Constitutionalising an Overlapping Consensus: The ECJ and the Emergence of a Coordinate Constitutional Order

The European Court of Justice\u27s (ECJ\u27s) jurisprudence of fundamental rights in cases such as Schmidberger and Omega extends the court\u27s jurisdiction in ways that compete with that of Member States in matters of visceral concern. And just as the Member States require a guarantee that the ECJ respect fundamental rights rooted in national tradition, so the ECJ insists that international organisations respect rights constitutive of the EU. The demand of such guarantees reproduces between the ECJ and the international order the kinds of conflicting jurisdictional claims that have shadowed the relation between the ECJ and the courts of the Member States. This article argues that the clash of jurisdiction is being resolved by the formation of a novel order of coordinate constitutionalism in which Member States, the ECJ, the European Court of Human Rights and other international tribunals or organisations agree to defer to one another\u27s decisions, provided those decisions respect mutually agreed essentials. This coordinate order extends constitutionalism beyond its home territory in the nation state through a jurisprudence of mutual monitoring and peer review that carefully builds on national constitutional traditions, but does not create a new, encompassing sovereign entity. The doctrinal instruments by which the plural constitutional orders are, in this way, profoundly linked without being integrated are variants of the familiar Solange principles of the German Constitutional Court, by which each legal order accepts the decisions of the others, even if another decision would have been more consistent with the national constitution tradition, ‘so long as’ those decisions do not systematically violate its own understanding of constitutional essentials. The article presents the coordinate constitutional order being created by this broad application of the Solange doctrine as an instance, and practical development, of what Rawls called an overlapping consensus: agreement on fundamental commitments of principle – those essentials which each order requires the others to respect – does not rest on mutual agreement on any single, comprehensive moral doctrine embracing ideas of human dignity, individuality or the like. It is precisely because the actors of each order acknowledge these persistent differences, and their continuing influence on the interpretation of shared commitments in particular conflicts, that they reserve the right to interpret essential principles, within broad and shared limits, and accord this right to others. The embrace of variants of the Solange principles by many coordinate courts, in obligating each to monitor the others\u27 respect for essentials, creates an institutional mechanism for articulating and adjusting the practical meaning of the overlapping consensus

Causal superseding

When agents violate norms, they are typically judged to be more of a cause of resulting outcomes. In this paper, we suggest that norm violations also affect the causality attributed to other agents, a phenomenon we refer to as ‘‘causal superseding.’’ We propose and test a counterfactual reasoning model of this phenomenon in four experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 provide an initial demonstration of the causal superseding effect and distinguish it from previously studied effects. Experiment 3 shows that this causal superseding effect is dependent on a particular event structure, following a prediction of our counterfactual model. Experiment 4 demonstrates that causal superseding can occur with violations of non-moral norms. We propose a model of the superseding effect based on the idea of counterfactual sufficiency

Learning in the European Union: Theoretical Lenses and Meta-Theory

notes: This paper is based on research carried out with the support of the European Research Council grant on Analysis of Learning in Regulatory Governance, ALREG http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/ceg/research/ALREG/index.php. The authors wish to express their gratitude to the other authors in this special edition and in particular its editor, Nikos Zaharaidis and X anonymous referees.publication-status: AcceptedThe European Union may well be a learning organization, yet there is still confusion about the nature of learning, its causal structure and the normative implications. In this article we select four perspectives that address complexity, governance, the agency-structure nexus, and how learning occurs or may be blocked by institutional features. They are transactional theory, purposeful opportunism, experimental governance, and the joint decision trap. We use the four cases to investigate how history and disciplinary traditions inform theory; the core causal arguments about learning; the normative implications of the analysis; the types of learning that are theoretically predicted; the meta-theoretical aspects and the lessons for better theories of the policy process and political scientists more generally

SMAD1/5 signaling in the early equine placenta regulates trophoblast differentiation and chorionic gonadotropin secretion.

TGFβ superfamily proteins, acting via SMAD (Sma- and Mad-related protein)2/3 pathways, regulate placental function; however, the role of SMAD1/5/8 pathway in the placenta is unknown. This study investigated the functional role of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)4 signaling through SMAD1/5 in terminal differentiation of primary chorionic gonadotropin (CG)-secreting trophoblast. Primary equine trophoblast cells or placental tissues were isolated from day 27-34 equine conceptuses. Detected by microarray, RT-PCR, and quantitative RT-PCR, equine chorionic girdle trophoblast showed increased gene expression of receptors that bind BMP4. BMP4 mRNA expression was 20- to 60-fold higher in placental tissues adjacent to the chorionic girdle compared with chorionic girdle itself, suggesting BMP4 acts primarily in a paracrine manner on the chorionic girdle. Stimulation of chorionic girdle-trophoblast cells with BMP4 resulted in a dose-dependent and developmental stage-dependent increase in total number and proportion of terminally differentiated binucleate cells. Furthermore, BMP4 treatment induced non-CG-secreting day 31 chorionic girdle trophoblast cells to secrete CG, confirming a specific functional response to BMP4 stimulation. Inhibition of SMAD2/3 signaling combined with BMP4 treatment further enhanced differentiation of trophoblast cells. Phospho-SMAD1/5, but not phospho-SMAD2, expression as determined by Western blotting was tightly regulated during chorionic girdle trophoblast differentiation in vivo, with peak expression of phospho-SMAD1/5 in vivo noted at day 31 corresponding to maximal differentiation response of trophoblast in vitro. Collectively, these experiments demonstrate the involvement of BMP4-dependent pathways in the regulation of equine trophoblast differentiation in vivo and primary trophoblast differentiation in vitro via activation of SMAD1/5 pathway, a previously unreported mechanism of TGFβ signaling in the mammalian placenta

Systematizing Policy Learning: From Monolith to Dimensions

notes: The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Norwegian Political Science Association Annual Conference, 6 January 2010, University of Agder, Kristiansand, participants of the ‘Establishing Causality in Policy Learning’ panel at the American Political Science Association (APSA) annual meeting,2–5 September 2010,Washington DC, and the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) Joint Sessions, St Gallen, 12–17 April 2011, workshop 2. Dunlop and Radaelli gratefully acknowledge the support of the European Research Council, grant on Analysis of Learning in Regulatory Governance, ALREG, http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/ceg/research/ALREG/index.php.publication-status: AcceptedThe definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com and also from DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00982.xThe field of policy learning is characterised by concept stretching and lack of systematic findings. To systematize them, we combine the classic Sartorian approach to classification with the more recent insights on explanatory typologies. At the outset, we classify per genus et differentiam – distinguishing between the genus and the different species within it. By drawing on the technique of explanatory typologies to introduce a basic model of policy learning, we identify four major genera in the literature. We then generate variation within each cell by using rigorous concepts drawn from adult education research. Specifically, we conceptualize learning as control over the contents and goals of knowledge. By looking at learning through the lenses of knowledge utilization, we show that the basic model can be expanded to reveal sixteen different species. These types are all conceptually possible, but are not all empirically established in the literature. Up until now the scope conditions and connections among types have not been clarified. Our reconstruction of the field sheds light on mechanisms and relations associated with alternatives operationalizations of learning and the role of actors in the process of knowledge construction and utilization. By providing a comprehensive typology, we mitigate concept stretching problems and aim to lay the foundations for the systematic comparison across and within cases of policy learning.European Research Council, grant no 230267 on Analysis of Learning in Regulatory Governance, ALREG