This open access book presents an actor-centered study on Europeanization, based on the assumption that EU-driven reforms are highly dependent on the behavior and interests of the key domestic actors. Whether or not a state pursues a European and democratic agenda depends on domestic lawmakers. Further, political elites are pre-eminent in deciding on the nature, form and content of any law, and on the extent to which the rule of law is actually enforced. Elites can overcome structural or institutional barriers that stand in the way of achieving their goals. The empirical study on Romania presented here lends this observation a more profound meaning: it shows how, in contexts where high level corruption is the norm rather than the exception, self-serving political elites cannot be expected to genuinely commit to adopting sound anti-corruption reform. The book is an inquiry into the motivations that drive legislators to make particular decisions, but also into the structural characteristics and dynamics of the elite that invite a selfish rather than responsible and responsive behaviour.This publication was supported by funds from the Publication Fund for Open Access Monographs of the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany.

In 2012, over four billion people tuned in to watch the London Summer Olympics. As the single largest mega-event in the world, the Olympics has the power to captivate the global imagination. Long before athletes vie for a gold medal, however, competition between cities eager to host the Games kicks off with a rigorous bid process. The lengthy and expensive endeavor to host the Olympics is as high-stakes as any sporting event. Rather than encouraging cities to refrain from bidding, Bidding for Development takes a policy approach that challenges stakeholders to bid responsibly and strategically in pursuit of concrete outcomes. Every bid city has the potential to accelerate long-term transportation development through a strategic and robust planning process. This book concentrates on the phenomenon of repeat Olympic bids and the opportunities that may come from bidding, particularly for those cities that never win the Games. In this context, Bidding for Development explores the intersection between transportation infrastructure development, the Olympic bid process, and the resulting legacies experienced by bid losers. The findings address the central question: how can participating in the Olympic bid process accelerate transportation development regardless of the bid result? In response, this book presents a Bid Framework outlining how and when cities may use the bid to unite resources, align transportation priorities, and empower leaders to achieve urban development objectives in preparation for the Olympic bid. The Bid Framework is then applied to two case studies, Manchester and Istanbul, to examine each bid loser's effectiveness in using the bid process to catalyze transportation development. Concurrently, the book takes into consideration how the International Olympic Committee's evolving bid regulations and requirements relate to urban development and positive social legacy. Bidding for Development delivers actionable recommendations for all Olympic stakeholders to improve the value of the bid process and transportation benefits beyond the Games.

This book analyses the diffusion and implementation of Aid Effectiveness Principles in Kenya's agricultural sector. Although Aid Effectiveness Principles represent a significant step in aid and development discourse, studies on its implementation remain inadequate, especially in the African context. This book combines the perspectives of the Kenyan government, donor representatives and small-scale farmers. The discussion on Kenya brings in comparative perspectives and, therefore, would have broader relevance to the African region, in general. It highlights a disconnect between the government and farmers concerning the ownership concept, where farmers lack a voice in important policy matters. The book shows that donors have exploited the weaknesses in government responses to interpret The Principles in ways that suit their strategic interests. Consequently, the book argues that the diffusion of Aid Effectiveness Principles has taken the form of symbolic imitation - a form of policy diffusion where the policymakers choose policies for their symbolic value rather than their effectiveness.

This edited volume explores the principle of solidarity in international and EU law. Although the concept is regularly invoked in international and EU legal and policy debates alike, its meaning, nature and functions, as well as normative contours still remain nebulous.The contributions in this volume reflect on the legal trajectory of solidarity in international and EU law and offer unique insights into the evolution and status of the principle in different fields of international and EU law. By doing so, the book also serves as a springboard for answering broader questions pertaining to what the stage of development of this principle may imply for the two legal orders and their interaction. As the chapters of this book show, the debate on solidarity is premised on conflicting visions regarding the values underpinning the international legal order as well as the self-interest or community-oriented driving forces behind States' action at the international level. The regional (EU law) perspective offers a new lens through which to revisit classic questions pertaining to the nature of modern international law and to assess its continuing relevance in a world of regional organizations presenting different visions (and levels) of co-operation. This book, the second volume to appear in the Global Europe Series, will appeal to international and EU law researchers and policy-makers alike with an interest in the nature and function of the principle of solidarity in international and EU law. Eva Kassoti is Senior researcher in EU and International Law at the T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague, The Netherlands and the Academic Co-ordinator of CLEER. Narin Idriz is Researcher in EU Law at the T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague, The Netherlands.

This is an open access book discusses readers to various methods of modeling plans and policies that address public sector issues and problems. Written for public policy and social sciences students at the upper undergraduate and graduate level, as well as public sector decision-makers, it demonstrates and compares the development and use of various deterministic and probabilistic optimization and simulation modeling methods for analyzing planning and management issues. These modeling tools offer a means of identifying and evaluating alternative plans and policies based on their physical, economic, environmental, and social impacts. Learning how to develop and use the mathematical modeling tools introduced in this book will give students useful skills when in positions of having to make informed public policy recommendations or decisions.

The scope of this book is to map China's city clusters and their individual directions for the national-level strategies in line with the 2060 carbon neutrality plan. Since China announced the carbon neutrality plan in autumn 2020, no study has looked at the role of city clusters in achieving this long-term plan. Hence, this study is believed to be the first attempt to explore this important topic from the city cluster perspective. It explores the challenges, opportunities, and directions of all 19 city clusters, allowing readers to have a clear picture of China's historical and ongoing progress, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In a short time, China's city clusters have helped boost regional economic development, infrastructure development, trade and business, and better urban-rural integration. With enhanced coordination of connection and transport networks in and between the city clusters, we see a growing number of initiatives beyond just the initial economic strategies. The dual approach of top-down policies and infrastructure systems and bottom-up governance and investments has helped China consider urban-rural development strategies and regional sustainable development. These factors are essential to be explored from the city cluster perspective and in line with China's sustainable development and carbon neutrality directions. Hence, the book covers these points holistically, ensuring that regional planning and development are favored in the face of uneven urbanization trends. We anticipate this book to be a valuable resource for local governments and authorities, urban planners and practitioners, developers, and urban researchers. While the focus is on China's city clusters, we believe there are similar examples elsewhere. Hence, lessons learnt from this book could apply to other countries, regions, and subregions. Lastly, the book aims to put regional sustainable development at the heart of longer-term strategies and plans, such as the case of China's carbon neutrality plan.

In Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy, Eric Weber argues for an experimentalist approach to moral theory in addressing practical problems in public policy. The experimentalist approach begins moral inquiry by examining public problems and then makes use of the tools of philosophy and intelligent inquiry to alleviate them.

Part I surveys the uses of practical philosophy and answers criticisms - including religious challenges - of the approach, presenting a number of areas in which philosophers' intellectual efforts can prove valuable for resolving public conflicts.

Part II presents a new approach to experimentalism in moral theory, based on the insights of John Dewey's pragmatism. Focusing on the elements of good public inquiry and the experimentalist attitude, Weber discusses ways of thinking about the effective construction and reconstruction of particular problems, including practical problems of public policy prioritization.

Finally, in Part III the book examines real-world examples in which the experimentalist approach to ethics proves useful, including instances of "bandwidth theft" and the controversies surrounding activist judges in the US Supreme Court.

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This open access book focuses on Albanian internal and international female migration and places gender at the heart of postsocialist transformation. It explores the vulnerabilities that arise for female citizens from the contradictory policies produced by the Albanian state. By illuminating the intersection of gender and migration, it shows how Albanian women are likely to embed themselves in complex social relations and migration trajectories. By focusing on various cases - internal, international, return, economic and student female migrants - the book underlines that migration does not follow any kind of evolutionary development, according to which women go from 'traditional' to 'modern' gender relations. By providing a compelling account on the complex negotiations and tactics women employ to deal with gender inequalities, this book leads to a better understanding of gender and migration entanglements. It is a useful read to students, academics in migration and gender studies as well as social scientists and policy-makers in European countries.

This book analyses the transformation of European Education Policy from 1973 to 2020. In doing so, it offers a unique insight into the changes of European education from a predominantly national concern to a supranational policy framework, driven by an economic discourse concerning productivity and employability. The book shows that the idea of the "Europe of Knowledge" did not originate in the Lisbon Strategy of 2000, but rather was the result of a gradual development that started in the mid-1980s. This begun with the establishment of a specific problem definition of education as a solution for Europe's lack of competitiveness, a definition that was incrementally constructed by the European Commission and the European business community. Highlighting significant and unexplored questions such as the role of European transnational business in education and the role of the "problem entrepreneur" in defining policy issues, this book will provide a comprehensive perspective on European Education Policy that will be of interest to all students of European Politics, Education Policy, and Public Policy.

Hyper-active Governance is a new way of thinking about governing that puts debates over expertise at the heart. Contemporary governing requires delegation to experts, but also increases demands for political accountability. In this context, politicians and experts work together under political stress to adopt different governing relationships that appear more 'hands-off' or 'hands-on'. These approaches often serve to displace profound social and economic crises. Only a genuinely collaborative approach to governing, with an inclusive approach to expertise, can create democratically legitimate and effective governance in our accelerating world. Using detailed case studies and global datasets in various policy areas including medicines, flooding, water resources, central banking and electoral administration, the book develops a new typology of modes of governing. Drawing from innovative social theory, it breathes new life into debates about expert forms of governance and how to achieve real paradigm shifts in how we govern our increasingly hyper-active world.

This book introduces a new approach to understanding security in the Mediterranean and explores current challenges at the European Union (EU) Mediterranean borders. It investigates the intertwined area at the South of the EU that we call the 'Mediterranean Global South' where common actions and strategies are required to face common security challenges. The book critically addresses the EU's capacity to manage its expanding borders and analyses the actors involved in providing security in the Mediterranean Global South. Specific attention is devoted to South to North migration, one of the most critical security issues of current times, deploying its effects well beyond states' borders.

Over the past two decades public accountability has become not only an icon in political, managerial, and administrative discourse but also the object of much scholarly analysis across a broad range of social and administrative sciences. This handbook provides a state of the art overview of recent scholarship on public accountability. It collects, consolidates, and integrates an upsurge of inquiry currently scattered across many disciplines and subdisciplines. It provides a one-stop-shop on the subject, not only for academics who study accountability, but also for practitioners who are designing, adjusting, or struggling with mechanisms for accountable governance. Drawing on the best scholars in the field from around the world, The Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability showcases conceptual and normative as well as the empirical approaches in public accountability studies. In addition to giving an overview of scholarly research in a variety of disciplines, it takes stock of a wide range of accountability mechanisms and practices across the public, private and non-profit sectors, making this volume a must-have for both practitioners and scholars, both established and new to the field.

This book analyses two key aspects of network management in the public sector: leadership and performance. It investigates what integrative leadership is, and how it differentiates from leadership in single-agency structures. It also examines the performance of public interest networks by proposing an analytical framework that highlights which factors lead to high performance networks. This book is of interest to scholars and students of public management and public administration, as well as public managers and practitioners acting through networks and partnerships.

This book provides an overview of the identity and sense of belonging of Muslims in the Western world. By presenting case studies on European countries such as France, the Netherlands and the UK, as well as the USA and Canada, it offers a comparative perspective on how Muslims feel toward and are integrated in their country of residence. The respective contributions examine the sense of belonging and identity of Muslims and compare their levels of integration. Furthermore, they discuss the compatibility of their religious beliefs and values with the political and democratic order of their country of residence, and make concrete policy recommendations. The book is chiefly intended for scholars of political science and migration studies who are seeking a comparative perspective on the status quo of Muslims' integration in the Western world.

How successful was the EU's Lisbon Strategy? This volume provides the first comprehensive assessment of the Strategy and reflects on its key developments during its 10-year cycle. The volume contains both theoretical and empirical contributions by some of the leading scholars of EU studies across the social sciences.

This book depicts and reveals the socioeconomic dynamics of the COVID-19 crisis, and its global, regional, and local perspectives. Explicitly interdisciplinary, this volume embraces a wide spectrum of topics across economics, business, public management, psychology, and public health. Written by global experts, each chapter offers a snapshot of an emerging aspect of the COVID-19 crisis for the benefit of academics and students, as well as the institutional, economic, social, and developmental policymakers and health practitioners on the ground.

This book looks at how the language of the law has changed over time, and how this has empowered judges. In particular it looks at how this has empowered judges to rule against governments.

Although international cooperation on migration is often promoted, scholars have been unable to arrive at a consensus about the extent of cooperation in the current system. Under what conditions does international cooperation on migration arise, and what shape does it take? These questions are important because migrants are often vulnerable to human rights abuses during their journeys as well as in the country of destination, and international cooperation represents one mechanism for reducing this vulnerability. Jeannette Money and Sarah P. Lockhart ask these questions as they examine the patterns of migration flows during the post- World War II period, with particular attention to crises or shocks to the international system, as in the case of migration following the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria. Their analysis makes several important contributions to this debate. First, they explain how the broad pattern of migration in the contemporary era?generally from poorer, less stable countries to wealthier, more stable countries?fosters cooperation that is predominantly bilateral, when cooperation does in fact occur. Second, they argue that cooperation is unlikely under most circumstances, because countries of destination prefer the current system, which privileges their sovereignty over migration flows. Finally, they posit that cooperation may arise under three conditions: when the costs of maintaining the status quo increase, when countries of origin locate a venue where their numbers allow them to control the bargaining agenda, or when migrant flows tend toward reciprocity.

This open access book is the first monograph to systematically apply the Programmatic Action Framework (PAF) in a comparative analysis of public policy in two institutionally different countries. The PAF seeks to explain long-term policy change by examining the shared biographies of policy actors who, to foster their careers, coalesce around policy programs which they promote throughout the policy process. Comparing health policy-making in France and Germany between 1990 and 2020, the book sheds light on the institutional settings that are necessary for programmatic action to occur. It will appeal to scholars and students of public policy, public administration, and health policy.

Digitization, the global networking of individuals and organizations, and the transition from an industrial to an information society are key reasons for the importance of digital government. In particular, the enormous influence of the Internet as a global networking and communication system affects the performance of public services. This textbook introduces the concept of digital government as well as digital management and provides helpful insights and strategic advice for the successful implementation and maintenance of digital government systems.

In this book the author introduces a novel approach to securing exam systems. He provides an in-depth understanding, useful for studying the security of exams and similar systems, such as public tenders, personnel selections, project reviews, and conference management systems. After a short chapter that explains the context and objectives of the book, in Chap. 2 the author introduces terminology for exams and the foundations required to formulate their security requirements. He describes the tasks that occur during an exam, taking account of the levels of detail and abstraction of an exam specification and the threats that arise out of the different exam roles. He also presents a taxonomy that classifies exams by types and categories. Chapter 3 contains formal definitions of the authentication, privacy, and verifiability requirements for exams, a framework based on the applied pi-calculus for the specification of authentication and privacy, and a more abstract approach based on set-theory that enables the specification of verifiability. Chapter 4 describes the Huszti-Petho protocol in detail and proposes a security enhancement. In Chap. 5 the author details Remark!, a protocol for Internet-based exams, discussing its cryptographic building blocks and some security considerations. Chapter 6 focuses on WATA, a family of computer-assisted exams that employ computer assistance while keeping face-to-face testing. The chapter also introduces formal definitions of accountability requirements and details the analysis of a WATA protocol against such definitions. In Chaps. 4, 5, and 6 the author uses the cryptographic protocol verifier ProVerif for the formal analyses. Finally, the author outlines future work in Chap. 7. The book is valuable for researchers and graduate students in the areas of information security, in particular for people engaged with exams or protocols.

This book offers an in-depth analysis of how governments in vulnerable regions respond to climate migrations. The author argues that, despite the newness of the discipline, responding to hydro-meteorological disasters at the sub-state level is fairly old and institutionalised. Using the example of India, and the State of Assam, the author demonstrates how existing rights-based frameworks are used as norms for governing climate migrations. However, these normative frameworks become futile when the sub-state simultaneously contests the status of climate migrants as legitimate citizens. Instead, the responsibility is replaced with pity-making and the state becomes an empathetic spectator - who understands the misfortune but refuses to be held accountable for either the development or protection of those worst affected by climate change. Those who migrate due to climate change often find themselves stripped of their lands (because of erosion) and their political belonging to the society. The volume will be useful for those studying climate migrations and disaster responses to better understand how communities which are most affected by climatic disasters may not even have a right to have rights against the State they found themselves in. Ritumbra Manuvie is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer of Law at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. The author studied migration, citizenship, and belonging in Assam during her doctoral work at the University of Edinburgh. She is currently part of the ELSA - North Netherlands lab which aims to study Ethical, Legal, and Socio-political factors that influence the usage of AI in the health sector.

Constructing a Policy-Making State? sets out to examine the processes by which Europeanization takes place. Europeanization is defined as the process by which the key decisions about public policies are gradually transferred to the European level (or for new policy areas, emerge at the European level). This is in contrast to definitions of Europeanization which focus on the adaption of member states to European public policies. Thus, the main focus is whether a European Union 'policy-making state' is being created via changes in the distribution of power between member states and the European level institutions over time. In addition to several overview chapters (such as on agenda setting in the EU), there are twelve sectoral studies which analyse the differing trajectories and outcomes of the Europeanization process and the extent to which the European Union can make 'authoritative allocations'. The case studies have been selected in order to illustrate the degree of cross-sectoral variation in the process of Europeanization, from sectors which have yet to see very much Europeanization, such as health, to sectors such as competition policy which are almost fully Europeanized. The book is consciously multi-theoretic in its approach, drawing on a range of theories and concepts, from theories of European integration, to theories of public policy processes.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the distribution of public money and its political and societal implications. Drawing on evidence from central and eastern Europe, it offers an innovative insight into public responses to various strategies of public spending. Given that public expenditures are funded mainly from tax revenues, it also assesses public attitudes to politically motivated allocations of funds. The book seeks to identify how people evaluate the material benefits of funding in light of the fairness - or lack thereof - of the distribution process, whether popular acceptance of variations in public spending depends on the framing of the beneficiaries, and the implications of money allocation for political trust in political institutions.