The illusion of choice: the European Union and the trade-labour linkage

Why has the European Union refrained from pushing for economic sanctions in the promotion of labor standards? In this paper we argue that a cost-effectiveness approach is not fully capable to grasp this decision. The effectiveness of the different instruments the EU has at its disposal are constrained by the internal and external context where decisions on labor-standards have been taken. The internal context suggests that what we observe is the emanation of the ‘lowest common denominator’ on which a consensus could be found, i.e. the normative underpinnings on which all member states can agree. Alternatively, the EU’s decisions are shaped by the perceptions that negotiating partners hold on the motivations behind such decisions. In this paper, we focus mostly on the discussions held at the multilateral level

No Grice: Computers that Lie, Deceive and Conceal

In the future our daily life interactions with other people, with computers, robots and smart environments will be recorded and interpreted by computers or embedded intelligence in environments, furniture, robots, displays, and wearables. These sensors record our activities, our behavior, and our interactions. Fusion of such information and reasoning about such information makes it possible, using computational models of human behavior and activities, to provide context- and person-aware interpretations of human behavior and activities, including determination of attitudes, moods, and emotions. Sensors include cameras, microphones, eye trackers, position and proximity sensors, tactile or smell sensors, et cetera. Sensors can be embedded in an environment, but they can also move around, for example, if they are part of a mobile social robot or if they are part of devices we carry around or are embedded in our clothes or body. \ud \ud Our daily life behavior and daily life interactions are recorded and interpreted. How can we use such environments and how can such environments use us? Do we always want to cooperate with these environments; do these environments always want to cooperate with us? In this paper we argue that there are many reasons that users or rather human partners of these environments do want to keep information about their intentions and their emotions hidden from these smart environments. On the other hand, their artificial interaction partner may have similar reasons to not give away all information they have or to treat their human partner as an opponent rather than someone that has to be supported by smart technology.\ud \ud This will be elaborated in this paper. We will survey examples of human-computer interactions where there is not necessarily a goal to be explicit about intentions and feelings. In subsequent sections we will look at (1) the computer as a conversational partner, (2) the computer as a butler or diary companion, (3) the computer as a teacher or a trainer, acting in a virtual training environment (a serious game), (4) sports applications (that are not necessarily different from serious game or education environments), and games and entertainment applications

Is democracy promotion effective in Moldova? The impact of European institutions on development of civil and political rights in Moldova

The main focus of this study is an analysis of the impact on civil and political rights of democracy promotion strategies applied by the three European organizations in Moldova in the 1990s-early 2000s. Nowadays democracy promotion is at the top of the agenda of policy-makers around the globe. The results of these democracy promotion activities are quite mixed: some of them seem to work in certain cases, others to have no effect whatsoever. There is also a lack of consensus regarding the effectiveness of various democracy promotion strategies in the scholarly literature. This study aims to contribute to the existing literature by expanding the analysis to a new case (Moldova), focusing on one sector (civil and political rights) and comparing the effects of the two types of democracy promotion strategies (incentive-based and socialization-based). The study argues that domestic actors in Moldova tended to respond more to incentive-based democracy promotion strategies than to socialization-based ones, and it also shows through qualitative analysis and process-tracing of the data that the absence of membership conditionality does not necessarily presuppose the failure of incentive-based methods

From Barcelona Process to Neighbourhood Policy: Assessments and Open Issues. CEPS Working Documents No. 220, 1 March 2005

The Barcelona process so far has been a valuable systemic/institutional advance in Euro-Med relations and a confidence-building measure on a large scale. But it has not been a sufficient driving force to have created a momentum of economic, political and social advance in the partner states. It is therefore quite plausible that the EU should seek some new advance – through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) – to build on the positive features of Barcelona and so try to introduce some new driving force. The Action Plans currently being adopted seek to make the often vague intentions of the Association Agreements of the Barcelona process more operational by linking them to either domestic policy programmes of the partner state or to EU policy norms and standards as an external anchor. In this paper we first crystallise alternative approaches for the ENP to become a real driving force under the headings of ‘conditionality’ and ‘socialisation’. The conditionality concept would mean that the EU sets out i) what incentives it offers, and ii) the conditions on which these incentives would be delivered. The socialisation concept relies essentially on a learning process that comes from the extensive interaction between actors in the partner states and the EU, which induces the partner states to engage in policy reforms that are to a degree modelled on EU norms or derive some inspiration from them. For the EU to become a driving force for reform in the region also requires that it does not have to face an uphill struggle against negative tendencies, for example in the widening and deepening of radical Islam – and here the issue of coherence in the approaches of the EU and US together is paramount

Applying Value Creation Framework to Offer Public Transport Improvement

Public Transportation in urban areas is expected to be main choice for people's mobility. The aim of this research is apply value creation framework based on S-D Logic and Trans Jogja from Yogyakarta and Värmlandstrafik AB Sweden are the case study. This research use direct observation and interview to the related person/ company as the primary data, and to support them use group discussion with the users. This research also use secondary data from some journals, reports, documentations, etc. From the analysis and discussion Värmlandstrafik AB is address the value creation service and opportunity more than Trans Jogja. From conclusion, the need of applying value creation framework in Trans Jogja is to offer public transport improvement as has been illustrated by Trans Jogja. Although the achievement of value creation opportunities are not as high as that achieved by Värmlandstrafik AB, but Trans Jogja should learn about what needs should be improved

The University-Commune

In this new book we return to the challenge of deepening the task to the point of imagining the university formed by commoner university students. It is a turn, a new place from which to name and reconsider community management and action from a sense of co-responsibility for the commons that we must guarantee so that the common project prevails and achieves long-term self-sustainability.This is what the seven articles in this book are about, which calls into question what it means for the university to be and act according to economic principles and logics (giving, receiving, undertaking), social (distribution of roles and benefits) and policies (agreements, consensus, participation and assignment of responsibilities) of the commune. The institutional dimension is important but the vitality, the sense of belonging and the profound strength of the Salesian university project depend much more on the commons logic. Feeling of the commons is not a possibility among many others. We are convinced that, in order to take on this project, it is necessary to transcend institutional, business logic and state regulations. Therefore, the university-commune is the way and, perhaps, the only one possible. University and Common Goods Research Group Universidad Politécnica Salesian

Asian Regional Institutions and the Possibilities for Socializing the Behavior of States

Departing from the traditional yardsticks for measuring the performance and effectiveness of regional institutions, this paper proposes a new framework to investigate their effect in the socialization (i.e. internalization of group norms by newcomers) of new members. Called Type III internalization, it represents a middle ground between Type I (i.e. member states simply acting according to group expectations, even if they may not agree with them), and Type II (i.e. states transforming themselves by adopting the interests and identities of the group) internalization. In Type III internalization, states act both instrumentally and normatively. While their interests and values do not change permanently, there is enough change to induce substantially new kinds of cooperative behavior, in trade and security. Type III internalization is non-legalistic and consensual, moving at a pace in which everyone is comfortable, but there is no danger of backtracking. New members moderate their competitive instincts and pursue common objectives. The impact of institutional norms such as “open regionalism” and “cooperative security” transmitted through institutions such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the ASEAN Regional Forum on Viet Nam, India, and the People's Republic of China attests to the existence of a Type III internalization.Asia; regional institutions; Asian regional institutions; constructivism; socialization; institution-design; multilateralism

Geostrategies of the European neighbourhood policy

The debate about the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has, in essence, been about borders and bordering. Such departures could contribute — and often do so — to a rather fixed geopolitical vision of what the EU is about and how it aims to run and to organize the broader European space. However, this article aims to retain space for viewing the ENP as a developmental and somewhat fluid process. A conceptual framework, based on outlining three geopolitical models and a series of different geopolitical strategies employed by the EU in regard to its borders, is hence employed in order to be able to tell a more dynamic story regarding the developing nature of the ENP and the EU's evolving nature more generally. The complexity traced informs us that various geostrategies may be held at the same time at the external border. Moreover, the dominance of one geostrategy may be replaced by another or a different combination of them with regard to the same neighbourhood. It is, more generally, argued that if anything it is precisely this dynamism that should be championed as a valuable resource, avoiding the tendency to close off options through the reification of particular visions of the nature of the EU and its borders