Northern dimension: participant strategies

This article is devoted to the 'Northern Dimension' initiative of the EU which also includes North-West Russia, Norway and Iceland. It is noted that the 'Northern Dimension' in the theoretical perspective can be considered as part of strategic multi-level interactions between member-states of the EU and Russia. On this basis, the authors analyze implications and effects of the strategic interdepend-ence of all the EU-Russia relation levels

Political Competition in Federations

The focus of this work is the centrality of federal bargaining in the competitive political processes of democratic federations and of the necessity for fashioning institutions to channel and regulate that bargaining so that it is not disruptive of 'normal' policy-making. Chapter 1 introduces the argument and points out the insufficiency of the purely public goods provision approach to understanding federal political processes. The key distinction we make in the way federal bargaining can be institutionalized is between the systems that allow bilateral interactions between the center and the unit representatives, versus those where unit representatives must develop some degree of consensus on a proposal before presenting it to the center. Chapter 2 tests a hypothesis that a party's current place in the (institutionalized) federal bargaining process affects voters' electoral choice and modifies the incentives that political entrepreneurs and political parties face. In application to Canada, which allows bilateral interactions between unit 'representatives' (provincial Prime-Ministers) and the federal 'center', and Germany, where implementation of federal policies is effectively delegated to the sub-national level, we look for evidence of electoral balancing by comparing electoral returns in federal and sub-national elections. We show that electoral dynamics are, indeed, consistent with the hypothesis that voters balance between federal and provincial (federal and Lander) elections in these two federations. When representatives of federal subjects are limited to joint action, as when they communicate with the center by means of passing ready pieces of legislation that can be either signed or not by the nationally elected executive, the long-term implications of their representational weights in the bargaining process can be assessed. In chapter 3, using the data on allocation of federal grants in the US, we assess the proposition that outcomes of federal bargaining reflect bargaining weights of the participants. More specifically, we show that relatively small US states, being better represented in the Senate, systematically benefit in the process of federal grant distribution. The fourth chapter addresses the political process in a federation Russia with a still evolving bargaining system and, where the issue of federal bargaining is the focus of national political discourse. We are able to support the hypothesis that federal level policies affect local electoral behavior, as well as do the outcomes of bilateral discourse between federal subjects and the 'center'.</p

Party Fragmentation and Presidential Elections in Post-Communist Democracies

Theory: Despite its controversial status as a stable governmental form, many of today’s societies attempting to make the transition to democracy have or will, for a variety of reasons, choose presidentialism. Meanwhile, the evidence suggests that the combination of presidentialism and multipartism is especially dangerous for democratic stability (Mainwaring 1994). The question this essay addresses, though, is whether presidential elections themselves serve to encourage a fragmented party system, at least in the initial stages of democratization. Hypothesis: In transitional political systems presidential elections encourage party fragmentation, but in a way different from that of highly proportional purely parliamentary mechanisms. Specifically, parties proliferate to support the presidential aspirations of political elites. Methods: Multivariate regression analysis on cross-sectional aggregate electoral data, supported by extensive outliers diagnostics and assessments of the role of country-specific effects. A nested model is used to discriminate among the secondary hypotheses. Controls include: parliamentary election rules (district magnitude, threshold for representation, adjustment districts, ballot structure), relative timing of presidential and parliamentary elections, and basic societal cleavage structure. Results: Using as our data source the recent experiences of Central Europe and the European part of the former Soviet Union, we show that presidential elections consistently significantly increase party fragmentation. At the same time, the data are consistent with the hypothesis that presidentialism does encourage the overall consolidation in party systems through voters’ abandonment of some parties, akin to Duverger’s ‘psychological effect'

International Organizations and the Quality of Domestic Governance: the Multiple Principals Problem

Previous research generally ignores the costs of international cooperation. Using the principal-agent framework, we draw attention to the agency loss that occurs domestically when multiple international actors simultaneously influence national policy makers. We contribute to the literature by emphasizing the potentially negative consequences of competition between international organizations and citizens for influence over domestic politicians. Drawing upon previous theoretical and empirical work on the multiple principals-common-agent problem, we hypothesize that the joint influence of a country’s memberships in multiple international governmental organizations (IGOs) generates consistent, unintended, disruptive effects on governance. The empirical part of the paper applies our theoretical expectations to indicators of the quality of domestic governance. The results support our argument and show that the disruptive effect is strongest in less democratic countries

SEISMIC STABILITY OF THE MOORING WALL ACCORDING TO THE RESULTS OF NUMERICAL SIMULATION

Introduction. New building codes provide for a significant increase in the magnitude of seismic loads that should be perceived by hydraulic structures. In this regard, even in areas with low seismic activity, there may be a problem of ensuring the seismic stability of hydraulic structures. This is particularly acute in berthing facilities. As a rule, they are not so massive to withstand seismic loads. The issue of seismic stability of berthing facilities has not yet been properly considered. The results of numerical simulation of the seismic stability of the mooring-dividing wall during a 7-point earthquake are considered. A structure about 24 m high located on a non-rock base was investigated. Materials and methods. The seismic stability of the mooring structure was estimated by calculating its stress-strain state under the action of seismic forces. Calculations were carried out by the finite element method. Seismic loads on the structure were determined in two ways — by linear-spectral theory and by dynamic theory. For the calculation of seismic loads, 30 lower frequencies and the natural mode of the structure were determined together with an array of its base. When calculating according to the dynamic theory, the seismic effect was specified in the form of an accelerogram adopted for similar conditions. The direction of seismic impact was assumed horizontal. Results. According to the dynamic theory, seismic loads turned out to be lower than according to linear-spectral theory. However, the results of the calculation of the stress-strain state of the mooring structure were close. It was found that the seismic forces on the mooring wall will reach about a quarter of the weight of the structure. Under the influence of such forces, the mooring wall will lose its stability. Conclusions. To ensure seismic stability, it is recommended to combine the mooring wall and the base plate into a single monolithic structure, as well as to strengthen the lower part of the structure and facilitate the upper one

Deformed Heisenberg algebra with reflection

A universality of deformed Heisenberg algebra involving the reflection operator is revealed. It is shown that in addition to the well-known infinite-dimensional representations related to parabosons, the algebra has also finite-dimensional representations of the parafermionic nature. We demonstrate that finite-dimensional representations are representations of deformed parafermionic algebra with internal Z_2-grading structure. On the other hand, any finite- or infinite-dimensional representation of the algebra supply us with irreducible representation of osp(1|2) superalgebra. We show that the normalized form of deformed Heisenberg algebra with reflection has the structure of guon algebra related to the generalized statistics.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, to appear in Nucl. Phys.