Strategies of Flexible Integration and Enlargement of the European Union: a Club-theoretical and Constitutional Economics Perspective

Our paper proceeds as follows: As a point of departure, part two highlights the heterogeneity among EU member states following the recent enlargement, while part three reviews three main alternative conceptions of flexible integration as they were discussed in political circles. Part four applies Buchanan's and Tullock's Calculus of Consent (1962) to the tension between deepening and widening the EU. Part five introduces basic elements of the economic theory of clubs, analyzes the notion of the EU as a club and examines flexible integration in a club-theoretical framework. Part six considers several alternative integration models in view of the conclusions of both club theory and constitutional economics, while part seven focuses more specifically on a club-of-clubs approach that we tend to favour as an ideal-type model for a European Union of the future. Part eight evaluates the relative weaknesses and strengths of flexible integration according to the club-of-clubs approach and part nine advocates some further institutional recommendations before part ten concludes. --

Verfügbarkeit von Handelsfinanzierung : Herausforderung für Global Economic Governance

Titel: På spaning efter friskfaktorer! En kvalitativ studie om hur arbetsrelaterad hälsa upplevs och vilka friskfaktorer som gör att man mår bra på arbetet. Syfte: Studiens syfteär att beskriva hur arbetsrelaterad hälsa upplevs samt att identifiera vilka friskfaktorer som anses vara nödvändiga för att vidmakthålla hälsa. Metod: Studien är enempirisk studie med kvalitativ ansats. Kvalitativa intervjuer har genomförts med fyra informanter. Tolkning och analys har gjorts utifrån kvalitativinnehållsanalys enligt Graneheim och Lundman. Resultat: Resultatet består av sju huvudteman och tre subteman, som bildats av de kategorier och koder som förelåg. Huvudteman somframkom var; Hälsa, Friskfaktorer, Medvetenhet,Livskamrat, Ohälsa, Arbetsrelaterad ohälsa och Medvetet handlande. Temat Friskfaktorbestod av tre subteman, vilka var; Individnivå,Gruppnivå och Organisatorisk nivå. Istudiens empiriska resultat framträder även domänerna hälsorelaterad och ohälsorelaterad. Slutsatser: Slutsatser som kan dras av denna studieär att hälsa upplevs som en balans mellan olika delar, såsom fysiska, psykiska,sociala aspekter samt arbete, familj och privatliv. Dessa delar eller dimensioner av hälsan hänger samman och påverkar varandra. Trots att arbetet är mycket krävande och påfrestande så trivs informanterna på sitt arbete och tycker att det är roligt och utvecklande, de känner sig engagerade och delaktiga vilket bidrar till att de upplever hälsa (arbetsrelaterad hälsa). Ett flertal friskfaktorer går att identifiera och de friskfaktorer som finns på individnivå tycks vara av mycket stor betydelse, även om de på gruppnivå och organisatorisk nivå också inverkar på den arbetsrelaterade hälsan. Friskfaktorerna på individnivå är betydelsefulla för att kunna nyttja de friskfaktorer som finns på gruppnivå och organisatorisk nivå. De individuella friskfaktorernaär tydligt synliga hos individen i både privata sammanhang och i arbetssammanhang, medan friskfaktorerna på gruppnivå och organisatorisk nivå endast är relaterade till arbetet och arbetssituationen

The Trade Regime Complex and Megaregionals – An Exploration from the Perspective of International Domination

Megaregional trade negotiations have become the subject of heated debate, above all in the context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In this article, I argue that the justice of the global order suffers from its institutional fragmentation into regime complexes. From a republican perspective, which aspires to non-domination as a guiding principles and idea of global justice, regime complexes raise specific and important challenges in that they open the door to specific forms of domination. I thereby challenge a more optimistic outlook in regime complexes, which paints a positive normative picture of regime complexes, arguing that they enable the enhancement of democracy beyond the state and, consequently, have the potential to reduce the democratic deficit in global governance. By drawing attention to how regime complexes reinforce domination-related injustice, this article contributes an original perspective on megaregionals and to exploring the implications of global justice as non-domination

The Trade Regime Complex and Megaregionals – An Exploration from the Perspective of International Domination

Megaregional trade negotiations have become the subject of heated debate, above all in the context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In this article, I argue that the justice of the global order suffers from its institutional fragmentation into regime complexes. From a republican perspective, which aspires to non-domination as a guiding principles and idea of global justice, regime complexes raise specific and important challenges in that they open the door to specific forms of domination. I thereby challenge a more optimistic outlook in regime complexes, which paints a positive normative picture of regime complexes, arguing that they enable the enhancement of democracy beyond the state and, consequently, have the potential to reduce the democratic deficit in global governance. By drawing attention to how regime complexes reinforce domination-related injustice, this article contributes an original perspective on megaregionals and to exploring the implications of global justice as non-domination

Environmental provisions in trade agreements : defending regulatory space or pursuing offensive interests?

The increasing uptake of environmental provisions in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) is well documented, but little is known about why countries prefer certain types of provisions over others. Exploiting a fine-grained dataset on environmental provisions in PTAs, we hypothesize that environmental provisions are more likely to be adopted when they aim at preserving countries’ regulatory sovereignty. We find that the likelihood of adoption is indeed higher for defensive provisions, but this likelihood decreases if there is a large variation in PTA members’ stringency of environmental regulations, and in particular, for PTAs with asymmetric power relationships. While countries first and foremost attempt to preserve their regulatory sovereignty when adopting environmental provisions, countries with stringent environmental regulations and strong bargaining power vis-à-vis their trading partners also try to level the playing field and pursue more offensive interests

Kick‐starting diffusion : explaining the varying frequency of preferential trade agreements’ environmental provisions by their initial conditions

Most recent preferential trade agreements (PTAs) include environmental provisions. While a number of these environmental provisions remain rare and are incorporated in just a few PTAs, others are widely popular and are duplicated in more than 100 PTAs. We still lack a convincing explanation for this varying frequency. While the diffusion literature typically tries to explain how diffusion occurs, we investigate why certain provisions diffuse more often than others. We hypothesise that the initial conditions under which provisions first emerge determine the scope of their diffusion. Our results support this hypothesis and indicate that provisions originating from intercontinental agreements diffuse more often than others. At the same time, provisions first designed by economically powerful or environmentally credible countries are not related to more frequent occurrences of diffusion. These findings are of interest for the literatures on international institutions' design, interaction and diffusion

X chromosome inactivation does not necessarily determine the severity of the phenotype in Rett syndrome patients

Rett syndrome; X chromosome inactivation; MECP2 geneSíndrome de Rett; Inactivación del cromosoma X; Gen MECP2Síndrome de Rett; Inactivació del cromosoma X; Gen MECP2Rett syndrome (RTT) is a severe neurological disorder usually caused by mutations in the MECP2 gene. Since the MECP2 gene is located on the X chromosome, X chromosome inactivation (XCI) could play a role in the wide range of phenotypic variation of RTT patients; however, classical methylation-based protocols to evaluate XCI could not determine whether the preferentially inactivated X chromosome carried the mutant or the wild-type allele. Therefore, we developed an allele-specific methylation-based assay to evaluate methylation at the loci of several recurrent MECP2 mutations. We analyzed the XCI patterns in the blood of 174 RTT patients, but we did not find a clear correlation between XCI and the clinical presentation. We also compared XCI in blood and brain cortex samples of two patients and found differences between XCI patterns in these tissues. However, RTT mainly being a neurological disease complicates the establishment of a correlation between the XCI in blood and the clinical presentation of the patients. Furthermore, we analyzed MECP2 transcript levels and found differences from the expected levels according to XCI. Many factors other than XCI could affect the RTT phenotype, which in combination could influence the clinical presentation of RTT patients to a greater extent than slight variations in the XCI pattern.The work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Health (Instituto de Salud Carlos III/FEDER, PI15/01159); Crowdfunding program PRECIPITA, from the Spanish Ministry of Health (Fundacion Espanola para la Ciencia y la Tecnologia); the Catalan Association for Rett Syndrome; Fondobiorett and Mi Princesa Rett