Intergovernmentalists in the Commission:Foxes in the Henhouse?

Contrary to the dominant view in the scholarly literature on European institutions, where the European Commission is generally described as a unitary actor whose acts are primarily influenced by a political agenda and/or considerations of self-interest, this article argues that a variety of opinions coexist within the Commission staff. Based on the largest attitudinal survey ever conducted on Commission officials, it documents the existence of a sizeable minority of intergovernmentalists and analyzes their attitude towards the institution they serve and their views on its place in the integration process

A different appetite for sovereignty? Independence movements in subnational island jurisdictions

Local autonomy in a subnational jurisdiction is more likely to be gained, secured or enhanced where there are palpable movements or political parties agitating for independence in these smaller territories. A closer look at the fortunes, operations and dynamics of independence parties from subnational island jurisdictions can offer some interesting insights on the appetite for sovereignty and independence, but also the lack thereof, in the twenty-first century.peer-reviewe

A Framework for city leadership in multilevel governance settings: the comparative contexts of Italy and the UK

This paper discusses the role of city leadership in the current multilevel governance settings and provides a conceptual framework for understanding the main elements of city leadership. Forms of political, managerial and civic leadership have been distinguished within city leadership and the main actors, structures, processes and followership patterns are examined using Italy and the UK as starting points of comparison. This comparative framework sheds a light on some common and different features in the city leadership patterns in Italy and the UK, such as the cross-cutting and multilayered administrative context for public service delivery; the common trend towards strengthening the executive side of political leadership rather than the representative one; the growing relevance of forms of civic leadership as a trigger for creating public and social value and for enhancing the resilience of the territories. Main differences deal instead with the role of central government in defining the role of city leaders, where Italy seems to experience a return towards greater centralization and controls, and the UK is experiencing an opposite trend towards the empowerment of local communities. Finally, the paper sets out some future directions for the research agenda on city leadership we are seeking to pursue

Policy Entrepreneurship and Multilevel Governance: A Comparative Study of European Cross-Border Regions

This article was publsihed in the journal, Environment and Planning C [© Pion]. The definitive version is available at: http://www.envplan.com/C.htmlThis article addresses the recent proliferation of Cross-Border Regions, or Euroregions, in Europe. It argues that EU multi-level governance patterns generate opportunities for entrepreneurial policy organisations to attract policy tasks and resources. This is conceptualised as policy entrepreneurship and applied to a comparative case study analysis of three Euroregions: EUREGIO (Germany – Netherlands), Viadrina (Poland – Germany) and Tyrol (Austria – Italy). The analysis focuses on the ability of these initiatives to establish themselves as autonomous organisations. It finds considerable variation across the cases in this respect. Following on from this, the paper shows how different administrative and institutional environments in different EU member states affect the ability of Euroregions to engage in policy entrepreneurship. It concludes that is it premature to perceive Euroregions as new types of regional territorial entities; rather, they are part of the policy innovation scenario enabled by EU multi-level governance

Europe as a multilevel federation

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Who says what to whom? Alignments and arguments in EU policy-making

In the EU multilevel polity, domestic interest groups seek to shape EU legislation by accessing both national and EU institutions. Previous studies indicated that institutional and issue contexts, as well as organizational characteristics shape their strategies of interest representation. However, we know much less about how alignments and arguments impact on their participation in EU and national policy consultations. Addressing this gap, we investigate the lobbying strategies of almost 2,900 national interest organizations from five member states (Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) on 20 EU directive proposals bringing also a new empirical scope to the study of multilevel interest representation. The findings indicate that alignments and arguments shape the participation of domestic interest groups in consultations on EU policies. We infer from our study that some general predictions of interest group behaviour are overstretched and outline four variations of interest representation routines

Entrepreneurial sons, patriarchy and the Colonels' experiment in Thessaly, rural Greece

Existing studies within the field of institutional entrepreneurship explore how entrepreneurs influence change in economic institutions. This paper turns the attention of scholarly inquiry on the antecedents of deinstitutionalization and more specifically, the influence of entrepreneurship in shaping social institutions such as patriarchy. The paper draws from the findings of ethnographic work in two Greek lowland village communities during the military Dictatorship (1967–1974). Paradoxically this era associated with the spread of mechanization, cheap credit, revaluation of labour and clear means-ends relations, signalled entrepreneurial sons’ individuated dissent and activism who were now able to question the Patriarch’s authority, recognize opportunities and act as unintentional agents of deinstitutionalization. A ‘different’ model of institutional change is presented here, where politics intersects with entrepreneurs, in changing social institutions. This model discusses the external drivers of institutional atrophy and how handling dissensus (and its varieties over historical time) is instrumental in enabling institutional entrepreneurship