"The institutional terrain of the European Union"

Policy domains form where there exists a constitutional agreement to create legislation, a collective definition of what issues are and who gets to be an actor, and procedures to mobilize the production of new rules in the domain. Policy domains may be entirely constituted by government organizations or may also include nongovernmental groups. We explore the EU as a set of policy domains. We demonstrate that the Treaty of Rome and its subsequent revisions defined the issue arenas. We also show how the organizational structure of the European Council of Ministers and the Commission mirror these domains. Finally we plot the expansion of pressure groups and legislative output to domains over time. We show that the Treaty changes, which changed the decisionmaking rules in the domains, tended to be in domains where there were a large number of nongovernmental organizations and where legislative output was high. For example, the largest number of pressure groups in the EU circa 1980 were attached to the Single Market domain. We view this as a kind of spillover. By our calculations, at least 13 of the 17 policy domains in the EU exhibit a supranational character

Contesting Governance in the Global Marketplace: A Sociological Assessment of British Efforts to Build New Markets for NGO-Certified Sustainable Wood Products

Recent years have seen an explosion of new attempts to develop and implement voluntary third-party certification programs to encourage environmentally and socially responsible production practices for globally traded commodities. This study seeks to shed light on the nature and potentials of these new para-regulatory forms by using a sociological institutional approach to examine one of the most long-standing and successful attempts to develop a market for certified products. A close look at the British effort at building new markets for certified wood products contrasted against the relative failure of its counterpart in the United States reveals that causal factors from three analytic dimensions-- political economy, regulatory style/conventions, and diffuse cultural attributes-- together offer a compelling explanation for the recent British success. The findings suggest that the analytical approach adopted here may be of use in explaining trajectories of efforts in other contexts, including the United States

Pink and Blue: Outcomes Associated with the Integration of Open Gay and Lesbian Personnel in the San Diego Police Department

We examine whether the integration of open gay and lesbian officers has undermined the organizational effectiveness of the SanDiego Police Depart-ment (SDPD). Based on an analysis of prior research and a 3-day site visit, our finding is that a quiet process of normalization has reduced much of the emotional charge that heterosexual officers originally anticipated. Although integration has proceeded largely uneventfully, subtle forms of discrimina-tion do persist, and gay officers who do not already enjoy respect may face challenges. Despite these uneven effects, integration has enhanced cohesion as well as the SDPD’s standing with the communities it serves. Beginning in the mid-1980s, a number of American municipal police departments began to seek increased representation of homosexual person-nelwithin their ranks. Responding to complaints about discriminatory prac-tices, lawsuits, new laws, and a growing interest in new forms of community policing that emphasized closer ties between officers and the districts they served, major urban police departments, such as New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle, began implementing recruitment and support programs that The authors are very grateful to Professor OtwinMarenin for valuable feedback on an earlier version of the article, to three anonymous reviewers who provided very helpful suggestions, and to Harold Toro

The Institutional Terrain of the European Union

agriculture policy; closer cooperation; competition policy; Council of Europe; Council of Ministers; Court of Auditors; European Agencies; European Commission; European Court of Justice; European Parliament; history; institutionalisation; institutions; integration theory; intergovernmentalism; law; legislative procedure; lobbying; Nation-state; political science; regional policy; regulation; Single Market; social policy; social regulation; supranationalism; Treaty on European Union

Prophylactic biological mesh reinforcement versus standard closure of stoma site (ROCSS): a multicentre, randomised controlled trial

Background: Closure of an abdominal stoma, a common elective operation, is associated with frequent complications; one of the commonest and impactful is incisional hernia formation. We aimed to investigate whether biological mesh (collagen tissue matrix) can safely reduce the incidence of incisional hernias at the stoma closure site. Methods: In this randomised controlled trial (ROCSS) done in 37 hospitals across three European countries (35 UK, one Denmark, one Netherlands), patients aged 18 years or older undergoing elective ileostomy or colostomy closure were randomly assigned using a computer-based algorithm in a 1:1 ratio to either biological mesh reinforcement or closure with sutures alone (control). Training in the novel technique was standardised across hospitals. Patients and outcome assessors were masked to treatment allocation. The primary outcome measure was occurrence of clinically detectable hernia 2 years after randomisation (intention to treat). A sample size of 790 patients was required to identify a 40% reduction (25% to 15%), with 90% power (15% drop-out rate). This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02238964. Findings: Between Nov 28, 2012, and Nov 11, 2015, of 1286 screened patients, 790 were randomly assigned. 394 (50%) patients were randomly assigned to mesh closure and 396 (50%) to standard closure. In the mesh group, 373 (95%) of 394 patients successfully received mesh and in the control group, three patients received mesh. The clinically detectable hernia rate, the primary outcome, at 2 years was 12% (39 of 323) in the mesh group and 20% (64 of 327) in the control group (adjusted relative risk [RR] 0·62, 95% CI 0·43–0·90; p=0·012). In 455 patients for whom 1 year postoperative CT scans were available, there was a lower radiologically defined hernia rate in mesh versus control groups (20 [9%] of 229 vs 47 [21%] of 226, adjusted RR 0·42, 95% CI 0·26–0·69; p<0·001). There was also a reduction in symptomatic hernia (16%, 52 of 329 vs 19%, 64 of 331; adjusted relative risk 0·83, 0·60–1·16; p=0·29) and surgical reintervention (12%, 42 of 344 vs 16%, 54 of 346: adjusted relative risk 0·78, 0·54–1·13; p=0·19) at 2 years, but this result did not reach statistical significance. No significant differences were seen in wound infection rate, seroma rate, quality of life, pain scores, or serious adverse events. Interpretation: Reinforcement of the abdominal wall with a biological mesh at the time of stoma closure reduced clinically detectable incisional hernia within 24 months of surgery and with an acceptable safety profile. The results of this study support the use of biological mesh in stoma closure site reinforcement to reduce the early formation of incisional hernias. Funding: National Institute for Health Research Research for Patient Benefit and Allergan