Ideas on Europe Blog

• Inaccurate and misleading: The Daily Mail’s reporting of Calais asylum seekers

Setting the tone for the week, the ‘Mail on Sunday’ in their front-page report expressed outrage that hundreds of ‘illegal’ migrants arriving in Britain from Calais are being put up in hotels at tax payers’ expense. The problem?  There were not ‘hundreds’ but at most one-hundred being temporarily accommodated in hotels, and these people were not ‘illegal migrants’ but asylum seekers fleeing war and terror.

The next day the Mail continued its onslaught against the Calais refugees with another front page claiming that, ’70% of the thousands of migrants massing at Calais are making it to Britain.’  The problem?  The Mail had misquoted the Chief Constable of Kent’s evidence to Parliament.  He said that 70% of the migrants in Calais leave within four months but it wasn’t known how many of them go elsewhere in France or reach Britain.

As the independent fact checking organisation, Full Fact, pointed out:

‘There’s no evidence that 7 in 10 Calais migrants are entering the UK’.

This the Mail did report in their story, but much lower down on the inside pages, when they accurately quoted Kent’s Chief Constable, Alan Pughsley, as telling Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee that it could not be ascertained, ‘whether these migrants leave to go elsewhere in France, or whether they enter the UK.’

But this little half-hidden full-truth in the story didn’t stop the Mail calculating all their statistics on the false premise that Mr Pughsley had instead said, as their opening story claimed, that 70% do make it to Britain (even though Mr Pughsley never said that).

On that basis then, since there are estimated to be 5,000 migrants now ‘amassed’ in Calais, according to The Mail statistics department it must mean that around 3,500 (i.e. 70% of 5,000) were making it to Britain.  Oh and that of course must surely mean that 900 of these ‘illegal’ migrants are arriving from Calais to Britain every month.

It’s nonsense of course, but this is the world as The Mail sees it; or rather as they want their readers to see it, because this misinformation (rather than the truth) reinforces their readers prejudices against asylum seekers.  And that, of course, is how the Mail sells their newspapers to their ‘market’.

Having reported the mistruth as an established fact, with the unwitting source being the Chief Constable of Kent (without his knowledge or consent), the Mail could then refer to this as a ‘fact’ in future stories and editorials.  So, last Friday, in their leading editorial comment, the Daily Mail felt confident to repeat their ‘fact’ and pontificate:

‘As we learned this week, 70 per cent of those who reach Calais eventually make it to England.’

Voila, the Mail’s mistruth was now an established truth: 70% of Calais migrants were making it to Britain.  The Mail could now unashamedly quote this as a fact, without even bothering to refer to their maligned original source (after all, why would the Mail want to alert the Chief Constable of Kent that what he had told a prominent Parliamentary Committee was being grievously misquoted by the newspaper?)

Since this was now being repeatedly circulated by The Mail as the truth, other media and politicians could quote from it, reinforcing that yes, the Mail must be right, others are saying it too. If anyone asked the Mail where this so-called ‘fact’ came from, the Mail could vaguely answer oh, it was the Chief Constable of Kent who said this, and he must surely know!

The same technique was employed in the ‘Mail on Sunday’ story claiming that ‘hundreds’ of migrants illegally arriving from Calais were being put-up in hotels at tax payers’ expense. That’s at least what the story reported on the front page and first paragraphs.

Lower down the story on the inside pages, however, the Mail added, as an aside to the main thrust of their article, that only 100 were being accommodated in hotels by Serco, the private firm contracted by the government. Did the Mail hope that readers wouldn’t spot the difference between ‘hundreds’ and ‘one hundred’?

And only lower down the story did The Mail stop referring to ‘illegal’ migrants and instead correctly describe them as ‘asylum seekers’.

So when I complained to the Managing Editor of the Mail on Sunday, Mr John Wellington, that the Mail’s story had incorrectly reported that ‘hundreds’ of asylum seekers were being temporarily accommodated in hotels, whereas in fact there were just one hundred, he was able to respond to me, “The figure was clearly presented as an estimate and explained lower down in the story when we said that Serco admitted 100 recent arrivals were staying in hotels.”

It seems that at the Mail’s highest management not an eyebrow is raised nor a forehead furrowed when it’s pointed out that so-called ‘facts’ presented in the opening headlines and paragraphs of an article don’t match what’s presented “lower down in the story”.

Those who have studied the Daily Mail method of  journalism might agree with me that this is a well known technique.

In my view, these two Daily Mail stories misreported the truth to enable a sensational front page headline and opening paragraphs, which were then ‘balanced’ by more accurate information albeit subtly hidden ‘lower down’ the story.  That way the Mail, if challenged (as indeed I have challenged them) can respond that that their story, after all, was accurate, because look, there it is ‘lower down’ in the story.  (Even though the front page headline and opening sentences didn’t match what was presented ‘lower down’).

This is surely too clever by far to be considered a mistake? Could this be a purposeful technique employed by the Mail to enable them to fashion their headlines and stories to match a view of the world which they know will appeal and therefore sell to their market (readership)?

I wonder how many Mail readers actually spotted that the headlines and opening paragraphs in these two stories bore little resemblance to the more accurate but less noticeable reporting that inconspicuously took place ‘lower down’?  In fact, how many readers just glanced at the front page headlines and never actually read the rest of the story on page 5 or 10 or wherever?

Some might consider that presenting seemingly incorrect or misleading information in the headline of a story and then subtly balancing it with more accurate information ‘lower down’ to be the work of geniuses, worthy of a post-graduate thesis on effective propaganda techniques.

But I consider this to be the lowest form of journalism, that does not serve the interests of this country or its citizens well, or that of refugees who are fleeing horrible wars and terror.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related stories by Jon Danzig:

• Daily Express business model: selling prejudice and bigotry?
• Mail outrage: Asylum seekers are given food and board
• Daily Mail and Calais: Making it up as they go along?
• Calais: Questions the Mail must answer
• Calais: Mail inaccuracies not significant, says Editor

• New Facebook page:  Jon Danzig Writes. On Facebook, click the ‘Like’ button to get updates

#DailyMail coverage of #Calais #refugees crisis is a disgrace. Read and share my latest blog: http://t.co/mnXOT3rCNd pic.twitter.com/EcoGOch8Ps

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) August 10, 2015

I report #DailyMail’s #Calais misquote to @kent_police and @UKParliament Read latest update http://t.co/j93Lrrrx1R pic.twitter.com/7GhCdFZ5TR

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) August 10, 2015

8 Steps Towards #Genocide – and how the #DailyMail portrays #immigrants and #refugees See: http://t.co/ohg4Z83TTh pic.twitter.com/r8VuI6Ibrm

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) August 16, 2015

There are 8 steps to #Genocide says @genocide_watch. Is the #DailyMail stepping closer? Read http://t.co/oO2t3hoaL0 pic.twitter.com/otvydSUucH

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) August 17, 2015

The post How The Mail degrades journalism and refugees appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

In a press release of 1st July 2015, the German electrolyser plant construction company ETOGAS, reported how it delivered an electrolyser system to a site used by the Austrian energy company RAG Rohöl Aufsuchungs Aktiengeselleschaft in the town of Unterpilsbach in Austria. According to the press release, the equipment consisted of a 40 foot electrolysis container and a 20 foot transformer/ rectifier container.

The statement went on to say: “It will supply hydrogen for the flagship project ‘Underground Sun Storage’, which is managed by RAG. This project is the first to explore the option of storing wind and solar energy in a former natural gas reservoir.”

Electrolyser manufacturers such as ETOGAS and ITM Power, are showing energy companies how solar and wind power generation can become more efficient with the help of energy storage. The key to this process is the electrolyser, which uses the electricity generated from renewable energy sources of solar and wind power to produce hydrogen gas. The gas can either be injected directly into the gas supply network – as is happening at the Thüga Group’s power-to-gas plant at Frankfurt-am-Main, which uses ITM Power’s PEM electrolyser to produce hydrogen – or in the case with RAG’s Underground Sun Storage project, the gas can be stored in an underground storage facility until it is needed at times of peak demand.

These recent developments show how gas from sustainable sources may one day supersede the supply of natural gas and oil from fossil sources. The old argument that wind turbines and solar panels are unreliable as they only produce electricity when it is windy or when the sun is shining has become outdated, because with the conversion and storage of electrical energy as gas, the gas can be turned back into electricity at other times such as on a still day or at night or when there is greater consumer demand. In doing so it will help to cut greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

Sources

http://www.etogas.com/news/aktuelles-news/

http://www.underground-sun-storage.at

©Jolyon Gumbrell 2015

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Early this morning, the President of the EU Council has announced that a deal had been reached. After one referendum and a collection of ultimatums, Grexit is out of the question, for now. The details of the agreement remain unspecified as I write these lines. The Guardian reports that, this last intense weekend, the German Government proposed measures such as Greece leaving the Euro temporarily if it refused a new bailout or, Greece setting aside €50 billion worth of assets as collateral for an eventual privatisation (hopefully, the Acropolis wasn’t in the list of assets). The paper says that the proposals “did not enjoy a consensus among eurozone leaders”, which is a slight relief.

At this point, the exact lyrics of the song have not been made public, but the stage where they have to be performed is well known. In 2013, the UN Independent Expert on Foreign Debt and Human Rights warned that “the prospects of a significant number of Greeks securing an adequate standard of living in line with international human rights standards have been compromised by bailout conditions imposed by Greece’s international lenders”. After visiting the country, he denounced that more than 10% of the population lived in extreme poverty. National economy has shrunk by a quarter since the beginning of the implementation of extreme cuts in 2010, with rocketing unemployment (nearly 30%), especially among youngsters (twice that percentage). In late 2014, the FIDH and the Hellenic League for Human Rights reported a similarly bleak picture, with radical cuts in minimum wages since 2012 (22-32%) and rising inequality.

164 countries from all over the world, including all EU Member States, have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), which demands from Governments the adoption of all necessary measures to achieve progressively the full satisfaction of the rights to work, housing, health and education, among others. All EU Member States have also ratified the European Social Charter, either the original (1961) or the revised one (1996). Economic, social and cultural rights are also included in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (2000), “which shall have the same legal value as the Treaties” (Article 6.1 of the Treaty of the European Union, since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009). State Parties ratified these international treaties freely and in exercise of their national sovereignty. They are required to abide by their clauses, which in many cases are considered to be part of domestic law. Most countries have even proclaimed one or more socioeconomic rights in their national constitutions.

A number of commentators have written that European countries are genuine believers in human rights, and particularly, of economic and social rights (Whelan, 2010). For some, rights would belong to their “cosmopolitan creed” (Brysk, 2009). For others, countries would promote human rights norms “for reasons that relate to their identities as members of the international society” (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998). It has also been said that “human rights have become a central factor in the interests of democratic nations because they increasingly define social identities”, and “it would be very difficult for a European state to consistently abuse human rights and still be deemed to belong to contemporary ‘Europe’” (Adler, 1997).

I believe the Greek tragedy proves them wrong. Economic and social rights have played absolutely no role in the discussion of the austerity pack imposed on Greece. Arguably, not even economics mattered that much, on the basis of the failure of austerity to lift any significant indicator.

European countries have ratified most major human rights treaties, including those related to economic and social rights. However, if Europeans truly believed in economic and social rights, the austerity imposed via bailout would have had to respect those very rights. But the story went differently, as Greeks know too well.

European countries ratify and promote international human rights norms, but they do not do so as a matter of justice. They must have other reasons to endorse the international human rights regime.

Koldo Casla

@koldo_casla

The post The Greek tragedy proves that Europe does not believe in economic and social rights as a matter of justice appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Of the four main European Institutions,[1] the European Parliament (EP) has most struggled to be heard on the recent crises affecting Europe (monetary, economic, social, environmental…).[2] At a time when the European project is at great risk, and when European leaders struggle to define a common European interest, it is perhaps time to turn to the EP, and to give more powers to the only directly elected institution at EU level. After all, the EP is conventionally presented[3] as less bound by national interests, and in certain policy areas such as environmental policy, social justice or civil liberties, as being more ambitious than the Council of Ministers. Hence empowering the European Parliament could be a way of determining a common European interest and alternative solutions to the European crises than those currently supported by the European Commission and the European Council.

But all of these speculations rest on one key assumption: that we know how a stronger European Parliament would behave. More precisely, that it would rise above national interests and deliver a greener EU that is more socially-inclusive and respectful of civil liberties. But would the European Parliament necessarily behave like that? In this blog post, I argue that before granting yet more power to the European Parliament, we need to analyse what impact new powers have had on the EP in the past.  I argue that we cannot always expect the European Parliament to be more liberal and greener than the rest of the institutions. But even though the EP is not green by default, including the EP in policy discussions yields interesting outcomes, opening the way for an alternative take on the different crises to be aired at EU level. I build this argument based on a paper I presented at the 16th UACES Student Forum conference held at Queen’s University Belfast last week, as well as on the other papers on our panel on the EP as an actor, by Martin Wirtz and Ching-Yi Chen.

There is a growing literature which investigates whether greater power means the EP’s more radical policy positions (greener, more attentive to civil liberties etc.) gain greater clout at EU level, or whether the EP changes positions once granted further powers, becoming a tame team player. Work by Burns & Carter on the environment or by Ripoll Servent on civil liberties and trade [4] tend to stress that the EP is losing its unique voice as it gets more powerful. To a certain extent, our discussions in Belfast confirmed this finding. Thus,  by looking at the recent 2013 CAP reform, Martin Wirtz showed in his paper that MEPs are not necessarily impervious to national interests — when distributed costs among member states are clear, national voting patterns can emerge. This raises doubts as to whether the EP could be better at coming up with a common solution than the European Council or the Council of Ministers, if it is also bound by national interests in situations with clearly distributed costs. Not only is it doubtful that the EP would propose a more “European” solution, it is also doubtful that it would propose a greener one. Hence in my paper on greening in the latest CAP reform I explain how the European Parliament, working together with the Council of Ministers, hollowed out the Commission’s flagship greening initiative, the Green Payment.

These two cases offer a clear warning to people keen to pin their hopes on the European Parliament. But we should not take these cases to mean that we can expect nothing new or different from the Parliament compared to what the other institutions would produce. For example, our discussions in Belfast shed light on two key characteristics of the EP’s actions: the EP can be unpredictable and it can be increasingly independent. First, Ching-Yi Chen’s paper on ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a perfect example of the EP’s unpredictability. As directly elected politicians, MEPs can be more easily swayed by citizens’ mobilisation than the rest of Brussels. In the case of ACTA, civil protest in Central and Eastern Member States served to shed light on the negative impacts ACTA would have on the rights of internet users. This helped foster opposition to ACTA among left wing parties in the EP, as well as to split the main right wing group, leading the EP to reject ACTA. The shadow of ACTA’s rejection still hangs over the current discussion within the EP about TTIP – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, currently discussed with the US government – which contrary to ACTA could have strong environmental consequences – making other EU actors as well as the EP leadership very wary of how a vote on TTIP would go. Second, my paper on the CAP reform puts forward the argument that the EP did not simply weaken the Commission’s green agenda, it proposed and fostered an alternative path to greening the CAP – through stronger voluntary payments – a clear sign of the EP following its own independent path.

To conclude, looking back at the effects of recent changes to the EP power, it is far from certain that  further empowering the European Parliament would give way to a more “European” and greener response to the different crises shaking the EU. The EP is not always impervious to national interests, nor is it necessarily greener. But empowering the EP nevertheless shakes up discussions in Brussels, giving voice to an unpredictable and increasingly independent actor.

[1] The European Parliament, European Commission, Council of the European Union (ex. Council of Ministers) and the European Council.

[2] As illustrated by Angelos Loukakis’s paper on discussions on the Greek crisis and the EP’s failure to reply to the European Commission’s 2015 Work Programme, even though the programme contained some highly contested measures regarding environmental policy.

[3] Indeed a previous post on this blog presents a short overview of the academic debate on the question.

[4] See for example Neil Carter & Charlotte Burns’ project “Is the European Parliament an Environmental Champion?” and, on trade and civil liberties, the work of Ariadna Ripoll Servent.

The post Empowering the European Parliament: a greener, more European way out of the European crises? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Little over a month ago, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was still claiming that his party’s electoral victory last January had put an end to bailout programmes. A few days ago, he told the Greek people that a ‘No’ vote in the Greek referendum would lead to a deal with Greece’s creditors within 48 hours. More than 48 hours after the ‘No’ vote, there is no deal and his government has formally requested a third bailout programme.

This request coupled with Mr. Tsipras’ decision to replace controversial Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis might produce the impression that the Greek government’s position has shifted closer to that of its creditors and that an agreement has become more likely. Sadly, this is not the case. Since the Greek government decided to abandon negotiations with its creditors to hold a referendum, the distance between the Greek government’s position and that of its creditors has grown greater.

The Greek people rejected the last offer that Greece was made before their government abandoned negotiations with its creditors. Additionally, the Greek government’s request for a third bailout programme has raised the issue of debt relief yet again. Greece’s creditors, however, have indicated that a third bailout programme will require Greece to accept stricter conditions than those included in the offer that the Greek people rejected. As far as debt relief is concerned, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was perfectly clear: ‘There can be no question of a haircut’.

Given that the distance between the Greek government and its creditors has increased, an agreement seems unlikely. Even if the Greek government agrees to stricter conditions than those that the Greek people have rejected, ratification of such an agreement by the Greek parliament cannot be guaranteed. In fact, the large margin by which the Greek people rejected the last offer of Greece’s creditors and the fact that their offer was rejected in every single constituency suggest that the seats of those MPs who might vote against stricter conditions are safe.

An agreement without stricter conditions might be possible, if Greece’s EU partners decided that ensuring the irreversibility of Eurozone integration is more important than enforcing compliance with Eurozone rules. Ratification of such an agreement by national parliaments cannot be guaranteed either. Opposition to additional financial assistance to Greece runs at about 70% amongst the German public. The seats of those MPs who might approve such financial assistance would not be safe.

Several months ago, then SYRIZA MEP Manolis Glezos had the integrity to apologise to the Greek people for his role in creating the ‘illusion’ that SYRIZA’s electoral victory would put an end to bailout programmes. Mr. Tsipras should follow his example. Not only has his government requested yet another bailout programme for Greece, but it also seems to have placed itself in a position, from which an agreement on a third programme seems unlikely.

Kyriakos Moumoutzis is a Lecturer in European and International Politics at King’s College London.

The post Mr. Tsipras owes the Greek people an apology appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

What I want to offer you, is a simple definition of globalization. I said, a simple definition. But what I mean by that is, in fact, two things. Globalization is two things. It’s the extension, intensification, and acceleration of consequential worldwide interconnections. And at the same time, it’s a big buzzword. A big buzzword of political speech that’s used by business leaders, by political leaders, by protestors, in different ways but nevertheless, used as a buzzword to make politically charged arguments about how the world is shaping up and where it should be headed.

Now, to understand globalization we have to understand both these definitions at the same time and look carefully at how they interact with one another. So let’s look first at globalization in the first sense. Globalization as the extension, intensification and acceleration of consequential worldwide interconnections. What are those interconnections? Well, all together they form ties, global ties, or interdependencies as some social scientists call them. These include global trade ties, the global ties of workers and consumers, the ties of global finance and money flows, the ties of global law-making through trade agreements and human rights law-making, the ties of governments to one another, but also the ties that markets increasingly have around and through government action, including the ties markets have on our governance of our personal relation, the ties also of our spaces, between spaces, between territories, and ties that therefore also change the meaning of territory and the ties of global health.

These are all some of the key interdependencies that we’ll be looking at in the upcoming articles. But as we do so, I want to emphasize that it’s very important that we keep the second definition of globalization in our minds at the same time. This is  globalization with a capital G or big G globalization, as I refer to it in some of the upcoming articles.

Now, looking at globalization with a capital G means paying close attention to how it does discursive work, how it makes political arguments in a simple sound bite. The protestors in Seattle, back in 1999, who were protesting the World Trade Organization often carried banners that said, no globalization without representation. And they, in a sense, were using globalization as a, a political politically charged term of discourse when they were doing so. Of course, they were harkening back to the old  arguments of the American revolutionaries of no taxation without representation. But they were doing so to make an argument that global market ties were creating a kind of market like globalization that came without any kind of political representation for ordinary people. So they were contesting a certain standardized vision of globalization, a packaged market vision of globalization. And so they were using the term in the big G kind of way. But as they did so, I think they did another thing, whether they meant to or not.

They basically said with that slogan no globalization without representation, that globalization is always an act, when it’s used as a term, it’s always an act of representation. It involves representational politics. And this is something I want to address both today and in the upcoming lectures.

So why the need to distinguish between little g globalization, the term for global interdependency, and big G globalization, the term for the buzzword in political speak? I think there are at least three good reasons for doing this. First of all, I want to avoid gesture or tendency that’s found in a lot of other introductions to globalization. Introductions by other academics who offer great studies of the interdependencies, but who often think that we can put the politically charged arguments to one side.

When they do this, they go through what I like to call the Globalization 3 Step. They say first of all, that there’s too much exaggeration by what they call hyper-globalists. The hyper-globalists who exaggerate globalization, who make too much a big deal out of big G globalization, and confuse everybody by making exaggerations and making politically charged arguments. They don’t want to be like that. But secondly, the second move of their 3 step, they also don’t want to be like, what they call the skeptic. The skeptics who are so serious, they think everything is just continuing the way it always has done historically. You know, nothing much has changed, the governments of the world still run their countries, borders still exist. Globalization is all hog wash and too much exaggeration, say the skeptics.

Well, the advocates of the middle way between hyper-globalism and skepticism think that the skeptics have got it wrong too. That things have changed, that the interdependencies are consequential and they have really changed the world. They’ve changed our everyday lives. They think, therefore, that we can chart a sober and unbiased analytical middle way between hyper-globalism and skepticism. And in some respects, I want to follow them in, in, that middle way myself. But, I don’t want to put big G Globalization to one side. I actually am interested in why some people want to be skeptics and why other people want to be hyper-globalists.

I want to look at what arguments those people are making and what they want to achieve politically by making them. So introducing this term, big G Globalization, allows us to do that. It allows us to look at the impact of the discourse on the reorganization of
society around the world. And there are a number of scholars to have done this. Manfred Steger, for example, in his book Globalisms is an example of someone who’s interested in how discourses about globalization make a difference in the world.

So introducing this doubled up definition of globalization not only allows us to look at how big G discourses of globalization have shaped the world, but it also allows up to look at how the world and global dynamics, global interdependencies shape discourses
about globalization.

The relationships go both ways and this in turn helps us understand how academic approaches to globalization have themselves been shaped by the history of global development. The modern social sciences and the humanities the fields of study that give us the, the richest picture of globalization, at least in the way it’s going to be discussed in my upcoming lectures, are all disciplines that have emerged out of a particular kind of global history.

This has enabled them to see the world in particular ways, but it’s also limited what they can see, particularly in our own contemporary moment of globalization. And that’s because many of them were founded in the 19th century and the 20th century, when the nation state was the major object of focus of study, the major analytically counting center for all kinds of statistics. The word statistics goes back to the nation-state, state-istics.

I want to explain why it’s important by turning to the old, very globally traveled fable of the elephant and the blind villagers. Now in the traditional telling of this story, the villagers can’t work out what the elephant is. They feel the side and thinks it’s a wall. They feel the tusk and thinks it’s a spear. They feel the tail and they feel, they think it’s a rope. That’s the traditional idea.

In some religious retellings of this story, it’s as if the elephant is a God that ordinary mortals cannot understand. And to some extent, that’s a good metaphor for big G Globalization, because it’s often invoked as a kind of God about which we cannot fully understand, that has all these grand effects that we can’t fully come to terms with, but that’s not my main point here. I’m interested more in, in how the social sciences are a little bit like the the blind villagers and that they all need to go beyond the limitations of their own particular perspectives by fashioning an interdisciplinary perspective on globalization, the elephant as a whole. To make my point a little bit clearer, let’s think about some social sciences. Economics, for example, sees something of a tusk or a spear of globalization in following the money flows of global finance and of global economic integration. But it doesn’t always put those money flows and economic data into a political context. Political science does focus on the political context but because of its foundation in the modern 20th century tends to look at nation states as the most important political context and doesn’t always look at the transnational state making that has arisen because of economic ties across borders. Geographers my own discipline, tend to focus on what globalization looks like on the ground and the way it’s changed the ground, but in ways that don’t always fully examine the history of globalization. Historians, and, and scholars of English literature, or other world literatures, tend to focus on national history or national culture in ways that don’t fully examine the interconnections of culture and history globally.

Now in all these disciplines you can find examples of scholars, many examples, in fact, of scholars who reach beyond the national template and try to fashion an interdisciplinary perspective on globalization.

The post Defining Globalization. appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons

Dovilė Rimkutė

As Majone (1999) has observed, the approval of EU authority – as a predominantly regulatory political system – is based on the perception that supranational regulation corrects market failures by relying on a technical exercise and scientific knowledge managed by independent regulators, e.g. the European Commission and European independent agencies. Experts and scientific knowledge has played a key role in EU politics and its significance is increasing as well as takes on new shapes (Gornitzka and Holst, 2015). However, against this backdrop, an increasing body of literature has observed that scientific experts’ involvement in regulatory processes is rather contested (Gornitzka and Holst, 2015; Schrefler, 2010; Radaelli, 2009; Boswell, 2008). Scholars argue that even though regulatory duties are deemed to be a highly scientific pursuit predominantly focused on the technical-instrumental use of scientific knowledge, expertise can actually have many functions in policy/decision-making. That is, alongside the technical-instrumental (or problem-solving) use of knowledge, European regulators can also employ strategic or symbolic uses of scientific expertise.

To that end, the recent publications of Rimkutė and Haverland (2015) and Rimkutė (2015) contribute to this scholarship focusing on the role and functions of scientific knowledge by empirically examining how expertise is used by European regulators and by providing theoretical explanations regarding the variance in scientific knowledge use by supranational regulators.

How do scientists perceive their role in EU policy-making?

The article entitled “How does the European Commission use scientific expertise? Results from a survey of scientific members of the Commission’s expert committees” builds on the recent scholarship introducing a typology of knowledge use (Schrefler, 2010; Radaelli, 2009; Boswell, 2008) and suggests further improvements in its conceptualisation and operationalization, however, in particular it aims at empirical contribution. The article informs the debates on the role of scientific expertise in European Union policy-making, a query that is particularly relevant in the case of the Commission’s exclusive responsibility and duty to initiate proposals. In this article, we sought to go beyond the existing case studies by systematically tapping into the use of scientific knowledge across various policy issues and Directorates General (DG) of the Commission. We contribute to the literature with a large-N study in which we surveyed more than a 100 scientists who had participated in the Commission expert groups. In particular, we focused on how scientists’ advice was used by the Commission, and asked: what attitudes do scientists providing scientific advice to the European Commission hold regarding their contribution to policies shaped and adapted at the EU level? How do scientists perceive their role in EU policy-making?

When and under what conditions different uses of scientific expertise prevail

The article “Explaining Differences in Scientific Expertise Use: The Politics of Pesticides” further explores how European regulator – European regulatory agencies – actually contend with their core tasks of providing scientific advice to EU institutions. In this contribution, I go one step further and contribute to the theoretical explanation of when and under what conditions different uses of scientific knowledge prevail. I draw upon the theoretical insights of sociological institutionalism and resource dependence theory. The core argument of the article is that whether the regulatory policy process can yield efficient and credible problem-solving solutions is contingent upon both (1) the external environment in which a certain scientific output production process takes place, i.e. the level of formal and informal pressure and (2) the internal agency’s capacity to produce science-based outputs (Rimkutė, 2015: 116).

Risk assessments by the European Food Safety Authority

In empirical analysis, I focus on one type of knowledge use – strategic substantiating – that refers to those practices in which an agency seeks to promote and justify its own or external actors’ predetermined preferences, which are based on certain values, political or economic interests. The strategic substantiating use of scientific knowledge is expected to occur under the conditions of high external pressure and high scientific capacity.  To test this theoretical expectation, the case of the neonicotinoid pesticides risk assessment for bees has been selected. The risk assessment has been produced by the key European risk assessor in food safety regulation – European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The empirical analysis combines a variety of data sources including official documents, press releases, scientific outputs, and 10 semi-structured interviews with the academic and industry experts involved in the process.

Specifically, the case of neonicotinoid pesticides has been selected as EFSA in this particular case possessed a high capacity to produce scientific expertise because it successfully mobilised internal human resources: the largest EFSA’s unit—the Pesticides Unit— was in charge of drafting scientific outputs. In addition, EFSA had much sound external research evidence at its disposal when drafting scientific conclusions: extensive sources of expertise, data, knowledge, and understanding of honeybees and the neonicotinoid pesticides. However, the organisational field in which EFSA had to deliver its scientific opinion consisted of defined opposing positions (laboratory research vs. field research) and the conflicting configurations of inter-organisational structures competing with each other (industry vs. beekeeping associations and NGOs). The biggest chemical manufacturers in Europe, Bayer CropScience, Syngenta AG, have been actively involved in the process and in due course have filed legal actions challenging the Commission’s restrictions and accused the Commission of not relying on the entire scientific evidence available and, in so doing, they challenged the EU pesticide regulation.

The article empirically illustrated that such conditions paved the way for the strategic substantiating use of expertise. It concludes that the interaction between high external pressure and high internal capacity leads to the strategic substantiating use of expertise, in which scientific evidence is used to promote the inclinations of actors upon which the agency depends most.

This study develops starting points for further research as it introduced a general theory explaining the differences in scientific expertise use, which have been tested only partly and in one particular context, i.e. one issue within one EU regulatory agency. However, the theoretical argument of the article could be said to be relevant to all expertise bodies acting on the basis of scientific knowledge, including the Commission, comitology committees, national agencies, international organisations, or other executive, regulatory or information bodies whose expertise feeds into various policy-making stages. To that end, I suggest that testing the theoretical explanations outlined in the article in different contexts would clearly be a requisite for further research.

Dovilė Rimkutė has been a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München, Germany since March 2014. Before joining LMU she held a Marie Curie scholarship for Early Stage Researchers and worked as a Research Associate at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research. Her research interests cover a range of European Union policy/decision-making topics, however, risk regulation and evidence-based governance in EU regulatory processes and factors affecting it take a central role. In her PhD research, Dovilė examines regulatory science practices employed by EU (quasi-) risk regulators – European regulatory agencies – by drawing upon the theoretical insights of sociological institutionalism and resource dependence theory. Contact: Dovile.rimke@gmail.com

References:

Boswell, C. (2008). The political functions of expert knowledge: Knowledge and legitimation in European Union immigration policy. Journal of European Public Policy, 15(4), 471-488.

Gornitzka, Å. and Holst, C. (2015). The Expert-Executive Nexus in the EU: An Introduction. Politics and Governance, 3 (1): 1-21

Majone, G. (1999). ‘The regulatory state and its legitimacy problems’, West European Politics, 22 (1): 1-13.

Radaelli, C.M. (2009). Measuring policy learning across Europe: regulatory impact assessment in comparative perspective, Journal of European Public Policy, 16 (8): 1145–1164.

Rimkute, D. (2015). Explaining differences in scientific expertise use: The politics of pesticides. Politics and Governance, 3 (1): 114-127.

Rimkute, D. and Haverland, M. (2015). How does the European Commission use scientific expertise? Results from a survey of scientific members of the Commission’s expert committees. Comparative European Politics, 13 (4): 430–449.

Schrefler, L. (2010). The usage of scientific knowledge by independent regulatory agencies. Governance, 23(2): 309-330.

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When Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras decided to unilaterally abandon negotiations over Greece’s so-called ‘bailout programme’ and to propose a referendum on the latest offer that Greece had been made, he employed a tactic that is common in negotiations in the European Union (EU): using difficulties with domestic ratification of EU agreements to extract concessions. Paradoxically, no agreement was reached in this particular case, but Mr. Tsipras believes that once the Greek people have rejected the latest offer of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the three ‘institutions’ will have to make them a better one. As he put it: ‘The day following the democratic choice, and a proud “No” to subjugation and to indignity, our country will have a much stronger negotiating position, and it will be the moment of truth for the creditors. They will finally understand that Greece is not going to surrender, that Greece is not a game that is over’.

Prior to Mr. Tsipras’ announcement regarding the referendum, the ratification difficulties that he has tried to use were real. The constituency in favour of the policies that Greece’s two bailout programmes included was never particularly large. The (partial) implementation of the two programmes reduced its size further. Many of those whom the two programmes have left worse off and supporting Mr. Tsipras’ Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) used to feel that they have nothing left to lose and that anything would be better than the continuation of austerity. As one of them put it: ‘[A choice] between more austerity or chaos? Chaos’.

The irony for Mr. Tsipras is that as soon as he made his announcement regarding the referendum, ratification of any agreement on any offer that the three ‘institutions’ might make Greece became less difficult. Ratification difficulties diminished as the Greek people caught a glimpse of the alternative to non-agreement/non-ratification. Queues outside banks, in supermarkets and at petrol stations and living in fear of banks running out of money and of shortages of food and fuel. ‘Chaos’, it seems, is no longer preferable to austerity. Opinion polls showing the ‘Yes’ vote ahead have already been reported. Mr. Tsipras has hinted that he will resign if the Greek people vote ‘Yes’. Rightly so. A ‘Yes’ vote will mean either that Mr. Tsipras has failed to implement the mandate that he has been given or that the Greek people have rescinded their mandate. If this proves to be the case, the announcement regarding the Greek referendum will have been the beginning of the end for Mr. Tsipras.

Kyriakos Moumoutzis is a Lecturer in European and International Politics at King’s College London.

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There is much to give concern in the world of European politics these days. From Greece to the UK, the Mediterranean to Finland (even Austria), you don’t have to look far to find examples of ‘how it’s all going belly up’ (to quote one of my colleagues).

It would be simple to take the counsel of despair, throw our hands up and reject it all. Surely everything tells us that Nigel is right and we should just put ourselves out of our own misery now. What possible value can there be in a system that tramples on Greek democracy, demonstrates scant respect for those who have risked their lives to reach our countries and apparently couldn’t organise an economic recovery worth the name, when everyone else did it some years ago?

Eurosceptics have long made much of how the EU holds back states, either economically or politically (or both), but never have such arguments had such resonance: my Facebook and Twitter feeds are full of people decrying it all and wondering it’s worth it any more.

I have a degree of sympathy with such views: certainly the Greek crisis has been a masterclass in how to make things worse, with all sides making unreasonable assumptions and not accepting that they have to make some concession. The realisation of the profound interdependence between all the actors is there, but only partial – each knows that it has the other over the proverbial barrel, but hasn’t yet worked out that they are in the same situation too.

And yet.

All of these things highlight that we do live in an interconnected system, where the actions of one affect the lives of others. Contrast this to the dark days of 2008/9 as the great recession broke. Then the reflex was to national action, supported by global coordination: the European level of governance felt (and was) largely irrelevant. For all that people talk of being ‘ruled by Brussels’, Brussels mostly sat on its hands or followed the lead of the G20 or of member states: anyone who thinks the 6-pack resolved the situation needs to go and look again.

But now the European level is central once more. This is partly because of the issues involved: Greece’s economic situation is directly linked to its membership of the Euro, the migrant crisis is linked to the Dublin Convention and Schengen, the British Tories seem to focus on little else. But it’s also because the EU is a relevant political arena and the way in which European states treat with each other is very different from how it used to be.

And here’s the rub. as Rafael Behr rightly pointed out in a great piece yesterday, the EU isn’t here to crush democracy. I wrote something similar last autumn:

The EU is not a hegemonising monster, intent on steam-rolling everyone and everything into uniform submission, but a mechanism for accommodating differences.

That might feel somewhat unsatisfactory, but Behr asks us to consider the alternatives.

A collapse of the Union would certainly come with transition costs, whatever the ultimate outcome, particularly for states like Greece. The removal of a system of institutionalised interaction might offer succor to those who would take a more autarkic and/or nationalistic view of the world, if only because goodwill might be in short supply.

If this sounds like ‘Project Fear‘ again, then maybe reflect on this last point. Perhaps the only reason people feel they can confidently talk about stepping away from the EU model is precisely that model has made a more stable and non-conflictual way of working with each other possible. The big question then has to be whether attitudes have changed fundamentally or remain contingent.

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From the beginning, the European Union has been polarising in Britain. The past four decades of membership have been marked by sustained debate on the extent and shape of British participation in the European project. Some have always rejected the notion that Britain can and should integrate with the rest of Europe. Others have supported Britain’s involvement in parts of the EU, particularly in the economic sphere. Few have wholeheartedly embraced European integration to the levels historically seen in the ‘core’ of Europe.

European Council 7-8.2.2013, European Council, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In this respect, British reluctance to sign up to different aspects of the EU has been a function of internal prevarication on setting a foreign policy that reflects Britain’s place in the world. The question of ‘Europe’ has divided parties from within and without. Consequently, the UK’s ongoing renegotiation and eventual referendum on EU membership need to be filtered through the lens of national context. Both are the result of electoral politics in Britain rather than momentous change in the EU’s design.

The Prime Minister’s renegotiation will naturally derive its objectives from domestic political considerations. The outcome of the renegotiation, however, will depend greatly on the willingness of Britain’s European partners to work with the suggestions placed before them. This external dimension – the politics at European level – is fundamental to any deal which may be agreed.

By definition, a negotiation necessitates negotiating partners. In this case, the UK government’s main interlocutors are the governments of the other EU Member States (with a role for the EU institutions as well). These governments do not all share the same interests nor have they presented a united front against Britain in its desire to change how the EU works – far from it. A number of EU countries support some of the options for reform emanating from London. At the same time, three main points on which they broadly agree might make the renegotiation more challenging than hoped.

First, they have other pressing issues on the European agenda. The sovereign debt difficulties facing Greece, garnering great attention is recent weeks, is only one of a number of serious questions preoccupying European leaders. These pressing issues may take priority over discussing the details of the UK government’s demands to amend EU rules. Considering the tight timetable the Prime Minister has set himself, the postponing of solving the ‘British question’ to a later date could make securing a deal even more complicated.

Second, Europe’s leaders are generally happy with the EU’s architectural framework and not predisposed to making dramatic alterations. Desire to weaken the integrity of the internal market by altering the rules of the free movement of persons, for example, is minimal. Nor are other EU countries keen to see the multiplication of opt-outs or special rules just for Britain. While the will exists to work with the UK government to address its concerns, any EU changes agreed are likely to be relatively modest.

Third, the countries which share the single currency may well amend the governance of the Eurozone without changing the EU treaties. It seems unlikely, therefore, that Britain can simply tack on its demands to treaty reform certain to happen. The EU treaties could eventually be updated to incorporate the Fiscal Compact and related measures, but this prospect seems years down the line. In any case, securing treaty change in time for a referendum by 2017 would be a Herculean feat.

The obstacles to securing a substantive renegotiation within the set timetable are numerous. However, the actual renegotiation is but one part of the equation in (re)shaping Britain’s relationship with the EU. How the deal is presented at home and the arguments made in the campaign are likely to be much more influential to the referendum result. The external dimension may well determine the substance of the renegotiation, but the national context, as ever, will determine the outcome of the referendum.

This article was originally published on European Futures.

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Shortened link: britainseurope.uk/20150626

How to cite this article:

Salamone, A (2015) ‘The External Dimension to Britain’s EU Membership’, Britain’s Europe (Ideas on Europe), 26 Jun 2015, britainseurope.uk/20150626

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Even this is not going to cut it…

Earlier this morning – a bit before 8am, in fact – a family friend turned up at our house, ‘for breakfast’. This turned out to be a misunderstanding of what we had thought was a jocular exchange of texts last night and certainly was not one the house was prepared for. Of course, being archtypes (of a type), we just put the kettle on and had a laugh about it.

I mention this as a very mundane example of a perception gap, the mis-signalling of intentions and actions. In much of our lives, we can just have a cuppa and move on, but this week is demonstrating how sometimes that process can run away from people. Today’s European Council is a case in point.

It’s as depressing an agenda as you’ve ever seen, from Greece to Calais, with a detour to the UK over dinner. It looks very hard for anyone to pull much positive news out of that little pile.

But rather than dwell on that aspect, it’s perhaps more productive to consider the perception gap between the UK and the EU.

For those critical of the EU, we might break down their views of the different problems into the following categories:

“The EU is ineffectual”

The Calais strikes and attendant migrant crisis have been treated with much restraint by the Government, who recognise that annoying the French authorities isn’t any kind of productive option right now. But sceptics have been much more free-flowing in their attacks.

To take just one example, the UKIP MEP Nathan Gill tweeted: “Absolute chaos at Eurostar as all trains cancelled due to migrants storming the tunnels. #NoThanks to EU open borders” Quite what he thinks the EU should have done to stop or remove the strikers or the migrants isn’t clear, but the failure to have (relatively) free movement is clearly a stick with which to beat those in favour of integration.

Likewise, criticism of the French government for allowing migrants to traverse France to get to Calais in the first place highlights a lack of understanding about Schengen, not to mention a questionnable attitude to the use of profiling in police checks. Would they be any happier if the gendarmerie stopped anyone who looked like an ‘illegal migrant’? A difficult stance, especially for UKIP with its professed non-racist or xenophobic position.

“The EU is other people’s problems”

As today and tomorrow will expose all too clearly, one country’s problem is actually every countries’ problem in the EU. This has always been true, but until the Union institutionalised the interdependencies that wasn’t always so evident. Thus what happens with Greece has material impacts on all other member states, regardless of whether they are eurozone members or not.

Which makes the heterogeneity of Cameron’s talking point all the more obvious. In a system of give and take, he has to sit through long discussions about Greece - without being a eurozone member – and the migrant crisis – without being a Schengen member, and having made clear the UK won’t take any quota of migrants – before asking everyone to do him a favour. Small wonder that attitudes have been cool and distracted: other member states’ governments appear more comfortable with accepting that they are part of a system that requires some leaning-in and helping out, not just injunctions to ‘sort it out’.

“The EU has no future”

The concatenation of problems now facing the EU makes this argument seem ever more compelling. One does not have to look far to see the signs of discord and tension, from Hungary questioning its Dublin Convention commitments, to Marine Le Pen talking of leaving the Union, to Renzi’s secretive ‘Plan B‘ to handle the influx of Mediterranean migrants. Everyone looks hacked off, everyone seems on edge.

In the British context, that has some impact on the referendum debate, as the ‘No’ side continue to paint a picture of a deadweight EU, dragging down the UK. Business for Britain’s ‘Change or Go‘ report – being slowly released this week – is very much in this vein of thinking.

That might all be true, but the great unknown is whether any of the alternatives facing Europe are any better. If the EU breaks up, then what happens to the liberalisation of markers that has run far ahead of the rest of the world? What happens to an Eastern Europe confronted by a Russia that is already highly adept at exploiting division? What happens to all the other institutions of cooperation, like NATO? If we can’t prosper together, why should we apart?

This is the point where someone accuses me of doom-mongering, and I guess there is an aspect of that, but it would surely be remiss not to at least consider such questions, at least to come to answers that provide some reassurance.

The EU isn’t perfect, but perfection is impossible. Perhaps if we worked to make what we have better, rather than scrap it all, we might make some progress.

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Tomorrow, on 24 June 2015, the European Parliament is expected to approve the legal details of Jean-Claude Juncker’s investment plan and the related European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). This plan has been sold as a major innovation, but our research has shown that it is actually the continuation of existing EU policies, just at a larger scale. Does it still mean we are on the way towards political budget cycles in the EU?

Next week, we – Klaus H. Goetz (with whom I work here in Munich) and myself – are going to present a paper* titled “From Politicised Budgeting to Political Budgets in the EU” at the Milan International Conference on Public Policy.

At the centre of our attention is the Juncker investment plan and whether it is a sign that we are going to see more pronounced political budget cycles in the European Union in coming years. With the promise of achieving up to € 315 billion in new investments, more than double the amount of the EU’s annual budget, Juncker’s initiative definitely looked like something was in the air into that direction when we started working on our paper.

What we find (see Section V. of the paper) is that there are quite a number of ways to interpret what the Juncker plan means for the future – from a just a gradual move in the direction of multiple paths that have started years ago to a quite a radical post-electoral politicisation of EU budgeting.

More interestingly, we found that the leveraging model that was presented as Juncker’s ‘baby’ and innovation has not just been around for ten years but that it was actually already on the political agenda of Barroso five years ago, just a little less ambitious.

To see the striking similarity between Barroso’s and Juncker’s plan, see first this quote from the Juncker’s political agenda in 2014:

I do believe that we can make much better use of the common EU budget and of Union financial instruments such as the European Investment Bank (EIB). We must make use of these public funds available at Union level to stimulate private investment in the real economy.

Now, see the the second quote from Barroso’s political agenda in 2009:

We should work more closely and imaginatively with the European Investment Bank and the private sector. Within the existing instruments, we must further improve the blending between grants from the EU budget and EIB loans, in order to increase the overall leverage effect.

If you read our paper (in particular Section IV) you will understand more in detail how the Juncker plan has evolved over time from an unknown EU policy, and how it was  made something ‘big’ and ‘new’ by increasing scope but also by using quite some political communications to make it look novel and big. How to interpret this in the wider development of EU budgeting is part of a debate worth having.

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on our paper and our findings. If you happen to be at ICPP in Milan next week, don’t hesitate to contact me in advance for a chat!

Update: See also yesterday’s background paper by the European Parliament Research Service on the EFSI.

*The paper is part of a research project on budgeting in international organisations as part of a larger Research Unit on International Public Administrations, financed by the DFG.

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On Alternative(s) to Neoliberal Globalization

From 17 to 19 June 2015, I attended the 14th Annual Conference of the International Social Theory Consortium (ISTC) “Reconstructing Social Theory, History and Practice” at the University of Cambridge, with presentation “On Alternative(s) to Neoliberal Globalization” on the 17th of June 2015.

First, the ISTC conference addressed reconstruction, deconstruction, as the past thirty years can been named Age of Deconstruction; and possibilities of a return of history, discussing, whether there are limits to the deconstruction project? Have these limits been reached? What are the possibilities for the “reconstruction” of narratives of long-term historical change? Is it possible to incl. and integrate the insights and contributions of various critiques of knowledge, while at the same time developing new forms of knowledge? Can we submit the project of deconstruction itself to deconstruction? Etc.

Return to history acknowledges history’s “continuing importance as a social-theoretical category and frame, considering [history’s] persistent utility after […] realizations, and accepting the fact that, by most accounts, history has not reached its end.”

“● How would social science disciplines benefit from new perspectives on understanding long-term change?

● What might, could and should a new philosophy of history – subsequent to so many “turns” – look like?

● What are the possibilities for practice in addressing social justice and democracy, with the benefit or in the absence of long-term historical consciousness?”

Second – The text of my presentation:

The Structure:

Two main premises:

1)  The philosophy of history could have had different development as it has today;

2)    Could there be an alternative or alternatives to neoliberal globalization.

Subquestions:

● Socialism (revolutionary socialism, reformist constitutional socialism) vs. industrial capitalism – as a starting point

● „Traces of moral thought“ and „religious injunctions“ influencing law (Klabbers, Piiparinen)

● Defining normative order (Klabbers, Piiparinen), political ideology (Heywood) and morality (Kant)

● Justifiability of law on moral grounds or on normative grounds (religion, social norm, cultural practice, etc.)

● Examples of different levels (Christianity-Judaism; Judaism-Islam; Marxism-capitalism; Soviet socialist law-capitalist civil law; structuralists-poststructuralists; poststructuralists-Islam; Western cultural practice-Islam; etc.) /The initial idea was to compare modernism-postmodernism, socialism-postsocialism, liberalism-neoliberalism, critical theory-positivism, naturalism-positivism, and then postsocialism-postpostsocialism, postmodernism-postsocialism, poststructuralism-postmodernism, neoliberalism-psotstructuralism, etc./

● Kant’s idea of international and cosmopolitan justice – perpetual peace – in the light of the previous

● The politics of framing in global (and EU) governance / agenda setting

● The role of a lawyer – drawing extralegal concerns into law?

● Who could decide?

Problems:

● Could legal history have developed differently if human thought had in history developed differently?

● Why could there be alternative(s) to neoliberal globalization?

For the structure, I have used the texts of Kant, Klabbers/Piiparinen in order to make my argument that follows in the body:

[I] most recently have worked with EU accountability, incl. political accountability

According to Aristotle, things have both: form and substance / content.

For better understanding political accountability, I first attempted at mapping politics, by mapping political parties at European level and in Estonia, which method – combined with history research – allowed me to estimate transformation of politics in Estonia. – Such research was oriented toward form / structure, and did not say much about political (party) ideologies, except making some conclusions according to the parties’ own assertions about their position on the political right-left scale, although my research also established that more important than what a political party says about its ideology, should be its actual behaviour.

My research also established – agreeing with Chantal Mouffe – that political party ideologies are not easily distinguishable in the contemporary World, because – and Mouffe names two reasons: 1) the right-wing addresses for populist aims left-wing arguments, whereas the left-wing uses right-wing arguments, and 2) there are certain concerns that all political parties would address, such as environment, women’s rights, etc.

Mouffe concludes that although it is dangerous phenomenon, because it limits choice – and, consequently, antagonism always remains and should remain into politics – today’s political parties mostly seem to have reached consensus at the centre btw. centre-right and centre-left.

Mouffe explains such as impossibility to find an alternative to neoliberal globalization.

Now, this was the turning-point for me, because it made me think about the history of political thought from different angle.

One example of antagonism is socialism that – as utopian idea and reaction – appeared against industrial capitalism, resumed by Heywood as having an aim to end capitalist economy and replace it with common ownership. Such development can be divided into: revolutionary socialism (that developed into Communism), and reformist constitutional socialism that turned into social-democrat ideologies.

I understand Mouffe’s conclusion about impossibility of finding an alternative to neoliberal globalization as a-kind-of stop in socialist thought, although neoliberalism refers to greater community / State influence in markets (and, thus, to socialist influence).

One has to take into account that reality exists independently of human cognition, even though humans may not identify it and despite our understandings of reality, which is an old description of the relation btw. objectivity and subjectivity (the latter being constrained in time and space too much to adequately understand and communicate objectivity.)

The relevance for law of the previous:

Jan Klabbers and Touko Piiparinen in book “Normative Pluralism and International Law” (Cambridge University Press, ASIL Studies in International Legal Theory, 2013), explains law as a social phenomenon, containing: “traces of moral thought” or “religious injunctions” detaining meaning and changing over time. They establish that also religions contain normativity, and define “normative order” as “normative control system” – signifying a set of related commands: “Do’s” and “Don’ts” that stem from the same or related source(s).

That way, normative orders are understood as wholes of norms of social control.

Based on understanding “norms” as “rules of behaviour” … whiches breach is accompanied by liability. For that reason, Klabbers and Piiparinen see law as a distinct normative order.

Similarly, religion can be regarded as distinct normative order.

What concerns morals, I would understand morals as quite a distinct from normativity phenomemon, because all human thought does not contain coercive capacity like law or norms. I would derive from Kant who explains morals also as sth. Developing through experience, incl. knowledge about different thinkers.

At the same time, law is related to political morals, ideologies and philosophical thought. We all live in politics – a human being is already by the very nature Zwv noLitikwov.

Schaffer has a concern related to that – if decisions in a society are not grounded in empirics and experience (for example, here lies an advantage of American sociology that is indexial), they can be dangerous, unpredictable, and even have disastrous consequences.

Unger if of opinion that law is an expression of political ideology – thus, the same applies toward legal decisions, and applies toward international law that regulates international relations – thus also social and political processes.

There coexist several normative orders, for example, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, in addition to law. Then, there exist different political ideologies, such as social-democracy, … And there coexist different moral theories, most recently, such as poststructuralism, postmodernism, neoliberalism, critical theory, etc., the latter do not entail enforcement mechanisms.

Although these all are not equal categories, one can bring the following examples: 1) while Christianity is centred around liberation, Islam and Judaism are centred around commandments, thus, prescribing for the “free will” how to behave for the benefit of the community and the governors – thus, Islam and Judaism can actually be considered political ideologies, too, although normative; 2) while Marxism favours nationalization, capitalism favours unequal distribution of capital; 3) while speculation under Soviet Socialist laws was punishable under criminal laws, regulation of resale forms a common part of capitalist civil laws; 4) while structures / forms are important for structuralists, poststructuralists consider ideas / content more important than form; 5) while poststructuralists justify human pleasure, some forms of it are forbidden in Islam; 6) while headscarves are not common in Western cultural tradition, they are prescribed for women in Islam. 7) One could continue here, and actually, before reading Klabbers, Piiparinen, my initial idea was to that way compare modernism-postmodernism, socialism-postsocialism, liberalism-neoliberalism, critical theory-positivism, naturalism-positivism, and then postsocialism-postpostsocialism, postmodernism-postsocialism, poststructuralism-postmodernism, neoliberalism-psotstructuralism, etc.

Thus – society (and law) have to deal with collision of norms, but not solely of norms, but also of concerns of real politics or justice.

Immanuel Kant – who has defined morals – advanced the idea of international and cosmopolitan justice – perpetual peace – being possible, when mature societies reach consensus in peaceful coexistence. All moral questions, according to Kant, are thought in a particular situation – thus “applied moral questions.” Kant also talks about inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another, because various selves interrelate in a community.

Francis Fukuyama’s idea was that liberal democracies do not go to war with each other – and here, to my mind, the word “democracy” refers to consensus and “common moral character.”

Thus, it is relevant to relate law with morals, and in such context analyse historical development of moral thought.

Piiparinen claims that not only one but more spheres of authority are in control of the World – and they may all derive their authority from legal or other norms and theories, for legitimacy.

Still, my presentation derives from the premises that: 1) law should be morally respectable; 2) law should be in harmony with the society it aims to regulate; 3) law can have effects on the society if regulates.

Important is what are the individual moralities who should shape law (that shapes individual moralities) similarly to different normative orders.

Klabbers and Piiparinen explain such as the politics of framing. And to illustrate that, asks, whether the intervention over Kosovo should be judged by moral standards or legal standards?

For lawyers, such position of question is connected with legitimacy, meaning – if illegal, would one be allowed to derive justification from morals (which could be a slippery slope, because morals is fragmented – a comprehensive understanding of universal morals is absent, and understanding and interpretation of morals is subjective, depending on the interpreting person’s education, life experience, intellectual and cognitive abilities, etc.)

Klabbers and Piiparinen still conclude that if morally acceptable, an illegal practice may be accepted and even become new law. The same authors see the problem in drawing the line btw. morally justifiable and morally unjustifiable – which is determined by subjective people.

The problem is that if to question people, many would feel that there was a conflict btw. law and morals at Kosovo, but if to ask people to specify what kind of morals was breached in Kosovo, even the lawyers would have problems with finding the relevant arguments.

On the other hand, maybe such is not the task of lawyers at all – because a good practising lawyer is supposed to rather apply law as precisely as possible than to make a new law through interpretation (be it critical or not).

Then – where from and how to draw extralegal concerns into law? With the aim to justify illegal acts?

Because if every judge or other person applying law would independently justify by moral concerns – such could easily laed to a situation, where, say, judge A would justify a behaviour by poststructural “praise” of pleasure, whereas judge B would justify the same behaviour by Islamic understanding.

Could there exist a common understanding of which religion (if religion to be brought into play at all) or which morals or politics to follow in case law is silent or just does not seem right. (Could such be allowed at all, as by such law looses some of its authority.)

If still needed, could a “common frame of reference” be here possible for global governance? Because – according to Aristotle, democracy is only democracy if everyone feels s/he belongs, and no one feels oppressed, excluded or disempowered.

Politics of framing in global Agenda-setting.

Legitimacy is one of the magic words, justifying moral grounds. Hanecke who has interpreted Hegel, talks about psychological need for Recognition, and I would connect that somehow with legitimacy.

Then – can legitimacy take place of normative orders and morals, and if so – who would shape in media and educational processes the common understanding of situations? Who would guide communitarism?

Klabbers and Piiparinen pose such: Who would decide (for common people) what qualifies as legitimate?

The most reasonable way seems to find a reason from history of philosophical thought – and therefore, I would suggest History of Philosophy for the modern society to replace the position, Marxism had before its aims collapsed. Such common theory as one common frame of reference, could demonstrate how politics and law are always contextual and historically situated. There is no such thing as a purely original idea, but development based on previous developments, changing in line with changing contexts.

Not a small problem is that the so-called “Western” philosophical thought could not be understandable (and thus, acceptable) by the rest of the World, which means that if we base international decisions on Western morality solely, we might only be legitimate in the eyes of the Western part of the world.

I ended here, I did not explain, although in the beginning I intended to, why did I head my presentation as “On Alternative(s) to Neoliberal Globalization” instead of “On Alternative(s) to Neoliberal Democracy,” that could have demanded analysis of democracy and offering alternatives to democracy. As I could not think out more other than meritocracy, it was easier for me to talk about globalization instead.

Theory or ideology – as cultural artefact –may well be replaced by some other cultural artefact. This also applies toward neoliberalism. It is difficult to agree upon political action that could be regarded as “best utopian practice.” The question is how to reach an agreement btw. different multicultural actors on some basis of equality that applies toward democratic law-making procedures as sth. similar to Kantian theory of law describing all legal philosophies, while critical interests are only subjective and everyone’s critical interests cannot be the same over all history. I would not dare to say that sth. ontologically new should emerge, but development has entailed certain rules – a new development always builds on previous development.

Questions my presentation received (as far as I am able to de-/reconstruct):

-Is Mouffe arguing for de-antagonistic politics?

-Why did socialist movements emerge? And don’t they emerge anymore as capitalism is still criticized by socialist ideas?

-What is legitimacy?

-Doesn’t legitimacy mean institutional legitimacy? (I explained that L. has different dimensions and levels; in addition, today I started to think that L. probably may mean Hegelian “Recognition,” too.)

Other important questions raised:

The post On Alternative(s) to Neoliberal Globalization appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

This week I’m in Moldova, for a workshop of our TEMPUS project INOTLES. You’ve probably not been to Moldova, but Chisinau is a very pleasant city around which to walk, albeit one in which the local UNDP office looks like one of the more important buildings.

To be here – in a country that has possibly the lowest GDP per capita in Europe and a geographical location that might best be described as exposed – the world looks a lot different from the view afforded to those living in the UK. Which makes it all the more important to reflect on those differences.

Over the past couple of weeks David Cameron has continued to get his proverbial ducks in a row on the EU referendum. That’s meant both more talks with counterparts elsewhere in the EU and an increasingly fraught passage of the referendum bill through Parliament. That Tory backbenchers are not going to let Cameron get away with anything at all is now very evident, their obstinacy only being encouraged by his apparent unwillingness to defend any position for long.

But the issue for the external observer – perhaps in the Moldovan foreign ministry across the road from where I write – is that the entire enterprise of renegotiation and referendum looks ill-timed and ill-conceived.

For Moldova – and for a lot of other places like it – the EU remains a veritable cornucopia of economic opportunity and safety. This is a country that has suffered at the hands of various forms of external rule, colonialism in all but name. The Transnistria conflict remains frozen after 15 years, and the ructions in Ukraine feel too close for comfort. The EU might be a difficult partner, but at least is one that offers an implicit security guarantee and an institutionalised voice at the table.

That might sound like it’s all well and good for Moldova, but so what for the UK?

The argument would be that the UK is just as exposed as Moldova, albeit for very different reasons. The latter can get by through virtue of being small and having (relatively) small objectives. The former has much bigger objectives – to be a consequential player on the world stage – and so it has to play a different game.

Where the UK has continued to struggle is in its view that the EU is an ‘either/or’ proposition: either you put all your eggs in the one basket with other member states, or you have nothing to do with them.

A moment’s regard to France – still pursuing its own foreign policy – or Germany – still accessing export markets – should demonstrate that the Union is actually a ‘also/and’ organisation: membership is an occasion to further bolster one’s objectives. As I’ve argued here before, European integration can be largely understood as a way for states to secure things that they cannot by themselves.

In addition, there has to be a recognition that the fates of individual European states are bound up together: Moldovans will know this better than Brits, but it’s true for both. As the absolute tragedy of Greece is demonstrating, what happens in one part of the continent matters for everywhere else.

This is not to preach some kind of universalism about European integration, that it accommodates everyone, all the time. However, in a globalising and changing world, the song that drifts across the western Steppe sounds particularly mellifluous: we would do well to listen to it harder across the Channel.

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There’s of course nothing wrong with the commemoration of historical battles. Quite the contrary: each time I took students to the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy, they got a better idea of why European integration might actually be a good idea. And most of the four-year-long commemorative flow on World War I is produced, if not always in perfect taste, at least with mostly good intentions.

The bicentenary of Waterloo, however, seems to produce the kind of re-enactment and narrative that leaves a sour aftertaste. The very name of the battle is already too closely linked to the Napoleonic epic, and commemoration almost inevitably drifts into the realm of myth and legend. All over the 19th century literature, music, art and historiography have patiently and steadily built the Napoleonic myth of ‘the Great Man’ – whether despised as megalomaniac tyrant or glorified as hero – and it’s difficult to emancipate from this heavy cultural conditioning.

Waterloo has been the object of works by the most prominent novelists and poets of the 19th century. As early as 1815, some months only after the actual event, William Wordsworth, Clemens Brentano and Casimir Delavigne already had made it the topic of their poetry, Lord Byron followed one year later. In the 1830s and 1840s, Balzac, Stendhal, Grabbe, Chateaubriand, Thackeray and Victor Hugo also gave in to the morbid fascination of a battle that had left a minimum of 47,000 dead on a single day.

Emile Erckmann and Alexandra Chatrian.

The best antidote to any temptation of nostalgic glorification of historical warfare, however, can be found in the very credible account of a fictitious French conscript named Joseph Bertha created by Emile Erckmann (1822–1899) and Alexandre Chatrian (1826–1890) from Alsace-Lorraine. Published in 1864 (and quickly sold in over 1.5 million copies to a mostly rural public), their Waterloo takes the form of a ‘flashback’, in which an old man recollects his memories, emotions and lessons from fifty years ago.

The anti-militarist and anti-nationalist attitudes expressed by the protagonist, who is drawn by force into a war he does neither understand not approve, are a remarkable counterpoint to the zeitgeist of a late 19th century rather characterised by jingoism and revanchism. And the utter realism of his account of battle – clearly based on extensive research by the authors – made even Emile Zola refer with admiration to the authors’ ‘extreme power of description’.

Joseph Bertha as old man. Illustration to the Erckmann-Chatrian novel by Riou (1833-1900).

What is particularly convincing in Joseph Bertha’s narration is the fact that he must admit that as young man he had not been insensitive to ideas of ‘grandeur’ et ‘gloire’, rather easily manipulated by demagogic nationalist brainwash, and even prone to a certain admiration for ‘L’Empereur’. Fifty years later, however, his judgement is unambiguous:

‘I know well that these things are called “glory”, but people would be well advised not to glorify individuals of this kind…’

Erckmann’s and Chatrian’s seemingly ‘naïve’ novel of 1864 is a more than interesting companion through the commemorative frenzy of 2015. It is a stunning account of the reality of war at an age where there were no photographs or amateur videos. And it is a most welcome reminder that ‘greatness’ or ‘glory’ are dangerous and altogether meaningless categories, both for individuals and entire nations. In the Europe of the 21st century they sound hollow and empty, and it’s good to know that they already did for some enlightened Europeans a hundred and fifty years ago.

Albrecht Sonntag, EU-Asia Institute, ESSCA School of Management.

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Yesterday, 15 June, Britain celebrated the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. The text proclaimed some of what we now call “human rights”, related to fair trial and the rule of law. It was meant to be a peace treaty between English barons and a particularly bully monarch, King John. Magna Carta did not really apply at the time, war resumed soon after and most of the text was repealed throughout history. However, yesterday, the birthday was greeted with royal splendour and the Prime Minister said that Magna Carta “changed the world”. Not bad for someone who not long ago didn’t know the literal translation of Magna Carta (it’s “Great Charter”, by the way).

David Cameron is not alone in his enthusiasm. Others have claimed that we still enjoy the rights “won” in 1215. BBC refers to Magna Carta as “the document that heralded modern democracy”. And the rather obsessive-looking historian David Starkey is convinced that the proclamation of property rights in Magna Carta was “the foundation of everything else”, in a way that other countries, like China and Russia, have not experienced to this day; Magna Carta was “unique in Europe” and Americans and continental Europeans learned about civil liberties from it.

I must confess my fascination. As a citizen of Spain, I think democracy and civil liberties only got to my home country during the short republican experience between 1931 and 1936, and more strongly, in the late 1970s after Franco’s death. I now live in England and I am impressed to see that my host country has apparently enjoyed freedom and rights at least for seven more centuries.

I suppose Brits must have learned quite a lot over time. I am eager to hear all the lessons should they care to share.

Yet, leaving that aside for now, something else calls my attention. What do the celebrations mean about Britain and the British idea of human rights?

Politicians, scholars and discussants have managed to reconstruct the Magna Carta as a document deeply rooted in the history and the identity of the nation. (Incidentally, England? Britain? UK? I never know! But, then, I hold a Spanish passport, so who am I to speak about nationality!?) The rights enshrined in that text would be British-born and therefore detached from the surge of the idea of human rights in continental Europe, with civil rights from the Enlightenment and social rights from workers’ movements in the 19th century.

There is something else, though. The narrative suggests that human rights would also be the product of a negotiation between the Crown and an élite, which at the time was represented by aristocracy. This idea claims that human rights would come from a gentlemen’s agreement among equals, or rather, as if equals. Moreover, it assumes that the top stratum accurately represents the wishes and interests of everybody, regardless of their socioeconomic origin.

The message goes approximately like this: We invented human rights in Britain, or at least we invented the idea of human rights that applies in these islands. We have had these rights for centuries. We agreed on them much earlier than anybody else. We won’t tolerate intrusion. And human rights are not supposed to generate conflict among us. We are all together on this, as a nation of free men (and women, but later… ehem).

I am not a historian, but I consider the idea of human rights truly appealing, and therefore I find hard to believe that one country could keep this wonderful discovery from its neighbours for centuries.

However, this rosy story about Magna Carta and its role in British history and identity can serve political purposes pretty well. And so does PM Cameron, who wrote in The Sun just yesterday:

Britain will not be told what to do on human rights by euro judges because we invented them 800 years ago.

It’s also about restoring the reputation of rights.

We should all be proud of what happened 800 years ago. So let’s celebrate today’s anniversary. Let’s put human rights right.

To those who say we can’t, I say of course we can – we’re the country that wrote Magna Carta; that has one of the oldest democracies and most respected legal systems the world over.

Human rights weren’t invented with Labour’s Human Rights Act – they’ve been part of the fabric of our country for decades.

If we are lucky, yesterday’s pompous celebration does not say as much about Britain as it does about Tory manifesto. Now, only if we are super-lucky and we work on it, we will manage to save the Human Rights Act.

(Find out more about why it’s worth fighting for the Act here).

Koldo Casla

@koldo_casla

(Cartoon: Steve Bell in The Guardian)

The post What the celebration of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta tells us about Britain’s idea of human rights appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Nobody should take anything for granted when it comes to Britain’s vote to stay or leave the EU. Many of the mistakes and inaccurate assumptions that have overshadowed recent votes could be repeated with the EU vote and lead to Britain leaving the EU.

A British referendum on its EU membership vote was not something many in the EU (and some in the UK) wanted. A renegotiation and referendum are seen as an unwanted headache for a union with enough already on its plate. An exit would be unprecedented, opening a Pandora’s Box of problems for both sides.

Some pro-Europeans may now seek comfort in analysis that argues that when all is said and done the British won’t actually vote to leave. They’ll be buoyed by some polling data, arguments that Cameron is the best Prime Minister to secure an ‘in’ vote, that British businesses will be behind membership, that UKIP will lead ashambolic and divided ‘out’ campaign and so forth. Given what is at stake it pays to take a more cautious analysis.

Do you believe pollsters anymore?

Polls might point to an uphill struggle for the ‘out’ campaign, but we should all be cautious of taking polls too much for granted after the polling farce of the 2015 UK general election (the most polled vote in UK history). Pollsters also made a bad call over last year’s Scottish independence referendum. They correctly tracked the growth in support for independence, but the final result of 55:45 was much wider than many had thought in the final weeks. Despite the few polls in the closing weeks of the independence referendum, there have only ever been a few that point to Scottish independence. By contrast there have been numerous polls pointing to a vote to leave the EU.

Will Cameron secure a renegotiation?

It’s not clear if Cameron can secure much by way of a renegotiation. Britain’s EU debate is often blind to how the rest of the EU must agree to its demands. The rest of the EU wants to see reform, but survey the member states and you find limited sympathy for a UK that can appear to be blackmailing them. What they will offer is therefore unclear. The crunch area of free movement of people in particular looks set to cause tensions throughout the EU. If Britain’s 1975 renegotiation is anything to go by then Britain will get largely token changes.

Will the British public believe in Cameron’s renegotiation?

Nobody should assume the British people will swallow another token renegotiation. Eurosceptics, the media, academics, perhaps even some supporters of an ‘in’ vote (those uneasy with the nature of the renegotiation) will shine many lights on and through the deal. When in a 2011 referendum the British people rejected AV they did so in large part because the referendum turned into a vote on the popularity of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, but also because they recognised that AV – to quote Nick Clegg himself – was a ‘miserable little compromise’. After the experiences in Scotland, voters are also now likely to see through any last minute commitments in the face of a rising ‘out’ vote.

Is Cameron the best Prime Minister to win a referendum?

Cameron is hailed as the best man to lead the UK through a referendum because he can guarantee a large proportion of the Conservative party and its supporters will follow him in a vote to stay in. Yet he is a prime minister who has played fast and loose with the unity of the UK and the UK’s membership of the EU. He governs with a majority of 12. He led a lacklustre election campaign that seemed to win by accident. He has struggled to hold his party together over Europe, making repeated concessions to Eurosceptics. Finally standing up to them may split his party and lead to a leadership challenge. His concentration could turn to holding his party and premiership together more than holding the UK in the EU. It is unclear whether he will bind ministers through collective cabinet responsibility, or punish those reluctant to back fully any ‘in’ campaign. If his position becomes exposed then expect leadership hopefuls to sense danger in backing him and the ‘in’ vote. Other parties may back off if they sense a danger from tying themselves too closely to the leader of a losing campaign. This was one reason behind Labour leader Ed Miliband’s reluctance to get behind Nick Clegg in the AV referendum.

Will ‘in’ or ‘out’ run the most shambolic campaign?

Both campaigns will struggle to define a clear message and strategy thanks to political differences, personal dislikes and financial problems. The ‘in’ campaign is likely to break-up as soon as the referendum is concluded. UK pro-European campaigns have a record of struggling to exist let alone campaigning effectively. Similar problems beset Scotland’s unionist campaign. There has been much speculation whether the ‘out’ campaign would be better off not relying on UKIP and the one-man show of Nigel Farage. But UKIP can provide some single-party unity that if played right could mirror the SNP’s role as the core of the independence movement. The ‘out’ campaign may struggle to find the grass roots movement that drove Scotland’s independence campaign. That said, UKIP has shown that it can sometimes reach out to disaffected voters by presenting itself as a party apart from the Westminster elite. Like the SNP, the ‘out’ campaign could also be buoyed by the campaign, coming to see any defeat as a tactical as opposed strategic one. UKIP will likely continue to grow, fuelled by factors that are not just about Europe. Left wing Eurosceptic groups, until now largely hidden in the UK, will be given attention thanks to their rejection of what they see as the EU’s imposition of neo-liberal agendas on the whole of Europe.

Who will be better at selling an unknown?

The ‘out’ campaign will struggle to set out a clear agenda for a post-EU Britain. Even UKIP is vague about what relationship it wants the UK to seek. This does not mean the ‘in’ campaign will be in a stronger position. The ‘in’ side will have to await Cameron’s renegotiation deal and not all may back in completely. Some ‘in’ supporters – especially on the left – will be uneasy with any deal that limits such things as workers rights. The ‘in’ campaign may resort to a repeat of ‘Project Fear’, the term applied (especially by their opponents) to the approach taken by unionists in Scotland of arguing about the unknowns and dangers of independence rather than making a positive case for staying. This is in no small part down to the larger unknown of what it is that the EU itself is, ‘ever closer union’ being a vague aspiration.

Who can win hearts and minds?

Scotland’s pro-union campaign relied largely on facts and figures to back the case for remaining in the UK. Its lack of emotional appeal was a key weakness. When it comes to the EU, banging on about trade and jobs can be effective but only gets the pro-EU side so far. Britain’s political debate has long yearned for more than a commitment to the EU. Arguing Britain should accept a reduced place in the world doesn’t work as an optimistic vision to be sold to a people that still embrace a global identity. Ideas of ‘independence’ or ‘freedom’ from Europe might be completely overblown in reality, but they play to deep national desires. Growing English nationalism means using the term ‘Little Englander’ will turn hearts against the ‘in’ campaign. Arguments the EU is a project to create peace won’t work when the Cold War let alone the Second World War are distant memories. Eurosceptics will also appeal to the heart by arguing you can love Europe – embrace a European identity that ranges from food and sport to philosophy and science – while opposing the EU.

Can you bank on the business community for support?

Britons might not be sold on the idea of ‘ever closer union’ but even some Eurosceptics are uneasy at the idea of leaving the Single Market. At the same time, problems in the Eurozone, Europe’s relative decline and emerging markets mean the EU is no longer the economic future it appeared in the 1970s when Britain was the ‘Sick man of Europe’. Britain’s decision not to join the Euro does not appear to have cost it as heavily as some once warned. Business support is therefore no longer as united as it was. Some business backing could actually be harmful to the ‘in’ campaign. The City of London might be vital to the UK’s economy, but it is viewed with a great deal of suspicion. Small and medium sized enterprises, which today make up the majority of the UK economy, do not rely as directly on the links the single market creates. If inward investment is not clearly affected by fears of a Brexit – as has so far been the case – then we should expect people to be sceptical of any economic warnings.

Will the media support an ‘in’ vote?

Just as the business community is no longer as overwhelmingly in favour of UK membership, so too is the UK media. A print media beset by declining sales will continue playing to a Eurosceptic agenda which portrays Europe as a hostile other. Some titles may pinch their noses while they urge their readers to vote to stay in, but some of their columnists will not hold back. Local newspapers, still widely trusted, could be easily overlooked. When it comes to online media, one only has to read the comments sections of most online discussions on EU stories to witness how prolific ‘Cyberkips’ can be. The role of twitter or other online campaigning can be overplayed, but its growing role leaves Eurosceptics with an added edge.

Will the British people be patronised?

But surely the British people will see sense once they wake up to the horrible predictions of what would follow a Brexit – of 3 million jobs gone, of a Britain doomed to be stripped of its UNSC seat, of London sliding into irrelevance and a property slump. There will of course be costs from an exit. But the warnings can be deeply patronising and appear over the top. Pro-Europeanism can be associated with an aloof, metropolitan elite living in a bubble of their own, detached from the reality of the daily struggle of the average British man or woman. No nation’s citizens like being told what to do by other states or an elite who think that only they know best. The British are no exception.

Will the referendum really be about Europe?

All referendums run the risk of becoming votes on something else and the EU vote could be no exception. Talk of holding the vote in 2016 instead of 2017 reflects a desire to get the issue out of the way while Cameron still enjoys something of a honeymoon. Holding such a vote towards the middle of any government’s time in office risks turning the vote into one on the government’s – and in particular, Cameron’s – popularity. But 2016 might not be possible if the Lords delays the referendum bill or the EU refuses to agree any speedy renegotiation. The day chosen may itself affect the result thanks to anything from bad weather through to an unexpected event. Finally, have the political class fully understood what it is that the British people are angry about with regard to the EU? Is the key issue immigration, trade, sovereignty, suspicion of foreigners or anger at the dysfunctional nature of the UK’s political system? UK political parties have often misjudged what has been driving Scottish nationalism. They could do the same over Europe.

Will Scotland be a factor?

The SNP does not want to see Scotland forced to leave the EU by a UK-wide ‘out’ vote. Nevertheless the vote could provide the SNP with the reason to call another independence referendum, should Scotland vote in favour of remaining in the EU while the rest of the UK votes to leave. The SNP will also be uneasy at forming part of a grand-alliance with those UK parties it accuses of neglecting Scotland. The possibility of Scotland splitting from the UK if the UK splits from Europe may not lead some – largely Conservative – politicians to reappraise their opposition to the EU. The connections between Euroscepticism and English nationalism mean that some in England would welcome an England separated from Europe and Scotland.

Will European events sink a British vote?

The EU today is not something that can be sold with much of a positive image. If a Grexit comes about and the EU struggles to cope then any UK ‘in’ campaign may find itself overwhelmed by hostility to staying in what can appear to be a deeply dysfunctional union. Britons might underestimate the extent to which Britain can separate itself from such events, but there could still be a strong desire to reject any close relationship. It may not take any cataclysmic event to influence the vote. Smaller disputes over the budget, controversial new laws or policy, or questionable behaviour in the EU’s institutions and leadership would be jumped on – as they have long been used – by the ‘out’ campaign as evidence of the EU’s inherent flaws.

Who gets to vote?

Recent headlines that ‘immigrants’ would be denied a vote in the referendum (except Commonwealth and Irish immigrants) highlighted tense feelings on both sides of the campaign about the inclusion of EU citizens, seen as highly likely to vote to stay in the EU. The UK is home to several million citizens from other EU state. The potential influence of their vote may not be as big as some might believe. The same might be said of voters who have lived outside the UK for more than 15 years (and are therefore excluded), and 16 and 17 year olds who some would like to be given a vote, as happened in Scotland. But if the vote is a close one then the government may rue the decision to exclude these people. A similar decision to exclude Scots living elsewhere in the UK from voting in Scotland’s independence referendum may have cost the unionist side crucial votes. Excluding these groups has setup a potential fight with both the House of Lords and some other EU member states, potentially delaying the date of any referendum.

Will it settle the issue?

The European question is about more than whether to be or not to be in Europe. Referendums rarely settle issues that are this complex. As with the Scottish referendum it merely provides a temporary way of managing an issue. Had Scotland voted to leave the UK what would have followed would have been decades of bitter debates about implementing separation, the meaning of sovereignty, managing shared responsibilities and coming to terms with changing identities. An EU referendum is unlikely to be any different, especially if the majority is a slim one. Britain could easily face another referendum sooner rather than later.

This article first appeared on E!Sharp. 

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The European Parliament (EP) descended into disarray earlier this week as MEPs failed to speak with one voice about the way negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) are being handled by the European Commission. A key discussion and vote on the controversial trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) had been scheduled for midday Wednesday 10 June but Parliament President Martin Schultz announced late the night before that this would be postponed.

Following months of debate within the EP political groups a common position was due to be adopted but has fallen apart as divisions in the Socialist and Democrat (S&D) party risked the collapse of the consensus. The primary sticking point has been and remains the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism. This would allow individual corporations which have invested in a given country to sue that country’s government for anticipated harm to speculative investment; for instance, if a policy to protect public health by banning alcohol advertising were shown to damage alcohol company profits, the company would be able to claim financial compensation. Notable cases that have been launched under current ISDS mechanisms include Phillip Morris v Australia, where the tobacco giant is contesting the introduction of plain packaging laws, Phillip Morris v Uruguay, where the same corporation is suing for profits lost in light of legislation requiring health warnings on tobacco products, and Achmea v Slovakia, where the company investing in health system privatisation sued the government for its lost profit as a result of renationalisation.

ISDS foresees that cases such as these should be dealt by a private arbitration tribunal, overseen by high-level lawyers agreed by the parties, rather than by a national or international court, without judicial review, circumventing the authority of national and EU legal systems and giving preferential legal treatment to foreign investors. MEPs, civil society and the general public have expressed significant reservations about ISDS but the US and the European Commission continue to insist upon its inclusion.

The draft resolution which was due to be voted on by the EP plenary in Strasbourg this week contained a compromise text in favour of a cosmetically reformed version of ISDS. The S&D group, the second-largest political group in the Parliament, is opposed to the ISDS provision but the final compromise that it reached at committee level supported the inclusion of a ‘reformed’ ISDS. A group of unhappy S&D MEPs joined with colleagues in the Green (Greens/EFA), European United Left (GUE/NGL), European Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) and EPP groups to table a stronger amendment, excluding the ISDS mechanism completely. This split the S&D party line and presented the wavering plenary consensus with a choice between different ISDS positions. On Tuesday night it became apparent that holding the vote would risk rejection of the full resolution and the president took the decision to postpone. Shortly after the announcement the two biggest groups, S&D and EPP, took to Twitter to blame each other for the breakdown.

Within the rest of the EP, support for ISDS hangs in the balance. Politico reported on Wednesday that the EPP, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) had been prepared to veto the whole resolution if the anti-ISDS amendments were included. However, there are sceptical MEPs in most groups and five of the 13 Committees which have offered opinions on the resolution have included provisions to limit or exclude ISDS, including the Legal Affairs (JURI) Committee. To compound the issue, the European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, published a report in January which heavily criticises the Commission’s conduct in the TTIP negotiations, denouncing the lack of transparency and public access to documents, meetings and information about lobbying activity. Public opinion is also overwhelming against inclusion of any form of ISDS. The Commission received over 150,000 responses to its public consultation on ISDS and TTIP in mid-2014, the most ever received for a consultation of this kind, and more than 97% of the contributions rejected ISDS.  Many civil society organisations have criticised the Commission for obscuring the extent of this opposition and ploughing ahead with its commitment to inclusion of the mechanism.

Negotiations between US and Commission officials are ongoing based on the negotiating mandate given by the Member states and continue behind closed doors. In the EP, the file has been sent back to committee level so is now unlikely to be agreed before the next plenary session in July, meaning that it will be September before a plenary vote is held. This adds considerable pressure, since TTIP is high on the agenda for President Obama and his administration are eager to finalise before the US elections in November 2016.

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On 6 March 2015, the Finnish Parliament passed the Finnish Climate Change Act (FCCA), the first of its kind in Finland. Pro-environmental organisations and political parties generally heralded the act as a symbolic success, as it enshrines the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. However, the act has also been described as relatively unambitious[1], given that it focuses mainly on administrative procedures and monitoring and does not require, for example, interim carbon budgets – a specific amount of carbon dioxide equivalent that can be emitted over a 5-year period, a key aspect of the related UK Climate Change Act.[2] The FCCA thus reflects Finland’s role as a follower, rather than leader, on climate change in Europe. But does this ‘backbench approach’ reflect the attitudes of the Finns or merely of their political elite? In this post, we consider to what extent the FCCA is in line with climate policy preferences among the Finnish public. Drawing on nationally representative survey data from the Finnish Climate Barometer 2015[3], we focus on the design of the Act, as well as the public’s preferences for Finland’s role in international climate change politics.

Climate Change in the Finnish Mind

A good starting point to gauge general attitudes towards climate change is how concerned people are about the issue. In the Finnish Climate Barometer survey, 69% of the Finnish population indicated that they were either concerned or very concerned about climate change (Figure 1). This finding squares with a 2014 Eurobarometer survey on climate change where, compared to other European countries, nearly a quarter of the Finnish population ranked climate change as the ‘single most serious problem facing the world as a whole’. A similar survey focusing on climate change attitudes among Finnish businesses found similar results.

Figure 1. Responses to ‘I am concerned about climate change’

This high level of baseline concern about climate change translates into an even higher sense of urgency to address it. 78% of the Finnish population – an overwhelming majority – indicated that addressing climate change was either urgent or very urgent (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Responses to ‘Addressing climate change is urgent’ 

These high levels of concern about climate change and a clear sense of urgency to do something about it generally provide fertile ground for strong climate policy. It is thus not surprising that the previous Finnish Parliament approved the FCCA and that the newly-appointed government’s programme promises active measures to mitigate climate change. But to what extent is the FCCA in line with general policy preferences among the Finnish population? 

Mandatory interim targets?

As we discussed above, the FCCA is mainly procedural and largely symbolic. For example, it clarifies Ministerial responsibilities and specifies regular planning activities for long-term, mid-term and adaptation policy plans, but fails to enshrine clear, stepwise targets to reach its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.[4] However, it has also been pointed out that the Act does provide for more transparency – which could in turn create “political pressure for more effective policy measures if monitoring shows a discrepancy between objectives and performance”.[5] But is this approach in line with general policy preferences in the Finnish population? To this end, one survey question asked people whether they would prefer a carbon budget approach similar to the one used in the United Kingdom, where there are absolute limits on carbon emissions over five-year periods. Results indicate that 65% of Finns would prefer a stronger approach to climate policy similar to that of the UK, while about 15% did not know (Figure 3). Thus, the new legislation falls short of a more ambitious and serious climate approach based around interim targets favoured by most Finns.

Figure 3. Responses to ‘Finland should imitate the UK’

Finland as a climate leader?

How does this desire for greater climate ambition fare when Finns consider what other countries are or should be doing? Figure 4 reports to what extent Finns thought that Finland should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do. Again, a clear nearly two-thirds majority of the Finns surveyed (60%) agreed or strongly agreed that Finland should address climate change regardless of what others are doing. These responses thus indicate Finns wish to see Finland as a leader, rather than a follower. This vision is clearly out of sync with the rather unambitious FCCA and the national energy and climate strategies adopted so far. 

Figure 4. Responses to ‘Finland should mitigate regardless of others’ 

Where next?

A new government has just taken office in Finland and is currently in the process of specifying its policy priorities. So far Finland has been a backbencher on national climate policy, indicated by a willingness to accept EU-level climate targets, but with little ambition to exceed them and take leadership. A weak signal of greater ambition can be detected in the new government’s programme that sets as its target to reach the EU 2020 climate goals by the end of the current legislature in early 2019. The FCCA can support this, but is in itself a very cautious step to develop climate policies. The survey data presented here indicate a strong desire in the general public for Finland to become a real forerunner in addressing climate change. Indeed, vast majorities of the population are concerned about climate change and would prefer their government to take much more decisive, carbon budget-driven steps to address the issue. Future evaluations of Finnish climate policies will show if the relatively unambitious FCCA can support such radical change.

[1] Pölönen, I. (2014). The Finnish Climate Change Act: Architecture, Functions, and Challenges. Climate Law, 4(3-4), 301-326.

[2] Benson, D., & Lorenzoni, I. (2014). Examining the Scope for National Lesson‐drawing on Climate Governance. The Political Quarterly, 85(2), 202-211.

[3] The survey was commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation (Tekes) the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), the independent fund reporting to the Finnish Parliament (Sitra) and an independent think tank Demos Helsinki. TNS Gallup Oy collected a sample of 1005 persons between 15–74 years of age across Finland using Gallup Forum – (Response Panel 5.–14.3.2015). The margin of error is approximately +/- 3 percentage points.

[4] Pölönen, I. (2014). The Finnish Climate Change Act: Architecture, Functions, and Challenges. Climate Law, 4(3-4), 301-326.

[5] p. 314 in Pölönen, I. (2014). The Finnish Climate Change Act: Architecture, Functions, and Challenges. Climate Law, 4(3-4), 301-326.

The post The Finnish Climate Change Act – In Line with What Finland’s Public Wants? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

- This article was originally published with ‘E-International Relations (www.e-ir.info)  on     11 June 2015-

British politics has gone through turbulent times since the public referendum on Scottish independence took place in September 2014. A majority of Scottish voters narrowly backed remaining part of the United Kingdom after the opinion polls in the weeks before the referendum had indicated that the Scottish National Party (SNP) would succeed in its ambition to make Scotland independent from the rest of the UK (Nardelli, 2014). The 55 per cent no vote against Scottish independence was essentially achieved through a concerted effort made by the leaders of the three main Westminster parties. Conservative prime minister David Cameron, Labour leader Ed Miliband and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg signed a vow which was printed in the Scottish daily newspaper Daily Record on September 16th 2014, two days before the referendum took place. In the vow the three leaders publicly committed themselves to devolving ‘permanent and extensive new powers’ to Scotland (Clegg, 2014). Most significantly, the Labour Party in Scotland decided to throw their weight firmly behind the ‘no’ vote, with former prime minister Gordon Brown acting as an outspoken advocate of maintaining the Union in the final days of the campaign. In his firebrand speech for the pro-union ‘better together’ campaign Brown compared Scottish independence with an ‘economic trapdoor’ from which there would be no escape once the decision had been made (Watt, 2014).

Prime minister Cameron swiftly backtracked on the pledges made in the vow. Already in his first statement on the morning after the referendum he emphasised that the devolution of further powers to Scotland should only occur if voting rights of Scottish MPs in the House of Commons on English laws were restricted:

So, just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues of tax, spending and welfare, so too England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, should be able to vote on these issues and all this must take place in tandem with, and at the same pace as, the settlement for Scotland. (Cameron, 2014)

This statement resulted in a surge of SNP support in Scotland which most of all damaged Cameron’s referendum allies, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. Both parties lost all their seats but one to the SNP in the UK general election on May 7th. The SNP landslide and the almost complete collapse of electoral support for pro-union parties in Scotland could indeed be an indication that, as long as Westminster fails to deliver further devolution of powers, public support for independence will grow. Alistair Crighton argues that the long-term goal of the SNP is to hold a second referendum which, in the post-general election absence of strong and credible pro-union voices North of the border, is almost certain to result in a resounding ‘yes’ for independence (Crighton 2015).

The re-election of David Cameron as prime minister with a narrow Conservative majority has made it certain that a referendum on Britain’s EU membership will be either held next year or by 2017. If the majority of voters in England opt for Brexit while a majority of Scots decide to stay in the EU, the SNP is almost certain to demand another independence referendum to be held in Scotland. SNP leader Nichola Sturgeon has warned the British government of a ‘groundswell of anger’ if Scotland was forced to leave the EU on the basis of a UK-wide overall majority. Sturgeon demands that the Brexit should only be possible if  in all four regions of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) a majority is in favour of leaving the EU (BBC News, 2015). Scotland has traditionally displayed a more pro-European attitude than many parts of England, which is reflected in opinion polls on EU membership. The latest major survey on attitudes towards EU membership in the UK, which was conducted by Populus in April this year, shows that 48 per cent of Scots would back staying in the EU. Support in English regions for staying in ranges between 34 and 44 per cent, with the Midlands showing a clear majority for Brexit (Populus, 2015). It is therefore quite possible that the EU referendum may result in a split between an overall majority support for Brexit in England and against in Scotland.

It is obvious why Scotland shows a stronger affiliation with the EU than most English regions. Britain’s reputation as an ‘awkward partner’ in the EU (George, 1998) emerged mainly from the sceptical attitude of the English political class towards the project of institutionalised European integration. For the English eurosceptics, who can be mostly found in the Conservative Party and the English nationalist party UKIP, engagement in the EU’s system of multi-level governance boils down to a constant and difficult battle to defend national sovereignty (Usherwood 2015). In the Westminster-focused and London-based media the perception that the EU’s policies and regulations undermine Britain’s national interest has been promoted for decades. At the same time no British government  has been bold enough to make a sustained and outspoken argument in favour of the economic and political benefits EU membership offers to the UK.­­­ In contrast to the predominantly negative English public debate, people in Scotland seem to be more aware of the political and economic benefits that being part of the EU Single Market has for their region. These range from the export market for the Scottish whisky industry, gas and oil production (Springford, 2015) towards benefits for Scotland’s business, society and the country’s infrastructure provided by the financial support under the EU’s Structural Fund Programmes. Scotland continues to receive substantial financial support under the EU’s Social Fund and Regional Development Programmes (Scottish Government 2014).

Like in the case of the Irish Republic, Scotland seems to perceive EU membership as an indispensable tool to maintain economic and ultimately also political independence from England. For the Irish Republic joining the European Community in 1973 was an important symbolic political step to re-emphasise their political independence from the UK (Fitzgerald and Girvin, 2000, p. 273). Ultimately the significant financial support from the EU Ireland received since its accession in 1973 provided the platform for the development of its investment-friendly Celtic Tiger Economy in the 1990s. EU funds helped Irish governments to keep corporation tax on the lowest level in the whole of the EU and to invest in the infrastructure of business parks across the country (FitzGerald, 2004, p. 72). These attracted major North American high-tech companies in the computing sector as well as in the pharmaceutical industry. Major companies such as Dell, Google, Facebook, Bayer, Glaxo SmithKline and Roche positioned their European headquarters in the Irish Republic.

Former SNP leader Alex Salmond hence not only controversially compared Scotland’s pro-independence movement to the ‘Irish freedom struggle’ (Peterkin 2015). Salmond also argued that an independent Scotland in the EU could replicate the pre-financial crisis economic dynamism of the Celtic Tiger by creating a ‘Celtic Lion’. In his speech at Harvard University in 2008 Salmon argued that as a small nation Scotland, like the Irish Republic, could achieve economic success by offering investors a flexible environment that is built on a strong political consensus on the country’s national interest and overall economic strategy. The crucial factor for this success would however be membership of the EU:

Where this occurs within the framework of a European Union and single market place of 600 million people, it creates the ideal environment within which small nations can take the most of their comparative advantage. (Salmond, 2008)

Scotland can of course not assume that it would automatically remain in the EU if another independence referendum was held in the aftermath of a Brexit decision. Former EU Commission president Barroso warned the Scottish government in 2014 that it would be ‘extremely difficult’ for an independent Scotland to join the EU (BBC News 2014). Barroso’s intervention was nevertheless widely considered as an attempt to strengthen the pro-union camp in the September 2014 referendum rather than a statement of legal facts. In their assessment of the road to EU membership for an independent Scotland, constitutional experts Stephen Tierney and Katie Boyle from the Centre on Constitutional Change in Edinburgh point out that an independent Scotland would have to apply to join the EU. Accession of a independent Scottish state would ultimately depend on the unanimous agreement of all existing EU members (Centre on Constitutional Change 2014). The concerns raised in the report about potential hostility of the UK and other EU member state towards an the accession of an independent Scotland’s appeared in the context of the circumstances of the 2014 referendum. If Scotland held another independence referendum after the UK referendum had opted for Brexit, the situation would be entirely different. The departing rump United Kingdom, consisting of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, would certainly no longer have the ability to veto Scottish accession to the EU. Moreover, it can be expected that the remaining 27 EU member states will show a positive attitude towards gaining Scotland as the new 28th member state. Rejecting Scotland would not only be against the EU’s general spirit of national self-determination and devolution of power which it has been promoting under the subsidiary principle since the 1993 Maastricht Treaty. Most obviously the collective EU Council is unlikely to reject the application of a small country which has been part of the internal market since 1973 and could help to partly fill the economic gap that will be opened up by Brexit (Keating 2015, p.  204).

Brexit within the next two years, followed by another Scottish independence referendum is not an inevitability. The British public may overall turn out to be pragmatic about EU membership and decide to vote in support of continuing membership. This outcome is of course more likely if David Cameron manages to achieve the substantial renegotiation of British membership terms and possibly even wider institutional reform through the revision of the Lisbon Treaty. The latter is, however, unlikely to be achievable within the short timeframe of the next two years. It is therefore more realistic to assume that Cameron will return from Brussels with a half-baked compromise deal on the freedom of movement and further safeguards for the UK to be sucked into the deepening of political integration in the eurozone. The hard-line eurosceptics in the Conservative Party, UKIP and in large parts of the UK’s foreign owned tabloid press are unlikely to be satisfied with such a deal. Cameron will therefore encounter great difficulties to sell a weak negotiation result to both his party and the British public, even more so because he will be a lone voice amongst what has become a rather deserted pro-European camp. In the absence of charismatic pro-European voices, such as Robin Cook, Mo Mowlam, Charlie Kennedy but also David Miliband, who continues to remain in the political exile in the US, the pro-EU camp will struggle to make its voice heard against a barrack of eurosceptic voices. If British pro-Europeans fail on this historic occasion to make the convincing case for staying inside the EU the days of the United Kingdom as we know it may indeed be over for good.

References

BBC News (2014) ‘Scottish independence: Barroso says joining EU would be “difficult”‘, 16 February.

BBC News (2015) ‘Nicola Sturgeon warns of EU exit “backlash”’, 2 June.

Cameron, D. (2014) Scottish Independence Referendum: statement by the Prime Minister, 19 September.

Centre on Constitutional Change (2014) ‘An Independent Scotland: The Road to Membership of the European Union’, 20 August.

Clegg, D. (2014) ‘David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg sign joint historic promise which guarantees more devolved powers for Scotland and protection of NHS if we vote no’, Daily Record, 15 September.

Crighton, A. (2015) ‘The UK is now a failed state: Why the SNP’s unprecedented landslide victory means an end to Union’, Aljazeera, 11 May.

Fitzgerald, R. and Girvin, B. (2000). ‘Political Culture, Growth and the Condition for sucess in the Irish Economy’, in Nolan, B., O’Connell, P.J. and Whelan, C.T. (eds), Bust to Boom? The Irish Experience of Growth and Inequality, Dublin, Institute of Public Administration: 268-285.

Fitzgerald, G. (2004), ‘The Economics of EU Membership’, in Hourihane, J. (ed), Ireland and the European Union: The First Thirty Years, 1973-2002, Dublin: Liliput Press: 67-80.

George, S. (1998) An awkward partner: Britain in the European Community. Oxford, University Press.

Keating, M. (2015) ‘The European Dimension to Scottish Constitutional Change’, The Political Quarterly, 86 (2), April-June: 201-208.

Nardelli, A. (2014) ‘Were Scottish independence opinion polls misleading?’, The Guardian, 19 September.

Peterkin, T. (2015) ‘Scottish independence referendum: Salmond claims links to Irish freedom struggle‘,The Scotsman, 4 June.

Populus (2015) ‘EU Exit, Party Leaders, and the Budget Deficit’, April.

Salmond, A. (2008) Free to Prosper: Creating Celtic Lion economy, Speech at Harvard University, 31 March.

Scottish Government (2014) European Structural Funds: Approved Operational Programmes 2014-2020.

Springford, J. (2015). ‘Disunited Kingdom. Why “Brexit” endangers Britain’s poorer regions’. London, Centre for European Reform, April.

Usherwood, S. (2015), ‘Britain and Europe: A Model of Permanent Crisis’, in: Demetriou, K.N. (ed), The European Union in Crisis: Explorations in Representation and Democratic Legitimacy, Heidelberg, Springer: 3-14.

Watt, N. (2014). ‘Gordon Brown makes passionate appeal to Labour voters in final no rally’.

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