New institutionalism meets international political economy: a new approach to the study of regional integration dynamics in- and outside of Europe

"Regional integration in- and outside Europe is a theoretical and empirical puzzle for Political Scientists. After 50 years of integration studies, there is still a gap in the academic discussion. On the one hand, New Institutionalism mainly discusses the successful example of European integration and argues about the influence of supranational vs. intergovernmental institutions. On the other hand, International Political Economy debates the emergence of more and more preferential trade agreements around the world, but neglects the dynamic of regional integration. In order to overcome these deficits, this paper proposes a new approach to regional economic integration, which simultaneously overcomes the Eurocentrism of Institutionalism and the static nature of Political Economy approaches. According to this view, regional economic integration results from demand and supply factors. Thereby, demand and supply of regional integration needs not be the same as in Europe. Whereas comparative cost advantages and economies of scale are important factors for the demand for regional integration in Europe and North America, the attraction of foreign direct investments and development aid may be more important for regions of the South. And whereas common institutions are a driving force behind integration in Europe and South America, regional integration in North America and Southern Africa may be more supplied by regional hegemony. Integration dynamic may evolve if feedback effects occur and one or more of the demand and supply factors are reinforced due to previous integration steps. But such 'spill-over' may also look different than the European example, as the economic and institutional preconditions differ. After developing such a theoretical approach, the proposed paper will illustrate its hypotheses using the example of the EU, the NAFTA, the MERCOSUR, the SADC and the ASEAN." (author's abstract

Supranational regulatory agencies between independence and control: the EMEA and the authorization of pharmaceuticals in the European Single Market

"The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) represents a new type of supranational regulation. Formally, it merely advises the Commission and a member state committee on the authorization of pharmaceuticals. In practice, however, it dominates decision-making and operates much like an independent agency. Based upon a brief discussion of the merits of independent regulation and the necessity to control regulatory activities, the article explores the institutional arrangement in which the EMEA is embedded and seeks to explain how tight oversight is compatible with quasi-independent action. It argues that the multi-tiered oversight mechanism restricts the non-scientific actors involved in the authorization of pharmaceuticals more than the agency – as long as the agency adheres to its mandate of producing scientifically convincing decisions." (author's abstract

Two logics of regionalism: the importance of interdependence and external support for regional integration in Southern Africa

"Existing theories of European integration and political economy usually assume that economic interdependence is an important precondition for successful regional integration. This includes that regional integration among developing countries is unlikely to be successful, because their economies are usually more dependent on developed countries in the North than on their neighbours in the South. However, this article argues that developing countries use regional integration more in order to improve their standing vis-à-vis other world regions in the global economic system than to govern intraregional interdependence. Thus, the progress of regional integration in the South is at least as dependent on the feedback from other regions as it is on developments within the own region. This argument will be illustrated at the example of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which made important steps towards regional integration in the last decade. It centralised its institutional structure in 2001 and announced a Free Trade Area in 2008. This development can partly be explained by interdependence between the less developed countries of the SADC and the relatively well developed Republic of South Africa, but it was also favoured by external support from other world regions, especially the European Union (EU). Nevertheless, further regional integration towards a customs union is disturbed by external influence, because the EU currently negotiates different Economic Partnership Agreements with the SADC member states, which prevents the harmonisation of tariffs for imports from outside the region." (author's abstract)"Bestehende Theorien der europäischen Integration und der internationalen politischen Ökonomie gehen in der Regel davon aus, dass intraregionale Interdependenz eine Bedingung für erfolgreiche regionale Integration von Volkswirtschaften ist. Dies würde bedeuten, dass regionale Integration zwischen Entwicklungsländern zum Scheitern verurteilt ist, da diese normalerweise mehr von entwickelten Ländern des Nordens als von ihren Nachbarn im Süden abhängig sind. In diesem Artikel wird jedoch argumentiert, dass Entwicklungsländer regionale Integration vor allem dazu nutzen, um ihre Position gegenüber anderen Regionen zu stärken. Daher ist der Fortschritt von regionaler Integration im Süden in hohem Maße von dem Feedback aus anderen Weltregionen abhängig. Dieses Argument wird am Beispiel der Southern African Development Community (SADC) illustriert. Die SADC hat in den letzten zehn Jahren erhebliche Integrationsfortschritte gemacht, sieht sich aktuell jedoch mit erheblichen Problemen konfrontiert, da die Verhandlungen über Economic Partnership Agreements mit der EU die weitere Integration erschweren." (Autorenreferat

Interdependence vs. dependence:: a network analysis of regional integration projects in Africa, America, Asia and Europe

"Integration theories usually either implicitly or explicitly assume that regional integration is driven by intraregional economic interdependence, which allows for the utilisation of economies of scale or comparative cost advantages within the region. However, following the new regionalism of the 1990s, it has become clear that regional integration may also be used by the respective member states to improve their standing in the global economy, to become more attractive for foreign direct investment and development aid, or to be more powerful in international trade negotiations. In this paper, we argue that the latter motive is more important for developing countries than the former two, because developing countries are more dependent on economic relationships with other regions than on those with their neighbours. Thus, in order to understand regional integration in the Southern hemisphere, integration theory needs to incorporate interregional relationships and the resulting positive feedback for regional integration projects among developing countries. To support this argument, we present network analyses of intraregional and interregional trade of the European Community (EC), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Association of Southeast-Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Common Market of South America (MERCOSUR) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC)." (author's abstract

Single market regulation between technocratic independence and political control: the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products and the authorisation of pharmaceuticals

"The paper explores the successful European scheme for the authorisation of pharmaceuticals within the Single Market. Theoretically, it argues that successful regulation requires the exclusion of parochial interests from the decision process and the strict limitation of the agency's opportunities to adopt arbitrary decisions. Empirically, it holds that these conditions are fulfilled in the European authorisation scheme. The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA) enjoys a strong agenda-setting power, while it is locked into a control arrangement that precludes arbitrary decisions. Moreover, all actors involved in the decision-making process are bound to a coherent and detailed set of legally binding decision-making criteria as well as subject to judicial review." (author's abstract

Judicial integration in the Americas? A comparison of dispute settlement in NAFTA and MERCOSUR

"The influence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on regional integration in Europe is a widely discussed topic in the academic literature. However, outside of Europe, the influence of court-like bodies on integration processes in other regions is much less analysed. Dispute settlement bodies in regional integration schemes outside Europe are not as strong as the ECJ, but they may nevertheless influence regional integration. When judging disputes, court-like bodies have to establish case law in order to be legally consistent with their decision-making – even if precedence effects are formally ruled out by the respective treaties. This case law may lead to increasing integration if the treaties are interpreted respectively. In order to explore the influence of court-like bodies on regional integration outside of Europe, this article compares NAFTA's dispute settlement mechanisms on competition and investment with the dispute settlement mechanism of MERCOSUR. The somewhat surprising result is that although MERCOSUR’s dispute settlement mechanism is formally stronger than its counterpart in North America, the latter exercises more influence on the dynamic of regional integration. The reason for this is that due to larger economic interdependence in North America, NAFTA’s dispute settlement mechanism is confronted with far more disputes than its counterpart in the South. This leads to many more possibilities for developing case law and for interpreting the respective treaties. The theoretically important conclusion is that not only the formal rules are important for judicial integration in regional integration schemes, but that only the interaction of legal rules and economic demands leads to dynamic regional integration projects." (author's abstract

Die zwei Logiken des Regionalismus: die Bedeutung von Interdependenz und Dependenz für regionale Integration im südlichen Afrika

"Bestehende Theorien der europäischen Integration und der internationalen politischen Ökonomie gehen in der Regel davon aus, dass intraregionale Interdependenz eine Bedingung für erfolgreiche regionale Integration von Volkswirtschaften ist. Dies würde bedeuten, dass regionale Integration zwischen Entwicklungsländern zum Scheitern verurteilt ist, da diese normalerweise mehr von entwickelten Ländern des Nordens als von ihren Nachbarn im Süden abhängig sind. In diesem Artikel wird jedoch argumentiert, dass Entwicklungsländer regionale Integration vor allem dazu nutzen, um ihre Position gegenüber anderen Regionen zu stärken. Daher ist der Fortschritt von regionaler Integration im Süden in hohem Maße von dem Feedback aus anderen Weltregionen abhängig. Dieses Argument wird am Beispiel der Southern African Development Community (SADC) illustriert. Die SADC hat in den letzten zehn Jahren erhebliche Integrationsfortschritte gemacht, sieht sich aktuell jedoch mit erheblichen Problemen konfrontiert, da die Verhandlungen über Economic Partnership Agreements mit der EU die weitere Integration erschweren." (Autorenreferat)"Existing theories of European integration and international political economy usually assume that economic interdependence is an important precondition for successful regional integration. This would include that regional integration among developing countries is unlikely to be successful, because their economies are usually more dependent on developed countries in the North than on their neighbours in the South. However, this article argues that developing countries use regional integration more in order to improve their standing vis-à-vis other world regions than to govern intraregional interdependence. Thus, the progress of regional integration in the South is highly dependent on the feedback from other world regions. The theoretical argument will then be illustrated at the example of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which made important steps towards regional integration in the last decade, but which currently faces problems due to ambivalent feedback from the negotiations about Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU." (author's abstract

Risikoregulierung im europäischen Binnenmarkt: Regulierungsagenturen, Normungsinstitute und Komitologie-Ausschüsse

"In diesem Artikel wird der Frage nachgegangen, welchen Einfluss die institutionelle Ausgestaltung europäischer Regulierungsregime im Binnenmarkt auf die Problemlösungsfähigkeit hat. Zwei Faktoren fördern eine problemadäquate Regulierung: Die funktionale Differenzierung des Entscheidungsverfahrens erlaubt den politischen Akteuren, sich auf die Festlegung von regulierungspolitischen Zielvorgaben zu beschränken und Anwendungsentscheidungen spezialisierten Gremien mit hoher technisch-wissenschaftlicher Expertise zu überlassen. Die Verrechtlichung des Verfahrens ermöglicht es, alle Akteure auf sachliche Entscheidungskriterien zu verpflichten. Arrangements, die dieser Logik folgen, finden wir im 'Neuen Ansatz', der seit den 80er Jahren in der europäischen Produktregulierung verfolgt wird. In unterschiedlichen Produktbereichen wird der Neue Ansatz aber unterschiedlich stringent angewandt. Wir zeigen, dass diese Varianz Unterschiede im Erfolg der europäischen Arzneimittel- und Lebensmittelregulierung sowie der technischen Normung erklären kann." (Autorenreferat)"This article explores the influence of institutional arrangements in European regulatory regimes on the problem solving capacity of supranational risk regulation. Mainly two factors are able to enhance problem-adequate regulation: Functional differentiation of decision-making ensures that political actors focus on the definition of general regulatory objectives while implementation decisions are delegated to specialised bodies with high technical and scientific expertise. In addition, legalisation commits actors during the implementation process to observe the regulatory criteria defined before. The 'new approach', which applies for EU product regulation since the 1980s, provides institutional arrangements which follow this logic. In reality, the new approach was not applied equally strictly with regard to all kinds of products. We show that this institutional variance can explain the diverging success of European regulation in the areas of pharmaceuticals, food and technical products." (author's abstract

Aggressive behaviour in childhood and adolescence : the role of smoking during pregnancy, evidence from four twin cohorts in the EU-ACTION consortium

Background Maternal smoking during pregnancy (MSDP) has been linked to offspring's externalizing problems. It has been argued that socio-demographic factors (e.g. maternal age and education), co-occurring environmental risk factors, or pleiotropic genetic effects may account for the association between MSDP and later outcomes. This study provides a comprehensive investigation of the association between MSDP and a single harmonized component of externalizing: aggressive behaviour, measured throughout childhood and adolescence. Methods Data came from four prospective twin cohorts - Twins Early Development Study, Netherlands Twin Register, Childhood and Adolescent Twin Study of Sweden, and FinnTwin12 study - who collaborate in the EU-ACTION consortium. Data from 30 708 unrelated individuals were analysed. Based on item level data, a harmonized measure of aggression was created at ages 9-10; 12; 14-15 and 16-18. Results MSDP predicted aggression in childhood and adolescence. A meta-analysis across the four samples found the independent effect of MSDP to be 0.4% (r = 0.066), this remained consistent when analyses were performed separately by sex. All other perinatal factors combined explained 1.1% of the variance in aggression across all ages and samples (r = 0.112). Paternal smoking and aggressive parenting strategies did not account for the MSDP-aggression association, consistent with the hypothesis of a small direct link between MSDP and aggression. Conclusions Perinatal factors, including MSDP, account for a small portion of the variance in aggression in childhood and adolescence. Later experiences may play a greater role in shaping adolescents' aggressive behaviour.Peer reviewe

Childhood aggression and the co-occurrence of behavioural and emotional problems

Childhood aggression and its resulting consequences inflict a huge burden on affected children, their relatives, teachers, peers and society as a whole. Aggression during childhood rarely occurs in isolation and is correlated with other symptoms of childhood psychopathology. In this paper, we aim to describe and improve the understanding of the co-occurrence of aggression with other forms of childhood psychop