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Praktische Fragen und theoretische Antworten : 50 Jahre Policy-Analyse und Verwaltungsforschung
(2009)
This article examines the relation between policies, institutions and time by addressing the case of eastern enlargement policy and the European Commission. Our main question is how the special challenges and requirements of EU eastern enlargement policy impacted on the administrative level of the Commission, i.e. the level in charge of structuring, monitoring and steering the policy's implementation. We provide empirical data on institutional change in the Commission from the mid-1990s until 2004 and examine temporal categories at both the policy level and the institutional level. This analysis shows that - especially the temporal - requirements of enlargement policy drove the Commission to adapt its internal organization and time management; internal structures and procedures changed; actors were bound in a temporal grid. This allowed the mobilization of the actors and the in-time synchronization of their input. On the whole, our results open a new perspective on institutional change and time in the context of European governance.
Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: Why do firms in China, which has a higher level of economic development, communicate less CSR than firms in India? We use a model that includes country-, industry-, and firm-level factors to predict CSR communications intensity, a proxy for CSR activities. Research Findings/Insights: Using data on 68 of the largest multinational companies in China and India, our study shows that Indian firms communicate more CSR primarily due to a more rule-based, as opposed to relation-based, governance environment. Firms in the manufacturing industry tend to communicate more CSR. Firm-level characteristics such as size, duality of CEO and board chairperson, and percentage of external members on the board also have a significant influence on CSR communications. Theoretical/ Academic Implications: The main theoretical contribution of our study is to bring a three-level perspective, relying not only on firm- and industry-specific factors, but also on the governance environment, to the study of firms' CSR behavior. We show that the national governance environment dominates the national income level in affecting CSR communications intensity. We demonstrate that the macro institutional environment in a country strongly affects firm CSR behavior. Our findings suggest that CSR should be studied by considering multilevel antecedents. Practitioner/Policy Implications: Our study suggests that in order to improve the CSR of firms, policy makers in India and China must first try to improve public governance at the national level. Executives doing business with Chinese and Indian companies need to better understand the contrasting governance and their effects on the CSR practices in each country. For the international community and those concerned about product safety and other social issues related to China and India, our findings suggest that improvement will not be immediate since the governance environment changes relatively slowly.
Many parliamentary systems are marked by regular periods of higher and lower legislative activity. This legislation cycle is characterized by an increase in the legislative output shortly ahead of elections and a decrease in legislative initiatives in the second half of the legislative term. This article shows that legislative cycles at the European level are different. First, it shows that the initiation of legislation peaks at the end of parliamentary terms rather than at the beginning. Second, the article shows that the adoption of legislation is only partially connected to the electoral cycle. Instead, the reallocation of agenda powers within the European Parliament twice during a legislature better explains the timing of the adoption of bills than the end of Parliament's term. This finding is especially relevant for legislation adopted under the co-decision procedure. The 'procedural cartel theory' of Cox and McCubbins (2005) combined with the 'economic theory of legislation' provide the theoretical basis that may explain this finding.
Preferential trade agreements pose a big challenge for the multilateral trading system. Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, their number has grown significantly. However, these agreements have a range of disadvantages compared with the multilateral regime, for example, in trade facilitation and in dispute settlement. Whereas it will be difficult to stop the further spreading of this wave of preferential agreements, attempts can be made to reduce the negative effects of trade agreements that do, by definition, discriminate against other countries. In this article, a range of potential remedies are discussed, from a moratorium to the better enforcement of World Trade Organization rules on preferential agreements as well as improved monitoring.