The treaty of Amsterdam and the codencision procedure.

This paper presents spatial models of the European Union's codecision procedure, and studies whether the Treaty of Amsterdam significantly alters the procedure. The theory characterizes sets of successful proposals, i.e., sets of policies the Commission can successfully propose, sets of successful joint texts, i.e., sets of policies the Council and the Parliament can successfully propose, and equilibrium EU policies. It analyses the implications of the Treaty for the Equilibrium EU policies and the sets of successful proposals and joint texts. The paper finds that the Treaty eliminates the Commission's power under the codecision procedure and threatens to increase indecision. It also concludes that the Parliament's power may decrease as a result of the changes.Model; Models; Proposal; Equilibrium; Implications;

Information and the legislative process in the European Union.

This paper presents spatial models of policy making in the European Union and focuses on informational asymmetries and interest group lobbying. It determines optimal lobbying strategies under the EU's three principal legislative procedures: the consultation, cooperation and codecision procedures. Lobbying is modeled as a game of strategic information transmission as in Austin-Smith (1993). The paper studies agenda, amendment and vote stage lobbying. At the agenda stage an interest group can lobby the Commission. At the amendment and vote stages it can lobby the Council and the Parliament. The paper finds that at the amendment stage an interest group lobbies the institution whose preferences are closer to its own. It lobbies the institution whose preferences are further from its own at the vote stage.Processes;

Logrolling in the European Union.

This paper presents spatial models of Commission appointment, policy making and logrolling in the EU. The theory characterizes sets of successful Commission proposals, i.e., proposals that can become EU policy, and sets of effective Commissions, i.e. Commissions that can be appointed and can successfully propose their own ideal policies. It also studies whether the Commission appointment and policy making processes allow for logrolling, and characterizes sets of sustainable logrolls, i.e. logrolls that can become EU policy during the policy making process. It concludes that the Commission facilitates logrolling in the EU.Classification; European Union; Logrolling; Model; Models; Policy making;

Spatial models of logrolling in the European Union.

This paper presents spatial models of logrolling in the EU. It analyzes the Commission appointment, logrolling and policy making processes under the EU's principal legislative procedures: the consultation, cooperation and co-decision procedures. The theory characterizes equilibrium EU policies and sets of successful policies, i.e., sets of policies that can become EU policy during the logrolling and policy making processes. It determines countries' optimal nomination strategies and countries and legislators' optimal voting strategies during the Commission appointment process. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D72.Model; Models; Processes; Cooperation; Theory; Equilibrium;

Aggregate party identification in Germany: the effects of consumer confidence and government approval.

Partisanship has been the object of extensive scholarly attention. Because individual partisanship seemed relatively stable and insensitive to short term forces, aggregate partisanship was long thought to display no meaningful variation. This view was challenged by MacKuen et al. (1989), who found that aggregate partisanship in the United States is a¤ected by consumer con…dence and presidential approval. This paper studies aggregate party identi…cation in Germany, and how it has evolved in the past thirty years. Speci…cally, we analyze the impact of consumer con…dence and government approval on party identi…cation. We conclude that rises in consumer con…dence and government approval do indeed lead to increases in identi…cation with the main governing parties.

Controlling attention to nociceptive stimuli with working memory

Background: Because pain often signals the occurrence of potential tissue damage, a nociceptive stimulus has the capacity to involuntarily capture attention and take priority over other sensory inputs. Whether distraction by nociception actually occurs may depend upon the cognitive characteristics of the ongoing activities. The present study tested the role of working memory in controlling the attentional capture by nociception. Methodology and Principal Findings: Participants performed visual discrimination and matching tasks in which visual targets were shortly preceded by a tactile distracter. The two tasks were chosen because of the different effects the involvement of working memory produces on performance, in order to dissociate the specific role of working memory in the control of attention from the effect of general resource demands. Occasionally (i.e. 17% of the trials), tactile distracters were replaced by a novel nociceptive stimulus in order to distract participants from the visual tasks. Indeed, in the control conditions (no working memory), reaction times to visual targets were increased when the target was preceded by a novel nociceptive distracter as compared to the target preceded by a frequent tactile distracter, suggesting attentional capture by the novel nociceptive stimulus. However, when the task required an active rehearsal of the visual target in working memory, the novel nociceptive stimulus no longer induced a lengthening of reaction times to visual targets, indicating a reduction of the distraction produced by the novel nociceptive stimulus. This effect was independent of the overall task demands. Conclusion and Significance: Loading working memory with pain-unrelated information may reduce the ability of nociceptive input to involuntarily capture attention, and shields cognitive processing from nociceptive distraction. An efficient control of attention over pain is best guaranteed by the ability to maintain active goal priorities during achievement of cognitive activities and to keep pain-related information out of task settings

The treaty of Lisbon and European Union trade policy: A political-economic analysis.

This paper presents a game-theoretical analysis of European Union (EU) trade policy and the Lisbon Treaty’s impact on it. Specifically, it develops spatial models of the EU’s international trade negotiations process, and analyzes the European Parliament’s increased involvement in it as a result of the introduction of the Parliamentary consent requirement for international trade agreements. We find that the Council’s right to set a negotiating mandate in trade negotiations is equivalent to an amendment right, and that the Commission’s right to propose a negotiating mandate to the Council is comparable to a monopoly proposal right in the negotiation process with the trade partner. We further conclude that the Parliament’s enhanced role limits the Commission’s ability to set policy and conclude negotiations. Even though it represents a domestic constraint for the Commission, the Parliament’s involvement does not reinforce the Commission’s bargaining position in international negotiations. The Commission can use the negotiating mandate to improve its bargaining position instead.