A Danish Poverty Line? Poverty Judgements by Students of Social Work, Pedagogy and Health Services

When is a family poor? We examine what factors are emphasized when people judge whether a family is poor or not. The article is based on a factorial survey with 356 respondents who study social work, nursing, nursery teaching, nutrition and health. Based on theories of poverty, we study what aspects of a family’s life situation are accentuated when people judge whether the family is poor or not. The respondents primarily emphasize income in their poverty judgements. Some deprivations also enter into the judgements, while the duration of deprivations, gender and labor market participation have no or minimal significance for the judgements.

The National Strategy for Inner Areas: Innovation, Policy Transfer and Post-Earthquake Reconstruction

This article analyses the Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas (NSIA) as a new policy for local development only partially linked to the European cohesion policy. It focuses on its innovative contents (vision, governance and methodology), and mainly on the transfer of innovation to lower levels of government and between local administrations. As an empirical study of policy transfer and policy innovation in a system of multilevel governance it shows an unexpected transfer of the NSIA methodology to another policy field: that of post-earthquake reconstruction in Central Italy. The article concludes by applying the typology of policy transfer developed in its first part to the analysis of the case-study as a whole.

“Listen, Marxist!”: On the Forgotten Past of Self-Management and the Contemporary Orgasms of History

In this article, we argue that self-management should not be understood only as an economic project, but rather as a political form based on the transformation of the core principles of modern capitalist societies. We start from the supposition that self-management does not imply an economic, but primarily a political recomposition of society, which is why it is necessary to draw attention to the economic reductionism in the discussions on self-management. The purpose of this article is three-fold: first, we recover the original meaning of self-management, its forgotten, anarchist (pre)history, and elaborate on the anarchist theory of organisation that has dynamised the idea/practice of self-management throughout history. Second, we analyse Yugoslav self-management through the categories and concepts of Praxis philosophy, which leads us to the conclusion that the Yugoslav model of self-management was above all a non-political form that remained in the framework of liberal democratic theory. Finally, we explore the global mass assembly movement Occupy, building on the recent academic attention devoted to the notion of non-state spaces. We analyse the encampments and occupied squares as self-managed exilic spaces in which protesters (in)voluntarily escaped from both state regulation and capitalist accumulation.

A Rising Tide that Lifts no Boats. The European Union and the Development of the Transnational Economy of Crimigration

The author of the article focuses on investigating the relationship between the outbreak of irregular migration to Europe and the increasing importance of transnational criminal networks. The starting point is the assumption that the transnational economy of crimigration (TEC) is driven by the illicit activity of private actors (the supply side) and potential migrants who create the demand for this kind of services, often not realizing the full extent of the consequences of entering into contractual relationships with groups of smugglers (the demand side). It is also assumed that the dynamics of the transnational economy of crimigration is one of the main causes of the rising wave of irregular migration and the migration crisis in the European Union.

Governing European Affairs

The aim of this article is to examine the role of ministerial officials in an integrated European multilevel administrative order. This study argues that organizational variables at the national level constitute a decisive filtering factor regarding how decision premises emanating from European Union (EU)-level institutions are received by domestic government institutions and officials. The study contributes to the literature in two main ways: Empirically it provides a comprehensive study of the role of Norwegian ministerial officials in the EU multilevel administrative order over a time period of 20 years (n = 3562). Secondly, it applies an organization theory approach to explain variation in actual decision-making behavior. The article discusses factors of general relevance to political science applicable beyond the case at hand. The study shows that ministerial officials are deeply involved with the EU multilevel administration. Moreover, it confirms the pivotal role of organizational factors in public governance processes.

Regional Alliance Structure and International Conflict

Why are some regions more peaceful than others? Some regions are particularly plagued by traditional power politics and political tensions, while the danger of war between major actors has significantly declined in other regions. The conventional literature would answer the question from a dyadic perspective—a region with many states with certain set of traits, such as democracy, should be peaceful. However, it is ultimately an empirical question whether the prevalence of power politics and conflict can be solely explained by the type of states and dyads in a region. I argue that the nature of international interactions is shaped by regional-level environment. Due to local security externalities, dyadic politics and conflict is dependent on conditions in a local neighborhood. More specifically, this study focuses on the role of regional-level alliance structure. A region can be situated in various types of alliance configuration depending on global geopolitical climate. I argue that conflict is unlikely in a region in which a global power establishes hegemonic domination through alliance ties with local states. The presence of an external global power dominating a region provides a local enforcement mechanism and reassurance for local states, which in turn reduces hostile interactions among local states. To examine how the regional-level conditions influence dyadic-level politics among local states, this paper empirically analyzes political events data (Integrated Data for Events Analysis) applying multilevel modeling, aiming at contributing the literature by explicitly modeling the influence of regional-level variables on local politics beyond militarized disputes. Empirical analysis revealed that a regionally shared “patron” can promote peace between local states. However, the effect of regional hierarchy turned out to be indirect. Regional dominance structured by an external global power does not exert an overarching influence over an entire region by shifting the region-specific intercept. Rather, the regional-level global power domination in terms of defense pacts particularly influences powerful states in a region while not quite reducing hostility among “minor” local states. Thus, international conflict and hostility is indirectly constrained in a region under hegemonic domination by a global power. This study has empirically explored an argument that it is fruitful to go beyond a purely dyadic analysis of international conflict. The independent effect of a spatial environment means that even similar dyads may behave differently depending on the conditions surrounding them. It shows a need to reexamine some of the important findings about international conflict from a spatial perspective, taking into account macro-regional contexts within which states operate. Moreover, the introduction of regional contexts potentially bridges a gap between quantitative studies of international conflict and more area-specific studies.

How Regulation Effects Corporate Social Responsibility: Corporate Environmental Performance under Different Regulatory Scenarios

In a multilevel corporate social performance model we examine the effects of three different regulatory scenarios on corporate environmental performance (CEP) (relating to compliance and beyond compliance behaviors) as a measure of CSR. The empirical state defined as a “cooperative regulator” is assessed against three simulated scenarios: a “coercive regulator” (more punitive), a “demanding regulator” (strengthened standards) and a “lax regulator” (less punitive and less demanding). The relative effect of different regulatory scenarios is examined within a multilevel multivariate model. The model allows for the estimation of the role of regulatory strategies in relation to other CEP antecedents. The model includes the principal driving factors effecting CEP and incorporates three levels of analysis: institutional, organizational, and individual. The multilevel nature of the design allows for the assessment of the relative importance of the levels and their components in the achievement of CEP. Included in the institutional level are stakeholder expectations, regulatory demands and regulatory power. Included in the organizational level are corporate organizational culture, CSR orientation of managers and organizational leadership. Included in the individual level are personal workplace behaviors and norms, namely: job satisfaction, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. The simulation of regulatory scenarios shows that the empirical “cooperative regulator” has the strongest positive effect on CEP. Contrarily, coercive regulatory practices reduce the internal motivation for compliance and beyond compliance action, although they may increase the external incentives. Laxer regulatory practices reduce the credibility of the normative effect of the regulatory regime and weaken the internal motivation for CEP. While findings show that regulation does play a key role in CEP performance, the organizational level has the strongest and most positive significant relationships with CEP. Organizational culture and manager’s attitudes and behaviors are significant driving forces. Generally, the individual level, depicting workers’ attitudes toward their workplace, is found as insignificant in promoting CEP.

“The Foundations of Freedom and Civilization”: The Durham Report, Municipal Institutions and Liberalism

Lord Durham was sent to Canada to investigate the causes of the Rebellions of 1837–1838 and to propose constitutional reforms to restore stability in the province. In his report, presented to the Colonial Office on February 4, 1839, he recommended the legislative union of the two Canadas, as well as the implementation of responsible government. He also noted that the proper functioning of such a government required the creation of a system of municipal institutions. This article offers a new reading of Lord Durham’s recommendations concerning municipal institutions, included in the last section of his famous report. By placing the document in the context of the debates raised by the constitutional and administrative reforms conducted in Britain during the 1830s, it shows that its author understood autonomous municipalities as an essential components of a modern mixed government. Such language was then employed by reformist Whigs in order to justify the policies which they thought were necessary to strengthen the country’s political institutions by adapting them to changing social circumstances. The analysis presented here challenges the interpretation provided by most contemporary commentators on the report. Many of them have concluded that Lord Durham’s understanding of local institutions is based on a liberal conception of political life, found in the writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. These studies tend to reduce early British liberalism to philosophical radicalism. They seek to demonstrate that liberals wish to deprive local communities of their political autonomy by integrating their institutions into the juridical structure of a highly centralized state. By focusing on the rhetoric used by Lord Durham to write his report, this article allows us to appreciate the heterogeneity of the definition of the municipality developed by liberalism.