Illiberalism within: rule of law backsliding in the EU

How should the European Union cope with Member States that no longer respect the basic values of the Union? This article reviews the responses of the major European Union institutions to Poland and Hungary as their governments removed checks on their power, eliminated the independence of judiciaries and failed to honour their European commitments. As the article demonstrates, the responses of EU institutions have so far been ineffective in bringing these Member States back into line with European values. We examine the various proposals that have been made to do better, concluding that there is promise in some legal strategies that are available now, but have yet to be tried

The role of collective narcissism in populist attitudes and the collapse of democracy in Hungary

What are the psychological processes responsible for the recent spread of populist political systems and movements? All political systems essentially reflect the mental representations of their populations, and collective narcissism has recently emerged as a contributing factor in the rise of populism. This article presents two studies examining the role of collective narcissism in predicting populist attitudes and voting intentions in Hungary. Hungary offers a particularly important case study of state-sponsored populism and illiberalism in Europe, as this country has gone furthest in undermining democratic principles and practices within the EU. To establish the pervasive role of collective narcissism we first review the historical evidence, survey research, and narrative analyses of Hungarian political representations. We then present two empirical studies where we predicted and found that collective narcissism was a significant predictor of negative attitudes toward the EU (Study 1), conservatism, and support for the ruling populist party (Studies 1 and 2). Collective narcissism predicted these variables independently from other factors, such as in-group positivity or perceived relative deprivation. However, once conservatism was controlled for the effects of collective narcissism faded out in some cases. The results nevertheless indicate that collective narcissism plays important role in promoting populist politics. The implications of these findings for understanding the psychological appeal of populism and illiberalism are discussed

Advances in structure elucidation of small molecules using mass spectrometry

The structural elucidation of small molecules using mass spectrometry plays an important role in modern life sciences and bioanalytical approaches. This review covers different soft and hard ionization techniques and figures of merit for modern mass spectrometers, such as mass resolving power, mass accuracy, isotopic abundance accuracy, accurate mass multiple-stage MS(n) capability, as well as hybrid mass spectrometric and orthogonal chromatographic approaches. The latter part discusses mass spectral data handling strategies, which includes background and noise subtraction, adduct formation and detection, charge state determination, accurate mass measurements, elemental composition determinations, and complex data-dependent setups with ion maps and ion trees. The importance of mass spectral library search algorithms for tandem mass spectra and multiple-stage MS(n) mass spectra as well as mass spectral tree libraries that combine multiple-stage mass spectra are outlined. The successive chapter discusses mass spectral fragmentation pathways, biotransformation reactions and drug metabolism studies, the mass spectral simulation and generation of in silico mass spectra, expert systems for mass spectral interpretation, and the use of computational chemistry to explain gas-phase phenomena. A single chapter discusses data handling for hyphenated approaches including mass spectral deconvolution for clean mass spectra, cheminformatics approaches and structure retention relationships, and retention index predictions for gas and liquid chromatography. The last section reviews the current state of electronic data sharing of mass spectra and discusses the importance of software development for the advancement of structure elucidation of small molecules

Emergency Europe

At the level of general principle, representative democracy is appealed to by the EU institutions and member states alike. Yet in today's Europe it risks being marginalised amidst the actions and rhetoric of emergency – a norm to be waived in a state of exception, leaving decisions of lasting consequence shielded from public debate. A German constitutional theorist once famously defined as sovereign the one who has the power to declare the state of exception, and linked this power closely to executive suspensions of the law. The European setting invites a different understanding of an emergency regime: one that is manifest in the contravention of norms which may or may not be legally codified, and which is collectively produced by multiple actors. The persistence of politics in the emergency register indicates precisely the weakness of political authority. The article goes on to examine how exceptional this exceptionalism is. Is Europe's emergency politics a recent phenomenon, or has it been one of the currents of European integration from the beginning