Polanyi in Brussels? Embeddedness and the three dimensions of European economic integration

In a recent article, Caporaso and Tarrow have argued that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is increasingly moving in a social policy direction that will ultimately put European politics on a 'Polanyian' course. We take issue with their claim and distinguish three dimensions of European economic and social integration: market-correcting integration, market-enforcing integration, and the creation of a European area of nondiscrimination, the latter consisting of two subdimensions, namely nondiscrimination on the basis of characteristics such as gender, age, and ethnic origin, on the one hand, and nondiscriminatory transnational access to the social security systems of the member states, on the other. Increased heterogeneity among European varieties of capitalism perpetuates the different ranges and speeds of these integration dimensions. We conclude that the Polanyi-in-Brussels hypothesis is misleading. Politically enforced social integration has not made much progress in the last decades, while market-enforcing integration and European nondiscrimination policies have asymmetrically profited from 'integration through law.' So far, the impact of European integration on political economy has been Hayekian rather than Polanyian. -- Jüngst haben Caporaso und Tarrow argumentiert, die Rechtsprechung des Europäischen Gerichtshofs (EuGH) weise zunehmend soziale Züge auf und führe dazu, dass die europäische Integration eine 'Polanyische' Richtung einnehme. Wir wenden uns gegen diese These und unterscheiden drei Dimensionen der europäischen Wirtschafts- und Sozialintegration: die marktkorrigierende Integration, die marktschaffende Inte�gration und die Schaffung eines europäischen Antidiskriminierungsraums, wobei letztere aus zwei Subdimensionen besteht, nämlich der Nichtdiskriminierung aus Gründen wie denen des Alters, der ethnischen Zugehörigkeit und des Geschlechts einerseits, und der Durchsetzung eines diskriminierungsfreien transnationalen Zugangs zu den sozialen Sicherungssystemen der Mitgliedstaaten andererseits. Die gestiegene Heterogenität europäischer Spielarten des Kapitalismus perpetuiert die unterschiedlichen Reichweiten und Geschwindigkeiten der Integration in den drei Dimensionen. Wir kommen zu dem Ergebnis, dass die 'Polanyi in Brüssel'-These unzutreffend ist. Während die politisch herbeigeführte, soziale Integration kaum Fortschritte macht, profitieren die marktschaffende Integration und die europäische Antidiskriminierungspolitik von der 'Integration durch Recht'. Die europäische Integration trägt daher weit mehr Hayeksche als Polanyische Züge.

Beyond the Community Method: Why the Open Method of Coordination Was Introduced to EU Policy-making

This paper looks at the introduction of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) to EU policy-making. This new mode of governance has been developed over the last decade and has received considerable attention in the literature. However, much of this writing fails to put the OMC into the broader context of EMU; in contrast, this paper links the Amsterdam employment title to the prior Maastricht decision to form a monetary union. It seeks to contribute to the literature on European integration in two ways: First, this paper offers three refinements to Pierson's historical institutionalist account of European integration. Second, it thus provides an alternative to functional explanations of the OMC. In brief the argument is that a conservative-liberal coalition at Maastricht created hard law in fiscal and monetary policy to constrain its successors, while the social democratic majority at Amsterdam relied on soft law to promote its goals in employment and social policy. While the former effectively limited later policy-choices, the latter largely avoids sovereignty losses for national governments. The contents of the Employment Title were determined by EMU, its form the OMC by social democratic reluctance to transfer power to the EU

A new form of governance? Comparing the open method of coordination to multilateral surveillance by the IMF and the OECD

"Die EU-Literatur der letzten Jahre hat der Offenen Methode der Koordinierung (OMC) viel Aufmerksamkeit zukommen lassen. Die vorherrschende Sichtweise behauptet, dass die OMC nicht nur ein neues, sondern auch ein effektives Instrument der Politikgestaltung sei. Dieser Aufsatz stellt beide Aussagen infrage, indem es einen Vergleich verschiedener soft law-Verfahren von drei internationalen Organisationen vorlegt. Im Einzelnen vergleicht dieses Papier die Europäische Beschäftigungsstrategie – mit der die OMC zuerst entstanden ist – mit den Grundzügen der Wirtschaftspolitik der EU, den Länderberichten der OECD sowie den Artikel-IV-Konsultationen des Internationalen Währungsfonds. Auf der Grundlage von Experteninterviews wird gezeigt, dass alle vier Verfahren multilateraler Überwachung zugeordnet werden können und kein kategorischer Unterschied zwischen ihnen besteht. Eine solche vergleichende Analyse widerlegt die angenommene Neuheit der OMC. Aufbauend auf dem Vergleich der vier Verfahren wird dann ein allgemeines Modell multilateraler Überwachung entwickelt, welches aus sechs Elementen besteht und zukünftige Studien erleichtern wird. Dieser Aufsatz schließt mit der Beobachtung, dass Regierungen voluntaristische Verfahren eher deshalb wählen, um ihre eigenen Kompetenzen zu verteidigen als gemeinsame Ziele zu verwirklichen. Effektive Problemlösungsfähigkeit erscheint nicht als vorrangiges Anliegen von soft law." [Autorenreferat]"The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) has received much attention in the recent EU-literature. The predominant view claims that the OMC is not only a new but also an effective policy-making instrument. This paper raises doubts about both claims by offering a comparison of soft law policy coordination in three international organizations. More specifically, this paper compares the European Employment Strategy – which was the first use of the OMC – to the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines of the EU, the OECD Economic Surveys, and the IMF Article IV Consultations. Based on expert interviews, it seeks to demonstrate that these procedures are forms of multilateral surveillance that do not differ in kind. Such a comparative analysis of the OMC refutes claims to its novelty. Having compared the four procedures, a more general model of multilateral surveillance consisting of six elements is generated that facilitates further comparisons. This paper concludes that governments select voluntarist procedures mainly to secure their own competencies rather than to realize common goals. Effective problem-solving is therefore not necessarily the dominant objective of soft law." [author's abstract

'Don't play if you can't win': does economic inequality undermine political equality?

In this paper, we investigate whether income inequality negatively affects voter turnout. Despite some progress, the answer to this question is still debated due to methodological disagreements and differences in the selection of countries and time periods. We contribute to this debate by triangulating data and methods. More specifically, we use three kinds of data to resolve the question: first, we use cross-sectional aggregate data of 21 OECD countries in the time period from 1980 to 2014 to study the relationship between inequality and electoral participation. Second, we zoom in on the German case and examine local data from 402 administrative districts between 1998 and 2017. Focusing on within-country variation eliminates differences that are linked to features of the political system. Finally, we combine survey data with macro-data to investigate the impact of inequality on individual voting. This final step also allows us to test whether the effect of income inequality on voter turnout differs across income groups. Taken together, we offer the most comprehensive analysis of the impact of social inequality on political inequality to date. We corroborate accounts that argue that economic inequality exacerbates participatory inequality

Nanoscale diffractive probing of strain dynamics in ultrafast transmission electron microscopy

The control of optically driven high-frequency strain waves in nanostructured systems is an essential ingredient for the further development of nanophononics. However, broadly applicable experimental means to quantitatively map such structural distortion on their intrinsic ultrafast time and nanometer length scales are still lacking. Here, we introduce ultrafast convergent beam electron diffraction (U-CBED) with a nanoscale probe beam for the quantitative retrieval of the time-dependent local distortion tensor. We demonstrate its capabilities by investigating the ultrafast acoustic deformations close to the edge of a single-crystalline graphite membrane. Tracking the structural distortion with a 28-nm/700-fs spatio-temporal resolution, we observe an acoustic membrane breathing mode with spatially modulated amplitude, governed by the optical near field structure at the membrane edge. Furthermore, an in-plane polarized acoustic shock wave is launched at the membrane edge, which triggers secondary acoustic shear waves with a pronounced spatio-temporal dependency. The experimental findings are compared to numerical acoustic wave simulations in the continuous medium limit, highlighting the importance of microscopic dissipation mechanisms and ballistic transport channels

Fighting Fire with Fire? Inequality, Populism and Voter Turnout

In this article, we ask whether the presence of populist parties influences the negative effect of income inequality on voter turnout. A number of studies have shown that voter turnout is lower in unequal countries. In particular, citizens with fewer resources abstain at higher rates. Since populist parties seek to mobilize these groups, their success could lead to higher and less unequal turnout rates. To assess empirically whether this holds true, we analyzed a dataset encompassing data on 296 national parliamentary elections in 31 European countries between 1970 and 2016. The results show that there is neither a direct nor an indirect effect of populism on voter turnout. In elections with more successful populist parties, voter turnout was not significantly higher than in other elections. Higher vote shares of populist parties also do not mitigate the negative impact of income inequality on voter turnout. Finally, there does not seem to be a difference between elections with high left-wing or right-wing populist parties’ success. Neither variant of populism alters the relationship between inequality and turnout.In diesem Beitrag wird die Frage gestellt, ob populistische Parteien den negativen Zusammenhang zwischen Einkommensungleichheit und der Höhe der Wahlbeteiligung beeinflussen. Eine Reihe von Studien hat gezeigt, dass die Wahlbeteiligung in ungleichen Ländern niedriger ausfällt. Vor allem Bürgerinnen und Bürger mit weniger Ressourcen bleiben dort häufiger am Wahltag zu Hause. Da populistische Parteien darauf abzielen, jene Gruppen zu mobilisieren, die eine höhere Wahrscheinlichkeit haben, nicht zu wählen, könnte ihr Erfolg zu einer höheren und weniger ungleichen Wahlbeteiligung führen. Um diesen möglichen Zusammenhang empirisch zu überprüfen, wurde ein Datensatz von Informationen über 296 Parlamentswahlen in 31 europäischen Ländern für den Zeitraum von 1970 bis 2016 analysiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen jedoch, dass weder ein direkter noch ein indirekter Zusammenhang zwischen Populismus und Wahlbeteiligung besteht. Schneiden populistische Parteien besonders gut ab, fällt die Wahlbeteiligung nicht höher aus. Hohe Stimmenanteile dieser Parteien mildern auch nicht den negativen Zusammenhang zwischen Ungleichheit und Wahlbeteiligung ab. Schließlich konnten auch keine unterschiedlichen Effekte zwischen links- und rechtspopulistischen Parteien gefunden werden. Keine der beiden Varianten verändert die grundlegenden Zusammenhang zwischen Einkommensungleichheit und der Höhe der Wahlbeteiligung.Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (1056)Peer Reviewe

Why MPs do not represent everyone equally well

Disproportionate numbers of politicians within national parliaments are male, affluent and belonging to the ‘native’ majority of their country. But while the composition of a parliament may not reflect the composition of society, does this affect the representation of citizens’ views? Drawing on new research in Germany, Lea Elsässer, Svenja Hense and Armin Schäfer demonstrate ... Continue

Nanoscale mapping of ultrafast magnetization dynamics with femtosecond Lorentz microscopy

Novel time-resolved imaging techniques for the investigation of ultrafast nanoscale magnetization dynamics are indispensable for further developments in light-controlled magnetism. Here, we introduce femtosecond Lorentz microscopy, achieving a spatial resolution below 100 nm and a temporal resolution of 700 fs, which gives access to the transiently excited state of the spin system on femtosecond timescales and its subsequent relaxation dynamics. We demonstrate the capabilities of this technique by spatio-temporally mapping the light-induced demagnetization of a single magnetic vortex structure and quantitatively extracting the evolution of the magnetization field after optical excitation. Tunable electron imaging conditions allow for an optimization of spatial resolution or field sensitivity, enabling future investigations of ultrafast internal dynamics of magnetic topological defects on 10-nanometer length scales

High-purity free-electron momentum states prepared by three-dimensional optical phase modulation

We demonstrate the quantized transfer of photon energy and transverse momentum to a high-coherence electron beam. In an ultrafast transmission electron microscope, a three-dimensional phase modulation of the electron wavefunction is induced by transmitting the beam through a laser-illuminated thin graphite sheet. This all-optical free-electron phase space control results in high-purity superpositions of linear momentum states, providing an elementary component for optically programmable electron phase plates and beam splitters