Industries and Citizens’ Groups Networks in EU Food Policy: The Emergence of ‘Unholy Alliances’ in Multilevel Governance? Brugges Political Research Paper No. 30, September 2013

Food policy is one the most regulated policy fields at the EU level. ‘Unholy alliances’ are collaborative patterns that temporarily bring together antagonistic stakeholders behind a common cause. This paper deals with such ‘transversal’ co-operations between citizens’ groups (NGOs, consumers associations…) and economic stakeholders (food industries, retailers…), focusing on their ambitions and consequences. This paper builds on two case studies that enable a more nuanced view on the perspectives for the development of transversal networks at the EU level. The main findings are that (i) the rationale behind the adoption of collaborative partnerships actually comes from a case-by-case cost/benefit analysis leading to hopes of improved access to institutions; (ii) membership of a collaborative network leads to a learning process closely linked to the network’s performance; and (iii) coalitions can have a better reception — rather than an automatic better access — depending on several factors independent of the stakeholders themselves.

Migration and asylum: The movement of people in the Mediterranean Region - Future scenarios and the EU response. Jean Monnet Occasional Paper No. 11/2014

Introduction. In recent years, the global discussion on migration and asylum has evolved from polarization of perspectives and mistrust, to improving partnerships and fostering cooperation between countries and regions. The paradigm has shifted from control and security exclusively to an increased awareness of the ramifications of migration in development and labour markets, the increasing demographic gap1 and the dangers of exclusion faced by migrant workers (regular or irregular). Eastern Europe will suffer the biggest population decline in the coming years, and Nigeria’s population will reach one billion by 2100. In Europe, the work replacement ratio will be two pensioners for one active worker. It has become clear that these facts cannot be ignored and that there is a need for greater convergence of policies (migration/mobility, fundamental rights, and economic growth), with a migrant-centred approach.2. The assumption that Europe will remain a geopolitical and economic hub that attracts immigrants at all skill levels might not hold water in the long run. The evolving demographic and economic changes have made it evident that the competitiveness of the EU (Europe 2020 Strategy) is also at stake, particularly if an adaptable workforce with the necessary skills is not secured in view of shortfalls in skill levels and because of serious labour mismatches. Therefore, it is the right moment to develop more strategic and long-term migration policies that take into account the evolving position of Europe and its neighbours in the world. By the same token, labour market strategies that meet needs and promote integration of regular migrants are still a pending task for the Member States (MS) in terms of the free movement of people, but also in relation with neighbouring and partner countries.

Ideas and Policy: The European Union considers social policy futures. ACES Cases No. 2010.2

The European Union’s social policy perspectives have changed quite dramatically over the last several decades. Now EU’s social policy discourse often promises to “invest in people,” sometimes “to invest in children,” and always to pay particular attention to youth. This paper argues that the tools of historical institutionalism can lead to understanding the ideational roots of this social investment perspective so distant from the “European social model.” Coming out of social movements, and with collective identities shaped both by those movement roots and national experiences, activists have effectively focused their practices on altering the social representations of European social solidarity through their interest group interventions, their participation in policy forums, and their mobilization within civil society at the European and sub-European levels. They have been able to make common cause with several epistemic communities that themselves revamped their ideas in the face of new institutional constraints, in order to advance their interests in promoting particular directions for social policy. The paper documents that “ideas” are not a variable and discourse “sometimes important” but that the ideas carried by movements and in epistemic communities are integral to the very definition of their interests that they promote within and with institutions.

Citizenship Deprivation: A Normative Analysis. Liberty and Security in Europe No. 82, 19 March 2015

Most critical analyses assess citizenship-deprivation policies against international human rights and domestic rule of law standards, such as prevention of statelessness, non-arbitrariness with regard to justifications and judicial remedies, or non-discrimination between different categories of citizens. This report considers instead from a political theory perspective how deprivation policies reflect specific conceptions of political community. We distinguish four normative conceptions of the grounds of membership in a political community that apply to decisions on acquisition and loss of citizenship status: i) a ‘State discretion’ view, according to which governments should be as free as possible in pursuing State interests when determining citizenship status; ii) an ‘individual choice’ view, according to which individuals should be as free as possible in choosing their citizenship status; iii) an ‘ascriptive community’ view, according to which both State and individual choices should be minimised through automatic determination of membership based on objective criteria such as the circumstances of birth; and iv) a ‘genuine link’ view, according to which the ties of individuals to particular States determine their claims to inclusion and against deprivation while providing at the same time objections against including individuals without genuine links. We argue that most citizenship laws combine these four normative views in different ways, but that from a democratic perspective the ‘genuine link’ view is normatively preferable to the others. The report subsequently examines five general grounds for citizenship withdrawal – threats to public security, non-compliance with citizenship duties, flawed acquisition, derivative loss and loss of genuine links – and considers how the four normative views apply to withdrawal provision motivated by these concerns. The final section of the report examines whether EU citizenship provides additional reasons for protection against Member States’ powers of citizenship deprivation. We suggest that, in addition to fundamental rights protection through EU law and protection of free movement rights, three further arguments could be invoked: toleration of dual citizenship in a political union, prevention of unequal conditions for loss among EU citizens, and the salience of genuine links to the EU itself rather than merely to one of its Member States.

Higher education scholarships as a soft power tool: an analysis of its role in the EU and Singapore. EU Centre Singapore Working Paper No. 23, March 2015

The European Union and Singapore are vastly different entities, each with its own regional and global priorities and policies. Both actors employ a range of tools and instruments to aid in their foreign policy objectives, including in the projection of their soft power. It is worth analysing and comparing the specific instruments of these two actors’ soft power strategies, including but not limited to their stated objectives and perceived effectiveness. This paper will compare the role of higher education and scholarships in diffusing soft power through a comparative case study of the Erasmus Mundus scholarship program and the Singapore Scholarship administered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It will look at the ways in which these programs have shaped the standing of the actors in diffusing their norms and objectives in the regional and international arena. A comparative analysis of these programs will hopefully provide some insight into the proximity between foreign policy-making and higher education internationalisation. This paper will begin with an overview of the aforementioned programs and related schemes, before dissecting and comparing the intent and the policy-making processes behind these, and concludes with a discussion on the present and future role of higher education as a strategic soft power tool.

Le Parlement européen à la recherche de l’efficacité législative: Une analyse des évolutions de son organisation = The European Parliament seeking legislative efficiency: An analysis of the changes in its organization. Bruges Political Research Paper No. 39, January 2015

Quel rôle l’organisation du travail parlementaire a-t-elle joué dans la montée en puissance du Parlement européen (PE)? Cet article vise à examiner cette question en s’appuyant sur la governing theory développée dans le cadre des études sur le Congrès nord-américain. Sur cette base, nous faisons l’hypothèse que les réformes de la structure institutionnelle du PE résultent des efforts des députés visant à renforcer la place de l’institution dans le système politique de l'Union européenne, à travers un accroissement de son «efficacité législative». Afin de tester cette hypothèse, cet article analyse l’impact de la rationalisation du fonctionnement du PE sur trois éléments clés: les organes de direction et les groupes politiques, la délibération en séance plénière et le comportement des députés. On montre ainsi que l'argument de «l'efficacité» générale du travail parlementaire est devenu un objectif en soi qui s’est imposé sur celui de liberté des parlementaires.

An analysis of selected issues in the minor construction program : a consultative report for the Director, Facility Engineering, Planning, and Construction Office, Department of Medicine and Surgery /

"September 1985."

The commentariat and discourse failure: language and atrocity in Cool Britannia

Recent terrorist events in the UK, such as the security alerts at British airports in August 2006 and the London bombings of July 2005 gained extensive media and academic analysis. This study contends, however, that much of the commentary demonstrated a wide degree of failure among government agencies, academic and analytic experts and the wider media, about the nature of the threat and continues to distort comprehension of the extant danger. The principal failure, this argument maintains, was, and continues to be, one of an asymmetry of comprehension that mistakes the still relatively limited means of violent jihadist radicals with limited political ends. The misapprehension often stems from the language that surrounds the idea of 'terrorism', which increasingly restricts debate to an intellectually redundant search for the 'root causes' that give rise to the politics of complacency. In recent times this outlook has consistently underestimated the level of the threat to the security of the UK. This article argues that a more realistic appreciation of the current security condition requires abandoning the prevailing view that the domestic threat is best prosecuted as a criminal conspiracy. It demands instead a total strategy to deal with a totalizing threat. The empirical evidence demonstrates the existence of a physical threat, not merely the political fear of threat. The implementation of a coherent set of social policies for confronting the threat at home recognizes that securing state borders and maintaining internal stability are the first tasks of government. Fundamentally, this requires a return to an understanding of the Hobbesian conditions for sovereignty, which, despite the delusions of post-Cold War cosmopolitan multiculturalism, never went away.

Multidimensional analysis of perceived risk in commercial air travel

This study attempts to assess the role of perceived risk in air passenger behaviour. A survey of 889 respondents is used to investigate a multidimensional concept of perceived risk and to analyse the differences between socio-demographic characteristics regarding passengers' risk assessment. The results indicate that financial risk and temporal risk are the most important in the context of commercial air travel. All perceived risk dimensions differ according gender, age, cultural background, income, previous experience, and reason for travelling. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Motherhood on ice? A media framing analysis of older mothers in the UK news

Changing gender roles and increased sexual and economic freedom have created opportunities for women to give birth relatively late in life. However, stigma and misplaced fears about physical capacity are often reported as sources of anxiety among older, and in vitro fertilisation-induced mothers. In this study, we apply a specially adapted method for analysing news media content to a week's selection of material in the British media following the dissemination of research at an international medical conference. Our findings suggest, despite some positive commentaries, that much negative discourse is circulated by the media about older mothers, from implied claims of selfishness (older mothers as 'delaying' conception) to violations of the 'natural order'. These latter claims reflect the long-standing ambivalence by the media generally towards scientific advancement, but they also reveal continuing resistance towards unorthodox lifestyles.

An analysis of food demand in Peru:implications for food-feed competition

In their policy proposals on how best to stimulate economic growth, economists have been increasingly emphasizing free markets. It is, however, possible that free-market-led economic growth can lead to increased income inequity which can further increase poverty. One of the more interesting but thus far insufficiently explored mechanisms for the latter is food–feed competition. Using Peruvian Living Standard Survey (PLSS) data for 1985–86 and 1990, the paper examines the demand patterns of households and concludes that the empirical evidence is in agreement with the hypotheses underlying the theory of food–feed competition.

Transfer of patients from health care centres to special care services:analysis of travel distances in Nordic countries

Objectives: This paper highlights the importance of analysing patient transportation in Nordic circumpolar areas. The research questions we asked are as follows: How many Finnish patients have been transferred to special care intra-country and inter-country in 2009? Does it make any difference to health care policymakers if patients are transferred inter-country? Study design: We analysed the differences in distances from health care centres to special care services within Finland, Sweden and Norway and considered the health care policy implica tions. Methods: An analysis of the time required to drive between service providers using the "Google distance meter" (http://maps.google.com/); conducting interviews with key Finnish stakeholders; and undertaking a quantitative analyses of referral data from the Lapland Hospital District. Results: Finnish patients are generally not transferred for health care services across national borders even if the distances are shorter. Conclusion: Finnish patients have limited access to health care services in circumpolar are as across the Nordic countries for 2 reasons. First, health professionals in Norway and Sweden do not speak Finnish, which presents a language problem. Second, The Social Insurance Institution of Finland does not cover the expenditures of travel or the costs of medicine. In addition, it seems that in circumpolar areas the density of Finnish service providers is greater than Swedish ones, causing many Swedish citizens to transfer to Finnish health care providers every year. However, future research is needed to determine the precise reasons for this.

An Analysis of Colour Semantics in Art Images

This article presents the principal results of the Ph.D. thesis A Novel Method for Content-Based Image Retrieval in Art Image Collections Utilizing Colour Semantics by Krassimira Ivanova (Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, BAS), successfully defended at Hasselt Uni-versity in Belgium, Faculty of Science, on 15 November 2011.

The analysis of bullwhip effect in a HMMS-type supply chain

The aim of the paper is to investigate the well-known bullwhip effect of supply chains. Control theoretic analysis of bullwhip effect is extensively analyzed in the literature with Laplace transform. This paper tries to examine the effect for an extended Holt-Modigliani-Muth-Simon model. A two-stage supply chain (supplier-manufacturer) is studied with quadratic costs functional. It is assumed that both firms minimize the relevant costs. The order of the manufacturer is delayed with a known constant. Two cases are examined: supplier and manufacturer minimize the relevant costs decentralized, and a centralized decision rule. The question is answered, how to decrease the bullwhip effect.

A comparative analysis of corporate finance in the United States and Japan from 1880 to 1930

This study explained the diversity of corporate financial practices in two nations. Existing studies have emphasized the reliance on equity finance in U.S. firms and bank loans in Japanese firms. In fact, patterns of corporate finance were much more complex. Financial institutions, which were created by national economic policy and regulation, affected corporate financial practices, but corporate financial practices often differed from what policymakers expected. Differences in corporate financial practices between nations also reflected differences in the mixture of industries in each nation. Many factors such as the amount of fixed capital, the process of production, the level of risk, the degree of innovation, and the importance of the industry in the national economy affected corporate financial practices. In addition, corporate financial practices within each nation differed from firm to firm due to managers’ considerations about stock ownership, which would affect their control power; corporate finance was closely related to control over management through ownership. To explain these complexities of corporate financial practices, the study linked corporate finance with the development of financial institutions in the United States and in Japan. While financial institutions affected corporate financial practices, the response of the firms to financial institutions and opportunities were diverse. The study also attempted to grasp variations in corporate financial practices by dealing with companies in three sectors: railroads, public utilities, and manufacturing. Finally, the study examined the structure of firm ownership. Contradictory to the widely held belief that U.S. firms distributed securities more widely to the public than did Japanese firms, many large American firms remained closely held, while some Japanese counterparts built publicly-held corporations.