On Government, Governance and Judicial Review: The Case of European Competition Policy

From a traditional rationalist principal-agent framework, the development of the European Community's competition policy could appear as a straightforward story of agency loss. However, the recent overhaul of competition policy, which the Community presented in terms of decentralisation, appears to have changed the story. We are confronted with the uncommon event of an agent (the European Commission) returning some of its powers to the principals (the member states). This paper resolves the puzzle by highlighting the role of the Commission and of European courts. It has become part of the Commission's strategy to pursue its objectives through legally non-binding instruments such as notices or guidelines or co-operation in networks. These instruments do not need the approval of the Council of Ministers or the European Parliament. With the Commission's promotion of new modes of governance, the link between sectoral governance (in terms of regulation specific to competition policy) and the governmental shadow of hierarchy shifted to an increasing extent to judicial review by European courts. Alongside this shift, the character of judicial review has changed in the direction of judicial control, as European courts no longer restrict themselves to review of the legality of Commission actions, but also engage in assessing the facts themselve

The Shadow of Hierarchy and New Modes of Governance

This special issue about sectoral governance in the shadow of hierarchy focuses on two sets of questions. Firstly, do new modes of sectoral governance in themselves contribute to the efficacy of policymaking or do they require the shadow of hierarchy, i.e. legislative and executive decisions, in order to deal effectively with the problems they are supposed to solve? And, secondly, what are the institutional links between sectoral governance and territorially bounded democratic governments? How do different links contribute to the efficacy of policymaking and how do they change over time? Is there a retreat of government from policymaking and a corresponding increase of sectoral governance, or just the opposite

Turkey’s Foreign Policy Towards its Post-Soviet Black Sea Neighbourhood

This paper discusses the main strands of Turkey’s post-Cold War foreign policy in its post-Soviet Black Sea neighbourhood of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine with a focus on the period of Justice and Development Party rule (2002-2018). Based on the analysis of Turkey’s rhetorical stance towards the region’s countries and its actual interaction across five sectors –trade, energy, security, education/culture and migration –our findings demonstrate that the foreign policy rhetoric with its strong emphasis on historical ties, economic and energy cooperation and support for regional countries’ territorial integrity is not matched by Turkey’s observable engagement.An important factor for the mismatch between rhetoric and engagement is that relations with the region are seen at least partly through the prism of Turkey’s more salient relations with Russia. While not a priority region, Turkey’s policy towards this space gained momentum after 2002 when the Turkish government increasingly voiced regional ambitions and sought to leverage its neighbourhood for a more prominent global role.Accordingly, Turkey’s engagement with the six countries varies depending on cultural proximity, diaspora ties and the country’s potential to serve Turkey’s regional ambitions. Relations with Azerbaijan are therefore the most intense while those with Belarus the most aloof. In terms of sectoral engagement, economic links but also culturaland educational ties are promoted most actively and consistently. Turkey is more ambiguous with regard to security and pays little attention to migration.A substantial contribution to relations with the post-Soviet neighbourhood is on the other hand madeby Turkish non-state actors, especially the business community

Towards a machine learning model for explicit algebraic Reynolds stress modelling using multi-expression programming

A novel framework for a 5-term explicit algebraic Reynolds stress model has been proposed, which is suitable for machine learning procedures. Under this framework, high-fidelity datasets have been explored and post-processed. Through multi-expression programming, models have been obtained using these data. They have been thoroughly tested and present all the desirable features of a model. Implementation of these models in a numerical code has also been possible. Results have shown that they present a small upgrade over classical models for certain kinds of flows, thus showing that the physics have been captured well. It is proved that the present workflow can obtain valid expressions with similar to better performance than the baseline model.The research leading to this work has received funding within the HiFi-TURB project from the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 814837. Oriol Lehmkuhl has been partially supported by a Ramon y Cajal postdoctoral contract (Ref: RYC2018-025949-I).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Protection from cytomegalovirus after transplantation is correlated with immediate early 1–specific CD8 T cells

T cells are crucial for the control of cytomegalovirus (CMV) in infected individuals. Although CMV-specific T cells can be quantified by various methods, clear correlates of protection from CMV disease have not been defined. However, responses to the pp65 protein are believed to play an important role. Here, the proportions of interferon γ–producing T cells following ex vivo activation with pools of overlapping peptides representing the pp65 and immediate early (IE)-1 proteins were determined at multiple time points and related to the development of CMV disease in 27 heart and lung transplant recipients. Frequencies of IE-1–specific CD8 T cells above 0.2 and 0.4% at day 0 and 2 wk, respectively, or 0.4% at any time during the first months discriminated patients who did not develop CMV disease from patients at risk, 50–60% of whom developed CMV disease. No similar distinction between risk groups was possible based on pp65-specific CD8 or CD4 T cell responses. Remarkably, CMV disease developed exclusively in patients with a dominant pp65-specific CD8 T cell response. In conclusion, high frequencies of IE-1 but not pp65-specific CD8 T cells correlate with protection from CMV disease. These results have important implications for monitoring T cell responses, adoptive cell therapy, and vaccine design

Transnational Governance as Contested Institution-Building: China, Merchants, and Contract Rules in the Cotton Trade

We are in an era of uncertainty over whose rules will govern global economic integration. With the growing market share of Chinese firms and the power of the Chinese state it is unclear if Western firms will continue to dominate transnational governance. Exploring these dynamics through a study of contract rules in the global cotton trade, this article conceptualizes commodity chain governance as a contested process of institution-building. To this end, the global commodity chain/global value chain (GCC/GVC) framework must be revised to better account for the broader institutional context of commodity chain governance, institutional variation across space, and strategic action in the construction of legitimate governance arrangements. I provide a more dynamic model of GCC governance that stresses how strategic action, existing institutions, and dominant discourses intersect as firms and states compete for institutional power within a commodity chain. This advances our understandings of how commodity chain governance emerges and changes over time

The Importance of Small Differences: European integration and road haulage associations in Germany and the Netherlands

--1 INTRODUCTION: OUTLINE AND MAJOR FINDINGS 1 --2 THE IMPACT OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION ON NATIONAL SYSTEMS OF INTEREST INTERMEDIATION 11 --2.1 General Considerations About State-Society Relations 14 --2.2 European Integration and the Organisation of Interests 18 --2.3 The Analytical Framework: The Adjustment of Structures and Strategies 22 --3 TRANSPORT POLICY IN EUROPE: THE LEGAL-INSTITUTIONAL AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS 35 --3.1 European Transport Policy: Legal, Institutional and Political Developments 36 --3.1.1 Legal Framework 37 --3.1.2 Institutional Framewoik 38 --3.1.3 European Transport Policy-Making 41 --3.1.4 The Common European Transport Policy: Its Making and Its Impact on the Member States 49 --3.2 The General Economic Environment 54 --3.2.1 The Transport Demand Side 55 --3.2.2 The Transport Supply Side 64 --3.3 Conclusion: The Impact of Political And Economic Integration on the Domestic Level 75 --4 GERMANY: CORPORATIST IMMOBILITY 79 --Introduction 79 --4.1 General Description: Considerable Potential for Collective Action 80 --4.2 Institutional Framework of the Transport Sector 84 --4.2.1 The Institutional and Regulatory Framework 85- --4.2.2 The Structure of the Transport Sector 90 --4.3 The Structure of State-Industry Relations in Road Transport 96 --4.3.2 Synopsis: The Organisation of Interests in German Road Transport 110 --4.3.3 Institutionalised Forms of Interaction 116 --4,4 Patterns of Interest Intermediation 119 --4.5 Summary: An Associational System Under Stress 122 --5 THE NETHERLANDS: NEO-CORPORATISM ALIVE AND KICKING 127 --Introduction 127 --5.1 General Description: A Decentralised Unitary State 128 --5.2 Institutional Framework of the Transport Sector 134 --5.2.1 The Institutional Framework 134 --5.2.2 The Regulatory Framework 136 --5.3 The Structure of the Transport Sector 142 --5.4 Structure of State-Industry --Relations in Road Transport 146 --5.4.1 The Organisation of Interests 146 --5.4.2 Patterns of Interest Intermediation 158 --5.5 Summary: The Associational System—Recovery by Concentration 163 --6 THE IMPACT OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION ON NATIONAL ASSOCIATIONAL SYSTEMS COMPARED 167 --6,1 Economic and Political Integration in Europe 169 --6.2 European Integration and National Associational Systems 171 --6.2.1 Logic of Membership Variables: The Sector Structure 171 --6.2,2 The Organisation of Interests 176 --6.2,3 Logic of Influence Variables: The External Environment 179 --6.3 Structural Convergence of Associational Systems? 186 --6.4 Europe's Differential Impact on Public-Private Exchange Mechanisms 195 --6.4,1 On Technical and Institutional Environments 196 --6.4.2 The Micropolitics of Associations 204 --7 CONCLUSION 211 --REFERENCES 215Published version of EUI PhD thesis, 199