The Iraq War: killing dreams of a unified EU?

For students of EU public policy, the EU's reaction during and after the Iraq War may represent the same story of impotence that has historically plagued the EU when trying to speak with a single voice and act with a united front during a major world crisis. Despite some achievements with the EU's Common and Foreign Security Policy (CFSP) of the early 1990s (Ginsberg 1997; Holland 1995), the Iraq War perhaps best reflects Cameron's concerns: "in handling serious political crises, especially those involving armed conflict, the Union has rarely acted as one", or acted effectively (Cameron, 1998, 66). Seeking to better understand why the EU did not act effectively during the Iraq War and to consider what lessons can be taken from this experience, the paper has three main objectives. First, the paper considers the theoretical reasons that help explain why the EU has historically failed to create a common defence and security policy. The section thereafter analyses developments during the Iraq war and tests which theoretical explanations (or combinations thereof) are of most value to understand the EU's stance. The final section then considers the future of the EU as an international actor in light of the fundamental concepts introduced by Hill (1993) regarding 'capabilities' and 'expectations' of EU foreign policy

Policy Formulation, Implementation and Feedback in EU Merger Control

This paper analyses the formulation of the EU Merger Control Regulation (MCR) and its implementation via the 1992 Nestlé/Perrier merger. It offers two arguments. First, these phases of policy development occurred in ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ policy communities found at the supranational level of governance. The first community consists of larger Commission and business interests that formulated the MCR and the second of specific actors within the ‘macro’ community - the Merger Task Force and the firms – that implemented the rules. Secondly, the development of these communities can be explained by private interest theory. The conclusions highlight two main lessons for students of comparative European politics. First, the concept of ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ communities existing at both the formulation and implementation phases of policy offers a framework for comparativists to better analyse which types of actors will interact during different stages of the policy-making process. It is argued that while the (larger) ‘macro’ community helps define the nature of the regulations, a related, but not necessarily equally composed, ‘micro’ community eventually implements the rules, potentially changing the nature of the policy itself via a ‘feedback’ mechanism. Secondly, this study suggests that comparativists must pay more attention to the private interests of policy-makers and how these are intertwined with their ‘private fears.’ Such interests and fears guide policy-makers while simultaneously constrain them from acting alone.

Continuity and change in party positions towards Europe in Italian parties: an examination of parties' manifestos

This paper analyses Italian parties' manifestos for national and European elections from 1979 to 1999 with the 'Wordscore' programme in order to gauge whether party positions with regard to the European Union have changed and whether the salience of the European Union has increased. Results indicate that, although there is no sign of increased salience, the leading Italian political parties have repositioned themselves in their attitudes towards the European Union, indicating that the European political space matters for national parties

Economic actors' political activity in 'overlap issues': privatisation and EU state aid control

This paper considers the political activity of economic actors in what we refer to as ‘overlap issues.’ Such issues consist of two separate, but related, domestic and supranational decisions that are taken at both levels of European governance. Examined here are the domestic level privatisation policy-making processes in Spain, France and Ireland, and the subsequent European Commission decisions on the state aids given during the sales. The research argues that although the influence of economic actors is crucial in understanding the domestic-level privatisation aid negotiations, such actors’ participation is absent in the supranational decision-making process that witnessed all the aids being approved. In order to explain this limited political activity of firms at the EU-level, attention is focused on both the role of the member state and the paradoxes in EU policies that simultaneously guide and constrain the Commission from making a decision against capital. The conclusions situate our findings within the ‘elite pluralist’ literature on economic actors’ political activity in Europe while also considering the idea of the structural dependence of the EU on capital

EU external policy-making and the case of Morocco: 'Realistically' dealing with authoritarianism?

The literature on the external relations of the EU often emphasises the normative nature of the Union’s policies. It follows that specific policy initiatives such as the Euro–Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) are then assessed according to normative parameters. This paper challenges this assumption and argues that a realist interpretation of the Union–s external policies contributes to a better understanding of what the EU does abroad. In order to substantiate such theoretical claims, the paper analyses in detail the EU’s relations with the authoritarian state of Morocco and highlights how realist concerns dominate the Union’s preoccupations to the detriment of the normative values it espouses on paper. The paper concludes by arguing that if a different theoretical framework from the mainstream normative one is used to assess the Union’s policies, the outcome of this assessment changes quite radically. In the case of EMP, for instance, we claim that the Union has been rather successful in pursuing its material, realist interests. This has important implications for how the EU will operate when more integration on foreign policy matters occurs

Spain and European Union Constitution-building

The broad objective of this paper is to better understand how national governments form their policy position on the Draft Constitutional proposal by analysing developments in Spain. It examines the Spanish position on various parts of the European Convention based on data from expert interviews carried out in November 2003. It then evaluates the internal coordination process, focusing on the few domestic-level actors (from the Prime Ministers’ Office and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Economy) that have been most influential in shaping Spain’s position. Finally, it ponders the potential shift in the Spanish position given the recent Socialist victory in March 2004

“Next Door They Have Regulation, But Not Here …”: Assessing the Opinions of Actors in the Opaque World of Unregulated Lobbying

The lobbying of government by various interests is regarded as central to the democratic process. Deliberative democratic theorists tell us that the regulation of lobbying has a positive effect on political systems, and the behaviour of those within them. Yet, only four democratic systems (Canada, USA, EU and Germany) have legislation regulating lobbyists’ activities, and even this regulation is not all pervasive. Here we examine the attitudes of actors in states, provinces, and institutions in the above democracies, where no regulations exist. This ensures that the actors we deal with have knowledge of lobbying regulations, what these regulations entail, as well as the consequences of the absence of any such regulations. Our objective is to discover if these actors see benefits in the introduction of lobbying legislation, as is suggested by deliberative democratic theory

Introduction: diverging or converging dynamics? EU and US policies in North Africa - an introduction

According to a number of scholars of international relations, the transatlantic relationship is going through a very significant and possibly irreversible crisis. It is claimed that the different reactions of the United States and the European Union to both September 11th and the war in Iraq were the catalyst for a rift that had been deepening for some time, leading to competition between the two actors. The literature on the foreign policy of the US and the EU in the Middle East and North Africa also points to this rift in order to explain the seemingly contradictory policies that the two actors implement in the region, with the US being more forceful in its attempts to export democracy and in supporting Israel while the EU adopts a less confrontational attitude and is perceived to be more friendly to the Palestinians. This article, which introduces a special issue on the nature of US and EU foreign policies in North Africa, argues on the contrary that the transatlantic rift does not really exist. While there are certainly differences in discourse and policies, both the EU and the US share the same concerns and have similar strategic objectives in the region, leading the two actors towards cooperation and division of labour rather than confrontation

An integrative multi-dimensional genetic and epigenetic strategy to identify aberrant genes and pathways in cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Genomics has substantially changed our approach to cancer research. Gene expression profiling, for example, has been utilized to delineate subtypes of cancer, and facilitated derivation of predictive and prognostic signatures. The emergence of technologies for the high resolution and genome-wide description of genetic and epigenetic features has enabled the identification of a multitude of causal DNA events in tumors. This has afforded the potential for large scale integration of genome and transcriptome data generated from a variety of technology platforms to acquire a better understanding of cancer.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we show how multi-dimensional genomics data analysis would enable the deciphering of mechanisms that disrupt regulatory/signaling cascades and downstream effects. Since not all gene expression changes observed in a tumor are causal to cancer development, we demonstrate an approach based on multiple concerted disruption (MCD) analysis of genes that facilitates the rational deduction of aberrant genes and pathways, which otherwise would be overlooked in single genomic dimension investigations.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Notably, this is the first comprehensive study of breast cancer cells by parallel integrative genome wide analyses of DNA copy number, LOH, and DNA methylation status to interpret changes in gene expression pattern. Our findings demonstrate the power of a multi-dimensional approach to elucidate events which would escape conventional single dimensional analysis and as such, reduce the cohort sample size for cancer gene discovery.</p

Cas9 gRNA engineering for genome editing, activation and repression

We demonstrate that by altering the length of Cas9-associated guide RNA(gRNA) we were able to control Cas9 nuclease activity and simultaneously perform genome editing and transcriptional regulation with a single Cas9 protein. We exploited these principles to engineer mammalian synthetic circuits with combined transcriptional regulation and kill functions governed by a single multifunctional Cas9 protein.National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.) (P50 HG005550)United States. Department of Energy (DE-FG02-02ER63445)Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired EngineeringUnited States. Army Research Office (DARPA W911NF-11-2-0054)National Science Foundation (U.S.)United States. National Institutes of Health (5R01CA155320-04)United States. National Institutes of Health (P50 GM098792)National Cancer Institute (U.S.) (5T32CA009216-34)Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological EngineeringHarvard Medical School. Department of GeneticsDefense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) (HDTRA1-14-1-0006