Selbstbestimmung und Parteien in Südtirol: Territoriale und europäische Parteistrategien zwischen Autonomie und Sezession = Self-determination and parties in South Tyrol: Territorial and European party strategies between autonomy and secession. EDAP Paper 03/2016 03/2016

Since the final conflict settlement between Italy and Austria in 1992, ethnic politics in South Tyrol experienced insightful transformations. The consociational political system, which was implemented to tame centrifugal tendencies, has been losing its balance over the last decade, with proautonomy stances ceding ground to secessionist pressure in the Germanspeaking intra-ethnic arena. Adopting a contextual and strategic perspective on self-determination, this article traces the evolution of ethno-regionalist party strategies on the territorial and European dimension of party competition through a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of their electoral manifestos in the period between 1993 and 2013. In line with newest research on party strategies, the article empirically shows the strategic capacity of ethnic minority parties to challenge each other not only by shifting their positions on the different issue dimensions but also by the reframing of issues. While the increasing competition on the center-periphery axis leads to a new territorial frame, the rise of secessionism is accompagned by an end to the pro-European elite consensus.

Die Europäische Union und das Rahmenübereinkommen zum Schutz nationaler Minderheiten: ignorieren, parallell “umsetzen“ oder gar beitreten? = The European Union and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities: ignore, "implement" or even join? EDAP Paper 04/2014

This paper looks at the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) through the lense of European Union law. It does so by posing four major questions: does the fact that 24 of 28 Member States of the EU ratified the FCNM have any legal implications for the European Union itself? Secondly, turning to the national level, does it make a difference for the implementation of the FCNM whether or not a state that has ratified the FCNM is also a member to the European Union? Thirdly, returning to the European Union itself, can and should the EU accede to the FCNM? Or are there, finally, any means beside ratification that would allow the European Union to implement the objectives and obligations as enshrined in the FCNM? These four questions are analysed in detail before the paper concludes on the potential role of the European Union in managing diversity and protecting (persons belonging to) minorities.

Preventing Social Death in Long Term Care: Fostering Social Connectivity in the U.S. and The Netherlands. ACES Working Papers, July 2012

Long term care (LTC) is both costly and of increasing concern as baby boomers age and more people live longer with chronic conditions. Today, people receive formal and informal LTC supports in homes, nursing homes, and alternative settings around the world. Where people live and the way LTC is delivered has an important impact on whether person’s receiving care thrive as they age. This paper is about how different LTC environments in the U.S. and The Netherlands foster or impede social connectivity, suggesting that quality of life will be impeded and types of social death, or disconnection from social life, more often the result in environments that limit choice and self determination, limit access to privacy and social connection, and limit access to reciprocal exchanges, a key component of participating in relationships typical of the concept of “the gift” introduced by anthropologist Marcel Mauss in 1954. Building on ethnographic data from a 15-month study of LTC in The Netherlands and a review of staffing practices in LTC environments in the U.S. and The Netherlands, I will explore concepts of reciprocity and social connectivity impacted by various LTC environments in two countries known to experiment with different models of care. This research builds on social constructivist notions of death and dying explored throughout this edited volume and adds to this effort examination of social death in anthropological perspective.

Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and their (new) Mobilizations in Russia. EDAP 2/2015

Issues concerning indigenous peoples (IPs) in Russia have become a “hot topic” despite the fact that they represent only 0.2 percent of the population. Constant amendments to the laws affecting the life of IPs and lawsuits filed before local Courts denouncing the violations of IPs’ rights are signs of the struggle surrounding these indigenous peoples. Moreover, between 2012 and 2013, the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON), the umbrella organization of IPs in the country, was ordered to shut down and subsequently given the permission to reopen by the Russian Ministry of Justice within the course of less than six months. This article aims to gain a deeper understanding of the recent developments vis-à-vis indigenous peoples’ legal protection and IPs’ increasing efforts to exercise their rights.

This time it’s different: Turbo-charging regulatory cooperation in TTIP. Paper No. 7 in the CEPS-CTR project ‘TTIP in the Balance’ and CEPS Special Report No. 110/June 2015

Regulatory cooperation is both one of the most ambitious and contentious parts of the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations. In this paper, having identified the many levels of international regulatory cooperation, we show that TTIP regulatory cooperation will be significant, but not ambitious, while political and legal limits on cooperation in both the EU and the US minimise the concerns. For transatlantic regulatory cooperation to work, it must accept these political and legal constraints, build trust and confidence among counterpart regulators so they see that their transatlantic partner can help them do their work better, and provide tools to help regulators on both sides make informed decisions while retaining their regulatory autonomy and accountability to their politicians and citizens. A TTIP that provides these tools – and some more detailed instruments to that effect – will be more ambitious than previous trade agreements, and should, over the longer term, provide both the economic and regulatory benefits that the two sides envisage. The paper incorporates comparisons with the relevant chapters of recent FTAs the US and the EU have concluded, so as to clarify the approaches and degrees of ambition in this area. This comparison suggests that the TTIP regulatory cooperation will probably be more ambitious in terms of commitments and have a wider scope than any of these FTAs.