Despite attention focusing on Juncker’s new Commission, the European Council will remain the real centre of EU decision-making

The appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as the new President of the European Commission generated substantial media attention over the summer, which has continued during the Commissioner hearings held in the European Parliament. Uwe Puetter assesses how these developments sit alongside his theory of ‘deliberative intergovernmentalism’, under which the European Council is viewed as holding a central role in the EU’s decision-making process. He argues that the appointments made in 2014 are largely in keeping with the new intergovernmental modes of decision-making which have emerged over the last two decades, and that far from attempting to undermine the European Council’s role, Juncker can be expected to develop close co-operation between the European Council and the Commission

Meta-nematic transitions in a bilayer system: Application to the bilayer ruthenate

It was suggested that the two consecutive metamagnetic transitions and the large residual resistivity discovered in Sr$_3$Ru$_2$O$_7$ can be understood via the nematic order and its domains in a single layer system. However, a recently reported anisotropy between two longitudinal resistivities induced by tilting the magnetic field away from the c-axis cannot be explained within the single layer nematic picture. To fill the gap in our understanding within the nematic order scenario, we investigate the effects of bilayer coupling and in-plane magnetic field on the electronic nematic phases in a bilayer system. We propose that the in-plane magnetic field in the bilayer system modifies the energetics of the domain formation, since it breaks the degeneracy of two different nematic orientations. Thus the system reveals a pure nematic phase with a resistivity anisotropy in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field. In addition to the nematic phase, the bilayer coupling opens a novel route to a hidden nematic phase that preserves the x-y symmetry of the Fermi surfaces.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Dynamic analysis and testing of on-load tap changer

The dynamic resistance measurement was developed as a supplementary measurement in order to analyse the switching process of the on-load tap changer. The article considers the importance of on-load tap changers and their main testing methods with the focus on dynamic resistance measurement

The study of national preference formation in times of the Euro crisis and beyond

The aim of its introduction is threefold: We start from a conceptual clarification of preference formation, defining it provisionally as a political process ‘by which social actors decide what they want and what to pursue’. After an analysis of different conceptual and theoretical approaches, the introduction offers a critique of liberal intergovernmentalism, one of the major explanatory frameworks of preference formation in European Union studies. This critique centres on the context in which national preference formation took place during the European Monetary Union crisis. This special issue argues that the conceptualisation of preference formation as state-based, unidirectional and unchanged by the regime is deeply problematic. Preference formation is typically messy and non-linear and rarely closed to the possibility that both preferences and positions may change, sometimes radically, it is even more complex, context-sensitive, and open to a wide range of influences in a multi-level system such as the European Union. In other words, the traditional understanding of preference formation as a purely domestic process of interest aggregation and competition require revision given the multiple factors that shape preferences in general and in the interdependent policy-making of the European Union in particular

The New Intergovernmentalism: European Integration in the Post-Maastricht Era

The post-Maastricht period is marked by an integration paradox. While the basic constitutional features of the European Union have remained stable, EU activity has expanded to an unprecedented degree. This form of integration without supranationalism is no exception or temporary deviation from traditional forms of European integration. Rather, it is a distinct phase of European integration, what is called ‘the new intergovernmentalism’ in this article. This approach to post-Maastricht integration challenges theories that associate integration with transfers of competences from national capitals to supranational institutions and those that reduce integration to traditional socioeconomic or security-driven interests. This article explains the integration paradox in terms of transformations in Europe's political economy, changes in preference formation and the decline of the ‘permissive consensus’. It presents a set of six hypotheses that develop further the main claims of the new intergovernmentalism and that can be used as a basis for future research.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcms.1221

O corpo fala

Curta-metragem sobre a importância da linguagem não-verbal nos processos comunicativos dos humanos. Uma ficção baseada no livro “O Corpo Fala”, de Pierre Weil e Roland Tompakov. Instrumento de aprendizagem e decodificação do significado por trás de gestos e movimentos dos humanos. Olhar sobre o corpo humano como poderoso instrumento de comunicação, que dá sinais constantes ao mundo externo dos mais íntimos sentimentos, sem que se perceba. Uma linguagem pouco explorada e difundida que, após diversos estudos, demonstrou ter grande importância em campos desde a psicologia até a política. No curta-metragem, através da história de três personagens, junto com um narrador, dá-se a descoberta das intenções que motivam diversos movimentos. Com estética de um vídeo institucional, apresenta-se a linguagem não-verbal dos corpos como um sistema de códigos que pode ser aprendido, tanto pela observação de terceiros quanto pela do próprio corpo. Relatório técnico com a descrição das etapas da produção audiovisual