Models of Party Democracy : Patterns of Party Regulation in Post-War European Constitutions

This article investigates the ways in which political parties are codified in modern democratic constitutions, providing a unique cross-sectional and longitudinal overview of the patterns of party constitutionalization in post-war Europe. Although the constitutions of western liberal democracies traditionally have paid little attention to the role of parties, evidence suggests that in contemporary democracies, both old and new, they are increasingly accorded a formal constitutional status. Little is known, however, about the substantive content of their constitutional position or about the normative connotations of their constitutional codification. In this article, we demonstrate that there is a clear correlation between the nature and the intensity of party constitutionalization and the newness and historical experience of democracy and that, with time, the constitutional regulation of the extra-parliamentary organization and the parties’ rights and duties has gained in importance at the expense of their parliamentary and electoral roles. The analysis furthermore suggests that three distinct models of party constitutionalization can be identified – Defending Democracy, Parties in Public Office, and Parties as Public Utilities – each of which is related to a particular conception of party democracy

Gender, Land and Water in the Poverty Reduction Strategy and Country Assistance Strategy for Sri Lanka\ud

Ten years after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration, gender mainstreaming is still high on the donor agenda. Nonetheless, a number of evaluation reports clearly indicate that operationalisation of gender mainstreaming strategies remains a challenging task. The integration of gender concerns at the country level requires adequate financial and human resources, and strong institutions, which have been lacking in the recent past. Has the World Bank, as one of the largest financial institutions, learned from previous critique? This paper looks at Sri Lanka's poverty reduction strategy and the World Bank's country assistance strategy for Sri Lanka, with a focus on the agricultural sector.\ud \ud Dix ans après l'adoption de la déclaration de Beijing, l'approche genre est toujours une priorité sur l'agenda des donateurs. Néanmoins, de nombreuses évaluations indiquent clairement que la mise en oeuvre de stratégies incorporant l'approche genre reste difficile. L'intégration des questions de genre au niveau national nécessite des ressources humaines et financières adéquates et des institutions fortes, facteurs qui ont fait défaut ces dernières années. Etant l'une des principales institutions financières, la Banque mondiale a t-elle appris des critiques qui lui ont été faites ? Cet article s'intéresse à la stratégie de réduction de la pauvreté au Sri Lanka et à la politique d'aide de la Banque mondiale à ce pays, l'accent étant mis sur le secteur agricole.\u

Common Fermi-liquid origin of T-squared resistivity and superconductivity in n-type SrTiO3

A detailed analysis is given of the T^2 term in the resistivity observed in electron-doped SrTiO3. Novel bandstructure data are presented, which provide values for the bare mass, density of states, and plasma frequency of the quasiparticles as a function of doping. It is shown that these values are renormalized by approximately a factor 2 due to electron-phonon interaction. It is argued that the quasiparticles are in the anti-adiabatic limit with respect to electron-phonon interaction. The condition of anti-adiabatic coupling renders the interaction mediated through phonons effectively non-retarded. We apply Fermi-liquid theory developed in the 70's for the T^2 term in the resistivity of common metals, and combine this with expressions for Tc and with the Brinkman-Platzman-Rice (BPR) sum-rule to obtain Landau parameters of n-type SrTiO3. These parameters are comparable to those of liquid 3He, indicating interesting parallels between these Fermi-liquids despite the differences between the composite fermions from which they are formed.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure

Context generation and information retrieval

The interaction between a user and an information retrieval system can be viewed as a dialogue in which both participants are trying to interpret the others' actions in the light of previous experience. The sys- tem then must try to generate a context in which to interpret the user's response to the presented mate- rial. This notion of context operates on a principle of relevance. Information that the system believes is relevant to the user, or that the user has indicated as relevant will form the basis of the system's notion of the context. This paper presents a way of represent- ing a context that can use both the systems knowl- edge about itself and the user's response to generate a view of the retrieval session

Dark energy, MOND and sub-millimeter tests of gravity

We consider modifications of General Relativity obtained by adding the logarithm of some curvature invariants to the Einstein-Hilbert action. These non-linear actions can explain the late-time acceleration of the universe giving an expansion history that differs from that of a pure cosmological constant. We show that they also modify the Newtonian potential below a fixed acceleration scale given by the late-time Hubble constant times the speed of light. This is exactly what is required in MOND, a phenomenological modification of the Newtonian potential that is capable of explaining galactic rotation curves without the need to introduce dark matter. We show that this kind of modification also predicts short distance deviations of Newton's law at the sub-mm scale and an anomalous shift in the precession of the Moon's orbit around the Earth, both effects of a size that is less than an order of magnitude below current bounds.Comment: 6 pages, to appear in proceedings of the XLIrst Rencontres de Morion

Not only the butterflies: managing ants on road verges to benefit Phengaris (Maculinea) butterflies

Obligate myrmecophilic butterfly species, such as Phengaris (Maculinea) teleius and P. nausithous, have narrow habitat requirements. Living as a caterpillar in the nests of the ant species Myrmica scabrinodis and M. rubra, respectively, they can only survive on sites with both host ants and the host plant Great Burnet Sanguisorba officinalis. After having been reintroduced into a nature reserve in the Netherlands in 1990, both butterfly species expanded their distribution to linear landscape elements such as road verges and ditch edges outside this reserve. As additional habitat of both butterfly species, vegetation management of these landscape elements became important. Our results show that a management beneficial for Phengaris butterflies should aim to increase the nest density of Myrmica species, at the same time reducing the density of nests of the competitor Lasius niger or at least keeping them at a low density. Unfavourable grassland management under which L. niger thrives, includes not mowing or flail-cutting the grass, or depositing dredgings along the side of the ditch. Management favourable for the two Myrmica species differs, demanding some flexibility if both species are to benefit. M. scabrinodis is best supported with early mowing of the road verge vegetation or late mowing in the nature reserve, both of which result in an open vegetation and warm microclimate. In contrast, the nest sites of M. rubra should be left undisturbed during the summer, and mown in late autumn. Mowing of butterfly habitat should be avoided between mid-June and mid-September as this would remove the flowerheads of the Sanguisorba plants, on which the butterflies lay their eggs

Long distance modifications of gravity in four dimensions

We discuss some general characteristics of modifications of the 4D Einstein-Hilbert action that become important for low space-time curvatures. In particular we focus on the chameleon-like behaviour of the massive gravitational degrees of freedom. Generically there is at least one extra scalar that is light on cosmic scales, but for certain models it becomes heavy close to any mass source.Comment: 4 pages, contribution to the proceedings of the Rencontres de Moriond: Contents and Structures of the Universe, March 18-25, 2006, La Thuil