{"title":"Differentiated Implementation of Controls: The Internal Border Regimes of Schengen","authors":"J. Fürst","doi":"10.17645/pag.v11i3.6785","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i3.6785","url":null,"abstract":"The use of temporary internal border controls in the Schengen Area reached a new record during the outbreak and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Several member states chose to introduce internal border controls that had not done so up until that point, while others have had continuous border controls in place since the refugee crisis in 2015. Other member states have never or only rarely used this temporary opt-out from the principle of free movement of persons inside Schengen. This development has raised the question of whether we are moving towards the disintegration of the Schengen Area as member states make very different choices regarding controls towards their EU neighbours. Comparing the use of internal border controls by all member states, the article suggests the concept of differentiated implementation to explain the variations in internal border regimes among Schengen member states. Focusing on two dimensions of control, the control of movement originating internally or externally to the EU, a typology is developed that conceptualises differentiated implementation as four types of internal border regimes. The analysis illustrates these four types by applying them to the use of controls up until 2022, identifying the grouping of member states. The proposed typology of internal border regimes presented represents an ambition to conceptualise the differences in internal border control use that have previously often been understood as a general problem of the Schengen regime.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45787909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
E. Zhllima, Nicolas Hayoz, D. Imami, Iliriana Miftari
{"title":"The Evolution of Village (Self)Governance in the Context of Post‐Communist Rural Society","authors":"E. Zhllima, Nicolas Hayoz, D. Imami, Iliriana Miftari","doi":"10.17645/pag.v11i2.6495","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i2.6495","url":null,"abstract":"The role of the village headman and council of elders is very important in many societies. The focus of this article is to analyse the evolution and the role of the (informal) intermediary institutions and actors in the context of changing society’s patterns and political landscape transformations. This article focuses on Albania and Kosovo, where village self-governing mechanisms played a crucial role in avoiding (often deadly) social conflicts during the post-communism transition. The article relies on in-depth interviews with involved actors at the local level, using the framework of evolutionary governance theory. The study shows that the role of the council of elders and village headman has been strong and important in times of weak central and local governance, while it weakened in times of strong politicization and increasingly patronizing role of the central government, thus not allowing for a right balance between legitimate community representation and accountability toward upper levels of governance.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46685381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Local Self‐Governance and Weak Statehood: A Convincing Liaison?","authors":"Antje Daniel, Hans-Joachim Lauth, E. Rothfuß","doi":"10.17645/pag.v11i2.7166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i2.7166","url":null,"abstract":"This thematic issue addresses the relationship between local self-governance and the state. Self-governance is understood as the rules that emerge in the local social and spatial context. Local self-governance of individual local groups, actors, communities, and their social and institutional arrangements are considered. From this situated collective entanglement, the interactions and relations with state authorities are analysed in the various contributions embedded in local contexts of different world regions and based on empirical social science research containing mostly interdisciplinary approaches. The nine case studies of this thematic issue reflect a variety of statehoods (weak to restrained), divers “intentionalities” of local self-governance (emancipatory and democratic, socio-economically, and socio-culturally oriented, security-driven or ecological), and their state-locality entanglements range between four forms of relationships: mutually supportive, conflictual, ambivalent, and avoiding.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47906041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I. Josipovic, Sieglinde Rosenberger, Helena Segarra
{"title":"Policy Entrepreneurs of European Disintegration? The Case of Austrian Asylum Governance After 2015","authors":"I. Josipovic, Sieglinde Rosenberger, Helena Segarra","doi":"10.17645/pag.v11i3.6790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i3.6790","url":null,"abstract":"The re-establishment of border controls in the Schengen Area since 2015 and repeated contestation of the Common European Asylum System have made the policy sector of migration and asylum a topic of growing importance for European (dis)integration research. This article investigates differentiated disintegration and the factors that facilitate member states’ counter-projects to core-EU integration trajectories. Drawing on the concept of policy entrepreneurship and based on an analysis of policy documents, we use the case of Austria to examine how the government coalition, the Austrian People’s Party, and their chairman, Sebastian Kurz, have shaped European governance of asylum and borders in the aftermath of the 2015–2016 crisis. We first show how the Austrian government performed a shift towards bilateralism and multilateralism outside the EU framework by using transnational party alliances. Second, we outline a policy discourse that justified Schengen-internal bordering based on asylum politics, which eventually served to delegitimize Schengen’s enlargement in 2022. The article contributes conceptually to understanding differentiated disintegration in the sector of migration and asylum, and points to potential drivers of this development.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48169715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Crombez, Pieterjan Vangerven, Philippe van Gruisen
{"title":"Preferences and Institutions in European (Dis)Integration","authors":"C. Crombez, Pieterjan Vangerven, Philippe van Gruisen","doi":"10.17645/pag.v11i3.6781","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i3.6781","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we present a game-theoretical model of political (dis)integration, and the incentives voters and politicians face during integration processes. We apply the model to the European Union. Preference homogeneity and economies of scale do not suffice to explain European integration. Rather, integration decisions are taken within an institutional setting that involves politicians with interests that may diverge from those of the voters they represent. Such politicians may take integration decisions that are not in line with their voters’ interests as a result. We show that voters can in some circumstances prevent integration by strategically electing representatives who are farther away from them. The model provides novel insights into the process of European (dis)integration and the voter–politician dynamics that determine it. In addition, our model offers an alternative explanation for the relative success of extremist parties in the European Union.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47996786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Voter Disenchantment in the Aftermath of the 2005 EU Constitutional Referendum in France","authors":"Stefan Sliwa Ruiz, L. Linsi, Pascal Jaupart","doi":"10.17645/pag.v11i3.6675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i3.6675","url":null,"abstract":"In a popular referendum in 2005, French voters rejected their country’s adoption of a proposed EU Constitution. Yet, in seeming defiance of the popular vote, the government subsequently proceeded to implement the core of the legislation without consulting the public again. This article empirically examines the electoral impacts of these events. We build a comprehensive fine-grained dataset of nationwide election results for more than 36,000 metropolitan French municipalities. Employing cross-sectional analysis for all national elections held in the decade after the referendum vote, we find that the strength of a municipality’s rejection of the EU Constitution in 2005 is associated with a lower voter turnout, higher shares of blank votes, and larger gains for anti-system parties in subsequent elections. The findings are robust to various modelling choices and the inclusion of a large array of controls. The results indicate that bypassing a popular vote could entail protracted adverse effects on the quality of democratic participation and deliberation.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46388244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Public Support for European Integration in Greece and Italy Between 2015 and 2020","authors":"Nikolas Kouloglou, George N Georgarakis","doi":"10.17645/pag.v11i3.6751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i3.6751","url":null,"abstract":"The consecutive crises of the last decade have eroded public support for the EU, especially so among Southern European member states. A long-standing scholarly debate centers around whether it is economic or cultural considerations that drive public support for the EU. However, it is still unclear whether public attitudes toward European integration are driven primarily by economic evaluations or concerns associated with growing immigration flows. To explore this question, we draw on data from the Eurobarometer in Greece and Italy between 2015 and 2020. We find consistent evidence that diffuses public support for the EU and specific support for EU institutions are associated positively with economic evaluations of the European economy and household finances and negatively with opposition to immigration. Our study provides further insights into the dynamics of public support for the EU in the European periphery during critical times.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48951214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"European Union’s Regulating of Social Media: A Discourse Analysis of the Digital Services Act","authors":"G. Schlag","doi":"10.17645/pag.v11i3.6735","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i3.6735","url":null,"abstract":"Traditional conceptions of democratic publics are changing due to the rise of social media as a global communication tool. While social media brings people together globally and creates new spaces for creativity and resistance, it is also a space of harassment, discrimination, and violence. As recent debates about hate speech and the distribution of “fake news” have shown, the political responsibilities and consequences of regulating online content remain unclear. More recently, the EU is increasingly paying attention to platform providers. How is the EU legitimizing its new approach to social media platform regulation and how will this legislation shape transnational publics? This article contributes to ongoing debates on platform regulation by governments and other political authorities (especially the EU as a transnational legislator) and discussions about the shape of online publics. By applying a discourse analytical perspective, key legitimation narratives can be explored. I argue that the EU claims political authority over corporate interests by introducing new legislation to regulate social media platforms with the Digital Services Act. On the one hand, the EU imagines an idealized democratic online public without harmful and illegal content. On the other hand, the new legislation serves the EU’s agenda on digital sovereignty, taking back control from big and US-based enterprises. There is a strong consensus about four legitimation narratives: (a) “What is illegal offline has to be illegal online”; (b) the EU is “taking back control”; (c) the EU is “protecting small businesses, consumers, and our citizens against big tech”; (d) the EU is developing “a golden standard and rulebook beyond the EU.” Held together by the idea of democratic procedures, authority, and sovereignty, these narratives are demanding more action from social media providers to act on harmful and illegal content.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47958786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Local Self‐Governance and the State in South Sudan: Studying Gendered Tenure Relations in Times of Uncertainty","authors":"J. Ubink, B. Almeida","doi":"10.17645/pag.v11i2.6488","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i2.6488","url":null,"abstract":"With governance increasingly regarded as co-governance, states’ capacity to steer, correct, and discipline a wide range of self-governing actors becomes crucial for states’ effectiveness, efficiency, and democracy. This article investigates that capacity and the relationship between formal institutions and customary self-governance in areas of limited statehood. In South Sudan, the field of land governance can be regarded as an area of limited statehood. As land relations are closely connected to clan structures and intra-familial relationships, customary norms and institutions enjoy great legitimacy and are an important locus of local land governance and dispute resolution. The South Sudanese government has promulgated legal provisions for equal rights to property and inheritance that clash head-on with customary notions of gender roles in the family and the preservation of family land. By focusing on the case of women’s land rights in South Sudan, combining literature study with data from exploratory fieldwork in two South Sudanese towns, this article aims to reflect on the cohabitation of customary and formal norms and values and the role formal legal and administrative systems, in areas of limited statehood, can and do play in boundary setting for customary self-governance.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43941832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
B. Arts, J. Behagel, J. de Koning, Marieke van der Zon
{"title":"Community Forest Management: Weak States or Strong Communities?","authors":"B. Arts, J. Behagel, J. de Koning, Marieke van der Zon","doi":"10.17645/pag.v11i2.6325","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i2.6325","url":null,"abstract":"Community forest management (CFM) has become an influential approach in the sustainable use, management, and conservation of forests worldwide. It ranges from community-based self-governance of local village forests to co-management approaches with state forest agencies in public forests. However, analyses show complex relationships between states and communities in CFM. At least three ideal types can be identified. The first refers to local communities that collectively decide to manage surrounding forests themselves due to a lack of state involvement. As a manager of the public good, such absence of the state may easily lead to deforestation and forest degradation that such communities wish to avoid. A second type refers to the co-management approaches of local communities and state forest agencies. Here, forest officials and community members cooperate in managing local forests. A final type refers to indigenous communities with strong customary forest institutions whose territorial claims are recognized by the state. While communities always need specific institutions, knowledge, and tenure rights in place to make CFM perform, each ideal type presupposes various degrees of state capacity and state autonomy. The article concludes that weak states (to some degree) and strong communities (of a certain kind) may indeed form a “convincing liaison” in CFM, although it is not the only arrangement that may produce (some) positive social and environmental impacts on the ground, as the cases explored illustrate.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43164447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}