Regional health governance: a comparative perspective on EU and ASEAN. EU Centre in Singapore Policy Brief No. 4, June 2012

Globalisation has led to new health challenges for the 21st Century. These challenges have transnational implications and involve a large range of actors and stakeholders. National governments no longer hold the sole responsibility for the health of their people. These changes in health trends have led to the rise of Global Health Governance as a theoretical notion for health policy-making. The Southeast Asian region is particularly prone to public health threats and it is for this reason that this brief looks at the potential of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a regional organisation to take a lead in health cooperation. Through a comparative study between the regional mechanisms for health cooperation of the European Union (EU) and ASEAN, we look at how ASEAN could maximise its potential as a global health actor. Regional institutions and a network of civil society organisations are crucial in relaying global initiatives for health, and ensuring their effective implementation at the national level. While the EU benefits from higher degrees of integration and involvement in the sector of health policy making, ASEAN’s role as a regional body for health governance will depend both on greater horizontal and vertical regional integration through enhanced regional mechanisms and a wider matrix of cooperation.

Morocco’s illiberal regime and fragmented political society. Arab Citizenship Review No. 10, October 2015

The post-Arab Spring period in Morocco has undergone different stages of changing state-society relations with regard to democracy, citizenship and human rights. The first stage, between February 2011 and the summer of 2013, was characterised by popular protests demanding democracy and freedom. People criticised public policies related to civil, political and social rights (employment, health, education, the status of women, and the issue of Amazigh). This outburst put the state in an awkward, defensive position. If we compare Morocco with the other Arab Spring countries, the Moroccan state’s reaction was moderate in its use of violence and repression, and it was positive, in that it resulted in the implicit, yet official acceptance of the demands for democracy, citizenship and battling corruption. In his speech on 9 March 2011, the king pledged to modify the Constitution and democratise the institutions.

Trends and gaps in the academic literature on EU labour migration policies. CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security No. 50/December 2012

This paper provides an overview of the ‘state of the art’ in the academic literature on EU labour migration policies. It forms part of the research agenda of Work Package 18 of the NEUJOBS project, which aims at reviewing legislation and practices regarding the labour market inclusion and protection of rights of different categories of foreign workers in European labour markets. Accordingly, particular attention is paid to the works of scholars who evaluate the status of rights of third-country national workers in relation to labour market access, employment security, social integration, etc., in European legislation on labour immigration. More specifically, the review has selected those scholarly works that focus specifically on analysing the manner in which policy-makers have addressed the granting of rights to non-EU migrant workers, and the manner in which policy agendas – through the relevant political and institutional dynamics – have found their translation in the legislation adopted. This paper consists of two core parts. In the first section, it reviews the works of scholars who have touched on these research questions with respect to the internal dimensions of EU labour migration policies. The second section does the same for the external dimensions of these policies. Both sections start off by analysing the main trends in the literature that reviews these questions for the internal and external dimensions of European migration policies as a whole, and then move on to how these ‘trends’ can (or cannot) be found translated in scholarly writings on labour migration policies more specifically. In the final section, the paper concludes by summarising the main trends and gaps in the literature reviewed, and indicates avenues for further research.