TY - JOUR
A1 - Sohst, Rhea Ravenna
A1 - Acostamadiedo, Eduardo
A1 - Tjaden, Jasper
T1 - Reducing uncertainty in Delphi surveys
BT - a case study on immigration to the EU
JF - Demographic research
N2 - Background: Following the rapid increase of asylum seekers arriving in the European Union in 2015/16, policymakers have invested heavily in improving their foresight and forecasting capabilities. A common method to elicit expert predictions are Delphi surveys. This approach has attracted concern in the literature, given the high uncertainty in experts’ predictions. However, there exists limited guidance on specific design choices for future-related Delphi surveys.
Objective: We test whether or not small adjustments to the Delphi survey can increase certainty (i.e., reduce variation) in expert predictions on immigration to the EU in 2030.
Methods: Based on a two-round Delphi survey with 178 migration experts, we compare variation and subjective confidence in expert predictions and assess whether additional context information (type of migration flow, sociopolitical context) promotes convergence among experts (i.e., less variation) and confidence in their own estimates.
Results: We find that additional context information does not reduce variation and does not increase confidence in expert predictions on migration.
Conclusions: The results reaffirm recent concerns regarding the limited scope for reducing uncertainty by manipulating the survey setup. Persistent uncertainty may be a result of the complexity of migration processes and limited agreement among migration experts regarding key drivers.
Contribution: We caution policymakers and academics on the use of Delphi surveys for eliciting expert predictions on immigration, even when conducted based on a large pool of experts and using specific scenarios. The potential of alternative approaches such as prediction markets should be further explored.
KW - European Union
KW - immigration
KW - international migration
KW - migration flows
Y1 - 2023
U6 - https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2023.49.36
SN - 2363-7064
SN - 1435-9871
VL - 49
SP - 983
EP - 1020
PB - Max Planck Inst. for Demographic Research
CY - Rostock
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Ollier, Lana
A1 - Metz, Florence
A1 - Nuñez-Jimenez, Alejandro
A1 - Späth, Leonhard
A1 - Lilliestam, Johan
T1 - The European 2030 climate and energy package
BT - do domestic strategy adaptations precede EU policy change?
JF - Policy sciences
N2 - The European Union’s 2030 climate and energy package introduced fundamental changes compared to its 2020 predecessor. These changes included a stronger focus on the internal market and an increased emphasis on technology-neutral decarbonization while simultaneously de-emphasizing the renewables target. This article investigates whether changes in domestic policy strategies of leading member states in European climate policy preceded the observed changes in EU policy. Disaggregating strategic change into changes in different elements (goals, objectives, instrumental logic), allows us to go beyond analyzing the relative prioritization of different goals, and to analyze how policy requirements for reaching those goals were dynamically redefined over time. To this end, we introduce a new method, which based on insights from social network analysis, enables us to systematically trace those strategic chances. We find that shifts in national strategies of the investigated member states preceded the shift in EU policy. In particular, countries reframed their understanding of supply security, and pushed for the internal electricity market also as a security measure to balance fluctuating renewables. Hence, the increasing focus on markets and market integration in the European 2030 package echoed the increasingly central role of the internal market for electricity supply security in national strategies. These findings also highlight that countries dynamically redefined their goals relative to the different phases of the energy transition.
KW - climate and energy policy
KW - policy strategy
KW - European Union
KW - decarbonization
KW - renewable energy
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-022-09447-5
SN - 0032-2687
SN - 1573-0891
VL - 55
IS - 1
SP - 161
EP - 184
PB - Springer Science+Business Media LLC
CY - New York
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Hecke, Steven van
A1 - Fuhr, Harald
A1 - Wolfs, Wouter
T1 - The politics of crisis management by regional and international organizations in fighting against a global pandemic
BT - the member states at a crossroads
JF - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration
N2 - Despite new challenges like climate change and digitalization, global and regional organizations recently went through turbulent times due to a lack of support from several of their member states. Next to this crisis of multilateralism, the COVID-19 pandemic now seems to question the added value of international organizations for addressing global governance issues more specifically. This article analyses this double challenge that several organizations are facing and compares their ways of managing the crisis by looking at their institutional and political context, their governance structure, and their behaviour during the pandemic until June 2020. More specifically, it will explain the different and fragmented responses of the World Health Organization, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank. With the aim of understanding the old and new problems that these international organizations are trying to solve, this article argues that the level of autonomy vis-a-vis the member states is crucial for understanding the politics of crisis management.
Points for practitioners
As intergovernmental bodies, international organizations require authorization by their member states. Since they also need funding for their operations, different degrees of autonomy also matter for reacting to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential for international organizations is limited, though through proactive and bold initiatives, they can seize the opportunity of the crisis and partly overcome institutional and political constraints.
KW - autonomy
KW - COVID-19
KW - crisis management
KW - European Union
KW - International
KW - Monetary Fund
KW - international organizations
KW - multilateralism
KW - World Bank
KW - World Health Organization
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852320984516
SN - 0020-8523
SN - 1461-7226
VL - 87
IS - 3
SP - 672
EP - 690
PB - Sage
CY - Los Angeles, Calif. [u.a.]
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Ebers, Martin
A1 - Hoch, Veronica R. S.
A1 - Rosenkranz, Frank
A1 - Ruschemeier, Hannah
A1 - Steinrötter, Björn
T1 - The European Commission’s proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Act
BT - a critical assessment by members of the Robotics and AI Law Society (RAILS)
JF - J : multidisciplinary scientific journal
N2 - On 21 April 2021, the European Commission presented its long-awaited proposal for a Regulation “laying down harmonized rules on Artificial Intelligence”, the so-called “Artificial Intelligence Act” (AIA). This article takes a critical look at the proposed regulation. After an introduction (1), the paper analyzes the unclear preemptive effect of the AIA and EU competences (2), the scope of application (3), the prohibited uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) (4), the provisions on high-risk AI systems (5), the obligations of providers and users (6), the requirements for AI systems with limited risks (7), the enforcement system (8), the relationship of the AIA with the existing legal framework (9), and the regulatory gaps (10). The last section draws some final conclusions (11).
KW - artificial intelligence
KW - machine learning
KW - European Union
KW - regulation
KW - harmonization
KW - Artificial Intelligence Act
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/j4040043
SN - 2571-8800
VL - 4
IS - 4
SP - 589
EP - 603
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Bobzien, Licia
A1 - Kalleitner, Fabian
T1 - Attitudes towards European financial solidarity during the Covid-19 pandemic
BT - evidence from a net-contributor country
JF - European societies
N2 - Whilst the Covid-19 pandemic affects all European countries, the ways in which these countries are prepared for the health and subsequent economic crisis varies considerably. Financial solidarity within the European Union (EU) could mitigate some of these inequalities but depends upon the support of the citizens of individual member states for such policies. This paper studies attitudes of the Austrian population - a net-contributor to the European budget - towards financial solidarity using two waves of the Austrian Corona Panel Project collected in May and June 2020. We find that individuals (i) who are less likely to consider the Covid-19 pandemic as a national economic threat, (ii) who believe that Austria benefits from supporting other countries, and (iii) who prefer the crisis to be organized more centrally at EU-level show higher support for European financial solidarity. Using fixed effects models, we further show that perceiving economic threats and preferring central crisis management also explain attitude dynamics within individuals over time. We conclude that cost-benefit perceptions are important determinants for individual support of European financial solidarity during the Covid-19 pandemic.
KW - Covid-19
KW - financial solidarity
KW - European Union
KW - Austria
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2020.1836669
SN - 1461-6696
SN - 1469-8307
VL - 23
IS - Sup. 1
SP - S791
EP - S804
PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY - Abingdon
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Paasch, Jana
T1 - Revisiting policy preferences and capacities in the EU
BT - Multi-level policy implementation in the subnational authorities
JF - Journal of common market studies : JCMS
N2 - Research on multi-level implementation of EU legislation has almost exclusively focused on the national level, while little is known about the role of subnational authorities. Nevertheless, it is a prerequisite for the functioning of the European Union that all member states and their subnational authorities apply and enforce EU legislation in due time. I address this research gap and take a closer look at the legal transposition process in the German regional states. Using a novel data set comprising detailed information on about 700 subnational measures, I show that state-level variables, such as political preferences and ministerial resources, account for variation in the timing of legal transposition and repeatedly lead to subnational delay. To conclude, the paper addresses the role of subnational authorities in the EU multi-level system and points to their interest in shaping legal transposition in order to counterbalance their loss of competences to the national level.
KW - European Union
KW - transposition
KW - EU directives
KW - implementation measures
KW - subnational authorities
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13286
SN - 0021-9886
SN - 1468-5965
VL - 60
IS - 3
SP - 783
EP - 800
PB - Wiley-Blackwell
CY - Oxford
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Schmidt-Wellenburg, Christian
T1 - Struggling over crisis
T1 - Umkämpfte Krise
BT - Discoursive Positionings and Academic Positions in the Field of German-Speaking Economists
BT - Diskursive Positionierungen und akademische Positionen im Feld deutschsprachiger Volkswirt*innen
JF - Historical Social Research
N2 - If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three opinions.” Following the premise of this quotation attributed to Winston Churchill, varying perceptions of the European crisis by academic economists and their structural homology to economists’ positions in the field of economics are examined. The dataset analysed using specific multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and hierarchical agglomerative clustering (HAC) comprises information on the careers of 480 German-speaking economists and on statements they made concerning crisis-related issues. It can be shown that the main structural differences in the composition and amount of scientific and academic capital held by economists as well as their age and degree of transnationalisation are linked to how they see the crisis: as a national sovereign debt crisis, as a European banking crisis, or as a crisis of European integration and institutions.
KW - Economics
KW - multiple correspondence analysis
KW - Bourdieu
KW - field
KW - discourse
KW - mixed methods
KW - European Union
KW - crisis
Y1 - 2018
U6 - https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.43.2018.3.147-188
SN - 0172-6404
VL - 43
IS - 3
SP - 147
EP - 188
PB - GESIS, Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
CY - Cologne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Davydchyk, Maria
A1 - Mehlhausen, Thomas
A1 - Priesmeyer-Tkocz, Weronika
T1 - The price of success, the benefit of setbacks
BT - alternative futures of EU-Ukraine relations
JF - Futures : the journal of policy, planning and futures studies
N2 - This article explores the various futures of relations between the European Union (EU) and Ukraine. After distilling two major drivers we construct a future compass in order to conceive of four futures of relations between the EU and Ukraine. Our scenarios aim to challenge deep-rooted assumptions on the EU’s neighbourhood with Ukraine: How will the politico-economic challenges in the European countries influence the EU’s approach towards the East? Will more EU engagement in Ukraine contribute to enduring peace? Does peace always come with stability? Which prospects does the idea of Intermarium have? Are the pivotal transformation players in Ukraine indeed oligarchs or rather small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs? After presenting our scenarios, we propose indicators to know in the years to come, along which path future relations do develop. By unearthing surprising developments we hope to provoke innovative thoughts on Eastern Europe in times of post truth societies, confrontation between states and hybrid warfare.
KW - European Union
KW - Ukraine
KW - Russia
KW - European Neighbourhood Policy
KW - Eastern Europe
KW - Eurasian Economic Union
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2017.06.004
SN - 0016-3287
SN - 1873-6378
VL - 97
SP - 35
EP - 46
PB - Elsevier
CY - Oxford
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Krahé, Barbara
A1 - Berger, Anja
A1 - Vanwesenbeeck, Ine
A1 - Bianchi, Gabriel
A1 - Chliaoutakis, Joannes
A1 - Fernandez-Fuertes, Andres A.
A1 - Fuertes, Antonio
A1 - de Matos, Margarida Gaspar
A1 - Hadjigeorgiou, Eleni
A1 - Haller, Birgitt
A1 - Hellemans, Sabine
A1 - Izdebski, Zbigniew
A1 - Kouta, Christiana
A1 - Meijnckens, Dwayne
A1 - Murauskiene, Liubove
A1 - Papadakaki, Maria
A1 - Ramiro, Lucia
A1 - Reis, Marta
A1 - Symons, Katrien
A1 - Tomaszewska, Paulina
A1 - Vicario-Molina, Isabel
A1 - Zygadlo, Andrzej
T1 - Prevalence and correlates of young people's sexual aggression perpetration and victimisation in 10 European countries: a multi-level analysis
JF - Culture, health & sexuality : a journal for research, intervention and care
N2 - Data are presented on young people's sexual victimisation and perpetration from 10 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain) using a shared measurement tool (N = 3480 participants, aged between 18 and 27 years). Between 19.7 and 52.2% of female and between 10.1 and 55.8% of male respondents reported having experienced at least one incident of sexual victimisation since the age of consent. In two countries, victimisation rates were significantly higher for men than for women. Between 5.5 and 48.7% of male and 2.6 and 14.8% of female participants reported having engaged in a least one act of sexual aggression perpetration, with higher rates for men than for women in all countries. Victimisation rates correlated negatively with sexual assertiveness and positively with alcohol use in sexual encounters. Perpetration rates correlated positively with attitudes condoning physical dating violence and with alcohol use in men, and negatively with sexual assertiveness in women. At the country level, lower gender equality in economic power and in the work domain was related to higher male perpetration rates. Lower gender equality in political power and higher sexual assertiveness in women relative to men were linked to higher male victimisation rates.
KW - young people
KW - sexual aggression
KW - multi-level correlates
KW - European Union
KW - sexual victimisation
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2014.989265
SN - 1369-1058
SN - 1464-5351
VL - 17
IS - 6
SP - 682
EP - 699
PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY - Abingdon
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Tosun, Jale
A1 - Schulze, Kai
T1 - Compliance with EU biofuel targets in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe: Do interest groups matter?
JF - Environment & planning : international journal of urban and regional research ; C, Government & policy
N2 - The European Union requires its member states to establish national targets for the biofuel content of all diesel and petrol supplies for transport placed on the market. This study explores the adoption of this European Union policy across South-Eastern and Eastern Europe between 2003 and 2012. In theoretical terms, we are specifically interested in examining the role of interest groups for policy adoption. We argue that the oil industry in general and the producers of biofuels in particular will support the establishment of national biofuel targets because they expect economic gains. By contrast, we expect environmental groups with international and regional ties to oppose such targets because biofuels have come under attack for their potential environmental impact including deforestation, a loss in biodiversity, and food insecurity. Empirically, we concentrate on policy adoptions in 21 South-Eastern and Eastern European states with varied relations to the European Union and the Energy Community. Our analysis supports our main arguments in suggesting that a stronger presence of environmental groups decreases the chances of adopting national biofuel targets across our country sample while producer interests tend to increase adoptions. This finding holds true also when controlling for a country's European Union membership and accession perspective, membership in the Energy Community, and additional domestic-level factors. These results add more generally to our understanding about compliance with European Union policies and environmental governance.
KW - Biofuels
KW - Eastern Europe
KW - Energy Community
KW - European Union
KW - lobbying
KW - South-Eastern Europe
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0263774X15605923
SN - 0263-774X
SN - 1472-3425
VL - 33
IS - 5
SP - 950
EP - 968
PB - Sage Publ.
CY - London
ER -