Why Let the People Decide? Elected Officials on Participatory Budgeting

This report documents findings from interviews with U.S. elected officials regarding their experience with participatory budgeting (PB). It also includes recommendations for policymakers, PB advocates and funders looking to improve and expand PB

The Hunt for Science Diplomacy: Practice and Perceptions in the Horizon 2020 Scientific Community. EL-CSID Working Paper Issue 2018/18 • June 2018

There are many illustrations from recent history of what we now call science diplomacy; for example, where nations have advanced scientific collaboration to build relationships and smooth hostilities in the period post World War II. However, compared to other fields such as cultural diplomacy, academics and policy makers have only recently begun to investigate and develop frameworks and tools for ‘science diplomacy’. We are still in the process of testing the limits of the concept, which can most readily be explained as actions that exist at the interface of scientific practice and foreign policy. Science is often considered alongside culture as a tool of soft power (Nye, 1990) but there are several critical differences between the two fields and they should not be given a false equivalence as a diplomatic tool. Cultural practice and knowledge are by their very nature fundamentally linked to a particular nation or group; it can be shared without diminution in value and is very difficult to lose. Science knowledge and practices on the other hand, can be transferred, sold or stolen, and used for the economic benefit or advancement of others. Intellectual property has independent economic value and must be protected; its loss can diminish competitiveness, influence and lead to conflict between states (as we see in contemporary US, China relations). Its application leads to tradeable technology and goods and hard economic advantage. Taking liberties with Nye’s (1990) classic terminology, if cultural diplomacy is the runny egg of soft power, then scientific diplomacy is much harder boiled

The European Commission as a Constraint on its own Antitrust Policy

Although the legal and the political-scientific literatures on European competition policy (‘ECP’) are vast, there is no work that goes beyond the rationalization of stylized historical and/or legal facts. This approach may be justified on grounds of the political complexity of ECP and/or the heterogeneity of units of analysis. Nevertheless, the failure to come up with a positive device that identifies conditions under which specific policy decisions may or may not be possible has limited our assessments of the policy to value judgments rather than to true explanations. This paper attempts to remedy this situation by offering a logically complete and internally consistent model of ECP decision-making procedures. I show how the dependence of the European antitrust regulator (DG COMP) on a heterogeneous, multi-task and collegial organization (the Commission) severely constrains the feasible policy options of the former, and I argue that the nature and the goals of ECP are a function of (a) the ability of DG COMP to rely on national authorities, and (b) the distance between the ideal policy points of, on the one hand, the pivotal Directorate General in the Commission and, on the other hand, DG COMP and its internal opponents. Empirical work should follow

Engaging Civil Society in the Nagorno Karabakh Conflict: What Role for the EU and its Neighbourhood Policy?

The conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, opposing Armenia and Azerbaijan, is the longest conflict in the OSCE area and a fundamental security threat to the South Caucasus and surrounding regions, preventing full and inclusive economic development and constraining regional relations. This chapter takes the ENP as a conflict transformation tool and looks at how the EU has used this initiative to reach civil society organisations (CSOs) and improve their performance as peace-builders in this protracted conflict. Building on the theoretical framework presented by Tocci (2008), the chapter assesses EU involvement in the civil society domain, mapping the types of organisations privileged by the EU and the potential impact of their activities on the conflict. It puts forward relevant arguments regarding the suitability of the EU’s goals and instruments to the dynamics on the ground and concludes with a categorisation of the EU’s approach according to three hypotheses: The Liberal Peace, the Leftist Critique and the Realist hypothesis. It is argues that work with civil society is a crucial part of the EU’s approach, despite the difficulties of making such engagement a central part of its peace-building and conflict transformation activities.

Public Procurement: How open is the European Union to US firms and beyond? CEPS Policy Insights No 2020-04 / March 2020

A recent report on public procurement published by the United States Government Accounting Office (GAO) attempted to provide a range of estimates for the EU and the US, among others, and argued that the EU awarded a low share of public procurement contracts to US firms ($300 million) compared to a much higher value of US public procurement ($3 billion) awarded to EU firms (GAO 2019). However, the methodological approach used by GAO was partial and misrepresented the level of EU openness, as it only looked only at the ‘tip of the procurement iceberg’ and missed out other main avenues for international government procurement. Once these other two main procurement modes are taken into account, EU openness in procurement is much higher, vis-a-vis both for US and third countries. Overall, the EU has awarded over €50 billion worth of public contracts to foreign firms, out of which €11 billion to US firms. Comparable data across all modalities do not yet exist for the US, but we do have clear evidence that, since 2009, the US has introduced the largest number of protectionist procurement measures severely affecting international procurement

Future directions for scientific advice in Europe

Across Europe, scientific evidence and advice is in great demand, to inform policies and decision making on issues such as climate change, new technologies and environmental regulation. But the diversity of political cultures and attitudes to expertise in different European countries can make the task of designing EU-wide advisory institutions and processes both sensitive and complex. In January 2015, President Juncker asked Commissioner Moedas to report on options for improving scientific advice within the European Commission. At a time when these issues are higher than usual on the political agenda, it is important that the case for scientific advice and evidence-informed policy is articulated and analysed afresh. To support these efforts, this collection brings together agenda-setting essays by policymakers, practitioners, scientists and scholars from across Europe. Authors include Anne Glover, Ulrike Felt, Robert Madelin, Andy Stirling, Vladimír Šucha and Jos van der Meer. Their contributions outline various challenges but also constructive ways forward for scientific advice in Europe