Economic law, inequality, and hidden hierarchies on the EU internal market

The concentration of global wealth, power, knowledge, authority and prestige continues unabated. Antitrust enforcement has been at the heart of debates on combating increasing inequality. Yet, the transformation possibilities have been overstated, while its impact has been paralyzed by widespread assumptions about both antitrust and international trade analysis. Challenging "market power" or "capital accumulation", as per Thomas Piketty's analysis, may contribute to the reproduction of concentration of power. This article cautions about the viability of the current antitrust and international trade assumptions and doctrines to tackle the challenges of growth and injustice of today’s globalized society. It argues that the hierarchical structure of production in goods, services, knowledge, and prestige in global society should be the starting point of legal and economic analysis. Lawyers should articulate targeted resistance to particular hierarchies using antitrust and trade law as updated tools. As an example of this analysis, this article describes a privilege to harm, enjoyed by companies from the structural center of Europe against firms on the periphery. This privilege is termed: dumping by the center. This analysis provides one explanation for the increasing wealth and power in the center of the European Union, despite the Union's promise of development for all. While developing this doctrine, several assumptions of antitrust and trade law are challenged, including the coherence of the consumer welfare standard, the benefits of low prices and the assumption that non-predatory dumping on the internal market is not possible. The article also challenges the sensibility that economic thinking is the main culprit in the concentration of power and economic impoverishment of some parts or sections of the world. Rather, what needs to be challenged is the existing understanding of injury, in economic thinking just as much as in thinking about equity or fairness. The article concludes that a combat against the concentration of wealth, power and prestige requires a step outside the existing antitrust and trade paradigm and needs to address the disparity in the global allocation of privileges to harm

Brexit - a tragic continuity of Europe's daily operation

The British vote to leave the European Union came as a surprise and a shock. It has been understood as an aberration, as a triumph of populism and nationalism, in conflict with the ethos of the Union. But Brexit should not be understood as a mere aberration, but instead as one position on continuum of exhausted thinking about EU and (transnational) law in general. From the perspective of "pure" legal theory, Brexit is self-referential, resulting from the internal dynamics of the system. It is a result of the general lack of legal and economic imagination as to how the EU should be reordered and reimagined

Peaceful contestation

Polycentricity implies the diffusion of sovereignty over several levels of governance and numerous institutions. It envisages an explicit role for non-governmental bodies, such as private and community-based organisations and it puts the individual at the heart of society and social construction. Polycentricity presents a normative alternative to federalism, multilevel governance that prioritises self-governance, or individual autonomy, as a goal. Peaceful contestation plays a special role within the polycentric theory, a role of an institutional essential. This means that peaceful contestation needs to be constantly enabled in a polycentric society in order for the society to be able to maintain its polycentric character. Peaceful contestation is the peaceful challenge of any existing legal and political situation in view of ensuring the values of polycentric theory, particularly self-governance. Polycentric theory and peaceful contestation thus need to be understood dynamically: many decision centres with autonomous and limited prerogatives need to be able to and should in fact constantly contest existing norms and policies as well as their own autonomy and prerogatives. NGOs, cities, individuals, corporations, states or expert groups are just some of the loci of decision making and contestation that are involved in a constant reconfiguration of society. Once this dispersed process of social reconfiguration stops or is limited, the system will revert to another type of pluricentric governance, such as federalism or multilevel governance. This chapter sets out the notion of peaceful contestation within the framework of polycentric theory. Part I discusses the most important premises of peaceful contestation as addressed in the framework of the polycentric theory, and the notion of ‘peaceful’ contestation within that framework. Part II discusses the realisation of the goal of polycentricity – self-governance – through peaceful contestation within the framework of the theory of polycentricity. It develops the notion of ‘trust-producing conflicts’ and the notion of a social actor or ‘public entrepreneur’, explaining the role of a public entrepreneur with an example of an infringement procedure of the European Commission. Part III concludes. The overall aim of this chapter is to develop an ideal type of peaceful contestation that is needed for the maintenance of a polycentric system, one that prioritises self-governance or individual autonomy

Medpredmetno poučevanje z obravnavo romana Marka Haddona The curious incident of the dog in the night-time

The knowledge learners acquire at school has to be applicable in practice to ensure their motivation for learning. Both cross-curricular and interdisciplinary teaching provide a meaningful way in which students can use the knowledge acquired in one context as the basis for learning in other contexts in and out of school. By using interdisciplinary teaching, the instructor can present the topics in a holistic manner: this approach therefore allows us to activate more of the learners\u27 senses and intelligences. Since Mathematics is one of the least liked subjects by our students, and English one of the favorite ones, the article will demonstrate how we can integrate activities addressing all types of intelligences in a language learning class to achieve the whole range of Bloom\u27s levels of educational objectives on the basis of a novel which includes a wealth of references to mathematics: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, which has recently been compulsory reading in all Slovene grammar school programs.Da bi zagotovili potrebno motivacijo za učenje, mora biti znanje, ki ga učenci pridobivajo v šoli, uporabno v vsakdanjem življenju. Tako medpredmetno kot interdisciplinarno poučevanje omogočata uporabo znanja, pridobljenega v nekem kontekstu, kot osnovo za učenje na drugih področjih, v šoli in izven nje. S pomočjo interdisciplinarnega pristopa lahko teme celovito predstavimo in s tem aktiviramo več učenčevih čutil ter mnogotere inteligentnosti. Ker je matematika pri naših učencih manj priljubljen predmet, angleščina pa med bolj priljubljenimi, bomo v prispevku predstavili, kako lahko pri pouku tujega jezika ob obravnavi romana Marka Haddona z naslovom Skrivnostni primer ali kdo je umoril psa, ki ponuja izjemno veliko primerov in zanimivih razlag matematičnih problemov, z uporabo dejavnosti, ki razvijajo mnogotere inteligentnosti, dosežemo celo paleto izobraževalnih ciljev

Brexit - a tragic continuity of Europe's daily operation [Blog post]

The British vote to leave the European Union came as a surprise and a shock. It has been understood as an aberration, as a triumph of populism and nationalism, in conflict with the ethos of the Union. But Brexit should not be understood as a mere aberration, but instead as one position on continuum of exhausted thinking about EU and (transnational) law in general. From the perspective of "pure" legal theory, Brexit is self-referential, resulting from the internal dynamics of the system. It is a result of the general lack of legal and economic imagination as to how the EU should be reordered and reimagined

Innovative teaching – examples of good practice in vocational education

Modern teaching changes the role of a teacher. Nowadays teachers are mentors, innovators and creators of events. Teachers are looking for innovative pedagogical approaches related to everyday life. The goal of the article is to show how to make classes more interesting, how to actively include students in the process of teaching, and how to gain their interest in the profession they are learning for. Research shows that everyday practice is important for individual’s learning, which is called situational learning. Teachers provide content for the school space that young people need for their personal and professional development. It is important that the teacher is intrinsically motivated to find creative approaches to teaching and connecting with students. It is increasingly important that the teacher can motivate students and create a stimulating learning environment in which students want to learn. It is also important to connect school content with real life. Teacher must be able to attract students with practical content. It is necessary that students see the practical value of the knowledge provided by the teacher. At The Technical School Centre of Maribor, we educate students in mechanics, mechatronics and mechanical engineering. Since these are students who are practitioners by nature, it is very important for them to have an encouraging practical learning environment. The professional contribution describes examples of good practice in teaching, such as outdoor lessons, Students Motorcycle Club, Innovation and Research Activity, arranging an exhibition space with students and motivational workshops, where various forms of learning are presented: peer-to-peer, cooperative and intergenerational learning

Hardy's Inequality for the fractional powers of Grushin operator

We prove Hardy's inequality for the fractional powers of the generalized sublaplacian and the fractional powers of the Grushin operator. We also find an integral representation and a ground state representation for the fractional powers of generalized sublaplacian

Mirjana Kasapović: Kombinirani izborni sustavi u Europi 1945-2014.

Prikaz knjigeBook Revie

Reachability in Parameterized Systems: All Flavors of Threshold Automata

Threshold automata, and the counter systems they define, were introduced as a framework for parameterized model checking of fault-tolerant distributed algorithms. This application domain suggested natural constraints on the automata structure, and a specific form of acceleration, called single-rule acceleration: consecutive occurrences of the same automaton rule are executed as a single transition in the counter system. These accelerated systems have bounded diameter, and can be verified in a complete manner with bounded model checking. We go beyond the original domain, and investigate extensions of threshold automata: non-linear guards, increments and decrements of shared variables, increments of shared variables within loops, etc., and show that the bounded diameter property holds for several extensions. Finally, we put single-rule acceleration in the scope of flat counter automata: although increments in loops may break the bounded diameter property, the corresponding counter automaton is flattable, and reachability can be verified using more permissive forms of acceleration