be reduced by 1999. This can be explained based on the new regulations that were pursued during the time period, which resulted in broader definitions by the Commission and tighter control.

Scratching the heart of the artichoke? How international institutions and the European Union constrain the state monopoly of force

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Herschinger ◽  
Markus Jachtenfuchs ◽  
Christiane Kraft-Kasack
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
The State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Physical Force ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
European Court ◽  
Core Areas ◽  
Over Time

In recent years, a growing literature has argued that European Union (EU) member states have undergone a profound transformation caused by international institutions and by the EU, in particular. However, the state core – the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force, embodied by the police – seemed to remain intact. The literature has argued that in this area, international institutions are weak, and cooperation has remained informal and intergovernmental. We take issue with these claims and evaluate the strength of international institutions in two core areas of policing (terrorism and drugs) over time. We find that in terms of decision-making, precision, and adjudication, international institutions have become considerably stronger over time. Even when international institutions remain intergovernmental they strongly regulate how EU member states exercise their monopoly of force. Member states are even further constrained because adjudication is delegated to the European Court of Justice. Thus, even the state core is undergoing a significant transformation.

scholarly journals The democratisation of European nature governance 1992–2015: introducing the comparative nature governance index

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Kingston ◽  
Zizhen Wang ◽  
Edwin Alblas ◽  
Micheál Callaghan ◽  
Julie Foulon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Aarhus Convention ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Eu

AbstractEuropean environmental governance has radically transformed over the past two decades. While traditionally enforcement of environmental law has been the responsibility of public authorities (public authorities of the EU Member States, themselves policed by the European Commission), this paradigm has now taken a democratic turn. Led by changes in international environmental law and in particular the UNECE Aarhus Convention (UNECE, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention (1998). Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention), signed on June 25, 1998.), EU law now gives important legal rights to members of the public and environmental non-governmental organisations (“ENGOs”) to become involved in environmental governance, by means of accessing environmental information, participating in environmental decision-making and bringing legal proceedings. While doctrinal legal and regulatory scholarship on this embrace of “bottom-up” private environmental governance is now substantial, there has been relatively little quantitative research in the field. This article represents a first step in mapping this evolution of environmental governance laws in the EU. We employ a leximetrics methodology, coding over 6000 environmental governance laws from three levels of legal sources (international, EU and national), to provide the first systematic data showing the transformation of European environmental governance regimes. We develop the Nature Governance Index (“NGI”) to measure how the enforcement tools deployed in international, EU and national law have changed over time, from the birth of the EU’s flagship nature conservation law, the 1992 Habitats Directive (Directive 92/43/EEC). At the national level, we focus on three EU Member States (France, Ireland and the Netherlands) to enable a fine-grained measurement of the changes in national nature governance laws over time. This article introduces our unique datasets and the NGI, describes the process used to collect the datasets and its limitations, and compares the evolution in laws at the international, EU and national levels over the 23-year period from 1992–2015. Our findings provide strong empirical confirmation of the democratic turn in European environmental governance, while revealing the significant divergences between legal systems that remain absent express harmonisation of the Aarhus Convention’s principles in EU law. Our data also set the foundations for future quantitative legal research, enabling deeper analysis of the relationships between the different levels of multilevel environmental governance.

scholarly journals The political system of European Union after European Parliament Election of 2019

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-30
Author(s):  
Andrii Martynov
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Political System ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Eu

The politics of the European Union are different from other organizations and states due to the unique nature of the EU. The common institutions mix the intergovernmental and supranational aspects of the EU. The EU treaties declare the EU to be based on representative democracy and direct elections take place to the European Parliament. The Parliament, together with the European Council, works for the legislative arm of the EU. The Council is composed of national governments thus representing the intergovernmental nature of the European Union. The central theme of this research is the influence of the European Union Political system the Results of May 2019 European Parliament Election. The EU supranational legislature plays an important role as a producer of legal norms in the process of European integration and parliamentary scrutiny of the activities of the EU executive. The European Parliament, as a representative institution of the European Union, helps to overcome the stereotypical notions of a “Brussels bureaucracy” that limits the sovereignty of EU member states. The European Parliament is a political field of interaction between European optimists and European skeptics. The new composition of the European Parliament presents political forces focused on a different vision of the strategy and tactics of the European integration process. European federalists in the “European People’s Party” and “European Socialists and Democrats” consider the strategic prospect of creating a confederate “United States of Europe”. The Brexit withdrawal from the EU could help the federalists win over European skeptics. Critics of the supranational project of European integration do not have a majority in the new composition of the European Parliament. But they are widely represented in many national parliaments of EU Member States. The conflicting interaction between European liberals and far-right populists is the political backdrop for much debate in the European Parliament. The result of this process is the medium term development vector of the European Union.

scholarly journals The interplay between national and parental unemployment in relation to adolescent life satisfaction in 27 countries: analyses of repeated cross-sectional school surveys

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Klara Johansson ◽  
Solveig Petersen ◽  
Björn Högberg ◽  
Gonneke W. J. M. Stevens ◽  
Bart De Clercq ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Unemployment Rates ◽  
Interaction Terms ◽  
Parental Unemployment ◽  
Adolescent Life Satisfaction ◽  
Multilevel Linear Regression ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background Previous research shows that parental unemployment is associated with low life satisfaction in adolescents. It is unclear whether this translates to an association between national unemployment and adolescent life satisfaction, and whether such a contextual association is entirely explained by parental unemployment, or if it changes as a function thereof. For adults, associations have been shown between unemployment and mental health, including that national unemployment can affect mental health and life satisfaction of both the employed and the unemployed, but to different degrees. The aim of this paper is to analyse how national unemployment levels are related to adolescent life satisfaction, across countries as well as over time within a country, and to what extent and in what ways such an association depends on whether the individual’s own parents are unemployed or not. Methods Repeated cross-sectional data on adolescents’ (aged 11, 13 and 15 years, n = 386,402) life satisfaction and parental unemployment were collected in the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey, in 27 countries and 74 country-years, across 2001/02, 2005/06 and 2009/10 survey cycles. We linked this data to national harmonised unemployment rates provided by OECD and tested their associations using multilevel linear regression, including interaction terms between national and parental unemployment. Results Higher national unemployment rates were related to lower adolescent life satisfaction, cross-sectionally between countries but not over time within countries. The verified association was significant for adolescents with and without unemployed parents, but stronger so in adolescents with unemployed fathers or both parents unemployed. Having an unemployed father, mother och both parents was in itself related to lower life satisfaction. Conclusion Living in a country with higher national unemployment seems to be related to lower adolescent life satisfaction, whether parents are unemployed or not, although stronger among adolescents where the father or both parents are unemployed. However, variation in unemployment over the years did not show an association with adolescent life satisfaction.

scholarly journals El sistema de representación del Parlamento Europeo cuestionado : la ausencia de un procedimiento electoral uniforme = A critical approach to the European Parliament’s electoral system

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (33) ◽  
pp. 219
Author(s):  
Pilar Mellado Prado
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
El Sistema ◽  
The Eu

Las grandes diferencias entre las legislaciones de los Estados miembros de la Unión Europea que regulan las elecciones al Parlamento europeo provocan la desigualdad en la representación; lo que se traduce en que el Parlamento Europeo, no obstante lo dispuesto en el Tratado de Lisboa, sigue siendo una institución que no representa realmente al pueblo europeo.The analysis of the electoral legislations of the EU member States shows the existence of serious differences among them. As a consequence the representation is clearly unequal. Thus, notwithstanding the wording of Article 14.2 Lisbon TEU, and contrary to the claim that Article 10.1 Lisbon TEU seems to make according to its wording the European Parliament is still an institution that does not represent the European people.

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