Theorizing Regionalism: Cooperation, Integration, and Governance

Introduction: The end of the Cold War saw a surge in regionalism. While the number of preferential trading agreements (PTA) exploded (Mansfield and Pevehouse 2013), long-standing regional organizations, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), experienced the delegation of more political authority and policy competencies in the past two decades (Börzel 2013). These two trends of more and deeper regionalism, respectively, are often attributed to processes of diffusion or interdependent decision-making. Regional cooperation and integration spread across time and space once the constraints of geopolitics had ceased to exist (Risse in this volume)

Mapping Governance Transfer by 12 Regional Organizations: A Global Script in Regional Colors

Introduction: Studies on governance transfer by regional organizations (ROs) are on the rise. The extant literature has mainly focused on democracy and human rights (for an overview see Pevehouse forthcoming; McMahon and Baker 2006). Meanwhile, the promotion of other governance standards, such as the rule of law and the fight against corruption, have received far less attention (but see Jakobi 2013a; Zürn et al. 2012) and a systematic comparison of the general patterns of governance transfer by ROs across time, space, and issue areas is still missing

Why Being Democratic is Just Not Enough: The EU’s Governance Transfer

The European Union (EU) is a promoter and protector of ‘good governance’ par excellence. The Europeanization of its member states and attempts at external governance transfer towards third countries have earned the EU the name of a ‘transformative’ or ‘normative’ power (cf. Börzel and Risse 2009; Manners 2006). Yet, in comparison with other regional organizations, the EU has focused on the transformation of domestic governance institutions beyond rather than within its borders. Only recently, has the EU begun to develop policies and instruments that explicitly aim at protecting the very norms and values within its own member states that it has sought to transfer to accession candidates, neighbourhood countries and third states. Not only has the emergence of a comprehensive policy for internal governance transfer lagged behind the establishment of the EU’s external policy by ten years. It is also much weaker than the EU’s rhetoric and its practice of external governance transfer would suggest. This is all the more puzzling since problems with democratic pluralism, the independence of the judiciary, or minority rights, in both old and new member states, question the extent to which the EU has been effective in promoting and protecting governance standards internally. In order to explain the late and rather weak engagement of the EU in internal governance transfer, we argue that the demand only arose with the prospect of the EU’s Eastern enlargement. As a ‘club of democracies’, the EU did not see the need for internal governance transfer for the longest time. Alternative mechanisms, provided internally by infringement 255 proceedings and other instruments at the disposal of the European Commission and externally by the Council of Europe (CoE), were sufficient to protect the ‘community of values’ of the EU in its early years. It was the impending accession of a large number of new and potentially unstable democracies that created the initial demand for formal provisions to protect standards of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in the EU. In particular, member states adopted Article 7 of the Amsterdam Treaty to lock in domestic changes in post-communist countries after their accession to the EU and thereby created specific post-accession instruments. In addition, the diffusion of governance transfer by regional organizations in the 1990s provided a supply for modelling the EU’s democracy clause and for finally adopting its own Fundamental Rights Charter. Yet, the EU’s provisions for internal governance transfer are much weaker compared to other regional organizations, reflecting the old member states’ unwillingness to grant the EU powers to interfere with issues at the core of their political sovereignty. The second part of the chapter will outline the puzzle of the EU’s delayed and weak internal governance transfer. Since the late 1990s, the EU has institutionalized a number of provisions for protecting democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and good governance in member states. However, lacking systematic monitoring and enforcement mechanisms beyond the ‘nuclear option’ or Article 7 and the protection of fundamental rights in the implementation of EU law by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), they seem to be symbolic rather than effective instruments. The third part explains the delayed establishment and weak institutional design of the EU’s internal governance transfer by the functional demand for locking in democratic changes in the new members and the normative concern for the EU’s international legitimacy as a normative power, on the one hand, and the reluctance of old member states to have the EU interfere with their sovereignty over issues of democracy and human rights, on the other. Moreover, regional integration by law has provided the EU with alternative policies and instruments to protect its fundamental values in the member states

High pressure die casting of Fe-based metallic glass

Soft ferromagnetic Fe-based bulk metallic glass key-shaped specimens with a maximum and minimum width of 25.4 and 5 mm, respectively, were successfully produced using a high pressure die casting (HPDC) method, The influence of die material, alloy temperature and flow rate on the microstructure, thermal stability and soft ferromagnetic properties has been studied. The results suggest that a steel die in which the molten metal flows at low rate and high temperature can be used to produce completely glassy samples. This can be attributed to the laminar filling of the mold and to a lower heat transfer coefficient, which avoids the skin effect in the steel mold. In addition, magnetic measurements reveal that the amorphous structure of the material is maintained throughout the key-shaped samples. Although it is difficult to control the flow and cooling rate of the molten metal in the corners of the key due to different cross sections, this can be overcome by proper tool geometry. The present results confirm that HPDC is a suitable method for the casting of Fe-based bulk glassy alloys even with complex geometries for a broad range of applications

Instances and connectors : issues for a second generation process language

This work is supported by UK EPSRC grants GR/L34433 and GR/L32699Over the past decade a variety of process languages have been defined, used and evaluated. It is now possible to consider second generation languages based on this experience. Rather than develop a second generation wish list this position paper explores two issues: instances and connectors. Instances relate to the relationship between a process model as a description and the, possibly multiple, enacting instances which are created from it. Connectors refers to the issue of concurrency control and achieving a higher level of abstraction in how parts of a model interact. We believe that these issues are key to developing systems which can effectively support business processes, and that they have not received sufficient attention within the process modelling community. Through exploring these issues we also illustrate our approach to designing a second generation process language.Postprin

Underperforming policy networks : the biopesticides network in the United Kingdom

Loosely integrated and incomplete policy networks have been neglected in the literature. They are important to consider in terms of understanding network underperformance. The effective delivery and formulation of policy requires networks that are not incomplete or underperforming. The biopesticides policy network in the United Kingdom is considered and its components identified with an emphasis on the lack of integration of retailers and environmental groups. The nature of the network constrains the actions of its agents and frustrates the achievement of policy goals. A study of this relatively immature policy network also allows for a focus on network formation. The state, via an external central government department, has been a key factor in the development of the network. Therefore, it is important to incorporate such factors more systematically into understandings of network formation. Feedback efforts from policy have increased interactions between productionist actors but the sphere of consumption remains insufficiently articulated