National Preferences Research Articles

Liberal Intergovernmentalism and Its Critics

AbstractThis introduction sets the stage for a special issue devoted to evaluating the contribution and continued relevance of Liberal Intergovernmentalism (LI) – a theory first formulated 25 years ago in this journal – in today's politicized and crisis‐ridden European Union (EU). We review the debates prompted by LI's three core claims about national preference formation, intergovernmental bargaining and institutional choice, as well as by the theory's three policy‐relevant corollaries relating to the EU's democratic deficit, its constitutional settlement and its role in the world. Liberal intergovernmentalism, we argue, remains highly relevant in today's EU, offering important insights and serving to structure much of the academic debate about the prospects of the Union in a time of crisis. Nevertheless, a revitalized LI faces the dual challenges of theorizing both the causes and consequences of mass politicization of EU politics, as well as the prospect of endogenous change in the direction of greater integration or disintegration.

Liberal Intergovernmentalism and the Crises of the European Union

AbstractThe Euro, Schengen and Brexit crises pose important explanatory challenges to liberal intergovernmentalism (LI). In contrast with the historical context in which LI originated, they have threatened existing integration regimes with disintegration in a highly politicized domestic environment. How relevant does LI remain under these circumstances in comparison with its neofunctionalist and postfunctionalist competitors? A comparative analysis of the three crises shows that LI offers only a partial explanation of national preference formation in the crises. As a static theory, it fails to take into account endogenous preferences that may result from path‐dependence (in the euro crisis) or politicization (in the Brexit crisis). By contrast, LI provides a convincing and indispensable analysis of intergovernmental bargaining.

European integration and British membership: Still an intergovernmentalist story?

This article compares the formation of national preferences and interstate bargains for the two historical decisions on British membership, the accession of the UK to the European Communities and British exit from the European Union. While both resemble in their procedure to overcome intra-party division by announcing a referendum about the outcome of interstate bargains, the closer inspection suggests a transformation from a socioeconomic toward ideological foundation of the national preference on British membership and from intergovernmental bargaining effectiveness toward two-level game (in)voluntary defection.

Uber technologies Inc.: re-entering the South Korean Taxi hailing service after the eviction

Subject Area Competing in Emerging Markets; Internationalization of Service Firms; Global Marketing. Study level/applicability Senior undergraduate or graduate students in business schools. Case overview Uber first entered the South Korean taxi hailing service in Seoul in September 2013. In March 2015, the company shut down its operations after being charged for operating an illegal service. However, in January 2016, Uber decided to re-launch Uber’s premium service, UberBLACK after working with the city government. Given the country’s unique characteristics, was the decision to re-enter the market justifiable? Would Uber’s new strategies including partnering with a local company be sufficient? How could Uber gain more market share against its local powerful competitors? Expected learning Outcomes This case allows students to understand the challenges of internationalizing services of a global company in an emerging market that has strong national cultures and domestic preferences. The students will learn how to analyze the country and industry external environment as well as internal resources and capabilities to formulate the appropriate market entry strategies and to effectively implement them. The students will also learn the critical role of host country government and how to manage its relationship, the first- and second-mover advantages/disadvantages and the sustainability of innovative business models. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 11: Strategy

Explaining national preferences on the new European banking policy framework: the case of Lithuania

ABSTRACTUtilising the Lithuanian case, this article analyses what determines a country’s position on the transfer of national competency over banking policy to the EU level. In contrast to dominant explanations in scholarly literature, this article argues that Lithuania’s support for the banking union can be explained by the general pro-European orientation of the political system in the context of ambiguous aggregate economic costs and the benefits of the new institutional framework. In 2013, the EU Presidency also positively affected Lithuania’s stance. Finally, the decision about when to join the banking union was subordinated to the process of euro accession.

국가선호도 추이를 통해 본 세대에 따른 한국사회의 중국 인식

국가선호도 추이를 통해 본 세대에 따른 한국사회의 중국 인식

Playing the creation of the European banking union: what union for which Member States?

The article explores the main competing visions of a fully-fledged European banking union. Building on a historic overview of principal choices related to the previous European banking policy reforms, it identifies four ‘ideal’ models of the new institutional framework: full, corrective, preventive and incomplete. The empirical analysis of national preferences on key policy options related to the recent banking policy overhaul reveals that in the final stages of negotiations the majority of Member States and EU institutions strongly preferred the ‘full’ banking union model, defined by a full scope of supranational supervision and a high degree of bank risk sharing. However, the results of the EU bargaining process show that recent agreements better correspond to the ‘preventive’ banking union form. The article adds a new perspective to the existing accounts on the creation of the banking union, suggesting how an open-ended definition of European initiatives contributes to deepening integration.

Why does the United Kingdom (UK) have inconsistent preferences on financial regulation? The case of banking and capital markets

AbstractWhat explains national preferences concerning international and regional financial regulation? This article focusses on one of the main financial jurisdictions worldwide, the United Kingdom (UK). It is puzzling that since the crisis this jurisdiction has pursued stringent harmonised regulation in certain areas (banking), but not others (capital markets). We explain this in terms of how the demands of powerful economic interests are mediated by the political process and regulatory institutions. In banking, there was strong political pressure to restore financial stability, and regulatory institutions were significantly strengthened. This enabled UK regulators to resist industry lobbying and pursue more stringent harmonised rules at the international and European Union levels (“trading up”). In the case of capital markets, by contrast, UK regulators lacked political support for tougher regulation and were institutionally much weaker. As a result, the industry was far more effective in shaping UK preferences aimed at protecting the sector’s competitiveness (“trading down”).

Comparison and Screening of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options in View of Sustainable Performance and Waste Management

Is it true that a nuclear technology approach to generate electric energy offers a clean, safe, reliable and affordable, i.e., sustainable option? In principle yes, however a technology impact on the environment strongly depends on the actual implementation bearing residual risks due to technical failures, human factors, or natural catastrophes. A full response is thus difficult and can be given first when the wicked multi-disciplinary issues get well formulated and “resolved”. These problems are lying at the interface between: the necessary R&D effort, the industrial deployment and the technology impact in view of the environmental sustainability including the management of produced hazardous waste. As such, this problem is clearly of multi-dimensional nature. This enormous complexity indicates that just a description of the problem might cause a dilemma. The paper proposes a novel holistic approach applying Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to assess the potential of nuclear energy systems with respect to a sustainable performance. It shows how to establish a multi-level criteria structure tree and examines the trading-off techniques for scoring and ranking of options. The presented framework allows multi-criteria and multi-group treatment. The methodology can be applied to support any pre-decisional process launched in a country to find the best nuclear and/or non-nuclear option according to national preferences and priorities. The approach addresses major aspects of the environmental footprint of nuclear energy systems. As a case study, advanced nuclear fuel cycles are analyzed, which were previously investigated by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA/OECD) expert group WASTEMAN. Sustainability facets of waste management, resource utilization and economics are in focus.

Slotbeschouwing: geen levende lokale democratie zonder scepsis

In a final view the other guest editor draws conclusions on local democracy based on the analyses of the Local Election Research presented in this special issue. The good news is that the basic attitude of the Dutch people about their local democracy, their local institutions and their local government is quite positive. A picture of trust and satisfaction arises from the data that are available. However, the picture is much less positive if we look at the local democracy from the perspective of the monitoring citizen. The outcomes of municipal elections are largely dictated by national party preferences, which is both harmful for the process of representation before and the control and accountability after the election of the municipal council. In addition, the level of political participation at the local level is rather low and the participants are not a balanced reflection of the population, even in new forms of participation that are especially designed to break the dominance of the permanent participation elite.

Analysis of the Ukrainian instrument-making industry international competitiveness using porter’s diamond

The article analyzes the ten-year dynamics of the export and import of instrument-making to identify the main trends in the industry. The international competitiveness of Ukraine's instrument-making has been analyzed with the use of M. Porter diamond in measurements of factor conditions (human resources, natural resources, finance, technology and infrastructure), cluster of supporting industries, domestic demand and competition in the domestic market. The method of national preferences in the industry has allowed to give full characteristics of the positive and negative factors that influence the competitiveness of the industry and identify problems and perspectives for the future development. In this study we founded that the industry is import-oriented and has problems in the areas of raw material supply, infrastructure of small towns, related industries and tough competition conditions. At the same time, there are advantages in the form of highly skilled personnel and scientific potential, as well as opportunities for attracting investment funds. The conducted research allowed to give comprehensive assess to the current state of the instrument-making industry, as well as provide a list of practical recommendations aimed to increase the competitiveness of the instrument-making in Ukraine.

Cultural preferences for the methods and motivation of sanitation infrastructure development

Research has found that sanitation infrastructure is cultured, or is shaped by national level cultural preferences. This study expands on this past work to identify causal pathways showing combinations of cultural dimensions that explain sanitation infrastructure technology choice, including total access to improved sanitation facilities, sewerage connections and access to onsite treatment technologies. This analysis uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to analyze all possible combinations of causal conditions which contribute to an outcome of interest. In doing so, pathways are discovered using Hofstede's cultural dimensions as causal conditions and national-level sanitation data as outcomes. Findings show that the cultural dimensions of power distance, individualism versus collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance play a dominant role in sanitation technology choice. These cultural preferences are used to create an analytic framework that maps the cultural dimensions to the methods and motivations of common sanitation infrastructure delivery methods.

The Far Right Challenge Comment on "The Rise of Post-truth Populism in Pluralist Liberal Democracies: Challenges for Health Policy".

Speed and Mannion make a good case that the rise of populism poses significant challenges for health policy. This commentary suggests that the link between populism and health policy should be further nuanced in four ways. First, a deconstruction of the term populism itself and a focus on the far right dimension of populist politics; second, a focus on the supply side and more specifically the question of nationalism and the ‘national preference’; third, the dynamics of party competition during economic crisis; and fourth the question of policy, and more specifically the extent to which certain labour market policies are able to mediate demand for the far right.

The Visegrád Group as a Vehicle for Promoting National Interests in the European Union: The Case of the Czech Republic

Abstract This contribution asks whether sub-regional integration projects such as the Visegrád Group may be understood as mechanisms for pursuing one Group member’s national interests while it stands at the European Union’s helm. I assess this question based on the case of the first Visegrád Group member to assume the EU Council presidency: the Czech Republic. Examining three specific policy areas – the reinvention of the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood policy; the strengthening of EU energy security; and the incorporation of a stronger human rights and external democratisation approach into EU foreign policy – this case study presents a mixed picture. It confirms the potential of the Visegrád Group to be a vehicle for furthering the national preferences of one Group member while it holds the rotating EU Council presidency. Whether or not this potential is fully realised will depend primarily on the degree to which the interests of the four Visegrád countries converge.

A Test of the Relationships between Host and Home National Involvements and the Preferences for Intercultural Conflict Management Styles

This study focused on the relationships between host national (host interpersonal communication) and home national (ethnic interpersonal communication) involvements and preferences for conflict management styles in the context of a conflict with a member of the host culture. Two hypotheses that examined the relationships between these variables and the preferences for the integrating, the compromising, the avoiding, the obliging and the dominating styles were proposed. Survey data from two hundred and sixty-nine, international and exchange, students were analyzed. The results revealed that the level of host national involvement positively predicted the preferences for the integrating and the obliging styles, and the level of home national involvement positively predicted the preference for the avoiding style. These findings suggest the need to consider contextual influences in understanding the complexities that underlie intercultural communication and adaptation.

Why Is Europe Engaged in an Inter-Dependence War, and How Can It Be Stopped?

There is large evidence that European countries, the EMU in particular, are engaged in an interdependence war, i.e. non-cooperative policies with huge social and economic costs due to mutual negative externalities. In this regard, the EMU as a supranational institution with the overarching end to generate and distribute collective benefits from integration and policy coordination seems off the mark. We present a policy game between two interdependent countries showing that the causes and consequences of interdependence wars lye in non-cooperative strategies dictated by the national social preferences over good but costly policy choices embedded into the government's policy function. By means of the model we examine what supranational policy regimes may achieve a Pareto improvement. Among the latter, one that we call Europe, minimises the additive loss function of the two countries. The thrust of our analysis is that the supranational regimes which do not take national preferences into account, dubbed technocratic regimes, are dominated, so that the single alternative is between Europe and exit for the non-cooperative regime. An important result is that Europe is the Pareto-dominant regime only within a limited range of asymmetry between countries' social preferences. The paper concludes with some political-economic implications for the reform of the EMU.

Alternative Music Geographies: A Commentary

Spaces have always had a central role in the formation and impact of youth cultures, beginning with the near spaces of everyday life – school, workplace, village, neighbourhood – where peers come together and cobble together their own styles out of the traditions of their elders and media information about the new. National space was an important element as well, as a container for traditions, but also as a communication space for negotiating the boundaries of the new. Finally, in the years after 1945, global space has gained enormous importance with national debates affected by events and trends from other world regions. That they did not displace national specificities, but that these rather perhaps came forward even more prominently than before, is particularly clear in those youth cultures in which transnational influences have been connected with national cultural preferences and formed into unique mixtures. In Germany there is also the fact that the country was divided, so that the already battered construct of a single national culture was dismantled even further while its heterogeneous components stood out, just like the disparate notions of an appropriate economic and political order. In this respect a focus on youth cultures in divided Germany after 1945 reveals unusually diverse manifestations of broader debates concerning the legitimacy of new styles among youth.

The standing president of the European Council: intergovernmental or supranational leadership?

This contribution explores the leadership of the European Council’s first standing president, Herman van Rompuy. It questions whether van Rompuy primarily acted as a neutral broker among the member states, or whether he aspired to push forward integration beyond national preferences. In the first case, he would strengthen the intergovernmental dimension of the EU and perform as a transactional leader; in the second case, he might favour the Union’s supranational dynamics and exercise transforming leadership. Drawing on theoretical approaches regarding European Council presidencies, the analytical framework specifies the leadership demand and supply of presidents in intergovernmental negotiations. Empirically, the contribution analyses van Rompuy’s leadership in the negotiations on the multiannual financial framework 2014–2020. This analysis shows that van Rompuy primarily acted as a broker, while his leadership supply was rather weak. In conclusion, he largely strengthened the intergovernmental dimension of the EU and particularly acted in favour of the preferences of the powerful member states.

How Do Ideas Shape National Preferences? The Financial Transaction Tax in Ireland

European countries have been required to formulate a national preference in relation to the EU Financial Transaction Tax. The two leading approaches to explaining how the financial sector makes its views felt in the political process – the structural power of the financial services sector based on potential disinvestment, and its instrumental power arising from direct political lobbying – fall short of providing a comprehensive account. The missing link is how and why policy-makers might be willing to adopt the priorities of key sectors of the financial services industry. We outline how two levels of ideational power might be at work in shaping outcomes, using Ireland as a case study. We argue firstly that background systems of shared knowledge that are institutionalized in policy networks generated broad ideational convergence between the financial sector and policymakers over the priorities of industrial policy in general. Secondly, and against that backdrop, debate over specific policy choices can leave room for a wider range of disagreement and indeed political and ideational contestation. Irish policymakers proved responsive to industry interests in the case of the FTT, but not for the reasons normally given. This work seeks to link literatures in two fields of inquiry. It poses questions for liberal intergovernmentalism in suggesting that the translation of structurally grounded material interests into national policy preferences is far from automatic, and argues that this is mediated by ideational considerations that are often under-estimated. It also contributes to our understanding of how constructivist explanations of policy outcomes work in practice, through a detailed case study of how material and ideational interests interact.

Libya and Syria: Inserting the European Neighbourhood Policy in the European Union’s Crisis Response Cycle

Fostering peace and stability has been a key aim of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), but its effective impact on conflicts has been marginal. This article analyses the ENP’s security dimension through the conceptual prism of coherence. As a policy cutting across functional domains and governance levels the ENP faces horizontal and vertical coherence challenges. The empirical analysis focuses on two cases lying at the intersection of the ENP and comprehensive European Union (EU) crisis management: the EU’s responses to the Syrian and Libyan conflicts between 2011 and 2016. The analysis shows that the EU has gradually redirected ENP funds to short-term security- and migration-related goals. However, the EU has failed to ensure vertical coherence in the field of high politics. The externalities of the Libyan and Syrian conflicts might foster national preference convergence and thereby increase vertical coherence. While this should strengthen the ENP’s security dimension, the risk is that the policy’s distinct character as a tool for structural conflict prevention is diluted within an ever broadening comprehensive approach that focuses on conflict symptoms rather than root causes.