Political Legitimacy and Crisis Management in the Economic and Monetary Union - A Model of Democratic Governance

UID/FIL/00183/2013The euro and sovereign debt crisis is both a conflict of political and economic interests and a conflict of interpretations. Two narratives struggle for hegemony in the European ideological imaginary. Each calls for a different mode of crisis management, and each represents a different vision of the single currency, European economic and monetary policy, and European integration as a whole. Each presents different theses on the origins and causes of the crisis, as well as its solution. As important as it is to know which narrative provides a correct interpretation of the crisis in macroeconomic and monetary terms, both remain insufficient when it comes to solving the political and ethical conundrum facing Eurozone governance and the management of the sovereign debt crisis. In fact, both paradigms mirror the economic and political interests and legitimate ethical expectations from the standpoint of which their proponents approach European integration. To understand these expectations, it is therefore necessary to enquire into the conditions of fairness that might allow for legitimate crisis management. The paper attempts to do so while also presenting a model of democratic governance for the EMU.publishersversionpublishe

Political legitimacy and the European crisis: analysis of a faltering project

UID/FIL/00183/2013The European Union is facing multiple crises: the euro and sovereign debt crisis puts into question its economic and social cohesion as well as the rules of coexistence within the Economic and Monetary Union; the refugee crisis brought to the fore a high degree of disagreement among member states as to the duties of mutual solidarity and assistance; Brexit highlighted the need to continuously justify EU membership (Britain being the most evident, but not at all the only case in which public opinion sees membership with deep scepticism), and to address the social and economic roots of dissatisfaction with the EU – inasmuch as EU-internal, economically motivated migration has been one of the key issues of the ‘leave’ campaign; the security crisis put into question the Schengen agreement and the mutual trust between member states in security issues. The political conundrum currently challenging the EU calls for reflection on what went wrong with the process of European integration in the first place. The essay offers a possible diagnosis and traces a number of scenarios for the future development of the European Union.publishe

Die Vernunft der Kommunikation und das Problem einer diskursiven Ethik

Das Werk von Jürgen Habermas kann in Übereinstimmung mit dem Selbstverständnis des Autors als Versuch gedeutet werden, trotz der vielfältigen, im Laufe des XX. Jahrhunderts von vielen Seiten her erklingenden Vernunftkritik an universalen Rationalitätsgrundlagen festzuhalten. Der Weg, den Habermas dabei eingeschlagen hat, führt die Philosophie durch die Forschungsbereiche mehrerer Disziplinen und weist ihr die Rolle eines Platzhalters zu – eines Platzhalters, der Kooperation fördern und die Vereinigung unterschiedlicher Kompetenzen unter Bewahrung eines Bezugs aufs Ganze herbeiführen soll. Ziel ist es, zu zeigen, wie in der kommunikativen Alltagspraxis ein Vernunftpotential angelegt ist, das die gesuchte Einheit begründet und gegen Zerstückelung absichert. Habermas’ Weg durch die Kommunikationstheorie gipfelt in einer Vernunftkonzeption, die sich der Verknüpfung von universellen Grundlagen und lebensweltlichen Konkretionen fähig zeigen will. Vernunft sei nicht außerhalb wirklicher Kommunikationsvorgänge zu suchen und weise dennoch über deren historische, kulturelle oder systemische Grenzen hinaus. Mit diesem Schritt geht die kommunikationstheoretische Ergründung von Rationalität in Ethik über und zielt nun auf die Bestimmung der normativen Grundlagen der Kommunikation. Diese Entwicklung nachzuvollziehen ist der Zweck der vorliegenden Arbeit. Kritische Einwände betreffen zunächst die Chance, die Spannung zwischen universellen, ethisch relevanten Grundlagen der Kommunikation einerseits und historisch kontingenten Kommunikationskontexten andererseits überhaupt formalpragmatisch auszutragen, ferner Habermas’ kommunikationstheoretisch abgestützte Vernunftkonzeption in ihren einzelnen Momenten. Die Kritik erstreckt sich insbesondere auf die Konstruktion einer idealen Sprechsituation sowie der diskursethischen Grundnorm, und mündet letztlich im Anschluß an Wittgenstein in abschließende Betrachtungen über die Problematik des Sinnverstehens in lebensweltlichen Kontexten

o futuro das reformas da governança económica da União Europeia

UID/FIL/00183/2013Notoriously, the fiscal architecture of the common currency was flawed in several respects from the very start. Less well known are the flaws in the political architecture of the Economic and Monetary Union. This is characterised by a system of incentives that thwarts all efforts towards an overall macro-economic stabilisation of the Eurozone. There are two possible solutions to this problem: one is the political union, to be brought about by means of an additional transfer of eco-nomic and fiscal sovereignty and a corresponding mechanism of political legitimacy, or different fiscal rules within the current structure of political governance. The essay expounds upon these two options while taking into account the European Commission’s most recent reform proposals. It furthermore assesses the hurdles that the latter will have to overcome against the background of the preferences of the most influential Member States.publishersversionpublishe

Development of a Cooperative Localization System using a UWB Network and BLE Technology

This paper presents the development of a system able to estimate the 2D relative position of nodes in a wireless network, based on distance measurements between the nodes. The system uses ultra wide band ranging technology and the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol to acquire data. Furthermore, a nonlinear least squares problem is formulated and solved numerically for estimating the relative positions of the nodes. The localization performance of the system is validated by experimental tests, demonstrating the capability of measuring the relative position of a network comprised of 4 nodes with an accuracy of the order of 3 cm and an update rate of 10 Hz. This shows the feasibility of applying the proposed system for multi-robot cooperative localization and formation control scenarios.Comment: 6 pages, 12 figures, 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Measurements & Networking (M&N

o caso do Mecanismo Europeu de Estabilidade

UIDB/00183/2020 UIDP/00183/2020Soberania e legitimidade na União Económica e Monetária: o caso do Mecanismo Europeu de Estabilidade. O presente artigo ilustra a arquitetura do Mecanismo Europeu de Estabilidade (mee), e, com base numa análise da sua estrutura de incentivos, explica por que razão parece inadequado para prevenir, mitigar e resolver crises financeiras. Ilustra também como a arquitetura do mee resulta de um modelo de integração europeia no qual a partilha de poderes soberanos é, em princípio, mitigada através do controlo que os Estados-membros supostamente mantêm sobre a utilização de tais poderes. No âmbito da integração monetária, tal modelo resulta disfuncional, pois não permite uma gestão adequada dos riscos sistémicos. O artigo sugere formas de ultrapassar tal impasse no caso específico do mee, ilustrando as consequências que isso teria para a forma como a União tentou até agora manter a primazia da soberania nacional no seio das suas própria instituições Based on an analysis of the structure of incentives inherent to the architecture of the European Stability Mechanism (esm), the paper defends the esm’s inability to prevent, mitigate, and resolve nancial crises. e paper presents the main features of the esm, and illustrates how its governance architecture results from a model and a practice of European integration in which the pooling of sovereign powers goes along with the member states’ attempt to maintain control over the use of those pow- ers. In the case of monetary integration, such a model produces dysfunctional results in that it impedes e cient control of sys- temic risks. e paper puts forward a number of suggestion as to how a restructuring of the esm’s institutional architecture could enable it to perform the role it has been designed for. e paper also shows what ought to change in the relation between national and supranational sovereignty for this to happen.publishersversionpublishe

Democracia (dos modernos)

UIDB/00183/2020 UIDP/00183/2020publishersversionpublishe

TonIettI, Erisia gennai

UIDB/00183/2020 UIDP/00183/2020publishersversionpublishe