The EU’s stability-democracy dilemma in the context of the problematic accession of the Western Balkan states

The accession of the remaining six Western Balkan states into the EU is shrouded in much uncertainty. Despite Croatia finally traversing the difficult path to eventual membership in 2013, not one of the remaining Western Balkan countries can claim to be on a definite pathway to membership today. An increasingly prevalent argument is that the EU’s engagement with its neighbourhoods has faltered because its strategies have been undermined by an inherent stability-democracy dilemma. This article examines the EU’s engagement with the Western Balkans and finds that although the EU tried to transcend this dilemma, in reality, a tension between stability and democracy was present with the former generally receiving more attention in policymaking. This led to not only a lack of tangible democratization amongst the Western Balkan states, but further uncertainty about their accession prospects. By 2018, it was clear that the EU’s engagement with the Western Balkans needed a rethink, resulting in a new approach: the ‘Six Flagship Initiatives’. However, given the apprehensiveness of some member states (especially France) coupled with the presence of outsiders such as Russia and China in the area, the accession prospects of the six non-EU Western Balkan states remains blurred

Addressing the contractor selection problem using an evidential reasoning approach

Selecting the ‘best’ main contractor is a complex decision process for construction clients. It requires a large number of criteria to be simultaneously measured and evaluated. Many of these criteria are related to one another in a complex way and therefore, they very often conflict insofar as improvement in one often results in decline of another(s). Furthermore, as contractors' attributes are expressed in both quantitative and qualitative terms, decision-makers have to base their judgements on both quantitative data and experiential subjective assessments. In this paper, the evidential reasoning (ER) approach (which is capable of processing both quantitative and qualitative measures) is applied as a means of solving the contractor selection problem (CSP). The process of building a multiple criteria decision model of a hierarchical structure is presented, in which both quantitative and qualitative information is represented in a unified manner. The CSP is then fully investigated using the ER approach. Both the advantages of applying this model in practice and the analysis process itself are discussed

Near-death experiences, attacks by family members, and absence of health care in their home countries affect the quality of life of refugee women in Germany: a multi-region, cross-sectional, gender-sensitive study

Jesuthasan J, Sönmez E, Abels I, et al. Near-death experiences, attacks by family members, and absence of health care in their home countries affect the quality of life of refugee women in Germany: a multi-region, cross-sectional, gender-sensitive study. BMC Medicine. 2018;16(1): 15