From Conditionality to Europeanization in Central and Eastern Europe: Administrative Performance and Capacity in Cohesion Policy

Abstract

This article assesses the role of administrative capacity in explaining the performance of eight Central and Eastern European countries in managing Cohesion policy over the 2004–2008 period. Drawing on a conceptual framework from the Europeanization literature, it explores whether pre-accession administrative adjustment to comply with the “acquis” continued in the post-accession period, against a backdrop of critical assessments about the state of administrative capacity for managing Cohesion policy. We conclude that administrative capacity was developed faster and more substantially than commentators predicted. The findings have implications for our understanding of the post-accession compliance record of the EU8, challenging the contention that they fall within a “world of dead letters”. Administrative capacity has been underestimated and insufficient attention has been given to the dynamics of capacity evolution and learning.     

From Cohesion to Territorial Policy Integration (TPI): Exploring the Governance Challenges in the European Union

The European Union (EU) is searching for new approaches to manage problems that span different policy sectors. In the regional policy field, incompatibilities between the EU's territorial development objectives and its transport, agricultural, competition and environmental policies, are well known. The need to integrate territorial policy concerns into these sectoral policies (territorial policy integration or “TPI”) has recently emerged as a key policy priority. This article examines the EU's capacity to implement TPI. It does so in relation to two member states (Germany and the Netherlands) and the European Commission. It finds that the administrative implications of implementing TPI are far more demanding than any of these actors are currently able to handle. Moreover, some EU-level networks are potentially relevant to TPI, but these are mostly focused on regional policy matters (i.e. they are relatively inward looking). If these administrative issues are not taken more seriously, “integration” will struggle to make headway in an EU which is notoriously sectorized.     

Confusion at home, Confusion abroad: Turkey between Copenhagen and Iraq

In November 2002 it looked as though Turkey was about to make a fresh start. A new post-Islamist political force, the AKP, had swept to power in national elections. Lobbying was in full swing for the EU to name a date for the commencement of accession negotiations. Ankara was talking to Washington about how Turkey could best help the US in the event of war with Iraq, and the Americans were fully prepared to reciprocate. There was even hope that the Cyprus problem might be solved. Some five months later those hopes are smouldering wreckage. Cyprus, and indeed the Kurdish issues, have returned to haunt EU—Turkish relations. The AKP is divided and discredited. The much-vaunted relationship between Turkey and the US, apparently built on the rock of geo-strategic relations, has dissolved into bitter recrimination. This article explores how and why the auspicious outlook for Turkey five months ago has dissolved so quickly and so thoroughly. It will be argued that the shortcomings of leadership, domestic ideological competition and the difficulty of managing a relentless and complex foreign policy agenda have all played their part. Turkey has been left with an economy on the edge of collapse, war on its borders, turmoil in its traditional friendships, a new crisis of domestic governance and the perception of rising existential threats. In view of these combustible components, there is little doubt that worrying about Turkey will continue to exercise the Atlantic community over the years ahead.     

From Cowards and Subversives to Aggressors and Questionable Allies: US Army Perceptions of Zionism since World War I

For most of the twentieth century, the attitudes and policies of the US army were consistently anti-Zionist. From World War I into the 1950s, army anti-Zionism was inextricably interrelated with a mutually reinforcing anti-Semitism that ranged from political and ethnic bias to extremist versions of biological racial and conspiratorial thinking. Army officers perceived Zionist objectives in the Middle East as detrimental to America's national interest regarding wartime security and geopolitical stability in a crucial region, as well as concerning oil resources and communist containment. In supporting Zionism and later Israel, America Jews revealed their suspected disloyalty. Although anti-Semitic concepts gradually disappeared from official army analyses, striking continuities remained in the army's anti-Zionist position. Until the end of the Cold War, the army rejected the “special relationship” argument based upon shared values or Israel as a military asset. The image of the cowardly, weak Jew incapable of establishing and defending a Jewish state in Palestine had been replaced by that of a militarily superior, potentially aggressive Israel destabilizing a strategic area.     

工业化问题研究范式的反思和重构:从工业主义到重农主义

在工业革命的影响下,工业主义在思想界迅速取代重农主义,成为占主导地位的思维方式。过去关于工业化问题的研究都是在工业主义的思维方式下进行的。这种传统的研究范式,一方面忽视了农业对工业化过程的决定作用,把工业化过程理解为一个自身独立的发展过程,另一方面没有看到工业化过程的内部结构,从而把工业化过程了解为一个抽象的线性发展过程。然而,从重农主义的理论前提出发,则可以区分出两种性质不同的工业化过程。这两种工业化过程虽然密切相关,但却有着各自的内部结构和发展趋势。     

Regional Inequality in the EU: How to Finance Greater Cohesion

After outlining the overall scale and evolution of European Union (EU) public expenditure, this paper examines the mechanisms driving the allocation of Cohesion Policy resources. The analysis reveals the extent to which the outcome of the policy's principle- and formula-driven allocation mechanisms is modified by precedent and politico-economic considerations. In particular it shows that the consequent per capita final financial allocations (the intensity of aid) are greatest not for the poorest areas: up to 84% of EU GDP per head, aid increases as income increases. The analysis also emphasizes the on–off nature of the EU policy. In the light of these results a series of simulations are carried out. Attention is given first to a more economically sensitive treatment of transition regions, whose relative growth results in shifts from one category to another and to a mechanism capable of providing differentiated support to all disadvantaged regional economies. Attention is then given to ways of ensuring that final allocations are inversely proportional to income, and that most aid is concentrated on the most disadvantaged areas (Section 5). In the conclusions attention is paid to guidelines which might apply to the reform of the EU Cohesion Policy.     

Forty Thousand Arms for a Single Emperor: From Chemical Data to the Labor Organization Behind the Bronze Arrows of the Terracotta Army

This paper explores the integration of chemical data with metric studies and spatial analyses of archaeological artifacts to investigate questions of specialization, standardization, and production organization behind large-scale technological enterprises. The main analytical focus is placed on the 40,000 bronze arrowheads recovered with the Terracotta Army in the First Emperor’s Mausoleum, Xi’an, China. Based on the identification by portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry of chemical clusters that correspond to individual metal batches, and combined with a study of their context in the tomb complex, we argue that the manufacture of arrows was organized via a cellular production model with various multi-skilled units rather than as a single production line. This system favored more adaptable and efficient logistical organization that facilitated dynamic cross-craft interaction while maintaining remarkable degrees of standardization. We discuss the use of “the batch” as an analytical category and how our method might be applied to other studies of craft organization in complex societies and imperial systems.     

The Economic Geography of Australia and Its Analysis: From Industrial to Post‐Industrial Regions

The Australian economy has experienced profound change over the last five decades, moving from an industrial to a post‐industrial structure. This transformation has had far‐reaching implications for the nature of economic activity in Australia and has provided the backdrop for the evolving analysis of the nation's space economy. The paper argues that three interrelated themes underpin much of the work of economic geographers in Australia: the impacts of globalisation on Australia's space economy; neoliberalism and the governance of regions; and policy‐focused analysis of regions, their history and prospects. The paper concludes that economic geography will continue to make important intellectual and practical contributions to Australia in the near future as the reshaping of the Australian economy continues and as new challenges reshape the nation's regions.     

Review Article: Hirohito and His Army

STEPHEN S. LARGE. Emperor Hirohito and Shāwa Japan: A Political Biography. London and New York: Roudedge, 1997. Pp. xii, 249. $18.95 (US); paper; PETER WETZLER. Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998. Pp. xi, 294. $38.00 (US); EDWARD J. DREA. In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. Pp. xvii, 299. $45.00 (US); ROBERT B. EDGERTON. Warriors of the Rising Sun: A History of the Japanese Military. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Pp. 384. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Michael A. Barnhart     

Israel: Divided by Religion and Education

Israel is a democracy splintered by religion and education. Two of its fastest growing religious groups, ultra‐Orthodox and Muslim Israeli Arabs, are not learning democratic principles or marketable skills that enable them to assist in the economic development of the country. Even Israelis who are attending secular and religious Israeli government schools are academically behind in mathematics as measured on 2011 international achievement tests of PISA and TIMSS. The history of religion and education from 1928 to 1955 built the foundation for the current divisions. The impact of the Ottoman and British occupation on citizens is particularized thorough the experiences of Elias Tuma, who lived under British and Israeli government systems. Today's educational system in Israel reinforces religious and sectarian conflict among its citizens. Educational and religious structural suggestions are provided for readers to consider. The implications of this work for future research are provided.     

From minefields to minespace: An archeology of the changing architecture of autonomous killing in US Army field manuals on landmines,booby traps and IEDs

Since WWI, militaries and armed groups have used remote and autonomous explosive traps – landmines, booby traps and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) – as a kind of deadly architecture to reengineer terrain inhospitable. Until recently, minefields remained analog, static, and fixed. But technological development and changes in the nature of war have made remote and autonomous violence increasingly mobile, dynamic, and robotic and, rather than being contained in a bounded Cartesian plane, diffused through the very spaces and flows that sustain civilian life. Such “unmanned” weapons are increasingly able to navigate, communicate with each other, identify targets and even kill with minimal human involvement. Mirroring broader changes in the spatial configurations of war, the architectural form of remote and autonomous killing is thus shifting from the two-dimensional minefield to multi-dimensional minespace. This poses challenges to those engaged in humanitarian efforts to demilitarize space. To illustrate these changes, the paper draws on Derek Gregory's notion of “Everywhere War” and engages in a discursive “archeology” of the minefield as described by US Army mine, booby trap and IED warfare field manuals.     

从文本到实践:民间小戏研究的范式转换及其演进路径

民间小戏是中国戏曲的构成部分之一,也是中国民间文艺的重要组成部分。民间小戏研究长期滞后于传统大戏研究。在以民间文学为研究对象的民间文艺学领域,神话、故事、史诗研究巍巍壮观,民间小戏研究有待进一步加强。民间小戏研究自民国以来经历了从文本层面的小戏转变为语境层面的小戏和生活实践层面的小戏的认知过程,形成了文本作品研究范式、文化语境研究范式和艺人实践研究范式。民间小戏研究范式的转换与演进受到社会文化思潮、学科建设发展、代表性学术论著和研究方法应用等因素的影响。乡村振兴战略的实施为民间小戏振兴及民间小戏研究提供了机遇,在乡村振兴的文化实践中,民间小戏的艺人实践研究范式仍然是民间小戏研究的未来趋向。