The changing politics of preference formation in international trade negotiations: the European Union in the Doha Round

This research seeks to provide an explanation for variations of ���politics��� of preference formation in international trade negotiations. Building on the ���policy determines politics��� argument, I hypothesize the existence of a causal relationship between issue-characteristics and their variations with politics dynamics and their variations. More specifically, this study seeks to integrate into a single analytical framework two dimensions along which variations in the ���politics of preference formation��� can be organized: configurations of power relationships among the relevant actors in the structures within which they interact as well as the logic and the motivations of the actors involved in the policy making process. To do so, I first construct a four-cell typology of ���politics of preference formation��� and, then, I proceed by specifying that the type of state-society configurations as well as the type of actors��� motivations in the ���politics of preference formation��� depend, respectively, on the degree to which a policy issue is perceived as politically salient and on the extent to which the distributional implications of such an issue can be calculated by the relevant stakeholders in the policy making process. The empirical yardstick against which the validity of the theoretical argument proposed is tested is drawn from evidence concerning the European Union���s negotiating strategy in four negotiating areas in the context of the so-called WTO���s Doha Development Round of multilateral trade negotiations: agriculture, competition, environment and technical assistance and capacity building.

The Bible in Medieval Love Lyrics: A Fundamental Element of European Poetry Books

The focus of this study is the relationship among three different manuscripts (Modena, Bibl. Estense, MS ��.R.4.4; Firenze, Bibl. Laurenziana MS Rediano 9; and London, BL, MS Harley, 2253) and the poetry they transmit. The aim of this research is to show the ways that the Bible was used in the transmission of the lyric poetry in the three literatures that they represent: Occitan (primarily through Marcabru���s songs), Italian (through the love poetry of Guittone d���Arezzo), and Middle English (through the Harley love lyrics and the MS.���s primary scribe), in a medieval European context.

The sacralization of politics and the politization of the sacred during the Spanish Civil War and the first francoism (1936-1943)

Tra il 1936 e il 1943 la Spagna visse un periodo di guerra civile e scontri fra la Falange e la Chiesa. Tutto ci�� non fece altro che innalzare la figura di Franco, un generale, che viene sacralizzato e che govern�� per quasi 40 anni