Linking Policy and Practice:The Case of EU-UNICEF Cooperation on the Rights of the Child in Third Countries. IES WORKING PAPER 4/2013

This Working Paper offers detailed analysis of EU-UNICEF cooperation on the rights of the child in the European Union's external relations, in particular as regards linkages between the EU policy priorities and concrete actions to advance the protection and promotion of child rights in third countries. It addresses a number of crucial questions: how has the EU’s external policy on the rights of the child developed over the past decade, what were these developments influenced by and what role did UNICEF play in these processes; what is the legal and policy framework for EU-UNICEF cooperation in foreign policy and what added-value it brings; what mechanisms are used by the EU and UNICEF to improve child rights protection in third countries and what are the motivations behind their field cooperation. The study starts by examining the development of the EU’s foreign policy on the rights of the child and covers the legal basis enshrined in EU treaties, the policy framework, and the implementation instruments and then investigates the evolution of the EU’s relations with the United Nations. The paper focuses on the EU’s cooperation with UNICEF by looking into the legal and political framework for EU-UNICEF relations, the policy-oriented cooperation and joint implementation of projects on the ground in third countries. This section outlines the rationale behind the practical cooperation as well as the factors for success and obstacles hindering the delivery of sustainable results. Finally, the Working Paper concludes with suggestions on how EU-UNICEF cooperation could be further enhanced following recent developments, namely the 2012 EU Strategic Framework and the Action Plan on Human Rights as well as human rights country strategies.

The Catholic Question in Contemporary Portuguese Civil Society: A Case of Muted Vibrancy? CES Papers - Open Forum #14, 2012

The ‘Catholic question’ in contemporary Portugal obliges us to consider whether Catholicism will remain a force in Portuguese associational life in the next century, or whether it faces a future of slow and steady decline. On the one hand, an overall statistical drop of church membership, and the lack of religious practice by almost half of self-identified Roman Catholics, suggests that the future of the Catholic Church in Portugal will probably be very different than the past. On the other hand, the church’s support for democratic processes, the important social services it provides, and its educational establishment, have certainly been a positive factor in Portuguese associational life, and helped the larger process of democratic-regime consolidation since the Carnation Revolution of 1974. This paper suggests that social scientists need to move beyond the lens normally applied to the question of Catholicism in contemporary Europe (i.e. it is a dying, anti-modern, anti-rational, conservative institution), and instead consider the complex interplay of its demographic challenges combined with the popular sources of its theological and spiritual strength, as well as its vital societal contributions, to assess whether or not it will remain a force in Portuguese associational life in the future.

Competitive Representative Claimsmaking: Party Politicians and Institutional Factors in the Case of EU Budget Negotiations

This study provides an empirical comparative case study of representative claims-making in EU budget negotiations. Two questions are addressed in this paper. First, the paper asks what the role of elected or appointed partisan politicians is in comparison to other representatives. This question is relevant given the reported increasing importance of non-elected representatives. Secondly, the paper asks what the influence of institutional factors is on the practice of representative claims-making. As representative claims-making unfolds in the public sphere, the institutional factors of the public sphere may affect both the claimants it provides a platform for as well as constituencies represented. The paper finds that politicians continue to perform a crucial role in representation, both with regards to their prominence in the public sphere and with regards to the plurality of constituencies represented in their claims. Although institutional factors clearly affect claimants, there are much less pronounced – though noticeable – differences in the constituencies represented in different public spheres. The overall picture is one of a highly plural representative space in which multiple claimants compete with each other to get their message across. In doing so, claimants address the interests of multiple constituencies. It may well be the inherent competition among claimants, fostered by institutional factors, that ensures the plurality of the EU representative space.