The Working Group on Scottish Sport and the Scottish Independence Referendum: an Unrealised Political 'Imaginary'?

In September 2014, a historic referendum on the issue of Scottish independence was held, with the potential to dissolve the political union between Scotland and the other constituent nations of the United Kingdom which had survived intact since the 1707 Act of Union. On a significantly high electoral turnout of 84.6%, the Scottish electorate opted to reject the proposals of the governing party in the devolved Scottish Parliament, the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), to create an independent Scottish state, with 55.3% of the electorate voting ���No��� to Scottish independence against a 44.7% ���Yes��� vote. In the grand scheme of the Scottish independence referendum campaigns, sports policy remained a somewhat peripheral issue within the arguments forwarded by the Yes Scotland and Better Together campaigns. Nonetheless, developments such as the formation of the 'Sport for Yes' campaign sub-group, the inclusion of sport within the Scottish Government���s White Paper on Scottish independence and the establishment of the Working Group on Scottish Sport demonstrated that the potential implications of independence were still deemed significant enough to merit a degree of policy planning by the Scottish Government (Lafferty, 2014; Scottish Government, 2013; Working Group on Scottish Sport, 2013, 2014). This paper will critically consider the implications of the 'No' vote in the Scottish independence referendum for the latter of these developments, the policy proposals of the Working Group for Scottish Sport. Drawing upon the principles of critical discourse analysis, specifically the analytical framework proposed by Fairclough and Fairclough (2012), the content of this group's proposal will be examined in order to critically explore the policy for Scottish sport it envisaged for an independent Scottish state. The paper will then conclude by reflecting upon the extent to which elements of this political 'imaginary' (Fairclough and Fairclough, 2012) of Scottish sport remain a possibility for future sports policy in Scotland following the eventual 'No' vote in the referendum.

What kind of European Banking Union? Bruegel Policy Contribution [2012/12?]June 25, 2012

This paper discusses the creation of a European Banking Union. First, we discuss questions of design. We highlight seven fundamental choices that decision makers will need to make: Which EU countries should participate in the banking union? To which categories of banks should it apply? Which institution should be tasked with supervision? Which one should deal with resolution? How centralised should the deposit insurance system be? What kind of fiscal backing would be required? What governance framework and political institutions would be needed? In terms of geographical scope, we see the coverage of the banking union of the euro area as necessary and of additional countries as desirable, even though this would entail important additional economic difficulties. The system should ideally cover all banks within the countries included, in order to prevent major competitive and distributional distortions. Supervisory authority should be granted either to both the ECB and a new agency, or to a new agency alone. National supervisors, acting under the authority of the European supervisor, would be tasked with the supervision of smaller banks in accordance with the subsidiarity principle. A European resolution authority should be established, with the possibility of drawing on ESM resources. A fully centralized deposit insurance system would eventually be desirable, but a system of partial reinsurance may also be envisaged at least in a first phase. A banking union would require at least implicit European fiscal backing, with significant political authority and legitimacy. Thus, banking union cannot be considered entirely separately from fiscal union and political union. The most difficult challenge of creating a European banking union lies with the short-term steps towards its eventual implementation. Many banks in the euro area, and especially in the crisis countries, are currently under stress and the move towards banking union almost certainly has significant distributional implications. Yet it is precisely because banks are under such stress that early and concrete action is needed. An overarching principle for such action is to minimize the cost to the tax payers. The first step should be to create a European supervisor that will anchor the development of the future banking union. In parallel, a capability to quickly assess the true capital position of the system���s most important banks should be created, for which we suggest establishing a temporary European Banking Sector Task Force working together with the European supervisor and other authorities. Ideally, problems identified by this process should be resolved by national authorities; in case fiscal capacities would prove insufficient, the European level would take over in the country concerned with some national financial participation, or in an even less likely adverse scenario, in all participating countries at once. This approach would require the passing of emergency legislation in the concerned countries that would give the Task Force the required access to information and, if necessary, further intervention rights. Thus, the principle of fiscal responsibility of respective member states for legacy costs would be preserved to the maximum extent possible, and at the same time, market participants and the public would be reassured that adequate tools are in place to address any eventuality.

The challenges of Europe's fourfold union. Bruegel Policy Contribution 2012/13, 16 August 2012

Five years after the first tremors in Europe���s banking system, what makes the crisis unique is the absence of a democratically accountable decision-making framework; there is an 'executive deficit' that compounds Europe���s democratic deficit. The author argues that the only way to resolve the crisis successfully is a sustained effort to achieve a 'fourfold union' agenda: banking union, fiscal union, competitiveness union and political union. Progress must be made in parallel on each of the four components. In particular, successful progress towards banking union requires a combination of short term action, including the establishment of a temporary resolution authority to identify undercapitalised banks and to restructure them, and longer-term measures, including the creation of permanent authorities for supervision, resolution and deposit insurance.

The sultans of swing: Turkey's stance on integration with the European Union. OSW Point of View Number 37, November 2013

Despite a rise in anti-EU rhetoric and a growing assertiveness in Ankara���s relations with Brussels, Turkey will continue to seek closer integration with the European Union in the coming years. The current stalemate in the accession process has been a source of irritation to Recep Tayyip Erdo��an���s government. Nonetheless, a complete collapse of accession talks would be a much worse scenario for the ruling AKP party. Currently, the government is primarily interested in keeping the negotiation process alive, rather than hoping to gain full membership any time soon. Erdo��an���s government will likely seek to continue the accession talks because the AKP is acutely aware of their importance for the country���s domestic politics, for its the economy, and ��� although to a lesser extent ��� for Turkey���s international standing. The opportunity to capitalise on this process will encourage the Turkish government to avoid crises in its relations with the EU, or to at least mitigate the impact of any potential diplomatic fallouts.

The Political Logic of Disintegration: Seven Lessons from the Soviet Collapse. CEPS Essay (No. 1), September 2012

In short, the European Union, as we know it, no longer exists. The very foundations on which it was built are eroding. Shared memories of the Second World War have faded away ��� half the 15- and 16-year-olds in German high schools do not know that Hitler was a dictator, while a third believe that he protected human rights. The collapse of the Soviet Union has stripped away the geopolitical rationale for European unity. The democratic welfare state that was at the heart of the post-war political consensus is under siege by, among other things, sheer demographics. And the prosperity that bolstered the European project���s political legitimacy is vanishing. More than six out of ten Europeans believe that the lives of today���s children will be more difficult than those of people from their own generation. Against this background, how unthinkable is the EU���s disintegration? Should Europeans make the mistake of taking the Union for granted? Should they assume that the Union would not collapse because it should not collapse? Here, Europe���s capacity to learn from the Soviet precedent could play a crucial part. For the very survival of the EU may depend on its leaders��� ability to manage a similar mix of political, economic and psychological factors that were in play in the process of the Soviet collapse. The game of disintegration is primarily a political one driven much more by the perceptions and misperceptions of the political actors than simply by the constellation of the structural factors ��� institutional and economic.

The Fate of Greece in a ���Genuine Economic and Monetary Union���: Lessons from a small island state. CEPS Hi-Level Brief, 19 June 2015 Friday, 19 June 2015

As the Greek debt drama reaches another supposedly decision point, Daniel Gros urges creditors (and indeed all policy-makers) to think about the long term and poses one key question in this CEPS High-Level Brief: What can be gained by keeping Greece inside the euro area at ���whatever it takes���? As he points out, the US, with its unified politics and its federal fiscal transfer system, is often taken as a model for the Eurozone, and it is thus instructive to consider the longer-term performance of an area of the US which has for years been kept afloat by massive transfers, and which is now experiencing a public debt crisis. The entity in question is Puerto Rico, which is an integral part of the US in all relevant economic dimensions (currency, economic policy, etc.). The dismal fiscal and economic performance of Puerto Rico carries two lessons: 1) Keeping Greece in the eurozone by increasing implicit subsidies in the form of debt forgiveness might create a low-growth equilibrium with increasing aid dependency. 2) It is wrong to assume that, further integration, including a fiscal and political union, would be sufficient to foster convergence, and prevent further problems of the type the EU is experiencing with Greece.

North Rhine-Westphalia and the European Union. ZEI Discussion Paper C232, 2015

Keynote speech at the Final Ceremony of the ZEI Class of 2015. On the occasion of the Final Ceremony of the ZEI Master of European Studies ���Class of 2015���, Prime Minister Hannelore Kraft congratulated the this year���s graduates and at the same time the ZEI and its staff for its past twenty years of innovative and successful academic work. Twenty years in which the European Union has succeeded in making progress in many areas, like Economic and Monetary Union, EU enlargement, introduction of the Euro and the changing role of the regions in the EU. North Rhine-Westphalia, the 8th largest region in the EU, is conducting proactive policy both in Berlin and in Brussels and combines European and regional politics in many areas. The European Union has to face new challenges, which can be only solved successful and confidence building as a common and even closer Union.

Problemy strefy Euro

Oficjalne kredyty ratunkowe dla niekt��rych kraj��w w strefie euro nie mog�� zast��pi�� tam reform, kt��re ��� poprawiaj��c sytuacj�� gospodarcz�� ��� pozwol�� odzyska�� owym krajom zaufanie rynk��w finansowych. W literaturze wymienia si�� dwie g����wne strukturalne s��abo��ci wsp��lnej waluty (euro): 1. Jednolita polityka pieni��dza nie jest w stanie uwzgl��dni�� odmienno��ci sytuacji poszczeg��lnych kraj��w, a wsp��lny pieni��dz nie pozwala na dewaluacj�� w obr��bie strefy euro; 2. Strefa euro istnieje bez ���unii politycznej���. Artyku�� analizuje zasadno���� tych tez.

'Team GB', 'Team England' or 'Team Scotland'? Media Representations of 'Britishness', 'Englishness' and 'Scottishness' in London 2012 and Glasgow 2014

Given the timing of the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014, the hosting of both the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games coincided with a period of considerable political turmoil and reflection within the United Kingdom. The extensive levels of public, political and media scrutiny of both of these major sporting events can therefore be framed within a wider consideration of the contemporary dynamics of the political union between the constituent nations of the UK, as well as the multifarious forms of national identities expressed within the various regions of the ���nation-state���. Despite the growing influence of social media forms within contemporary society, politics and sport within the UK, the ���traditional��� print media retain a central (although arguably diminishing) role in the dissemination of information relating to major societal, political and sporting issues to the British public. This paper will therefore critically reflect upon the nature of print media representations of ���Britishness���, ���Englishness��� and ���Scottishness��� at London 2012 and Glasgow 2014 from both London-based and Scotland-based publications, drawing upon empirical data from completed and ongoing doctoral theses from the respective authors. In particular, the implications of the contrasting competitive structures of each event will be considered, given the symbolic differences between the unitary ���Team GB��� at the London 2012 Olympics and the separated representative teams for Scotland and England at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

An��lisis del Espacio Schengen en materia de seguridad como base para la implementaci��n del Protocolo sobre la Facilitaci��n del Movimiento de Personas de la Comunidad para el Desarrollo de ��frica Austral (SADC)

El fin de la Guerra Fr��a supuso no s��lo el triunfo del capitalismo y de la democracia liberal, sino un cambio significativo en el Sistema Internacional; siendo menos centralizado y m��s regionalizado, como consecuencia de la proximidad y relaciones de interdependencia entre sus actores (no s��lo Estados) y permitiendo la formaci��n de Complejos Regionales de Seguridad (CRS). Los CRS son una forma efectiva de relacionarse y aproximarse a la arena internacional pues a trav��s de sus procesos de securitizaci��n y desecuritizaci��n consiguen lograr objetivos espec��ficos. Partiendo de ello, tanto la Uni��n Europea (UE) como la Comunidad para el Desarrollo de ��frica Austral (SADC) iniciaron varios procesos de securitizaci��n relacionados con la integraci��n regional; siendo un ejemplo de ello la eliminaci��n de los controles en sus fronteras interiores o libre circulaci��n de personas; pues consideraron que de no hacerse realidad, ello generar��a amenazas pol��ticas (su influencia y capacidad de actuaci��n estaban amenazadas), econ��micas (en cuanto a su competitividad y niveles b��sicos de bienestar) y societales (en cuanto a la identidad de la comunidad como indispensable para la integraci��n) que pondr��an en riesgo la existencia misma de sus CRS. En esta medida, la UE cre�� el Espacio Schengen, que fue producto de un proceso de securitizaci��n desde inicios de la d��cada de los 80 hasta mediados de la d��cada de los 90; y la SADC se encuentra inmersa en tal proceso de securitizaci��n desde 1992 hasta la actualidad y espera la ratificaci��n del Protocolo para la Facilitaci��n del Movimiento de personas como primer paso para lograr la eliminaci��n de controles en sus fronteras interiores. Si bien tanto la UE como la SADC consideraron que de no permitir la libre circulaci��n de personas, su integraci��n y por lo tanto, sus CRS estaban en riesgo; la SADC no lo ha logrado. Ello hace indispensable hacer un an��lisis m��s profundo de sus procesos de securitizaci��n para as�� encontrar sus falencias con respecto al ��xito de la UE. El an��lisis est�� basado en la Teor��a de los Complejos de Seguridad de Barry Buzan, plasmada en la obra Security a New Framework for Analysis (1998) de Barry Buzan, Ole Waever y Jaap de Wilde y ser�� dividido en cada una de las etapas del proceso de securitizaci��n: la identificaci��n de una amenaza existencial a un objeto referente a trav��s de un acto discursivo, la aceptaci��n de una amenaza por parte de una audiencia relevante y las acciones de emergencia para hacer frente a las amenazas existenciales; reconociendo las diferencias y similitudes de un proceso de securitizaci��n exitoso frente a otro que a��n no lo ha sido.

Gest��o social das pol��ticas p��blicas de desenvolvimento local: uma an��lise sobre a participa����o do Sindicato dos Metal��rgicos no Cons��rcio Intermunicipal do ABC

O estudo discute as rela����es entre a participa����o pol��tica da sociedade civil e as pol��ticas p��blicas no n��vel subnacional de governo. A pesquisa trata mais especificamente da rela����o entre a participa����o sindicalismo nas pol��ticas p��blicas. Com isso, procura-se pensar os diversos sentidos e significados da participa����o do sindicato dos Metal��rgicos do ABC nas pol��ticas p��blicas. O estudo encontra-se inscrito no contexto das pesquisas qualitativas, enfocando a import��ncia da fala.

The Europe barometer points to stormy weather. CEPS Commentary, 15 February 2013

Against the current background of a sharp decline in public support for the EU and an emerging reinforced centre to manage the euro crisis, this commentary finds that the only way Europe���s leaders can hope to keep the fragile equilibrium afloat is to summon up the courage to go forward with concrete proposals for political union.

Lessons from the Great War: Failure of leadership. CEPS Commentary, 1 July 2014

In his reflections on the intervening century since the start of the First World War, Erwan Fou��r�� acknowledges that the EU has brought enormous benefits to its citizens by extending the frontiers of peace and security to include 28 member countries. At the same time, however, he warns that the voices of populism are trying to destroy its very foundations and calls upon the European Union to work much harder at showing that the integration project is both vital and necessary for continued peace and prosperity in Europe.

Partnership in times of crisis: challenges for the Eastern European countries' integration with Europe. OSW Point of View Number 36, July 2013

Over the four years since its launch, the Eastern Partnership initiative has created frameworks and mechanisms for the integration of Eastern Partnership countries with the European Union. Despite this, the partner countries have so far made little meaningful progress in modernisation, implementation of reforms or integration with the EU.Since the European Neighbourhood Policy was launched in 2004, the situation in areas of key importance for the EU, such as democratisation, free-market transformations, European integration, political stability and regional security, has not improved significantly. In this context, it is legitimate to ask questions about the extent to which the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership have brought the Union closer to achieving its declared objectives in the relations with eastern neighbours. What is the underlying cause of the dwindling involvement and declining interest in achieving real progress in integration? How may the events that have been dominating the political agenda ��� i.e. the EU���s financial crisis, the debate on the future of the Union, but also the political processes taking place within the partner countries ��� affect the future of mutual relations?

Designing a Genuine EMU: Which "Unions" for EU and Eurozone? Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 34/2014

The initial ���framing��� (in the summer of 2012) of the ���genuine EMU��� for the wider public suggested to design an entire series of ���unions���. So many ���unions��� are neither necessary nor desirable ��� only some are and their design matters. The paper critically discusses first the negative fall-out of the crisis for EMU, and subsequently assesses the fiscal and the banking unions as accomplished so far, without going into highly specific technical details. The assessment is moderately positive, although there is ample scope for further improvement and a risk for short-term turbulence once the ECB has finished its tests and reviews. What about the parade of other ���unions��� such as economic union, social union and political union? The macro-economic imbalances procedure (MIP) and possibly the ESRB have overcome the pre-crisis disregard of macro competitiveness. The three components of ���economic union��� (single market, economic policy coordination and budgetary disciplines) have all been strengthened. The last two ���unions���, on the other hand, would imply a fundamental change in the conferral of powers to the EU/ Eurozone, with drastic and possibly very serious long-run implications, including a break-up of the Union, if such proposals would be pushed through. The cure is worse than the disease. Whereas social union is perhaps easier to dismiss as a ���misfit��� in the EU, the recent popularity of suggesting a ���political union��� is seen as worrisome. Probably, nobody knows what a ���political union��� is, or, at best, it is a highly elastic notion: it might be thought necessary for reasons of domestic economic reforms in EU countries, for a larger common budget, for some EU tax power, for (greater) risk pooling, for ���symmetric��� macro-economic adjustment and for some ultimate control of the ECB in times of crisis. Taking each one of these arguments separately, a range of more typical EU solutions might be found without suggesting a ���political union���. Just as ���fiscal capacity��� was long an all-or-nothing taboo for shifting bank resolution to the EU level, now solved with a modest common Fund and carefully confined but centralised powers, the author suggests that other carefully targeted responses can be designed for the various aspects where seen as indispensable, including the political say of a lender-of-last-resort function of the ECB. Hence, neither a social nor a political union worthy of the name ought to be pursued. Yet, political legitimacy matters, both with national parliaments and the grassroots. National parliaments will have to play a larger role.