How partitocracy puts limits to the EU’s transformative power

According to recent news, we should be quite optimistic about the state of European Union (EU) accession in the Western Balkans. The European Council has granted Croatia the long desired accession date and Zagreb is making progress on the corruption front. In Serbia, for a long time the most difficult EU aspirant, the prospects seem shiny, too. After extraditing the last war crime fugitives to The Hague the door to EU membership talks is wide open. What these accounts miss is the problem of partitocracy – the rule of political parties in almost all spheres of social life – that is dominating both countries. Without attracting too much international attention, political parties have incrementally increased their reach into different sphere of the society. Yet, this engrained politicisation might prove a key obstacle to successful EU integration. In particular, political parties are deeply intertwined with the public and private sector, they have been relatively free to secure financing from private sources without effective public scrutiny and party leadership has an extremely strong control over publically elected representatives. Taken together, the reach of parties into society and the public as well as private sector raises important questions of accountability and the effectiveness of public policies that are prerequisites for becoming members of the EU and functioning democracies

Promoting innovation in transition countries: A trajectory for smart specialisation

Innovation policies seek to prepare an economy for the future by steering it on a transformation path to make it more competitive in increasingly global and interconnected markets. While most advanced economies have a tradition of strategymaking for territorially based innovation and economic development, transition countries moving from centralised unaccountable planning to decentralised democratic policymaking have no working, market-based practices to build on. Governments in such contexts often resort to mimicking the economic priorities and instruments of advanced countries. We suggest a trajectory for transition countries to avoid the widespread pitfall of poorly defined innovation policies by upgrading and changing their industrial polices in line with the ideas embedded in the concept of innovation strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3): (1) Build a trusted ‘competence centre’ to provide a comprehensive analysis of your economic fabric and coordinate the process; (2) Begin with one strong economic domain in which engaged stakeholders work together with government bodies to define joint priorities and actions (domain experimentation); (3) Start with one region to experiment with different approaches at subnational level (territorial experimentation); (4) Sequence your process in a way you can harvest the low-hanging fruits in the short-term (non-R & D measures), focus on the core of your activities with high potential in the medium term, and leave R & D-heavy breakthrough programmes for the longer term.JRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

Supporting an Innovation Agenda for the Western Balkans - Tools and Methodologies

The Western Balkan region has significantly improved in terms of innovation performance in the last ten years. However, in catching up with other European regions, the focus of innovation efforts should be enhanced. Exports are still far more focused on medium- and low-technology products. Innovative efforts mostly accommodate traditionally strong sectors, which do not necessarily reflect the ideal competitiveness paths for economies in the region. Although some Western Balkan economies record increases in patent activity, patent intensity in the region is still low, while, on the other hand, scientific publication production displays a stable growth trend. While Western Balkan economies are at different stages in the formation of research and innovation (R&I) policy governance systems, national research and innovation policy frameworks are continuously being improved. The enhancement of governance in the area of R&I came as the result of increased capacity building activities in the region, as well as of the real needs emerging as a result of social and economic transformation. On the other hand, R&I systems in the Western Balkan economies need to continue shifting their focus towards businesses to provide better balance between public and private sector orientation. The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission is committed to supporting the shift in innovation policies and improvement of R&I efforts and governance in the Western Balkan economies through a number of tools and activities, allowing policy instruments to be matched with the specific needs of the economy. This approach seeks efficient governance mechanisms for R&I policy by reaching out to the business sector and other important actors of the innovation ecosystem. It determines sustainable development directions for economies and ensures the continuity of policy monitoring and evaluation cycles. This ambitious challenge is translated into four specific lines of activity: (i) the application of the smart specialisation methodology to design and implement innovation strategies; (ii) capacity-building activities for technology transfer, in particular through specialised workshops, tools and instruments specifically designed to assist the academic institutions in the regional economies; (iii) support to transnational collaboration and linkages in the context of EU macro-regional strategies; and (iv) data quality enhancement. The analysis of the development potential of the Western Balkan region in terms of economic, innovative and scientific capabilities in this report is supported with the good practices addressing specific challenges in the region.JRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

Implementing Smart Specialisation Strategies: A Handbook

Smart Specialisation represents the most comprehensive industrial policy experiment being implemented in Europe. Conceived within the reformed Cohesion policy of the European Commission, Smart Specialisation is a place-based policy promoting economic transformation and investment in innovative activities in selected areas of the socio-economic system in order to achieve a smart, inclusive and sustainable growth. Drawing on empirical evidence, the Smart Specialisation Implementation Handbook is targeted at policy-makers and regional development professionals who are crafting their innovation policy according to a common set of principles and methodologies. The handbook aims at taking stock of the Smart Specialisation experience and presenting its current state of the art, both in terms of conceptual developments and practical implementation. It addresses five key milestones of the implementation process: 1) The Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP) cycle: from priority selection to strategy implementation 2) Good governance: principles and challenges 3) From priorities to projects: selection criteria and selection process 4) Transnational cooperation and value chains 5) MonitoringJRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

Roman polygyny

Marriage in Rome was monogamous; mating was polygynous. Powerful men in the Roman empire, as in other empires, probably had sex with more women. To make that case I look, first, at the Latin sources. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio suggest that Roman emperors, like other emperors, were promiscuous; that they had privileged access to other men's women; and that they sometimes had women procured for them. I look next at the modern studies. Literary, legal, and inscriptional data suggest that Roman men kept as many slaves as they could afford--often hundreds and sometimes thousands; that many of those slaves were women; and that slave women were often bought as breeders. They also suggest that masters, who had unrestricted sexual access to their slaves, were often the fathers. Some slave women's children were brought up with, and in the style of, legitimate children; they were freed young; and they were given wealth, position, and paternal affection.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29873/1/0000222.pd

Promoting innovation in transition countries. A trajectory for smart specialization

EU JRC Working Papers JRC106260Innovation policies seek to prepare an economy for the future by steering it on a transformation path to make it more competitive in increasingly global and interconnected markets. While most advanced economies have a tradition of strategymaking for territorially-based innovation and economic development, transition countries moving from centralised unaccountable planning to decentralised democratic policymaking have no working, market-based practices to build on. Governments in such contexts often resort to mimicking the economic priorities and instruments of advanced countries. We suggest a trajectory for transition countries to avoid the widespread pitfall of poorly defined innovation policies by upgrading and changing their industrial polices in line with the ideas embedded in the concept of innovation strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3): (1) Build a trusted 'competence centre' to provide a comprehensive analysis of your economic fabric and coordinate the process. (2) Begin with one strong economic domain in which engaged stakeholders work together with government bodies to define joint priorities and actions (domain experimentation). (3) Start with one region to experiment different approaches at subnational level (territorial experimentation). (4) Sequence your process in a way you can harvest the low-hanging fruits in the short-term (non-R&D measures), focus on the core of your activities with high potential in the medium term, and leave R&D-heavy breakthrough programmes for the longer term

Monitoring Innovation and Territorial Development in Europe: Emergent Strategic Management

Innovation strategies for smart specialization have become the new framework for organizing innovation support in European regions and states. This article examines how policy-makers conceive monitoring in the context of the current European territorial and innovation policy. In this setting, monitoring activities have to move beyond an audit-oriented logic in order to integrate a range of strategic functions such as producing the information needed to manage evidence-based policy decisions effectively and keep stakeholders informed and engaged in the policy cycle. To analyse this transition, we first conceptualize the logic of intervention of smart specialization. In a second step, we present the findings from a survey of policy-makers on their perceptions of this intervention logic and monitoring. We find that strategy monitoring is an exercise that must go beyond a narrow audit focus. Regional policy-makers involve stakeholders to interpret monitoring results for strategy revision and they adopt a priorityspecific intervention logic, albeit with problems of implementing this logic in practice.JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growt

Promoting innovation in transition countries. A trajectory for smart specialization

EU JRC Working Papers JRC106260Innovation policies seek to prepare an economy for the future by steering it on a transformation path to make it more competitive in increasingly global and interconnected markets. While most advanced economies have a tradition of strategymaking for territorially-based innovation and economic development, transition countries moving from centralised unaccountable planning to decentralised democratic policymaking have no working, market-based practices to build on. Governments in such contexts often resort to mimicking the economic priorities and instruments of advanced countries. We suggest a trajectory for transition countries to avoid the widespread pitfall of poorly defined innovation policies by upgrading and changing their industrial polices in line with the ideas embedded in the concept of innovation strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3): (1) Build a trusted 'competence centre' to provide a comprehensive analysis of your economic fabric and coordinate the process. (2) Begin with one strong economic domain in which engaged stakeholders work together with government bodies to define joint priorities and actions (domain experimentation). (3) Start with one region to experiment different approaches at subnational level (territorial experimentation). (4) Sequence your process in a way you can harvest the low-hanging fruits in the short-term (non-R&D measures), focus on the core of your activities with high potential in the medium term, and leave R&D-heavy breakthrough programmes for the longer term