Far from dominating EU decision-making, France and Germany are among the least successful EU states at negotiating legislation and budget contributions.

A common assumption is that the largest EU countries get their way most often in negotiations within the EU’s institutions. Contrary to this perspective, Jonathan Golub finds that smaller states like Finland tend to be far more successful at negotiating EU legislation than countries like France and Germany. He also finds little evidence for the idea that Member States might ‘buy influence’ by trading legislative outcomes for contributions to the EU budget. Indeed, the same countries which are successful at negotiating legislation are also likely to pay less than their fair share into the budget

Survival Analysis and European Union Decision-making

Practitioners as well as scholars of European integration have for decades debated why it takes so long for the European Union (EU) to adopt legislation and how to improve decision-making efficiency. Four studies have investigated decision-making speed using survival analysis, a particularly appropriate quantitative technique. In this paper I show that all four studies suffer from serious methodological problems that render their conclusions unreliable. I then outline where work in this area should focus, and take an initial step in this direction by fitting a methodologically more appropriate survival model to my 2002 EU decision-making data set (Golub, 2002). Substantively, the results indicate that throughout the EU's history, for the most important types of legislation, qualified majority voting (QMV) and EU enlargement have increased decision-making speed, whereas empowerment of the European Parliament and extreme preference heterogeneity amongst decision-makers have decreased it. Theoretically, formal approaches — spatial models and especially coalition theory — do a better job of explaining these results than do perspectives that privilege informal norms

Civil conflict and agenda-setting speed in the United Nations Security Council

The UN Security Council (UNSC) can respond to a civil conflict only if that conflict first enters the Council’s agenda. Some conflicts reach the Council’s agenda within days after they start, others after years (or even decades), and some never make it. So far, only a few studies have looked at the crucial UNSC agenda-setting stage, and none have examined agenda-setting speed. To fill this important gap, we develop and test a novel theoretical framework that combines insights from realist and constructivist theory with lessons from institutionalist theory and bargaining theory. Applying survival analysis to an original dataset, we show that the parochial interests of the permanent (P-5) members matter, but they do not determine the Council’s agenda-setting speed. Rather, P-5 interests are constrained by normative considerations and concerns for the Council’s organizational mission arising from the severity of a conflict (in terms of spillover effects and civilian casualties); by the interests of the widely ignored elected members (E-10); and by the degree of preference heterogeneity both among the P-5 and the E-10. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of how the UN works, and they have implications for the UN’s legitimacy

Improving analyses of sanctions busting

When economic sanctions are directed against a target state by a sender state, the sender obviously wants third countries to participate with the sanctions and can apply pressure on them to prevent sanctions busting behaviour. But why does sanctions busting vary, so that the target's trade with some third-countries increases but with others decreases? In this paper I offer two improvements to the analysis of sanctions busting: a theoretical framework that recognises how the effects of covariates on sanctions busting can only be identified if we treat them as more conditional than previous studies have done, and a gravity model that captures these conditional effects while also addressing several common specification errors. Applying these improvements to data for 1950-2006 significantly alters some of the central findings contained in previous research about sanctions busting

Power in the European Union: an evolutionary computing approach

Even the best existing model of legislative decisionmaking in the European Union, the compromise model, makes huge prediction errors when it is assumed that each actor’s power is determined by their formal voting weight. A few studies have attempted to improve the model’s predictive accuracy by examining alternative distributions of power, but extending their brute force approach poses daunting computational challenges. In this paper I illustrate how techniques from evolutionary computing can be employed to overcome these challenges. I then demonstrate the new possibilities that this approach opens up by identifying the relative power of each actor that best predicts policy outcomes from the EU-15 period. Some actors appear to punch significantly above or below their formal weight, with power varying dramatically across legislative procedures. My analysis highlights important unanswered questions about power in EU decisionmaking, and potentially indicates fundamental problems with the compromise model or the underlying data

How the European Union does not work: national bargaining success in the Council of Ministers

We know surprisingly little about whether the content of European Union legislation reflects the preferences of some Member States more than others. The few studies that have examined national bargaining success rates for EU legislation have conceptual and methodological weaknesses. To redress these problems I use a salience-weighted measure to gauge the relative success of Member States in translating their national preferences into legislation, and test two plausible, competing hypotheses about how the EU works: that no state consistently achieves more of what it really wants than any other, and that large Member States tend to beat small ones. Neither hypothesis receives empirical support. Not only do states differ far more significantly in their respective levels of bargaining success than previously recognised, but some of the smaller states are the ones that do especially well. The paper‟s main contribution -- demonstrating that the EU does not work as most people think it does -- sets the stage for new research questions, both positive and normative. In the last section I make a tentative start answering two of the most important: which factors explain the surprising empirical results, and whether differential national bargaining success might undermine the legitimacy of the integration process

How much is tuberculosis screening worth? Estimating the value of active case finding for tuberculosis in South Africa, China, and India

BACKGROUND: Current approaches are unlikely to achieve the aggressive global tuberculosis (TB) control targets set for 2035 and beyond. Active case finding (ACF) may be an important tool for augmenting existing strategies, but the cost-effectiveness of ACF remains uncertain. Program evaluators can often measure the cost of ACF per TB case detected, but how this accessible measure translates into traditional metrics of cost-effectiveness, such as the cost per disability-adjusted life year (DALY), remains unclear. METHODS: We constructed dynamic models of TB in India, China, and South Africa to explore the medium-term impact and cost-effectiveness of generic ACF activities, conceptualized separately as discrete (2-year) campaigns and as continuous activities integrated into ongoing TB control programs. Our primary outcome was the cost per DALY, measured in relationship to the cost per TB case actively detected and started on treatment. RESULTS: Discrete campaigns costing up to $1,200 (95$3,800 (95% UR 2,706–6,392) in China, and $9,400 (95$1,000 to detect and initiate treatment for each extra case of active TB. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12916-014-0216-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Observational Consequences of Coronal Heating Mechanisms

The coronal heating problem remains unsolved today, 80 years after its discovery, despite 50 years of suborbital and orbital coronal observatories. Tens of theoretical coronal heating mechanisms have been suggested, but only a few have been able to be ruled out. In this talk, we will explore the reasons for the slow progress and discuss the measurements that will be needed for potential breakthrough, including imaging the solar corona at small spatial scales, measuring the chromospheric magnetic fields, and detecting the presence of high temperature, low emission measure plasma. We will discuss three sounding rocket instruments developed to make these measurements: the High resolution Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C), the Chromospheric Lyman-Alpha Spectropolarimeter (CLASP), and the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS)

Reply to “At the crossroads between early or delayed antiretroviral therapy initiation during TB/HIV coinfection”

La digitalització dels textos, iniciada en la dècada dels setanta, ha originat sistemes i productes diversos que poden ser molt útils en la investigació literària. Un dels més coneguts, lâhipertext, és un bon exemple de les possibilitats de la lectura no seqüencial que caracteritza les obres de referència o determinades recerques en lâàmbit de la filologia, com ara lâedició de textos. La digitalització destaca les característiques tant hipertextuals com intertextuals de la literatura i ajuda a entendre, així, alguns dels seus trets constitutius. Dâaltra banda, la publicació en línia de textos de molt difícil abast proposada per comunitats científiques molt presents a Internet és una oferta plena de possibilitats i suggereix un camí a seguir per comunitats encara poc implantades, com ara la filologia catalana. | Digitisation of text, begun in the 1970s, has produced a diversity of systems and products that could be very useful for literary research. One of the better known examples, hypertext, demonstrates the potential for non-sequential reading that characterises the use made of reference works or specific searches performed in the field of philology, such as for text publishing. Digitisation highlights both | La digitalización de textos, iniciada en la década de los años setenta, ha dado lugar a sistemas y productos diversos que pueden ser muy útiles en la investigación literaria. Uno de los más conocidos, el hipertexto, constituye un buen ejemplo de las posibilidades de la lectura secuencial que caracteriza las obras de referencia o determinadas investigaciones en el ámbito de la Filología, como, por ejemplo, la edición de textos. La digitalización destaca las características tanto hipertextuales como intertextuales de la literatura facilitando, por tanto, su comprensión. Por otro lado, la publicación en línea de textos de muy difícil acceso, propuesta por comunidades científicas muy presentes en Internet, es una oferta llena de posibilidades y abre un camino a seguir por parte de comunidades poco implantadas todavía como es el caso de la Filología catalana