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Functional Representation and Democracy in the EU
Involving civil society – in particular affected stakeholders – is often seen as a solution to democratic deficits. High expectations ride on the promise of participation in new modes of governance at the EU, such as the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). But its results have been modest, and it is unclear who should participate where, and how. Corinna Wolff offers a consistent framework to assess participation from the perspective of democratic legitimacy, conceptualising it as functional representation. She reviews recent theories of representation, develops them into a tool to deal with complex governance settings, then applies this framework to functional representation at the European Commission in EU social policy. The results indicate that far from being a panacea, functional representation raises fundamental questions about the possibilities for democratic European governance.
Interest Groups and Experimentalist Governance in the EU
This book researches the role that interest groups play in new modes of EU governance, with a specific focus on the role of interest representation in experimentalist governance frameworks. The research asks how lobbying in the legislative process contributes to the governance framework and its institutional arrangements and subsequently asks how the relevant interest groups participate in policy implementation – in which broad policy goals are concretised. The research is based on four in-depth case studies: the Industrial Emissions Directive, the General Data Protection Regulation, the Combating Child Abuse Directive, and the Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision Directive. Of special interest in these cases are the balance between types of interest groups (most notably business and NGOs) in policy formulation and implementation, and the changing dynamics between interest groups and public policy-makers in such ‘horizontal’ governance. The book’s findings are required reading for all those concerned with effective and democratic policy-making in the EU.
Parties, Governments and Voters in Finland
Finland's modern, technologically advanced welfare state is, in fact, a fairly recent creation, because the social changes that led to it occurred in Finland much later than elsewhere in the West. Once underway, however, such changes took place with unprecedented speed. This book is the story of what happens to parties, governments and voters when the fundamental features that conditioned party formation and voter alignments undergo rapid change. It is this that makes the Finnish case interesting and, as far as possible, this book examines Finland in a comparative perspective. Karvonen's study is based on a wealth of new primary evidence. It demonstrates that Finland is indeed a special case...
How Finland Survived Stalin
A dramatic and timely account of Stalin’s failed invasion of Finland in 1939, and the decade of wars and fraught relations that followed In November 1939, Stalin directed his military leaders to launch an invasion of Finland. In what became known as the Winter War, the full might of the Soviet army was pitted against this small Nordic republic. Yet despite their vastly superior military strength, the Soviets suffered heavy losses and failed to mount Stalin’s intended full-scale invasion. How did Finland evade Stalin’s crosshairs—not once, but three times more? In this groundbreaking account, Kimmo Rentola traces the epochal shifts in Soviet-Finnish relations. From the Winter War to Finland’s exit from World War II in 1944, a possible Soviet-backed coup in 1948, and Moscow’s designation of Finland as an enemy state in 1950, Finland was forced to navigate Stalin’s outsize political and territorial demands. Rentola presents a dramatic reconstruction of Finland’s unlikely survival at a time when the nation’s very existence was at stake.
Integrating Indifference
Have European citizens become increasingly Eurosceptic over the last two decades, turning their backs on European integration? Though many journalists, politicians and academics argue that they have, this book suggests that reactions to European integration cannot be reduced uniquely to a rise in Euroscepticism, but that indifference and ambivalence need also to be brought into the picture when studying EU legitimacy and its politicisation. Drawing on new evidence from survey data from eight founding member states, and focus groups conducted in francophone Belgium, France and Great Britain, Integrating Indifference explores the various faces of citizens’ indifference, from fatalism, to detachment, via sheer indecision. This book adopts a pioneering mixed-methods approach to analysing the middle-of-the-road attitudes of ordinary citizens who consider themselves neither Europhiles nor Eurosceptics. Complementing existing quantitative and qualitative literature in the field, it opens up new perspectives on attitudes towards European integration.
Conditional Democracy: The Contemporary Debate on Political Reform in Chinese Universities
Little is known about the political views of non-dissident Chinese intellectuals. For this book, Émilie Frenkiel has been granted unprecedented access to the discussions of politically committed Chinese who have been part of the intellectual debate on post-Tiananmen reform. Her in-depth research elicits lively views that reflect the yearnings and fears of the country’s political elite, and reveal the diversity of approaches to China’s democratisation. 'In the west, where most of us think that democracy based on competitive elections is mankind’s ultimate and inevitable political journey’s end, we tend to hear only the opinions of Chinese who share our beliefs. Émilie Frenkiel’s b...
Hitler's Nordic Ally?
Finland was the only nation with an elected and democratic government to fight on the German side in WWII. Despite being small, poorly armed and made up of conscripts, the Finnish army was probably the most effective fighting force at the time, managing with practically no outside help to keep the mighty Red Army at bay for more than three months during the Winter War of 1939-40. In 1944, the devastating Soviet mass attack against the Finnish Army involved the largest artillery assault of the entire WWII theater of operations up until this point. Nevertheless, the Finns eventually managed to halt the attack. Most English books on Finland in WWII concentrate on the brief Winter War and make v...
Health Data in the Information Society
MIE 2002 is the XVIIth international conference of the European Federation of Medical Informatics. Today, mankind builds up the information society, enabled by the underlying rapid development in computer technology. The significance of the spread of the internet is comparable to the significance of Gutenberg's invention. On one hand it both helps dissemination of data and knowledge and sharing of ideas. On the other hand the achievements may divide the society, as did non-literacy deprive many people from knowledge throughout centuries. Today millions of people are isolated from an incredibly large amount of information because of "computer non-literacy," and a new elite mastering the infor...
Consultative Committees in the European Union
How, and under which conditions, can consultative committees exert influence if they have access to legislators (voice) but no formal veto power (vote)? In drawing on the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee of the European Union, this book shows that consultative committees face several challenges when it comes to influencing the content of policies, but are nevertheless sometimes successful in getting their opinions heard. It develops a sender-receiver model and puts it to a comprehensive empirical test. A quantitative analysis and three in-depth case studies on the European citizens’ initiative, the European grouping of territorial cooperation and the ...
Unknown Conflicts of the Second World War
Unknown Conflicts of the Second World War: Forgotten Fronts is a collection of chapters dealing with various overlooked aspects of the Second World War. The aim is to give greater depth and context to the war by introducing new stories about regions of the world and elements of the war rarely considered. These chapters represent new discussions on previously undeveloped narratives that help to expand our understanding of the interconnectedness of the war. It also provides an expanded view of the war as a mosaic of overlapping conflicts rather than a two-sided affair between massive alliance structures. The Second World War saw revolutions, civil wars, social upheaval, subversion, and major geopolitical policy shifts that do not fit neatly into the Allied vs. Axis 1939–1945 paradigm. This aim is to connect the unseen dots from around the globe that influenced the big turning points we think we know well but have really only a superficial understanding of and in so doing shed new light on the scope and influence of the war.
