This book takes up traditional approaches to political science. It aims to offer a mixture of conventional and specific analyses and insights for different groups of readers. In view of the European Union's multi-level and multi-actor polity, the book highlights the complex procedural and institutional set-up of nation states preparing and implementing decisions made by the institutions of the European Community (EC). In looking at the emerging and evolving realities of the European polity, it shows how European institutions and Member States (re-)act and interact in a new institutional and procedural set-up. It explores how governmental and non-governmental actors in different national settings adapt to common challenges, constraints and opportunities for which they are mainly themselves responsible. The book discusses the Belgian policy toward European integration as a significant demonstration of its commitment to multilateralism and international co-operation in security and economic affairs. Attitudes to European integration in Denmark, Germany, Finland, Greece, and Spain are discussed. Tendencies towards 'Europeanisation' and 'sectoralisation' of the ministerial administration during the process of European integration and the typical administrative pluralism of the Italian political system seem to have mutually reinforced each other. Strong multi-level players are able to increase their access and influence at both levels and to use their position on one level for strengthening their say on the other. German and Belgian regions might develop into these kinds of actors. A persistent trend during the 1990s is traced towards stronger national performers, particularly in terms of adaptations and reactions to Maastricht Treaty.
perspective of non-government actors involved in the implementation of humanitarian response programmes. The first challenge relates to the meaning of innovation itself and how the sector interprets and applies the action of innovating. The second challenge concerns the changing nature of humanitarian assistance. This article posits that humanitarian action is losing efficacy not because of poor design or implementation but due to the changing nature of the context that requires
space for the involvement of the non-governmental actors. For example, at the end of 1967, as they could not intervene directly, Unicef played a major role in prompting the ICRC to undertake relief activities. In other words, the trauma arising from the international community’s management of the Congo crisis participated in creating the conditions for what happened in Biafra. When the famine appeared on TV screens and the pressure in the public mounted, the UN and
parliament. In addition, there are non-governmental actors such as interest groups, political parties and the media. Although there is an old tradition of local government, and renewed regionalisation, the Swedish unitary polity must be considered as relatively centralised compared to several of the other EU Member States, especially the federal or semi-federal states. In the making of Swedish policies towards the Union, the degree of centralisation is striking. However, there is a certain fragmentation at the central level insofar as there is an interministerial rivalry
legitimately binding long-term commitments for society as a whole. At the same time, the spatial dimension calls for multi-level governance, involving several governmental levels as well as non-governmental actors (see Hirst 2000:22 ff.). This logically calls for a diffusion of state authority, upward and/or sideways to the international level as well as downward to regional and local governmental levels. The scale of such a problem as climate change necessitates a global approach; ‘ecologism in one country’ is certainly not a sustainable option. The variation in eco
populations). ‘Fulfilling’ calls for a variety of strategies including monitoring harms arising from science, enhancing public engagement in decision-making about science and technology, ensuring access to the benefits of scientific progress on a non-discriminatory basis, and developing science curricula at all levels of schooling. Second, the Statement points out that it is also incumbent upon non-governmental actors (e.g. scientific societies, for-profit entities, civil society) to contribute to the realisation of the right to science. The Statement touches upon the issue
activities. Another line that the European Community institutions have taken, at least partly in response to the increasing criticism of the quality and effectiveness of European development cooperation, lies in the involvement of civil society. For a long time the role of non-governmental actors in the making and implementation of European development policy was fairly limited. Since the late 1990s, however, the Commission and Council of Ministers have made more serious attempts to open up to civil society. Accordingly, on several occasions since the mid-1990s, relatively
Given the significant similarities and differences between the welfare states of Northern Europe and their reactions to the perceived 'refugee crisis' of 2015, the book focuses primarily on the three main cases of Denmark, Sweden and Germany. Placed in a wider Northern European context – and illustrated by those chapters that also discuss refugee experiences in Norway and the UK – the Danish, Swedish and German cases are the largest case studies of this edited volume. Thus, the book contributes to debates on the governance of non-citizens and the meaning of displacement, mobility and seeking asylum by providing interdisciplinary analyses of a largely overlooked region of the world, with two specific aims. First, we scrutinize the construction of the 2015 crisis as a response to the large influx of refugees, paying particular attention to the disciplinary discourses and bureaucratic structures that are associated with it. Second, we investigate refugees’ encounters with these bureaucratic structures and consider how these encounters shape hopes for building a new life after displacement. This allows us to show that the mobility of specific segments of the world’s population continues to be seen as a threat and a risk that has to be governed and controlled. Focusing on the Northern European context, our volume interrogates emerging policies and discourses as well as the lived experiences of bureaucratization from the perspective of individuals who find themselves the very objects of bureaucracies.
negligible. 116 Several of the most influential non-state actors flourished within the West, 117 and necessarily reflected as well as contributed to western power configurations, be they material or ideational. 118 Equally important was the growing interaction, 119 indeed interconnectedness, between western governmental, semi-governmental and non-governmental actors. 120 None of this, of course, is to argue that the West
‘threats’, many of them attributed to non-governmental actors. The threats in question were usually posed in terms of the possible ramifications – in several cases highly contested 37 – of domestic upheaval, including gross violations of human rights, humanitarian disasters, and breaches of democratic principles. 38 In the relative absence of perceived external threats to international peace and security