Ideas on Europe Blog

Roland Bloch and Alexander Mitterle

Universities have become central crossing points in modern society. They coproduce the narratives of our time, ranging from politics over neurogenetics to climate change. Universities educate students for diverse roles in society: nurses, musicians, lawyers, physicists, managers, neuroscientists, and philosophers have all been credentialized by higher education systems. In recent decades, there has been a consistent increase in the number of participants in higher education. The move from elite to mass education, has led to the emergence of an expansive, self-enforcing dynamic (Trow 2006).

Mass education implies that higher education has become crucial to securing access to labor markets, especially to positions with higher social status (Collins 1979). Over the decades, scholars have confirmed that educational credentials are door openers, which legitimate exclusive access to high-status professions and lead to occupational attainment (Abbott 2005). With the expansion of higher education, a growing differentiation, professionalization, and stratification within higher education systems can be perceived (Teichler 2008). Surprisingly, there has been less attention paid to how exactly the organization and (vertical) structure of higher education impacts on social structures and on occupational attainment. Beyond acknowledging the role of higher education in constructing elites, there has been a serious lack of research on the link between higher education and high-status positions.

Bringing the university back in

While acknowledging the important work that emphasizes the role of higher education in reproducing elites, our new book ‘Universities and the Production of Elites. Discourses, Policies, and Strategies of Excellence and Stratification in Higher Education’ (Bloch, Mitterle, Paradeise and Peter 2018) focusses on how universities as organizations produce elites.

As education provider and a research institution, the university “forms basic ideologies and creates academic degrees and expertise around these ideologies” (Baker 2014, p. 84). As a “sieve”, “incubator” or “hub” of society (Stevens et al. 2008), it both co-constructs and legitimizes “new classes of personnel with new types of authoritative knowledge” (Meyer 1977, p. 56). As an organization its forms of educational provision and its ties with the labour market are impacted by constant policy changes in the name of internationalization, excellence, New Public Management, quality improvement, efficiency and cost reduction (Paradeise and Thoenig 2015; Bloch and Mitterle 2017).

The aim of our book is to highlight the relationship between higher education institutions and the production of elites by focusing on how organizational change and increasing stratification in higher education impact on – or try to adjust to – the production of new elites for labor markets and academia. Its purpose is to provide new empirical and theoretical perspectives on this relationship and it focuses on the role of the university, rather than the labor market.

Discourses, policies, and strategies of excellence and stratification

The contributions originate from a small, intense workshop held at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in September 2015. The workshop brought together scholars from Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States to explore these issues. The endeavor is of course much greater than an edited book can handle. We see it as a starting point for a longer discussion. It thus provides relevant theoretical approaches that help to think the relationship anew, such as discourse analysis, new institutionalism, institutional habitus approaches, or visibility theory. The approaches are developed along concrete case studies in the respective countries on multiple levels along which this ordering takes place (such as programs, organizational units, universities, global business school fields, and nation states).

The book begins with addressing some of the discursive rationales that underlie recent policy changes toward increasing stratification in higher education and that emphasize individual actorhood, responsiveness, and competition. We then examine how governments take up these rationales – in response to massification and internationalization in higher education – when formulating policy changes. Examples from Finland, France, Germany, and Ireland describe how such policy changes impact on and reshape the structure of higher education systems. Policy devices that exemplify verticality in programs and institutions (such as rankings) are key to implementing and sustaining these changes in higher education. We show how policy devices – as objective status distributors – make hierarchies visible along specific indicators and how such devices impact on universities. Universities respond to these policy changes by adjusting to status demands. Common indicators play an important role in comparative positioning but local organizational arrangements are very heterogeneous. With regard to educational pathways, we draw on case studies from China, the United States, and Germany (business education and doctoral programs) to show how universities and their schools seek to employ international faculty, visualize elite architectures, or build privileged pathways to job positions. Finally, we discuss the role of specific logics of elite production. Examples from the United States and France each show that even if internationalization strategies are in place and although universities are global institutions, they still largely follow national production logics in the way that they educate and socialize their students.

Connecting the various empirical studies in this book opens up a new perspective for future research on the nexus between higher education and labor markets. The vertical differences and the way that they rebuild higher education matter, and they matter particularly for educational pathways leading to high-status positions.

Roland Bloch is a research associate at the Institute of Sociology and the Center for School and Educational Research at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He received his PhD at University of Leipzig with a dissertation on the study reforms in the course of the Bologna process and has worked on the structure of academic work at German universities. His latest research concerns stratifications in higher education, especially doctoral education.

Alexander Mitterle is a research associate at the Institute for Sociology and the Center for School and Educational Research at Martin-Luther-University. His recent research focuses on the development of stratification in German higher education. He has worked and published on various aspects of higher education including internationalization, private higher education, teaching structure and time as well as real-socialist higher education.

References

Abbott, A. (2005). ‘Linked Ecologies: States and Universities as Environments for Professions‘. Sociological Theory, 23(3), pp. 245–274.

Baker, D.P. (2014). The Schooled Society: The Educational Transformation of Global Culture. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

Bloch, R. and Mitterle, A. (2017). On stratification in changing higher education: The ‘analysis of status’ revisited, Higher Education, 73(6), pp. 929–946. DOI: 10.1007/s10734-017-0113-5.

Bloch, R., Mitterle, A., Paradeise, C. and Peter, T. (eds.) (2018). Universities and the Production of Elites. Discourses, Policies, and Strategies of Excellence and Stratification in Higher Education. Palgrave Studies in Global Higher Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Collins, R. (1979). The credential society: an historical sociology of education and stratification. New York: Academic Press.

Meyer, J.W. (1977). The Effects of Education as an Institution. The American Journal of Sociology, 83(1), pp. 55–77.

Paradeise, C. and Thoenig, J.C. (2015). In search of academic quality. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Stevens, M.L., Armstrong, E.A. and Arum, R. (2008). Sieve, Incubator, Temple, Hub: Empirical and Theoretical Advances in the Sociology of Higher Education. Annual Review of Sociology, 34(1), pp. 127–151.

Teichler, U. (2008). Diversification? Trends and explanations of the shape and size of higher education, Higher Education, 56(3), pp. 349–379. DOI: 10.1007/s10734-008-9122-8.

Trow, Martin (2006). Reflections on the transition from elite to mass to universal access: forms and phases of higher education in modern societies since WWII. In: James J. F. Forest und Philip G. Altbach eds., International Handbook of Higher Education. Vol. 1. Global Themes and Contemporary Challenges. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 243-280.

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Twenty-eight years ago today, on 9 November 1989, the people of Berlin – east and west – joined together to dismantle the wall that had cruelly separated their city for twenty-eight years.

It was a momentous event that led to the downfall of the Soviet communist regime, followed eventually by applications to join the European Union by most of the former Iron Curtain countries, fully supported and encouraged by our UK government.

It’s an event worth remembering and celebrating.

But there is also another event that happened on this day in history that we should surely also not forget, but which we cannot celebrate.

On this day, on 9 November 1938, commenced 48-hours of ‘Kristallnacht’, also known as ‘The night of broken glass’.

Throughout Germany and Austria, Nazi Stormtroopers – ‘Brown shirts’ – together with non-Jewish civilians, commenced a co-ordinated series of vicious attacks against Jewish people and their properties.

The name Kristallnacht comes from the millions of fragments of shattered glass strewn across the streets after Jewish homes, shops, buildings, schools, hospitals and synagogues were ransacked and their windows mercilessly smashed with boots and sledge hammers.

Over 1,000 synagogues and 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed. At least 91 Jewish people were killed and 30,000 arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. The two nights of terror were widely reported by the media and sent shock waves around the world.

Soon these events led to the Holocaust, which saw the horrific, industrial-scale murder of 11 million victims across most of Europe, including six million Jewish people.

It was arranged with meticulous calculated efficiency by the Nazi regime, which was only eventually defeated by the combined forces of Russia, USA, Britain and their Allies following a terrifying five-year world war.

But instead of celebrating liberation following the end of Nazism in 1945, half of Europe’s countries were then consumed by another totalitarian regime, Communism.

It was only 44 years later, as the Berlin wall began to crumble, that those countries could see freedom at last.

This was Europe’s gruelling arduous road to peace and liberation that we should surely reflect upon today.

When I visited Amsterdam in September, my Dutch friend said to me, “Why are you doing Brexit? Europe is integrated now!’

Maybe this is something we, as islanders, simply don’t understand as deeply as those who live on the mainland of our continent.

Europe has suffered profound pain on its path to find peace and ‘integration’. It was previously commonplace on our continent for differences between countries to be resolved through violence and war. Indeed, the planet’s two world wars originated right here on our continent.

For many, the Second World War only ended in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the half of our continent that was hidden from us behind an ‘Iron Curtain’ was liberated at last.

We saw the fall of the oppressive Soviet Union, and many of the countries that had been trapped in its sphere then re-joined our family of countries through the European Union.

Following our continent’s long and harrowing journey, we have found peace, and yes, integration at last.

And yet, in response, Britain is on the road to Brexit, snubbing our friends and neighbours on our own continent, and putting at risk Europe’s profound and remarkable accomplishments of recent decades.

Do we really know what we’re doing?

• Photo of Kristallnacht by Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1970-083-42 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5418870

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The government has commissioned 58 secret reports on the economic impact of Brexit, but has refused to make them public.

The comprehensive studies have been prepared by experts into the likely effects of various Brexit terms on different sectors comprising around 90% per cent of the UK economy.

Today Prime Minister Theresa May was under mounting pressure from Parliament to release these official studies into the economic dangers of Brexit.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said: “Theresa May should not be imposing a blanket ban on information about the economic consequences of Brexit.”

Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said: “The Government is desperately trying to hide the true impact of an extreme Brexit from the public… Ministers need to come clean and publish these reports immediately.”

Government officials said the studies were commissioned to help negotiations with the EU on Brexit terms and they could not be published without exposing the government’s hand.

But this conniving government needs exposing.

At every twist and turn of this tortuous Brexit journey, the government has resisted being open, or democratic, or rational, in its handling of everything to do with our country’s departure from the European Union.

It was bad enough that in last year’s referendum the Leave campaign had to use lies and mistruths to win, aided and abetted by a large section of our media that has delivered a daily deluge of reprehensible hate against the EU and migrants.

It was bad enough that in last year’s referendum many, many people directly affected by the outcome were denied a vote.

It was bad enough that only a minority of registered voters voted for Leave. In most countries across the world that hold referendums, such a change on such a flimsy vote could never be allowed.

In fact, such a result wouldn’t have been good enough to change the constitution of UKIP or the Conservative Party, or sufficient under new Tory rules for a trade union to vote for strike action.

It was bad enough that Theresa May tried her utmost to pass Brexit by bypassing Parliament, using the antiquated Royal Prerogative, that the late Labour MP, Tony Benn, tried so hard in vain to get scrapped.

Fortunately, thanks to the brave intervention of Gina Miller and her supporters, the High and Supreme Courts slapped down Mrs May’s undemocratic plans, ruling that they were illegal.

It was bad enough that despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that Parliament must decide whether the country should leave the EU, Theresa May’s government refused to allow Parliament such a vote.

Instead, the government incorrectly told Parliament that the Brexit decision had already been made by the referendum (impossible, since the referendum was advisory only and not legally binding).

It was bad enough that Mrs May is carrying on with her crazy Brexit plans, despite losing her entire majority in her snap election of 8 June, and having pleaded with the nation to give her a whopping majority so she would have a mandate for her crazy plans.

All this is more than just bad enough. It’s an outrage to decent, law-abiding, intelligent citizens that the current Conservative government is attempting to force the country on a course of action that most people in the country now consider, in hindsight, was wrong.*

Britain does not want Brexit. Given another opportunity to reconsider the vote of 23 June 2016, Brexit would almost certainly be given the thumbs down. But Mrs May is not going to allow us to change our minds, even though she allowed herself to do so simply so she could move into 10 Downing Street.

Brexit will touch the lives of every single one of us. If we are going to Brexit, we cannot allow it to happen based on lies, secrecy and actions that contemptuously bypass our Parliament and us, ‘the people’, who Mrs May duplicitously pretends to represent.

The government cannot continue to hide the truth from us.

Keeping secret 58 assessments on the economic impact of Brexit has nothing to do with the negotiations taking place in Brussels, and everything to do with the government’s desperate attempts to complete our withdrawal from the EU without allowing any opportunities for Parliament or the people to object.

We cannot allow decisions to be made about our future that are not subject to democratic scrutiny.

It is undemocratic and unacceptable to keep the British people in the dark, especially by a government that commands no power in Parliament except with the dodgy and tenuous agreement of the tiny DUP party.

As former Chancellor George Osborne editorialised in the Evening Standard today, “If the public have a right to know anything, then surely it has a right to know what the Government thinks the impact of leaving the EU will have on over 90 per cent of the economy.”

And as Abi Wilkinson writing in today’s Guardian put it, “True democracy requires the electorate to have access to relevant information. If you’re handed a piece of paper and told to tick a box without knowledge of what each option represented, can you be said to have cast a meaningful vote?”

The opening lyrics of John Lennon’s song, ‘Gimme Some Truth’, seem powerfully appropriate today:

“I’m sick and tired of hearing things from uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics. All I want is the truth, just give me some truth. I’ve had enough of reading things by neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians. All I want is the truth, just give me some truth.”

Mrs May and your band of Brexit ministers, all we want is the truth. Each day you hide it from us, each day we know you are up to no good.

• Words and graphic by Jon Danzig​

• That John Lennon song: Gimme Some Truth

• Photo of John Lennon by Peter Fordham, Billboard, 18 September 1971, now in the public domain

* My article on the latest YouGov polls showing that most voters in the country now consider that the Brexit decision was wrong.

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Yesterday I attended an event at the House of Commons on Brexit research and how it could be used to inform policy. This was jointly organised by the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology and the Economic and Social Research Council, the latter of which is funding the UK in a Changing Europe programme, which in turn funding our project on the implications of Brexit for fisheries policy. On the one hand it was a good way to find out about other Brexit research taking place. Crucially, however, it was an opportunity to interact with parliamentarians and parliamentary staff, and discuss how our research could be used to inform their work.

The event kicked off with a couple of keynote addresses on the importance of research to inform policy debate. Participants were then given a choice. They could either attend one of a number of parallel sessions featuring presentations by each of the projects, grouped together around broad themes. Or they could circulate around a set of stalls where they could chat to project team members about what they were doing. I was set to work on one of the stalls while my other colleagues on the project did the presentation.

The overall number of people attending the event seemed high – from what I could tell it was standing room only for the keynote addresses at the start of the event. However by virtue of there being concurrent sessions, there were fewer people when it came to looking round the project stalls. I  was at our project’s stall for 1.5 hours, but  during this time I had only a handful people come up to me. Other projects’ stalls were also receiving low patronage, although levels of interest did vary by topic. Now, that’s not to say there wasn’t any interest in our project at all. There was, and I spoke to people with a specific interest in fisheries policy. It’s just that I was just expecting more.

This highlights one of the main challenges to engaging with policy makers and practitioner community. We were fortunate enough to have the event organised for us, for it to be hosted on the parliamentary estate and with the full support of the parliamentary authorities. And yet the overall number of attendees seemed low. This may be down to my unrealistic expectations of the event. But it also reflects the reality of pressures on other people’s time.

I know from my time as a practitioner in local government that politicians (even local councillors) are busy people. The same applies to the staff supporting their work, who all have day jobs to be getting on with. The pressures on parliamentarians’ time are obviously far greater. And, inevitably, the political priorities of the day take over – the event was taking place at roughly the same time as the urgent debate on sexual harassment in parliament, which has attracted much media attention over the last few days.

After brief reflection I’m not sure how I would have organised the event differently to overcome this. However, there was something that could have been done to better engage those who were attending. While footfall around the stalls was low (at least compared to my expectations), those getting the most attention seemed to have hit a basic formula: A simple message or research finding which could easily be condensed onto an A1 poster / infographic, which could be easily seen from a couple of metres away. Posters usually focused on a single but interesting finding from a just a small part of the overall project. This then acted as a hook, giving researchers an opportunity to go into further detail about their projects.

Any engagement with practitioners therefore needs to reflect the realities of time pressures they face. Messages need to be simple, to the point and easily digestible in a short amount of time. Conclusions need to be clear and not hidden away amongst some of the features that an academic audience might be expecting to see (such as a comprehensive literature review or detailed outline of methodology). Posters and infographics represent one way to achieve this clarity (Simon Usherwood’s infographics on the Article 50 negotiations are a good example).

I have used posters in the past to communicate my research in the past, and was a finalist in a poster competition on EU regional policy jointly organised by the Regional Studies Association and the European Commission. While I was teaching the Politics of the European Union module at Keele, I got the students to produce a poster on an EU institution (much to their frustration). The task is not as easy as the students initially think, but the experience at yesterday’s event vindicates my belief that the they should be able to communicate something complex (such as the EU’s institutional structure) in a succinct and engaging way.

EU posters by the students

So, I’m an fan of poster presentations, and observations from yesterday’s event showed they can be useful in communicating research to practitioners. Which only raises questions about why I didn’t think to follow my own advice for this event. In assuming it would be busier, I hadn’t given that much thought to how I would actually engage those who attended.

Now, my overall assessment is the event was a success. It was well organised, a fantastic opportunity to communicate our research to policy-makers and the contacts made will be valuable for our project and future engagement activities. But, with the benefit of hindsight, a little more effort into thinking how I would engage those that attended may have yielded a few more contacts and promoted our research beyond those with a specific interest in fisheries policy.

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We’ve known this all along, but still many people don’t believe it. Citizens living here from the rest of the EU/EEA give much more to Britain than they take. They are a boon, not a burden, and we’d be poorer without them.

Last July in Parliament, Philip Davies, the Conservative MP for Shipley in West Yorkshire, asked Damian Hinds, the Minister for Employment, what benefits are received by EU migrants living in Britain.

Mr Hinds replied that, “The nationality and immigration status of claimants is not currently recorded on benefit payment systems.”

However, Mr Hinds was able to point Mr Davies to a government website giving information about the tax and national insurance contributions paid by EU/EEA citizens in Britain for the tax year 2013-2014, and the benefits those citizens received in tax credits and child benefits.

We already knew UK-dwelling EU migrants pay six times more tax and national insurance than they claim in ‘HMRC benefits’. These are specifically child benefit or tax credits.

But the figures released for 2013-2014 threw up some surprises.

French citizens living in Britain are the European nationals contributing the most to the Treasury coffers. In 2013-2014, they contributed £2.3 billion in tax and national insurance. Yet they only took £90m in tax credits and child benefits.

That means French citizens here contributed almost 26 times more to the Treasury than they took in HMRC benefits.

Second on the list of biggest contributors were the 790,000 Polish workers in Britain, who handed over nearly £2.2 billion to our Treasury in 2013/14 (the latest figures available).

They took £911 million in HMRC benefits, meaning that they gave 2.4 times more than they received.

The most impressive gulf between what’s paid in tax and claimed back from HM Revenue and Customs was by Greek citizens working in Britain. They paid 31 times more in tax (£439 million) than they claimed in HMRC benefits (just £14 million).

Not one EU/EEA country on the list showed any one of them taking more than they gave. Even the country with the smallest gap, Slovakia, had their citizens here paying almost twice as much in taxes as they took out of HMRC in benefits (£208 million to £122 million).

Overall, citizens here from all EU/EEA paid taxes in one year totalling £14.7 billion, but only took HMRC benefits worth £2.6 billion.

Summarised HM Revenue and Customs in their report, “In 2013-14, EEA nationals paid £12.1 billion more Income Tax and National Insurance than they took out in tax credits and Child Benefit.” 

That means that in one year alone, citizens here from the rest of Europe gave almost six times more to the Treasury than they took in HM Customs and Excise benefits.

(Switzerland is included in the figures because, although it’s not a member of the EU/EEA, it is part of the Single Market, meaning Swiss nationals have the same rights to live and work in the UK as EEA nationals).

The HMRC benefit figures didn’t include DWP benefits, such as Jobseeker’s Allowance or disability payments. But even if they were included, there is still a significant net gain from the receipts of EU/EEA tax contributions versus the benefits they receive.

Figures from the Department of Works and Pensions revealed that the out-of-work benefits paid to EU/EEA citizens totalled £886 million in the 2013-2014 tax year – just 3% of the total DWP budget for such benefits. These benefits include housing benefits, Jobseekers Allowance, and other out-of-work benefits.

Total DWP benefits paid to EU/EEA migrants during the 2013-2014 tax year, including in work and out of work, came to £3.4 billion, meaning there was a net overall gain of £8.7 billion from EU/EEA migrants here in just one year. (Source at end of article).

The DWP also reported that as of February 2015, only 21,460 nationals from the rest of the EU were claiming Jobseekers Allowance, and only 3,900 were claiming disability allowance.  (See ITV News: What benefits can eu migrants claim?)

In addition to income tax and national insurance, EU migrants living in Britain also pay a wide range of ‘indirect taxes’, such as VAT, duty on petrol, beer and cigarettes, as well corporation tax and business rates.

Of course this isn’t the full picture, and the overall calculations are far more complicated than simply deducting benefits paid out from taxes received.

But in summary we can see: all those EU citizens working here are paying in taxes far more than they receive in in-work benefits. Their tax contribution also more than adequately covers the costs of the very small number of EU migrants claiming out-of-work benefits. And even after all that, there is a massive surplus from the tax contributions of EU migrants to help the country. 

As part of his EU reforms last year, former Prime Minister, David Cameron, introduced an ‘emergency brake’ on the benefits EU migrants can receive, meaning that new EU/EEA migrants would have to wait four years to receive in-work benefits.

Many migration and employment specialists were surprised by the imposition because the ‘brake’ wouldn’t make any difference. As even the Brexit-supporting Daily Telegraph pointed out:

“Around 90% of the EU nationals that come to Britain would not even be affected by the brake as they do not claim tax credits.” 

This really should come as no surprise. We have known for years that EU migrants coming to Britain make a massive net contribution to Britain.

They come to Britain to work, and fill job vacancies that there are simply not enough Britons to do.

Most of these migrants are in full and gainful employment. They are often dedicated, hard-working and highly desired by British employers. Only a tiny proportion are claiming benefits, and none came for benefits.

In extensive research undertaken by University College London, it was discovered that EU migrants arriving in Britain in the last decade (between 2001 to 2011) made a massive NET contribution to our Treasury of £20 billion.

During the same period, British people took out MORE from the Treasury than they put in – a deficit of a whopping £617 billion.

The same report revealed that, since most of those EU migrants came to Britain with their education already paid for, they ‘endowed the country with productive human capital that would have cost the UK £6.8bn in spending on education.’

A separate study conducted by the LSE last year concluded that:

• EU immigrants pay more in taxes than they use public services and therefore they help to reduce the budget deficit. 

• The areas of the UK with large increases in EU immigration did not suffer greater falls in the jobs and pay of UK-born workers.  

• EU immigrants are more educated, younger, more likely to be in work and less likely to claim benefits than the UK-born.

The fact is that EU migrants coming here are enriching our country (as do non-EU migrants).

They are helping to pay for our schools and hospitals. They are contributing to our pensions. They are mostly in-work, paying-in more than they take-out, and spending most of their hard-earned earnings right here in this country.

So, why would Britain want to put a put a ‘brake’ on the numbers of citizens from the rest of the EU coming here, resulting in a drastic reduction in the huge benefits they bring to our country?

I asked the same question during last year’s referendum campaign on the James O’Brien LBC radio phone-in programme.

Mr James O’B responded:

“You leave me only with xenophobia and mild racism as the only motivation for the ‘Leave’ campaign…”

Is that right? Some Britons would prefer to forego the benefits that migrants bring to Britain because… they don’t like foreigners? 

If so, that’s a high price the country will have to pay for the disease known as xenophobia. 

• Related: Link to Jon Danzig’s phone-in to LBC’s James O’Brien during the referendum campaign.

► SOURCES: The website cited by the Employment Minister’s answer in Parliament last July is no longer available. I have found another government source for the statistics used in my graphic.

• Link to ‘DWP benefit expenditure on claims from EEA nationals, 2013/14′  

• Link to UCL report: Economic impact of EU migration

• Link to LSE report: Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK

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One year ago, I sent an email to the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye (@davidkaye), in reaction to a public consultation, not knowing whether it mattered. Now that his report on “Access to Information in International Organizations” is published, I realized that I was one of a few people who had sent in a submission.

As you can see on the website of the report, my name is listed as one of five submissions from civil society and academia. However, my submission is not published because it came via email.

To make this more transparent, I publish below the text that I sent on 18 October 2016 in reaction to the public consultation. It’s not a refined submission – indeed just an email – but maybe it’s useful for future work in the direction of making the United Nations system and other international organizations more transparent to have this published here:

Dear Mr. Kaye,

through the Centre for Law and Democracy and a person working for Access Info Europe I saw that you are currently consulting with UN organizations on their access to information policies.

I do not know whether a submission from a researcher in political science and international public administration is welcome, especially after the general deadline has passed three days ago. However, I thought my observations would still be useful as context and as a “user’s” perspective.

My ongoing research on UN budgeting is part of a publicly funded project (see http://ipa-research.com/time), which itself is part of a larger research unit in Germany studying the work of international bureaucracies (http://ipa-research.com). I have been in particular to the UN in New York, ILO, UNESCO and WHO, including each of their archives. We also do research on other UN organizations, but less detailed than in these four cases.

If you allow, I would like to share three observations that I have found through my research in the UN system in the past two years:

1. Besides the archives or libraries, there is often no contact person named on public websites through which (ad hoc) requests for access to documents can be made. This means that one is forwarded from archives to relevant units, while relevant units may refuse access right away or refer back to higher levels of the hierarchy, leaving it unclear how to even ask for access to documents. Some UN organizations also have dedicated public document registers, some including main categories of administrative documents (even those that are not public), which allows to reduce the “unknown unknowns”, while other UN organizations publish their documents in unstructured ways or, if they have structured document repositories, they are not easily accessible for the public or documents are dispersed across several systems with different levels of (full-text) searchability.

2. The 20-year archival policy in the UN combined with the lack of access to documents policies makes well-reasoned academic research on UN organizations very difficult at worst and sketchy at best. There are two reasons for this:

First, the decision whether to actually archive documents is often taken years before the 20-year period is over. Going through archive documents 20 years and older (e.g. in UNESCO), I found that important parts of the budgeting decision-making documentation I was interested in had not been archived, while I had also no right to request more recent documents that were still in the hands of the secretariats. This left me without any documents not just for periods of 20 years but even well beyond that.

Second, the 20 year period seems to apply to documents with quite different degrees of political importance. In some cases, I was just looking for basic administrative guidelines describing a process inside the organization, but these documents, past and present, are treated similarly to internal letters in which detailed views and opinions of member states and UN administrative leaders are documented. The latter seem to have quite a different potential for creating diplomatic misunderstandings if published too early, while the former do not threaten diplomatic relations but rather reveal just basic systems of governance that are useful for our academic understand of how the respective UN organization works.

3. There is a lack of coherence in the application of the rules and practices, both within UN organizations and across the UN system. I happened to get documents in UN archives that were much younger than 20 years while the same type of documents from previous years were not accessible. Similarly, some of the documents I would get in one UN organization are difficult to impossible to get in another organization.

I make these three points since our research project started with a similar analysis for the EU-level, where there is Regulation 1049/2001 on access to documents. I can say that getting access to administrative documents on EU budgeting of the past ten years relevant to our research was much more easy than any similar attempt to get access to UN documents.

Altogether, I think that all UN organizations should have a dedicated access to information policy, with clear guidelines for the outside world and a separation between archival documents and documents that are accessible outside the archives, either directly online or through requests.

Please do not hesitate to contact me in case you have any questions.

Ronny Patz

PS (Disclaimer): I have worked, in the past, for the EU Office of Transparency International (2010-12 as a volunteer, 2012-14 as a full time staff). I am in no work or other formal relationship with the office since June 2014, so the points made above reflect my personal views as a researcher.

 I really hope for future researchers, activists, and citizens that access to information from international organizations becomes easier in the future. The historic record of what IOs such as the United Nations have contributed to shaping our present world should be accessible, and today’s and future generations should be able to hold global institutions to account.

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A couple of months ago I wrote about the latest Flash Eurobarometer survey on perceptions of EU regional policy. One of the interesting results was the apparent increase in awareness of EU regional policy in the UK after the referendum.

Having now had a chance to access the raw data as part of a wider project I’m doing on EU regional policy and the EU referendum, I’ve been able to look a bit more closely at this. This allows us to get a longer-term picture of how awareness of EU regional policy has changed in the UK over the last seven years.

Here are the results to the question “Have you heard about any EU co-financed projects to improve the area where you live?” for the last four waves of the Flash Eurobarometer survey on perceptions of EU regional policy.

A couple of observations: Firstly, between June 2010 and June 2015 the level of awareness has remained relatively static (and low). There is a slight downward trend, but nothing conclusive. However between June 2015 and March 2017 there was a notable increase in awareness of EU funded projects. Secondly, this increase exceeds the margins of error, so we can be fairly confident it’s not a random blip. In other words the result of the latest survey seems to buck the trend.

Now, the conclusions and caveats of my earlier post still stand. While the timing of the EU referendum might offer one potential explanation for the sudden increase in regional policy awareness, we can’t say for certain it was the cause based on this survey. And despite the recent increase, the overall level of awareness is still low. But it does speak to the wider debate going on at the moment about communicating cohesion policy to citizens, and that incorporating it into national political discourses may hold one answer to raise awareness.

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The European Council today and tomorrow is an important staging post for the Article 50 process. It marks the point at which the EU27 had decided they would review the negotiations and take stock.

More particularly, the original mandate for the Commission suggested that this was the point at which the European Council would take a view on whether ‘sufficient progress’ had been made on the Phase I topics; the immediate issues that needed settling of citizens’ rights, financial liabilities and the Irish border. Only with that sufficiency would there be a movement on to Phase II, the transition talks to set up a new relationship.

Already we know that the European Council will not give the green light to this, with the Commission, the General Affairs Council and the European Parliament all having already weighed in to say that there has been progress, but not enough to suffice. The drafts of the European Council conclusions take the same line.

So far, so unsurprising: ever since the summer break there has been a growing feeling that the negotiations had run into difficulties, not least because of the on-going inability of the British government to settle on a preferred outcome: there is a good understanding of the points to be discussed and agreed, but a lack of political direction from the UK on how to resolve them.

As such, the non-progression this week has already been largely priced into the process.

However, this comes with some significant costs. The most obvious is that it will not now be until December that any move to Phase II takes place, leaving very little time to reach a full deal by October 2018 (which is when one is needed, if ratification is to take place by March 2019).

Moreover, a blockage now will rob Article 50 of whatever momentum it might have picked up from May’s Florence speech, which sought to advance the financial side of things.

So, that’s the context. But what does it suggest everyone wants or needs to get from the European Council?

For the EU27, Brexit remains a side-show to all the other things that they are dealing with at the moment. With only a handful of states deeply involved in the process, most will be happy to know that the Commission is on the case and that there remains collective buy-in to the mandate for Phase I: no-one wants to get rolled over on the finances and citizens’ rights are a concern for many. As long as they can go back with a message that the EU is still fighting for those things, then they will be happy.

Likewise, for those member states most closely involved, upholding the mandate is also the best course of action. For Ireland, it keeps their priorities front-and-centre, while for Germany it keeps everyone on-board for a process to find a deal with the UK. However, the blockages seen suggest that they will be working with the European Council President and the Commission.

And the Commission itself is in a more tricky position. It has a very strong interest in making Article 50 work, both because it wants to keep the UK in a functioning relationship with the EU, and also because it wants to demonstrate its problem-solving abilities. At the same time, it needs to protect the core values and benefits of the EU for its members, which limits what it can give way on to help the UK.

The compromise that seems to be emerging is that while there will be insufficient progress, the Commission will push for the EU27 to start preparing a Phase II mandate, so that as-and-when approval is given, both sides can hit the ground running, rather than lose another month or so to Phase II prep. Moreover, since that prep will be in public, it will also allow the Commission to provide some additional signalling to the UK of its intentions, which might in turn help with outstanding Phase I problems.

Which leaves the UK.

If the EU side seems to be pointing towards a tough-but-accommodating position, then the British government is in more of a bind. The strength of feeling from hard-brexiteers makes it hard for any concessions, especially with the calls to simply walk away from the talks altogether. That such calls are self-evidently self-defeating just points out how limited May’s position is, with little agency in either Brussels or London.

Since May does not intend to – or, indeed, is able to – make any new offers at the European Council itself, much will rest on the presentation of matters. In that, she might obviously go for the lines taken in the Barnier-Davis press conferences in previous rounds of negotiations: the EU says ‘insufficient progress’, the UK says ‘progress’.

But the big danger is the one that has lurked ever since June, namely a further compromise to May’s position. If tempers flare and EU leaders come out with doom-laden messages, then May risks finding herself with her cornerstone policy priority looking even worse than before, and MPs might increasingly feel there’s little to be lost by changing horses mid-stream.

The EU might ask itself whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, both given where we are and what might follow.

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Within the known as the “procés”, or the “Catalan question”, on 10th October 2017 the President of the Catalan Government participated in a regular session of the Catalan Parliament in order to give an balance of the political situation in the region.

In his speech Mr. Puigdemont reported the positive results of the alleged referendum of 1st October 2017. However the words he used were full of confusion about whether or not the declaration of independence took place at the Catalan Parliament

In any case, Mr. Puigdemont stated:

“Arrived to this historical moment, as President of the Generalitat, I assume to present the results of the referendum to the Parliament and our citizens: the mandate that Catalonia becomes an independent State in the form of a republic.

That is what I have to do today. For responsibility and respect.

And with the same solemnity, the Government and me too propose the Parliament to suspend the effects of the independence declaration in order to start a dialogue in the following weeks without which is not possible to reach an agreed solution”[i]

These words have created some confusion regarding the existence or not of an implicit declaration of independence since, although such a declaration didn’t properly take place, the Government and the President proposed to the Parliament “to suspend the effects of the declaration of independence”.

Certainly, the independence declaration corresponds to the Parliament of Catalonia, according to art. 4.4. of Law 19/2017, of 6 September, on the referendum of self-determination, law suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court:

“If in the count of valid votes there are more affirmative than negative votes, the result implies the independence of Catalonia. To this end, the Parliament of Catalonia, within two days following the proclamation of the official results by the Electoral Syndicate, will hold a regular session to carry out the formal declaration of the independence of Catalonia, specify its effects and initiate the constituent process.“

It is important, from the Catalan secessionist legal perspective to comply with the provisions of this article because, although suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court, it is the one that determines – from the perspective of the alleged legality of the new Republic – the entry into force of Law 20/2017, of 8 September, on Legal Transitoriness and on the Foundation of the Republic, third final provision, also suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court.

Thus, from the perspective of the alleged legality of the Catalan Republic, this is born – materially – with the positive result of the vote of the Referendum on October 1st  (“the result implies the independence of Catalonia”), although “to this end” , within two days of the proclamation of the results, the Parliament must hold a regular session to carry out the formal declaration of independence, specify its effects and initiate the constituent process.

However, although the session of the Catalan Parliament took place on October 10th, there was no formal declaration by the Catalan Parliament, nor the concretization of its effects and the beginning of the constituent process.

In fact, what happened was that Mr Puigdemont reported the positive results of the Referendum and immediately requested to the Parliament to suspend the effects of a declaration which had not yet taken place. Moreover there was not any answer or agreement of the Parliament in this sense.

However, after the Parliament session, the deputies of the secessionist groups proceeded to sign a document in another room containing a declaration of independence[ii]:

“… We, democratic representatives of the people of Catalonia, in the free exercise of the right of self-determination, and in accordance with the mandate received from the citizens of Catalonia,

WE CONSTITUTE the Catalan Republic, as an independent and sovereign State, State of right, democratic and social.

WE MAKE AVAILABLE the entry into force of the Law of Legal Transitoriness and on the Foundation of the Republic.

WE INITIATE the constituent, democratic, citizen-based, transverse, participatory and binding process ”

Now, has there been a declaration of independence? If we understand that from the point of view of the alleged legality of the Catalan Republic the independence started with the positive results of the referendum, they don’t need a declaration for it. However article 4.4 of Law 19/2017, key to interpret this, is clear requiring a formal statement from Parliament that has not been adopted.

This document is a clear commitment to independence, and in itself can be considered as the intended statement whose effects are requested to be suspended.

Moreover, declarations are regulated in the article 166 of the Catalan Parliament Regulation, establishing three types of declarations: declarations of the Parliament of Catalonia (which require the unanimity vote of the Board of Spokespersons), declarations of the Board of Spokespersons (which require a majority vote of the Board of Spokespersons) and Declarations of the Presidency of the Parliament[iii].

It is true that art. 4.4 of Law 19/2017 does not state what kind of declaration should be made. We can think on a statement of the Board of Spokespersons by majority, and a Presidential Statement or a Declaration by Parliament itself. However it would be logical to think, due to its relevance, that the best way is to vote Declaration of the Parliament; therefore a unanimous consent of the Board of Spokesmen would be required. Or in a non legal way -breaking the Catalonian Parliament Regulation- a vote of the Parliament itself.

Therefore, it can be understood that, from the point of view of the alleged legality of the Catalan Republic, there was no declaration of independence, nor suspension of the effects of it. And in this sense what took place from the legal point of view – of that supposed legality – is rather an independence – born ex art. 4.4 of Law 19/2017 with the positive result of the referendum – whose formal statement by the Parliament was omitted or suspended, even though that a declaration was signed in document by some Members of the Parliament, but outside the session and therefore without legal value.

In reaction to this situation, the Government of Spain activated the possible application of art. 155 of the Spanish Constitution (EC) sending a request to the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, dated on October 11, to clarify the situation and to confirm whether or not the independence of Catalonia has been declared, awaiting an answer tomorrow 16 October; stating that an affirmative or ambiguous answer will imply the application of art. 155 EC, which can be use to intervene and obligate the Autonomous Community to return to the Spanish Constitutional Order[iv].

Although I am not able to anticipate the answer of President Puigdemont, I understand -from my point of view- that there was no declaration of independence of Catalonia, although the process of independence has begun and is actually in suspense, which undoubtedly also affects and breaks the Spanish Constitutional Order.

[i] Compareixença del president Puigdemont davant del ple del Parlament, Barcelona, 10 d’octubre de 2017, Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de la Presdiència, Oficina del President, Gabinet de Comunicació del President.

[ii]Declaració dels Representants de Catalunya, available at:  https://es.scribd.com/document/361241376/Declaracio-Independe-ncia#from_embed

[iii] Reglament del Parlament de Catalunya, available at: https://www.parlament.cat/document/cataleg/165484.pdf

[iv]Requerimiento de 11 de octubre de 2017, accesible en http://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/consejodeministros/Documents/11102017-requerimiento.pdf

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Elections in Austria? Again?

Most non-Austrian react with bewilderment when they take note of the forthcoming Austrian elections on 15 October: elections, now? Have they not just voted?

Indeed. On 4 December 2016 Austria had to re-run its presidential elections, with the quasi-Green candidate Alexander van der Bellen winning by a really small margin of 50.3% against Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the (very) right-wing FPÖ. Even though presidents play a marginal role in everyday Austrian politics, this battle of ideas attracted much international attention.

What is happening next Sunday, 15 October 2017, is actually more important. Early elections for parliament have been scheduled, and they are very likely to follow the trend towards the right, which was visible in the recent German elections.

Why early elections?

Sebastian Kurz

In May 2017, the governmental coalition of Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the Conservative Party (ÖVP) decided to support the request submitted by the opposition in parliament and call for early elections. At this point, not much love was left between the two coalition partners, after months of conflict and open disagreement. The resignation of the ÖVP party chair and Vice-Chancellor Reinhard Mitterlehner gave the last push for the break-up of the coalition, undermined by internal fights within both parties. The ÖVP begged their young and successful foreign minister Sebastian Kurz, boosted by incredible approval rates in opinion polls, to take over the role as party chair. Kurz gracefully accepted, but only under his own conditions, such as full autonomy in staff matters and running under the label ‘List of Sebastian Kurz – the new ÖVP’ (instead of simply “ÖVP”).

No more grand coalition!

Results of Austrian parliamentary elections.

That is the main tenor of the current political discourse. Citizens are fed up with the idea of yet another boring, fighting, stagnating Grand Coalition of the two major traditional parties. What in September 2013 had seemed like the lesser evil – as compared to another FPÖ participation in government after the one in 1999 which had raised so many eyebrows and even sanctions within the EU), turned into a permanent bickering between two government parties openly fighting each other’s policies over the past year. Not ideal for realizing the objective of winning back citizens’ trust, after the 2013 results had already been the worst ever for both SPÖ and ÖVP in the Second Republic.

Not to mention the scandals!

The dirtiest election campaign in Austrian history!

Scandals are the second main issue currently associated with the election campaign. To everybody’s surprise, it is not the usual suspect (the far-right FPÖ) that breaches with acceptable practices, but the big coalition parties SPÖ and ÖVP! All throughout the campaign, they have been navigating from one scandalous ‘Breaking News’ to the next. The tip of the iceberg is the ‘facebook scandal’ that transpired within the SPÖ last week: a few weeks ago the SPÖ campaign advisor Tal Silberstein (an Israeli consultant) was fired due to allegations of money laundering. When journalists started investigating Silberstein´s practices, they discovered dirty campaigning on social media on an unimagined scale. Silberstein had set-up a whole office (interestingly enough staffed with collaborators close to the conservative party) that ran two facebook groups apparently in support of the ÖVP rival Kurz, but then discrediting the ÖVP party leader with disdainful, personal attacks. The SPÖ election campaign manager resigned immediately, although the SPÖ leadership is still claiming that they were not informed about those practices. The question remains how much SPÖ party leader and Chancellor Kern knew about these practices. And the general conclusion is that even if he did not know, it was his job to know (especially if he wants to lead this country).

Other, smaller scandals shake the political establishment on a daily basis: how come the ÖVP has been using campaign slogans that had been initially developed but not publicized by the SPÖ? At the same time, the Greens’ prospects have been damaged by internal quarrels, which had one of their longest-serving members, Peter Pilz, leave the party to create his own list in opposition to Green party leaders.

Clarification of positions

The one positive side effect of the 2017 election campaign is that parties are forced to be clear on their main policy priorities.

SPÖ Chancellor Kern, stemming from the business-section of the Social Democrats, is considered a calm, well-respected and experienced intellectual. During the last year, the SPÖ was tempted internally to consider a coalition with the FPÖ, but Kern and his team managed to re-focus it on its core topic: sustainable state institutions that ensure a just, fair and protective society through state intervention. Just how this is a shift from what the SPÖ government was supposed to be doing over the last years, is less clear, although some observers point out that the SPÖ became more edgy in pursuing social-democratic economic policies lately.

Sebastian Kurz and his ‘new’ ÖVP, on the other hand, are pushing the idea of breaking up old state and party structures to bring in a ‘new social justice’. The latter is defined by enabling hard-working Austrians to be able to make a living for themselves; by getting rid of too much regulation and state intervention; and mostly by cutting off ‘benefits parasites’ (and foreigners) from state support. Kurz is slightly less eloquent in providing details of how exactly he would achieve his declared goals. In the latest TV debates he resorted to bashing European politics and other European leaders´ decisions (read: Merkel´s refugee policy) for their negative impact on Austria, instead of providing clear policy strategies himself.

FPÖ campaign poster

The FPÖ and their party leader Heinz-Christian Strache have one clear priority: Austria for Austrians (translation: kick migrants out of Austria!). Strache keeps attacking Kurz for not having reacted more decisively in closing Austrian borders during the Syrian refugee crisis, while for the rest the two-party leaders showed so much unity in the TV debates that many observers already refer to the ‘Chancellor and his Vice-Chancellor to be’.

In the current political climate, marked by a clear shift of the main parties towards the right, the Greens are the last party on the left of the political spectrum. In economic, societal and European topics they stand for clear left-wing positions, and they are the only party that has climate change and environmental impact high on their agenda. The economic-liberal NEOS still confuse voters with the variety of their positions, but they earned some respect for having many experienced entrepreneurs in their ranks. And they got the presidential candidate and respected lawyer Irmgard Griess on their party list, which provided them with visibility.

So, what are the expectations?

Latest polls. Source : www.profil.at

The latest polls confirm the trends of the last years: the ÖVP is expected to get a boost by its charismatic young party leader. Sebastian Kurz is appreciated by many Austrians for his youth, his image as everybody’s perfect ‘son-in-law’, and his promise for change (even though most people do not seem to care or realize that the promised change is likely not to be in their favour). The ÖVP thus clearly leads the polls. What is unclear at the moment, is who will come second: will the FPÖ manage to overtake the SPÖ?

What the polls show quite clearly, though, is that there will be a very meager amount of coalition options available: the visible disdain that emerged between Kurz and Kern in the past months makes a revival of the Grand Coalition impossible. For the ÖVP, Kern would have to step down for the SPÖ to even being considered a potential partner. More likely is a coalition ÖVP-FPÖ, although this will also depend on whom the president (one of his rare powers!) will mandate with forming a government.

The expected center-right victory at these parliamentary elections will not come as a surprise. Like in Germany, the Social Democrats have lost profile by participating in the Grand Coalition. Like in Germany, the political discourse has been continuously shifting towards the right over recent years: the moderate right takes ever tougher positions on migration issues, and the Social Democrats sometimes follow suit in fear of alienating too many worried voters.

The SPÖ is only just starting to pull back to the left, but with the considerably weakened Greens left as only partners, a center-left coalition is simply not realistic this time around.

The post Following the German trend? Austria votes on Sunday. appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Que Anh Dang 

• How might we understand the changing governance of scientific research at national, regional and supranational levels in Europe?
• What are the prevailing and conflicting political, economic, cultural and ideational discourses, discursive contexts and rationales for constituting and governing intermediary research executive agencies? How do they operate?
• What are the consequences/outcomes caused by the tensions and compromises between these supposedly independent agencies and the national governments or regional institutions?
• What are the implications for research policies and academic practices at higher education institutions?

Panel chair Sarah Glück

These are some overarching questions addressed by the panel ‘Research Executive Agencies – between Independent Organisations and Governments’ organised by Lisa Kressin and Sarah Glück in the Section on the Politics of Higher Education, Research and Innovation at the European Consortium for Political Research ECPR General Conference 6-9 September in Oslo. The papers in this panel examine the historical trajectories, discursive contexts in the institutionalisation processes and the actual workings of the research funding executive agencies in Germany, Austria, the Nordic region and the European Union.

National Contexts: Agencification and Autonomy

In some German-speaking national contexts, there is a practice of agencification in which the principals (ministries) play the role of defining political strategies, framework and rules, and let the agents (the executive agencies) be in charge of implementation processes and manage public research funds on the government’s behalf. Rupert Pichler and Sascha Ruhland, in their paper titled ‘The role of research funding agencies in policy discretion and coordination in Austria’, examined multiple funding agencies and focus on the case of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) – a merger of several fragmented funding organisations. FFG has a legal form of a limited company and has the mandates to serve many ministries, provincial governments and the EU. They argued that the very nature of multi-principal and multi-sector agency has put FFG in a position to propose strategic plans that are to be approved by the various ministries. Sometimes the inter-ministerial negotiations are outsourced to FFG. In essence, the principals are coordinated by the agent rather than being in the driver’s seat, thus blurring the boundaries between principal’s and agent’s tasks and roles. They concluded that although principals and agents are deeply entangled, there are always ‘lasting tensions’ oscillating between agency capture and government interference. Therefore, the principal-agent relationship is constantly adjusted.

Regional Contexts: Changing Governance Architecture

Que Anh Dang presented the paper ‘Nordic Umbrella Organisations for Higher Education and Research: Region-building and Market-making’ and highlighted the case of the Nordic research funding executive agency – NordForsk. Although NordForsk was established in 2005 in the aftermath of the Lisbon Strategy with a competitiveness boosting agenda, it was rooted in the long-standing Nordic regional cooperation in many sectors. NordForsk is ‘old wine in a new bottle’ and it represents a continuation of previous regional initiatives and the Nordic informal and pragmatic approach to cooperation. However, NordForsk has constituted new spaces for policy making which alter regional governance pattern. She argued that, in the Nordic case, these new spaces are not located above the state, rather, regional frontiers are created within the national policy-making apparatus including its political institutions. NordForsk is not about the emergence, consolidation or sustainability of the supranational authority but about the rescaling of governance and pubic authority to regional spaces – a politics of regionalism that is simultaneously regional and national. The legitimacy of intermediary agencies, like NordForsk, is secured through various forms of accountability. Such accountability is ensured by ‘accountability communities’- a complex ensemble of public and private organisations endowed with capacities to perform legislative, monitoring and compliance activities. Que Anh concluded that these communities also possess particular understandings of accountability (soft law of standards and codes) and provide the basis for new ways of region-building and market-making.

Que Anh Dang. Photo credits: Thomas König

Inga Ulnicane presented her research on Grand societal challenges asking if challenge-orientation represents a new policy paradigm in science, technology and innovation policy. She compared recent challenge-orientation with earlier mission-oriented science, technology and innovation policies and discussed a number of policy initiatives to address societal challenges launched by NordForsk, European Union and Sweden’s innovation agency Vinnova.

Thomas König, one of the panellists, launched his new book ‘The European Research Council’ (ERC) during the conference. This book is a comprehensive research into the creation and development of the ERC. With an ethnographic method, Thomas gives a detailed account of how a group of strong-minded European scientists succeeded in establishing the ERC by pushing for a single goal: more money for scientific research with fewer strings attached. The book also critically analyses the achievements and challenges faced by the ERC and engages with a broader question concerning the relationships between politics, science and public money.

Some Reflections

Presentations in this panel prompted some reflections and ideas for further empirical studies:

-          The classical principal-agent theory is deficient in explaining the complex relationships between the research funding executive agencies and their founders and funders (be it national or regional bodies). We need new theories and novel ways of understanding the power relations between the principals (ministries, group of states, supranational union) and the agents (intermediary agencies);

-          Although the agents derive their authority from their expertise, they have to constantly negotiate and secure their legitimacy and autonomy in various ways and with a range of actors including the principals, academic communities, the society and the wider public (tax-payers);

-          Neoliberalism constitutes the hegemonic economic discourse within science and innovation which introduces a new mode of regulation premised on the belief that competition – in the name of ‘Excellence’– is the most efficient and a morally superior mechanism for allocating resources and opportunities. The workings of all these agencies are governed, albeit at varying degrees, by this economic discourse and its accompanied contractual relations;

-          The research funding executive agencies take on multiple identities depending on which actors they interact with. Despite their motto to uphold academic freedom and support investigator-driven research, they often act as translators and mediators between politics, science and administration.

In summary, the panel provides deep insights into concrete case studies and offers new ways of understanding intermediary agencies and the implications for research policies in the complex governance structures in Europe. We wish to exchange ideas and learn from more case studies in other national and regional contexts to broaden our scholarship.

Dr. Que Anh Dang is a researcher at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg. Her research interests include higher education and regionalism, the role of international organisations in policy making, higher education in the knowledge economy, and education diplomacy. She is a co-editor and an author of the book ‘Global Regionalisms and Higher Education’ (2016).

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I’ve talked before about how negotiation theory might throw some light on the Article 50 process, but it seems useful to return to the subject, given the continuing difficulties that the sides are encountering: might the literature offer some insights?

Today, it’s Zartman who springs to mind. He writes on the conflict management side of negotiation, which might appear to be a bit heavy-handed for this situation, but his analysis of the basic mechanics is one that I (and my students) offer find helpful in more mundane situations.

Zartman argues that negotiation is about the resolution of structural differences between negotiating parties and his big thing is about reducing differences: the more you can close the gap between parties, the more likely you are to find space for a mutually-acceptable agreement.

He suggests there are four ways that differences get reduced; two softer options, and two harder ones, with each pair being the opposite of each other.

The soft pair is about making options look more or less attractive. You might suggest that taking a particular option will produce benefits, or that taking another will come with costs.

The hard pair finds parties arguing that they either have to take an option, or it is impossible to take it, because their hands are tied in some way.

The soft pair is ubiquitous in politics and in Brexit: everyone’s telling us how option X will lead to sunlight uplands or the end of civilisation as we know it, so I don’t care to revisit all of these.

But what we’re seeing in recent weeks is more of the hard option, on both sides.

For the EU, there has always been some element of this, from the insistence that Article 50 is the only legal framework for departure negotiations, to the Commission explaining that its mandate doesn’t let it talk about transition before sufficient progress has been made on Phase I issues.

For the UK, the original hard position – Brexit has to mean leaving the EU – has faded over time, but now it creeps back into discussion.

This was most vividly seen in this week’s mixed messages on a no-deal scenario. First, Philip Hammond told the Select Committee that there was no money yet for such a situation, before his boss popped up in PMQs to say that there was money already committed.

What seems to have passed most media comment on the spat of the day by is that both of them were essentially working towards a position of making no-deal ever less of an option, through incapacity.

Money is obviously important here, but more important is how that money is used. In a no-deal scenario, there will be an immediate requirement for substantial increases in border controls for customs, much regulatory uncertainty and a wealth of other impacts (see this for an overview).

None of those gaps can be closed immediately: to take the most obvious example, if customs controls are needed, then land has to be secured, built upon, and staffed by people you’ve trained.

As of the moment, none of the necessary procurement activity for this to happen has begun, and even on the most ambitious timetable that would take 18 months to do, which is about now.

Thus while May might seem to be taking a more conciliatory line with her party’s hardliners, she actually looks to be providing cover to a push on working towards a deal, since if the UK is simply incapable of policing a non-deal, then that might encourage domestic opinion to accept the need for a deal.

But this incident also raises another perspective that ties back to Zartman’s model, namely May’s seeming unwillingness to reduce alternatives at all.

May remains a very elusive figure, refusing to tie herself down to any one option; or, more accurately, tying herself to many, simultaneously-inconsistent options.

As has been widely discussed, her apparent lack of a desired end-state makes it almost impossible to reach any kind of agreement in Article 50: you can’t negotiate with someone who doesn’t know what they want.

Perhaps the best way to understand this is to see May’s position as one where she’s running two sets of negotiation at the same time: one with the EU and one with her party.

While Article 50 points to a need for a strategic objective from the UK, party management points to a need to keep options open (or at least fudged) so that she isn’t removed from office or defeated in the Commons.

Seen in this light, May’s actions make more sense, as she tries to engineer faits accomplis in Article 50 while arguing for much more back home.

Whether this is a viable long-term strategy is doubtful, especially as we move towards the European Council’s decision next week on ‘sufficient progress’, where rhetoric is going to become a big factor once more. Adding that to an already-deeply-suspicious Tory party and it’s not too hard to imagine someone pushing the leadership challenge button more firmly.

And at that point you can expect a whole lot more examples of why contender X is good/bad or must/mustn’t lead the country at this critical juncture.

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Last year I was fortunate enough to take part in a masterclass for early career researchers on EU regional policy organised by the Regional Studies Association, the EU Committee of the Regions and the European Commission. The masterclass was part of the annual European Week of Regions and Cities, which last year it took place against the backdrop of the recent UK referendum on EU membership. During the opening plenary EU Regional Policy Commissioner, Corina Crețu, highlighted her disappointment that regions which have seen significant investment from the EU’s regional policy, such as Cornwall, Wales and the North East, voted to leave the EU. This, Commissioner Crețu argues, highlighted the need to look at how well EU spending in these regions was communicated.

This year’s European Week of Regions and Cities is happening at the moment. While I’m not fortunate enough to be there in person this year, I am trying to follow what’s going on. Again in this year’s opening plenary, Commissioner Crețu highlighted the need to improve how EU regional policy is communicated to citizens. This focus on the communication of regional policy has become increasingly important, not least because of the Brexit vote, but also because regional policy spending accounts for a third of the EU’s entire budget. The assumption is if citizens are aware of what EU regional policy does in their local area they’ll have a greater understanding of how the EU supports them and their local areas, and consequently have a more positive attitude towards the EU.

So, what effect will raising awareness of EU regional policy have? Given Commissioner Crețu’s disappointment at the result in certain UK regions, let’s have a look at EU regional policy awareness in those regions and the result of the UK’s referendum on EU membership.

The data here is aggregated here at the NUTS1 level. Data on the EU referendum result comes from the UK Electoral Commission, while awareness of EU regional policy is taken from Flash Eurobarometer 423 on EU citizen awareness and perceptions of EU regional policy. This was conducted one year prior to the referendum. The main question we’re interested in is: “Europe provides financial support to regions and cities. Have you heard about any EU co-financed projects to improve the area where you live?” The aggregate data I’ve used can be downloaded here.

Generally speaking, UK regions with higher levels of regional policy awareness appear to have lower levels of support for “Remain” in the referendum. Crucially, in the UK’s case at least, higher levels of regional policy awareness, didn’t translate into higher levels of EU support at the ballot box.

This comes with some rather large caveats, of course. The UK may be a unique case here. NUTS1 regions are rather large and diverse, so this isn’t going to account for large differences of awareness and EU spending within these regions. And regional policy spending had very little, if anything at all, to do with the referendum result (that’s for another blog post!). While there is a negative correlation (r = -0.43), it isn’t significant at the 0.05 level (p = 0.165).

These caveats aside, the key message to take away here is that merely raising awareness of EU regional policy spending isn’t going to be enough. If the EU wants to increase support among citizens it is going to have to do more than just show it spends money in a given area. There needs to be more of a focus on how that communication will work and how it will engage with citizens. Part of this will also come down to how regional policy is designed and how EU funding is invested in local areas. Does it meet local economic need and does it address the priorities citizens see as important?

There are grounds for optimism. Initiatives to improve the communication of EU regional spending are out there. During last year’s masterclass I witnessed Fireflies, a Lithuanian project led by local organisations aiming to increase transparency in EU regional policy by showing how EU funding is spent, win the 2016 RegioStars award. However the lessons from projects like this need to receive greater recognition by EU policy makers and be applied more widely beyond the confined of a single project.

So yes, communicating regional policy is important, but much more thought need to be put into how this will work rather than simply telling citizens how much EU cash is spent locally.

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In ten days (October 19-20) Czech voters will go to the polling stations. After four years, they will decide once more about the future of Czechia – as the republic in the middle of the Europe is (unsuccessfully) trying to rebrand its name. And once more, these elections are portrayed as “important” or “path-breaking”, not only in the Czech press but also by more than few politicians.

I am saying “once more”, because it is not the first time. Quite the contrary: over the last seven years Czech politics have changed a lot. From stability to instability. From being predictable to being chaotic. And from being quite moderate to being populist. How could this happen?

Once upon a time, there was a small country called Czech Republic in the heart of Europe. Until around 2010, it had been a remarkably stable country since its establishment in January 1993, when a marriage of over eighty years broke up between the Czechs and the Slovaks. While in neighbouring countries like Poland or Slovakia new relevant parties emerged and died often during one term, the Czech party spectrum was pretty boring. With five or at worst six relevant parties, and standard governmental changes from centre left to centre right. Even newcomers – such as for example the Czech Greens in 2006 – were traditional parties in the sense that they represented a set of coherent ideas and goals.

Then everything changed in the 2010 elections and since then, Czech politics have become a different story. Unfortunately for the country, with consequences beyond the purely domestic level.

Well, as in many similar cases, one has to turn to history to find answers to “why” this happened. Even if 2010 may be considered the turning point, the causes explaining the “electoral earthquake” had appeared slowly from the mid-1990s. At this time, the Czech transition – particularly in its economic dimension – appeared to be a successful and achieved process. Already in 1996 electoral campaign, Václav Klaus, one of the symbols of Czech modern politics and at that time acting prime minister, claimed so under his slogan “We proved that we can manage”. However, voters did not seem to be convinced and massively supported the opposition in this election. The very tight result of these elections opened a path to a second coalition government led by Václav Klaus. It was a minority government, a weak one, and had to resign already after being in office for not more than one and a half years. First early elections then resulted in a similar draw as in 1996, but this time the government was formed by the Social Democrats, and Miloš Zeman, another key figure of Czech politics, became prime minister. That would not have been tragic, but his minority cabinet was backed by Klaus’ “Civic Democrats”, its main rival and enemy, in a so called “opposition agreement”. This pseudo-coalition and pseudo-opposition – for which Klaus and Zeman are not to be blamed along, since it was partly a result of the inability of other political parties to find a solution – deeply wounded the trust of Czech voters in traditional parties. These wounds never disappeared.

The second major mistake – decentralisation – can be tracked back to the 1990s as well. The idea to create regions and endow them with some competences – education, regional development, health care – is not bad per se and was supported at the time by the majority of political parties. However, big problems occurred when these regions obtained the power to manage the money from the EU structural funds. Particularly from 2006 on, almost every single Czech region – and its political representatives – faced to a huge corruption scandal. These were usually directly or indirectly linked to the structural funds projects, often connected with regional politicians either from the Civic Democratic Party or from the Social Democrats. The regionalisation of EU funds led to networks of strong regional leaders and their business allies, which were for the parties´ headquarters almost impossible to control. The existence of these people – for whom the term “godfathers” is widely used – and their scandals was another nail in the coffin of traditional Czech parties.

Although there were also international and contextual causes for change in Czech politics – as for example the tragicomic Czech EU Presidency of 2009 or the outbreak of the financial crisis – the main dynamics of the 2010 earthquake are to be found inside the system and explained by mistakes committed by its leading politicians. As a result, the 2010 elections introduced the first populists into the Czech parliament. A party called “Public Affairs” successfully campaigned under the motto “We will wipe out the political dinosaurs” and became a part of the new government. Even though “Public Affairs” performed very badly and broke up after 3 years, their initial success opened a Pandora box of populism as affective tool. In 2013, in the second Czech early elections, it was effectively used by other new parties –Andrej Babiš’s non-ideological “Action of Dissatisfied Citizens” (known as ANO) and the right-wing populist “Dawn of Direct Democracy”. The first movement, led (and owned, one could add) by one of the country’s richest businessmen, used the slogan “We are not like politicians, we are hard workers”, whereas Dawn promoted direct democracy as a universal medicine for everything wrong in the Czech Republic.

Particularly the former appeal was successful, as ANO – following the footsteps of “Public Affairs” (but not repeating the same mistakes) – has been participating in the new government and became the strongest political force in the country. The major question in 2017 is not who will win, but by how much ANO will win and how many partners (if at all) it will need to get a majority in the lower house. According to the most recent polls, traditional parties as the Social Democrats or the Civic Democrats are tottering around 10-12% of votes. At the moment, they fight with other small parties and possible newcomers like the “Pirates” – an emerging star of the Czech party landscape – rather than with ANO.

The Czech electoral system is a proportional one with a 5% threshold for obtaining seats in the House of Deputies. However, as the seats are distributed in 13 plus Prague regions, it has also some majoritarian elements. These are even strengthened by using the d´Hondt formula for calculating mandates. Hence, a party with approximately 30% of the votes can have around 40% or even more of the seats in the House of Deputies depending also on how many votes will fall below the 5% threshold and will thus be distributed among the successful parties.

Apart from the ANO victory the overall result of the elections is hardly to predict. The electoral campaign is not that much intensive and lack strong themes and issues. Traditional parties try to picture Mr. Babiš as dangerous oligarch and possible wannabe dictator, but fail to offer any positive and interesting agenda on their own. There other problem is the lack of charismatic leaders, an obvious must-have in current politics.

Therefore, what is to be expected as main outcome of the 2017 Czech elections is further instability in Czech politics as well as the strengthening of populism within it.

The post The Czechs are going to vote. And strengthen the populists further. appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Beverly Barrett

The internationalization of higher education is a response to the pressures of globalization. There are economic, political, and social explanations for the reforms that have taken place in Europe since the Bologna Process launched 18 years ago on June 19, 1999 in the historic university city of Bologna, Italy.

Correspondingly, these explanations for internationalization of higher education are globalization (economic), intergovernmentalism (political), and Europeanization (social). The progress of the Bologna Process to create the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) originated with the Sorbonne Declaration among the education ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom on May 25, 1998.

My new book Globalization and Change in Higher Education: The Political Economy of Policy Reform in Europe (published by Palgrave Macmillan) explains the institutional change that has taken place as a response to these pressures.[1]  The 21st century’s increasing demands for knowledge reflect a knowledge society that is driven by a knowledge economy (David and Foray 2002).[2] This is defined as an economy in which growth is dependent on the quantity, quality, and accessibility of the information available. Universities and all types higher education institutions have experienced unprecedented institutional change in the knowledge society (Cantwell and Kauppinen 2014).[3] Educational sociologists have concurred that the international convergence of academic programs’ criteria that comes from the Bologna Process is unprecedented (Frank and Meyer 2007:299).[4]

History, Ideas, and Institutions

When the Bologna Process started, it had been less than a decade since the end of the Cold War. As a social explanation, the central and eastern European countries were eager to show solidarity with the leadership initiative from the countries in western Europe. The growth of the Bologna Process from 29 countries originally to 48 countries today reflects how it has complemented the expansion of the European Union’s  Single Market, as the EU has grown from 15 countries in 1999 to 28 countries today.

The history, ideas, and institutions that frame our understanding of higher education are set out in the initial Chapters of the book, which frame the analysis in a historical institutional theoretical perspective.  The three primary objectives of the Bologna Process are convergence of higher education policies in 1) academic degree structure, 2) quality assurance, and 3) automatic recognition of degrees within the EHEA. Chapter 4 explains the dual roles of higher education institutions, as recipients of policy change from the national and European levels and as agents of policy change in the knowledge economy. The Bologna Process intersects with the higher education attainment objective of the Europe 2020 economic growth strategy of the Europe Commission. Chapter 5 explains, in quantitative assessment, that the most statistically significant relationship for higher education attainment is with GDP per capita among other variables in the political economy including employment, trade, R&D investment, population, and education spending.

With similar histories of political governance and distinct structures of government, the Iberian countries, Portugal and Spain, provide qualitative assessment case studies for countries within the EU.  Chapters 6 to 9 explain that given the unitary government of Portugal, the process of reform has proceeded with more uniformity than in the quasi-federal government of Spain. In the country of 17 autonomous communities of sub-national regions, Spain has 11 higher education qualifications agencies as compared to most EHEA countries that have one, indicating the complexity of higher education in the country.  Portugal has made greater progress, from 11 to 31 percent, than Spain’s progress, from 29 to 42 percent, toward the Europe 2020 target objective for 40 percent (of 30-34 year-olds) for higher education attainment, though Spain has reached the target (Eurostat 2016).

Model for Regional Integration and Key Findings

Referencing back to my posting in 2013, the Bologna Process has been a model for the regionalization of higher education throughout the world. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has developed its own Qualifications Reference Framework.  In North America, the Canadian and U.S. structures are similar. The U.S. and Mexico, together with Canada, have opportunities to collaborate, once able to overcome uncertainties around security, funding, and availability of academic mobility programs.[5]  The next step following graduates’ mobility is mutual recognition of professional qualifications, for which the ASEAN region continues to make progress.[6]

Among the key findings in the book are that these aspects of domestic politics matter for higher education policy reforms:

1) Structure of government (unitary v. (quasi-)federal)

2) Leadership consistency providing support for the reforms

3) Funding available for education or national wealth (measured by GDP per capita)

Today the 48-country EHEA, with the European Commission as a partner, continues to develop a higher education space where academic qualifications become recognized across countries. Competitive external economic pressures are part of globalization, while domestic politics influencing international cooperation drive intergovernmentalism. Leadership from the supranational EU that socially engages stakeholders and constructs regional norms is Europeanization. Approaching the end of the second decade of the Bologna Process, the change in higher education finds economic, political, and social explanations.

Beverly Barrett has served as Lecturer at the Bauer College of Business in Global Studies and at the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston. She served as Associate Editor of the Miami European Union Center of Excellence following her doctoral fellowship. Current research interests include international political economy, regional integration, and governance with particular emphasis on education and economic development.    

[1] Barrett, Beverly. 2017. Globalization and Change in Higher Education: The Political Economy of Policy Reform in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

[2] David, Paul A. and Dominique Foray. 2002. “An introduction to the economy of the knowledge society.” International Social Science Journal, 54:171, 9-23. Paris: UNESCO.

[3] Cantwell, Brendan and Ilkka Kauppinen (Eds). 2014. Academic capitalism in the age of globalization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

[4] Frank, David J. and John W. Meyer. 2007. University expansion and the knowledge society. Theory and Society, 36(4), 287–311.

[5] Vassar, David and Beverly Barrett. 2014. “U.S.-Mexico academic mobility: Trends, challenges, and opportunities.” Mexico Center Issue Brief. Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, Houston, Texas.

[6] Asian Development Bank. 2016. Open windows, closed doors: Mutual recognition agreements on professional services in the ASEAN region. Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank.

The post Globalization and Change in Higher Education: Economic, Political, and Social Explanations appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

A text I published elsewhere over two years ago.
Read it again against the backdrop of this week’s news, found it still valid.

It is not every day that a researcher has the opportunity to be the eye-witness of a nation in the making. Sunday evening 7 June 2015, at the intersection between Avinguda de Sarria and Avinguda Josep Taradellas in the centre of Barcelona, was such a moment. Bumping into a joyful crowd that was waiting for the victory parade of their Champions League heroes in an open-deck bus, we had over two hours to improvise an in-depth session of participant observation. From the reports in the following day’s newspapers, it appears that our ‘field work sample population’ was perfectly representative of the entire city, which for the occasion metamorphosed into a very, very long ‘Fanmeile’.

As is usual nowadays on such fan zones, the patiently waiting crowd was entertained with music from loudspeakers placed at regular intervals along the itinerary of the bus. Next to the DJ, a nice lady was handing out Barça flags to those (a minority) who were not already equipped with garment or objects in the club’s colours, while an equally nice security man was scratching his head somewhat anxiously given the impressive number of persons sitting and standing in the middle of the street.

The crowd had several distinctive features: it was fully trans-generational, encompassing every single age group of the city; it had a striking gender parity within each of these age groups; and it was very visibly ethnically inclusive, with a rather significant percentage of individuals from various migrant origins.

Every now and then the DJ played ‘El Cant del Barça’, the official anthem of FC Barcelona, the lyrics of which are not really on a higher level of poetic sophistication than what can be heard in other stadia, but which seems to be mandatory learning content in primary education, judging from the degree of familiarity shown by the schoolchildren.

The latter were easy to observe since the youngest among them had been placed on the garbage container in order to give them a good view on the bus (as shown by my little photo gallery). They were, of course, excited, and while not all of them were necessarily understanding what exactly was being celebrated, they were certainly all intuitively getting the point that this was an exceptional moment, a kind of cheerful, but solemn ritual allowing individual persons to publicly show their belonging and obedience to a larger social group.

In other words: this was socialisation at work. Right before our eyes, kids from various backgrounds were being turned into little Catalans. For life, probably. The composition of the public, the sheer size of the crowd, and the Catalan flags hanging from every second balcony clearly gave evidence to the fact that the clichéd Barça motto ‘Més que un club’ is not an usurpation. As a matter of fact, this is not a club at all. It’s a national team.

This impression is confirmed when you walk into the Barça museum, where you have to go past a poster that enumerates ‘Catalan Identity. Universality. Social Commitment. Democracy’ as the pillars of the Barça identity.  It sounds like a political platform.

The evening reminded me of two very good book chapters on FC Barcelona. The first one figures in Simon Kuper’s wonderful Football against the Enemy, written in the mid-1990s, at a moment when ‘every day shop signs in Spanish went down and were replaced by Catalan signs’. For Simon Kuper, Catalan nationalism was all about symbolic recognition, not concrete political independance: ‘The Catalans do not want a state of their own, but they want something vaguer than that, symbols to prove they are a separate people’, and Barça is ‘the symbol that this nation needs in lieu of a state’. Certainly not a wrong perception twenty years ago, but it would be difficult to write the same thing today, as it would no longer sound reasonable to qualify Barça as an ‘under-performing’ club.

Ten years later, Franklin Foer also dedicated a chapter to Barça nationalism in How Soccer Explains the World. For him Catalan nationalism is already much more tangible, but it appears to him as an open and inclusive nationalism, like the liberating idea introduced by the French Revolution before it was perverted (mainly by the German romantics) into what then become no doubt the most powerful ideology of the 19th and 20th century.

Foer’s enthusiastic vision of Catalan nationalism is not naive, but it is shortsighted: proto-nationalism that is based on an existing and practiced language and on strong cultural self-awareness, and that may at the same time credibly claim to have undergone a long period of oppression, almost naturally appears as a sympathetic cause. It’s when independence has been reached and a newly existing state is charged with protecting borders, redistributing resources, and defending so-called national interests when things have a tendency to turn nasty.

Producing new Catalans with the help of cultural symbols is not too complicated. Especially if you can use the powerful emotions that football is capable of providing. But maintaining openness, inclusiveness and ethnic diversity in a future independent state will be the real test. A slightly more demanding one than a Champions League final.

The post Nation-building. Participant observation, June 2015. appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

There’s nothing very useful to be to added to the general cacophony around Theresa May’s speech to her party conference yesterday: the jokes have all been made, the judgments handed in.

But one aspect that’s been relatively overlooked is the impact on Brexit: as discussion continues to swirl about, could it improve things to have her out of office?

The case in support of this looks pretty solid. Her authority, her policy and her communication are all severely lacking.

Firstly, her position within the party is severely compromised, and has been since the general election this spring. The trashing of her reputation was as swift and brutal as any that has been seen in recent times. The Tories are an unsympathetic lot when it comes to power and May failed the most basic of tests.

The speech appears to have done nothing more than convert some of the contempt into pity, which is not really an improvement, but instead another stage in the party’s rejection. It opens up the line of argument that she is tired and needs a break, ‘for her own good’: the attempt to get the party to buckle down on Brexit can now be met with a ‘there, there’.

Secondly, May’s policy line on Brexit remains utterly unclear. To all intents and purposes, we are still at the ‘Brexit means Brexit’ phase: empty rhetoric and incomplete and contradictory positions. The speech contained nothing to change that, a strange omission even if one considers the Florence speech to have been the main place for this: the conference as a whole was full of Brexit-talk, but without the push from the leader that might have mattered.

And this runs into the communication gap. This isn’t a matter of having a cough, but of having a communication strategy that reaches those it needs to reach, with appropriate messages.  To take the obvious example, the stronger response to Boris Johnson’s sniping would have been to re-appropriate the narrative on Brexit and Article 50 and demonstrate leadership on the matter, rather than skulking in the sidelines.

So, case closed. Right?

Not really. For as much as May is now damaged goods, there are good reasons to think that she remains the preferable person to be in Number 10.

First and foremost is the time question. As I think I’ve mentioned before, time is very much of the essence now in Article 50: we are now only just over a year away from the time when a deal needs to be finalised with the EU. Having already lost two months to a general election, losing another one or two months to a leadership contest – plus maybe another two to a further general election – looks deeply irresponsible. While there are still some who would happily leave the EU on a ‘no-deal’ basis, they are ever fewer in number, so the desire – which has built up markedly in recent weeks – to get to an agreement points towards making done with the current personnel.

Secondly, there is no one in the Conservative party who looks to have a more settled position on how to handle negotiations. There is a choice between the various shades of softening, and the various shades of hardening, but neither direction is built on a rigorous model and vision. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson might have been the darlings of the conference, but neither had any more to offer than platitudes on the greatness of Britain and how it would all work out in the end.

Even if a new leader did take over, the Conservatives would still have no single-party majority in the Commons, plus a potentially more hostile Opposition, galvanized by the scent of blood in the water: any hardening would also make internal party rebellion more likely.

Finally, and in contrast to the negative reasons for keeping May, there is also a positive in her premiership: the very ambiguity on policy that has hurt her so far. Article 50 is a negotiation and one in the which the UK was always going to have to make some compromises. While it might not have been the optimal way to go about it, May’s rhetoric has at least allowed for adaptions of position over time: consider sequencing, finances, transitions and all the other points she has given way on.

The original May plan was to be bold, but vague, then win a huge majority against Labour, then negotiate whatever deal, and then say “that’s what Brexit meant, and there’s nothing you can do to gainsay it, since you gave me a huge mandate.”

That plan now lies in the dirt, but May probably remains the best person to pursue something similar. Her very weakness means that she can now shoulder the blame as she compromises further.

In short, May has been the author of her own, slow-burning disaster. But that doesn’t mean she is yet to meet her end.

The post Must May go, or might May stay? A Brexit balancesheet appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The impact of an EU membership perspective on the national parliament of potential candidate countries is an important yet underexplored subject, writes Blerim Vela. Outlining some of the elements of his research, he suggests that the executive-legislature relationship and strength of the media and civil society are connecting factors in parliamentary development.

The usage of the term ‘crisis’ when discussing the EU’s current challenges has become widespread in media reporting, writes Max Steuer. Drawing from his analysis of quality newspapers in several Visegrad countries, where calls for the EU to address problems have often been accompanied by opposition to EU-wide solutions, he calls for more careful referencing to crisis in wider public discourse.