Adaptation, discretion, and the application of EU animal welfare legislation

The dissertation examines the application of EU farm animal welfare legislation in 27 member states. It develops a theoretical framework that applies insights from the transposition literature to the post-transposition phase of implementation and derives hypotheses to explain cross-national variation in implementation success. The hypotheses are centered on the notion that the pressure to adapt to EU requirements makes post-transposition application difficult. Countering adaptation pressure, the presence of discretion, whereby member states have some flexibility to adapt requirements to their national circumstances, helps to alleviate the difficulties brought on by adaptation pressure. Additional hypotheses are derived from the transposition literature concerning the geographic and organizational decentralization of implementation authority and the length of transposition delay prior to application. The hypotheses are tested through a mixed methods design that combines a set of case studies and a quantitative analysis of the implementation of all major requirements applied in 27 member states in the legislation within this policy area. Support is found for the adaptation pressure and discretion hypotheses, while limited support is found for the hypotheses concerning the decentralization of implementation authorityThe politics and administration of institutional chang

Cultural capital and the density of organised interests lobbying the European Parliament

Drawing on a new dataset the article investigates a case study of the population of interest representatives lobbying the European Parliament. It examines the role of economic and cultural resources to account for the representation of organised interests from different EU member states. It adds to the existing literature on the density of organised interests by showing that in addition to economic resources, cultural capital plays a significant role in stimulating the activity of organised interests. Whether countries have a high number of organised interests in the parliament’s interest group community depends on both whether they are economically prosperous and how large a share of their citizens participate in associational life. In addition, the findings demonstrate how the ranking of countries in the population of organised interests lobbying the parliament depends on the benchmark used to measure density.NWO461-10-519The politics and administration of institutional chang

Shapes, contact angles, and line tensions of droplets on cylinders

Using an interface displacement model we calculate the shapes of nanometer-size liquid droplets on homogeneous cylindrical surfaces. We determine effective contact angles and line tensions, the latter defined as excess free energies per unit length associated with the two contact lines at the ends of the droplet. The dependences of these quantities on the cylinder radius and on the volume of the droplets are analyzed.Comment: 26 pages, RevTeX, 10 Figure

Ministerial influence on the machinery of government: insights on the Inside

The structure and organisation of the machinery of government is key to theambitions of political coalitions. When portfolio allocation and agencificationare a function of political choice, political volatility should also affect internalstructure of government administrations. This study tests the effects of politicalturnover of individual ministers and of the political ideology of coalitionson a dataset of intra-ministerial changes in Dutch ministries between 1980and 2014. Findings indicate that the turnover of political heads of departmentsand the shifts in policy preferences between successive coalitionsindeed affects the internal structure of ministerial departments. Political variableshave a strong impact, particularly changes in the left–right position ofthe government. A clear pattern for how precisely politics affect the structuraldesign of public organisations remains absent, in spite of the robustness ofthe findings. Most ministries experience significant effect of executive turnover,sometimes increasing the hazards of intra-organisational transitions andsometimes increasing stability. It turns out that ministers can substantially rearrangetheir organisations in line with their policy preferences but do notnecessarily do so. Sometimes the effect of liberal ideology dominates, sometimesthe effect of the policy preferences with respect to a specificdomain prevails.NWOORASecurity and Global AffairsThe politics and administration of institutional chang

Organizational Demography

The politics and administration of institutional chang

Government capacity, societal trust or party preferences: what accounts for the variety of national policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe?

European states responded to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 with a variety of public policy measures. In this article we ask what can account for this variation in policy responses, and we identify a number of factors related to institutions, general governance and specific health-sector related capacities, societal trust, government type, and party preferences as possible determinants. Using multivariate regression and survival analysis, we model the speed with which school closures and national lockdowns were imposed. The models suggest a number of significant and often counterintuitive relationships: more centralized countries with lower government effectiveness, freedom and societal trust, but with separate ministries of health and health ministers with medical background acted faster and more decisively. High perceived capacity might have provided false confidence to the governments, resulting in a delayed response to the early stages of the pandemic. Furthermore, more right-wing and authoritarian governments responded faster.The politics and administration of institutional chang

Entre la vie et la mort: le changement organisationnel dans les bureaucraties de l’État central dans une perspective comparative transnationale

Identifier et expliquer les changements dans la structure des bureaucraties de l’État central et les déterminants de la survie des organisations publiques individuelles sont deux domaines de recherche étroitement liés dans l’administration publique. Nous cherchons à combler le fossé entre ces deux principaux courants d’études du changement organisationnel en présentant une nouvelle approche de la collecte de données sur l’historique des événements pour les organisations publiques. Nous avons développé ce cadre dans le cadre du projet « Structure et organisation des gouvernements », qui vise à cartographier l’ensemble des bureaucraties de l’État central dans trois pays d’Europe occidentale. Notre approche est suffisamment flexible pour décrire les macro-tendances des populations d’organisations du secteur public et pour expliquer ces tendances en analysant l’histoire des événements des organisations qu’elles comprennent. En plus de présenter notre cadre et la manière dont nous l’avons appliqué pour créer cet ensemble de données, nous présentons également quelques premières comparaisons transnationales de la répartition des types d’événements enregistrés, et soulignons les premiers résultats et les pistes prometteuses pour des recherches ultérieures.NWOORA 464-13-113The politics and administration of institutional changeSecurity and Global Affair

Effects of low-dose oral micronised progesterone on sleep, psychological distress, and breast development in transgender individuals undergoing feminising hormone therapy: a prospective controlled study

Objective: The role of micronised progesterone in hormone regimens for transgender individuals undergoing feminising hormone therapy remains uncertain. We aimed to determine the effect of oral micronised progesterone on sleep quality, psychological distress, and breast development in transgender individuals undergoing feminising hormone therapy. Design: Prospective case–control study. Twenty-three transgender individuals on stable oestradiol treatment newly commencing 100 mg oral progesterone (n = 23) and controls continuing standard care (n = 19) were assessed over 3 months. Methods: Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Kessler psychological distress scale (K10), and Tanner stage to assess breast development were assessed at 0 and 3 months. Nonparametric analysis of covariance was used to compare difference s between groups. Results: Compared with controls over 3 months, there was no difference i n PSQI (P = 0.35), K10 (P = 0.64), or Tanner stage (P = 0.42). There was no significant difference in the proportion of individuals with clinically significant improvement in PSQI (25% vs 22%, P = 0.84). One individual had a significant deterioration in psychological distress that improved following the cessation of progesterone. Conclusions: Low-dose progesterone was not associated with changes in sleep quality, psychological distress, or breast development over 3 months follow-up, though there was significant inter-individual variability. Larger, placebo-controlled trials are required to further evaluate different doses of progesterone in feminising hormone therapy regimens.Brendan J Nolan, Aviva S Frydman, Shalem Y Leemaqz, Meg Carroll, Mathis Grossmann, Jeffrey D Zajac and Ada S Cheun

Predictions from Quantum Cosmology

The world view suggested by quantum cosmology is that inflating universes with all possible values of the fundamental constants are spontaneously created out of nothing. I explore the consequences of the assumption that we are a `typical' civilization living in this metauniverse. The conclusions include inflation with an extremely flat potential and low thermalization temperature, structure formation by topological defects, and an appreciable cosmological constant.Comment: (revised version), 15 page

Modified f(G) gravity models with curvature-matter coupling

A modified f(G) gravity model with coupling between matter and geometry is proposed, which is described by the product of the Lagrange density of the matter and an arbitrary function of the Gauss-Bonnet term. The field equations and the equations of motion corresponding to this model show the non-conservation of the energy-momentum tensor, the presence of an extra-force acting on test particles and the non-geodesic motion. Moreover, the energy conditions and the stability criterion at de Sitter point in the modified f(G) gravity models with curvature-matter coupling are derived, which can degenerate to the well-known energy conditions in general relativity. Furthermore, in order to get some insight on the meaning of these energy conditions, we apply them to the specific models of f(G) gravity and the corresponding constraints on the models are given. In addition, the conditions and the candidate for late-time cosmic accelerated expansion in the modified f(G) gravity are studied by means of conditions of power-law expansion and the equation of state of matter less than -1/ 3 .Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure