coordination through judicial dialogue

International courts regularly cite each other, in part as a means of building legitimacy. Such international, cross-court use of precedent (or “judicial dialogue”) among the regional human rights courts and the Human Rights Committee has an additional purpose and effect: the construction of a rights-based global constitutionalism. Judicial dialogue among the human rights courts is purposeful in that the courts see themselves as embedded in, and contributing to, a global human rights legal system. Cross-citation among the human rights courts advances the construction of rights-based global constitutionalism in that it provides a basic degree of coordination among the regional courts. The jurisprudence of the U.N. Human Rights Committee (HRC), as an authoritative interpreter of core international human rights norms, plays the role of a central focal point for the decentralized coordination of jurisprudence. The network of regional courts and the HRC is building an emergent institutional structure for global rights-based constitutionalism

(Re)theorising European Integration under Globalisation:A Political Economy Approach

In the last two decades, the European Union has become wider and deeper. In addition, the number of regional integration arrangements has increased dramatically since early 1990s. Against these developments, the focus of regional and European integration studies has shifted away from the motives for and drivers of the integration process towards policy analysis or the comparative politics or regional blocs. This article attempts to bring the regional integration theory back in by proposing a political economy model that explains the dynamics of European integration, the reasons as to why governments agree to delegate authority to regional (EU) institutions, and the relationship between globalisation and integration

The CFSP in synergetic theorising: Explaining the CFSP via a multi-causal and muilti-level analytical model. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 8, No. 7, May 2008.

Usually, theoretical approaches and/or analytical models used in the study of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) are build on 'unicausal influences' and on just one 'level of analysis'. No doubt, such perspectives are parsimonious and elegant in their character. However, they exclude important elements in the CFSP's existence and development. By doing so, they are narrow in their analytical scope. The conclusion is that the CFSP is a complex object of analysis, requiring complex analytical models. This paper offers a new, multi-causal and multi-level framework based on three integration theories each for one relevant level of analysis. The model, so goes the argument, can account for significant factors that influence the institutional development of the CFSP. By this example, complex analytical frameworks, as the paper argues, are necessary both in order to better manage the examinations of complex subject matters and in order to fully explain their institutional developments

Determinants of corruption in developing countries

Corruption is not a new phenomenon; we are living with it since the birth of government's institutions. Corruption has two dimensions; public sector corruption and private sector corruption. The public sector corruption means, misuse of public office for private benefits. For cross country analysis, public sector corruption is mainly focused. In this study, we have analyzed the 41 developing countries to investigate the determinants of corruption. Corruption determinants are sub-divided into economic determinants and non-economic determinants. The economic determinants include economic freedom, globalization, level of education, distribution of income and average level of income. The non-economic determinants list consists on press freedom, democracy and share of population affiliated with particular religion. The empirical findings of the study indicates that; all economic determinants are negatively related to the perceived level of corruption except distribution of income and non-economic determinants are not significantly explaining the variations in the level of corruption. This shows that the socio-political and religious norms are so weak that they can not affect the corruption level in these countries. The contribution of religion in people's practical life is very little, so the cultural values of developing countries are not religion based. Therefore, perceived level of corruption is not affected by the religion. This study concluded that government should focus the economic factors to curb the level of corruption. --

The double-edged sword of jurisdictional entrenchment: Explaining HR professionals’ failed strategic repositioning

To protect themselves against deskilling and obsolescence, professionals must periodically revise their claims to authority and expertise. Although we understand these dynamics in the broader system of professions, we have a less-complete understanding of how this process unfolds in specific organizational contexts. Yet given the ubiquity of embedded professionals, this context is where jurisdictional shifts increasingly take place. Drawing on a comparative ethnographic study of HR professionals in two engineering firms, we introduce the concept of jurisdictional entrenchment to explain the challenges embedded professionals face when they attempt to redefine their jurisdiction. Jurisdictional entrenchment describes a condition in which embedded professionals have accumulated tasks, tactics, and expertise that enable them to make jurisdictional claims in an organization. We show how such entrenchment is a double-edged sword: instrumental to the ability of professionals to withstand challenges to their authority, but detrimental when expertise and skills devalued by the professionals remain in high demand by clients, thus preventing the professionals’ shift to their aspirational jurisdiction. Overall, our study contributes to a better understanding of how embedded professionals renegotiate jurisdictional claims within the constraints of organizational employment

Processing mathematics through digital technologies: A reorganisation of student thinking?

This article reports on aspects of an ongoing study examining the use of digital media in mathematics education. In particular, it is concerned with how understanding evolves when mathematical tasks are engaged through digital pedagogical media in primary school settings. While there has been a growing body of research into software and other digital media that enhances geometric, algebraic, and statistical thinking in secondary schools, research of these aspects in primary school mathematics is still limited, and emerging intermittently. The affordances of digital technology that allow dynamic, visual interaction with mathematical tasks, the rapid manipulation of large amounts of data, and instant feedback to input, have already been identified as ways mathematical ideas can be engaged in alternative ways. How might these, and other opportunities digital media afford, transform the learning experience and the ways mathematical ideas are understood? Using an interpretive methodology, the researcher examined how mathematical thinking can be seen as a function of the pedagogical media through which the mathematics is encountered. The article gives an account of how working in a spreadsheet environment framed learners' patterns of social interaction, and how this interaction, in conjunction with other influences, mediated the understanding of mathematical ideas, through framing the students' learning pathways and facilitating risk taking

Science Teacher Learning of MBL-Supported Student-Centered Science Education in the Context of Secondary Education in Tanzania

Science teachers from secondary schools in Tanzania were offered an in-service arrangement to prepare them for the integration of technology in a student-centered approach to science teaching. The in-service arrangement consisted of workshops in which educative curriculum materials were used to prepare teachers for student-centered education and for the use and application of Microcomputer Based Laboratories (MBL)—a specific technology application for facilitating experiments in science education. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected to study whether the in-service arrangement impacted teacher learning. Teacher learning was determined by three indicators: (1) the ability to conduct MBL-supported student centered science lessons, (2) teachers’ reflection on those lessons and (3) students’ perceptions of the classroom environment. The results of the research indicate that the teachers’ were able to integrate MBL in their science lessons at an acceptable level and that they were able to create a classroom environment which was appreciated by their students as more investigative and open-ended