Redefining Modern Politics: The State and Beyond

A showcase by students of the Graduate School of Social and Political Science

at the University of Edinburgh, April 27, 2011

PANELS AND ABSTRACTS

10:45 am-12:15 pm PANEL ONE: Challenges to the Modern State

Chaired by Dr. Mark Aspinwall, Head of Politics and International Relations, School
of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh

EU Foreign Policy Towards its Neighbours—A Principal-Agent Analysis

Mor Sobol

In 2004, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) combined two regions, Eastern
Europe/Southern Caucasus and North Africa/Middle East, under one policy
framework. However, in 2008 and 2009 two new policies were created: the Union for
the Mediterranean towards the South and the Eastern Partnership towards the East.
The main questions presented here are: Why did the EU decide to structure the ENP
in such a way and to combine regions that are different from each other in almost
every possible aspect? And why did the EU decide to divide them again? There are
two arguments prominent in the literature. First, from intergovernmental perspective,
these decisions were the result of a bargaining process and an attempt to balance
between East and South-oriented Member States (MS). Second, from historical
institutionalist perspective, the ENP’s structure is the result of policy adaption (from
enlargement process) and path dependence.

Indeed, both perspectives provide us with good explanations, but I argue that the
balance of power between the intergovernmental (MS) and supranational
(Commission) levels might have played a significant role in this process as well.

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Using principal-agent and process-tracing analysis, the research hypothesis is that
since the establishment of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in 1995, the balance
of power, i.e. the distribution of competences between the MS (principals) and the
Commission (agent) in the foreign policy sphere, has changed (not only due to MS’
delegation of power to the Commission but also due to agency losses) and affected
the outcome of EU foreign policies.

Threats to the Global Economy: An Assessment of EU Policy Making

Inês Sofia Oliveira

My research focuses on the evolution of European Union money laundering counter-

measures by applying the principal agent approach to its negotiation process and
thus developing an argument about the relationship between member states
(principals) and the European Commission (agents).The 1991 Directive is the starting
point of the discussion given its key role in not only marking the beginning of EU level
legislation, but also acknowledging the need for coordination between the Union’s
financial/internal market interests and criminal laws. The analysis establishes that,
whilst money-laundering legislation was, initially, promoted through market building
concerns, it is evolving into the realm of criminal law. Nowadays, its implementation
requires a substantial degree of policy coordination and competence delegation in
order to warrant suitable results. To what extent have the increasing demands of
these measures altered the relations between actors and their functions? This article
will focus on the role and significance of the European Commission in the formulation
of EU anti-money laundering legislation, its evolution pursuant to the alterations in
the Treaties, variations in member state preferences and international events.

Eurasia’s Resilient De Facto States

Nonna Gorilovskaya

The breakup of the Soviet Union was remarkable for its low levels of violence and the
emergence of 15 new states that were swiftly recognized by the international
community. Nearly 20 years later, however, a number of unresolved conflicts remind
us that Eurasia’s new borders are still in flux. Four de facto states—Abkhazia, South
Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria—stand militarily victorious but
internationally unrecognized. These are territories where imperial collapse was
marked by warfare and where independence demands, most on national self-
determination grounds, persist. Despite prolonged mediation by the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and others, political solutions remain
elusive.

The resilience of these de facto states is usually attributed to the legacy of Soviet
ethnofederalism, elite interests and Russian patronage. However, the role of
international organizations in these conflicts is often too narrowly confined to the
question of why various mediation attempts have failed. I seek to answer a broader
set of questions: What is the role of international organizations such as the OSCE in
Eurasia’s de facto states? How has this multifaceted international role contributed to
these states’ resilience? From the inclusion of separatist leaders in peace talks to
refusal to monitor the elections that brought these same leaders to power,
international organizations at once engage with and shun de facto states. This
project will examine how international organizations have influenced the development
of Eurasia’s de facto states in complex and sometimes unintended ways.

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1:15-2:45 pm PANEL TWO: The Networked Nature of Decision Making: Policy
and Practice

Chaired by Richard Freeman, Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Science
at the University of Edinburgh, and Director of the Public Policy Network

The Work of Participation: Local Deliberative Policy Making as Mediated by

Public Engagement Practitioners
Oliver Escobar

Participatory democracy is undergoing processes of institutionalisation and

professionalization all around the world. Yet, we know surprisingly little about those
professionals in charge of translating its democratic ideals into practices. Indeed, the
literature has often overlooked the role played by public engagement practitioners, in
short, the “engagers”.

The engagers inhabit the relational space of local participatory policy making. They
negotiate its boundaries, speak and translate its many languages, and render it
operational. They are a nodal point in most local processes, as well as a portal to
their different dimensions and inhabitants. The pragmatics of citizen participation and
deliberation are the engagers’ bread and butter. This working paper shares
preliminary insights about some of these practitioners, who seem instrumental to the
practice of participatory democracy. In particular, I focus on their policy work in local
communities, as well as on their perspectives and feelings about their trade. My
reflections are based on ongoing doctoral research in a local authority area in
Scotland.

The Politics of Gay Asylum

Trent Olsen

Sexuality presents a dynamic challenge to the asylum systems of signatory states to

the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in the interpretation and
recognition of asylum. Persecuted gay asylum seekers force states to decide
whether sexuality is an immutable characteristic and/or natural right requiring the
same protections as universal freedoms of conscience like religion and political
opinion. The United Kingdom and United States are obliged to recognise asylum
claims under the guidance of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol but they, as
other countries, generally decide the criteria for asylum status and implement policy
through national institutions. In spite of domestic animosity toward immigration and
asylum, why have these states expanded their interpretations of the Refugee
Convention definition of “particular social group” to include lesbian, gay, transgender
and queer asylum seekers (LGBTQ)? On a social level, in policymaking and practice,
how do elites’ decisions influence or drive the political and interpret the judicial?
Answering these questions requires bridging the social, political and judicial
dimensions of LGBTQ asylum, between actor- and system-levels of analysis, in a
complete study that fills gaps in existing literature. This project will investigate
changes in asylum laws in the UK and US to accommodate gay minorities that reflect
a recognition of LGBTQ persecution abroad as well as growing domestic
sociopolitical acceptance of queer deviances.

Connecting With the Public: Tweetminster© and 2011 in Scotland

Hugo Kowolik

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Since the 2008 Presidential campaign of Barack Obama, the Internet has come to be
recognized not only as a resource for news agencies, but also for political candidates
themselves. With Internet enabled smart-phones, Twitter in particular holds great
appeal for political candidates due to its ability to rapidly disseminate information to
various people and groups at no cost. During the 2010 Westminster General
Election, Twitter came to be used by candidates as a method of maintaining contact
with their supporters, and commenting on both news stories and their opponents’
campaign claims. For many, the number of Twitter followers grew into the thousands.
However, as Twitter was a new resource for many, its use resulted in two interesting
cases of candidates being investigated by the police or their party; in one instance for
revealing postal vote results, and the other making comments that his party found
unacceptable. Despite these negative instances, the number of Members of
Parliament using Twitter has increased over time, and during the election websites
were created specifically for following the candidates’ Twitter feeds. With the 2011
Scottish Parliamentary General Election approaching, several Scottish candidates
have begun to harness this social phenomenon for their own promotion. My main
doctoral research question concerns how the Conservative Party will have used
Twitter in the 2011 Scottish General election campaign. Having previously
investigated Twitter usage in the 2010 election, I aim to elaborate on some of my
initial findings in this paper, and discuss how they will be applied in my doctoral
research.

Public-Private Partnerships in the European Union—Understanding the

Emergence and Promotion of an Infrastructure Policy
Moritz Liebe

Over the last two decades the traditional way of infrastructure procurement and
operation is incrementally being supplemented and in some countries arguably
supplanted by a public-private partnership (PPP) approach. In this new arrangement,
the private sector is given greater responsibility and autonomy in the implementation
of infrastructure projects. PPPs have become popular with public authorities and
governments primarily because of the assumption that PPPs provide “value for
money” to the taxpayer and because the payment mechanism reduces direct
pressures on the public budget. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that this policy is in
practice not without shortcomings.

The study will inquire why, despite the mixed evidence, the European Commission
started by the end of the last decade to actively promote PPPs among the member
states as a desirable policy to procure infrastructure and provide services within the
facility. The inquiry will be guided by a modified advocacy coalition framework, which
assumes that actors in a policy subsystem form coalitions based on their belief
systems and that changes in their coalitions can arise either through policy learning
or material or ideological shocks to the policy subsystem. The study’s data sources
include documents and elite interviews, which will be processed using qualitative
data analysis techniques. Principles of process tracing are applied to unearth the
mechanisms leading to change whilst formal network analysis techniques assist in
mapping out the advocacy coalitions.

3:15 – 4:45 pm PANEL THREE: Empowering the Citizen, Improving Democracy:

Decentralisation and Participation in Mature and Developing European
Democracies

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Chaired by Dr. Nicola McEwen, Co-Director, Institute of Governance and Senior
Lecture in Politics, School of Social and Political Science at the University of
Edinburgh

Accommodating National Pluralism Through Territorial Decentralisation: Does

it Work?
David Martí-Tomàs

Multinational states have traditionally responded to minority nations’ claims for self-
government by granting territorial decentralisation, which normally consists of
transferring constitutional powers to newly-created regional institutions. Although
reluctant to do so, central governments perceived territorial decentralisation as the
best way to contain stateless nationalist demands by granting a limited degree of
self-government that minority nations would use to preserve their cultural, political
and economic distinctiveness. In this view, territorial decentralisation was supposed
to strengthen the unity of the state by better accommodating minority nations within
the state’s political structure. However, decentralisation has not appeased demands
for more self-government from minority nations. In states such as Belgium, Canada,
Spain, and the UK, political actors, especially nationalist parties, are still demanding
more autonomy for their sub-state nations.

The question I want to answer is: Why territorial decentralisation has not appeased
minority nations’ demands for more autonomy? I will use a mixed-methods research
design in a multiple in-depth case study of three cases: Canada/Quebec,
Spain/Catalonia, and UK/Scotland to address this question. My aim is to understand
the nature of the demands for more self-government raised by regional political
actors and the reasons that underlie these demands. Is the limited scope of self-
government insufficient for the minority nations’ aspirations? Has decentralisation
strengthened nationalist parties? Are demands for more autonomy primarily driven by
political elites or a reflection of popular support for increased self-government? This
research will explore why existing strategies of territorial management to
accommodate national pluralism have not been successful in these states.

A Study of the Regional Branches of Statewide Parties in Multinational States:

Perspectives After Reforms
Gavin Barber

Throughout Europe, processes of state reform and changing governance structures

induce structural and organisational adaptations in statewide parties. As they reform,
in order to compete and organise as part of the multi-level politics of Europe, there is
an implicit acknowledgment of the declining importance of central hierarchical
authority. As regional branches develop, as practice, ideas, personnel develop, and,
most importantly, conceptualisations of the meaning and role of the regional branch
within the politics of multinational states develop, we witness a range of intriguing
phenomena associated with party reorganisation. This study focuses on the regional
branches of the two main statewide parties in the UK and Spain, focusing on
developments in Scotland and Wales, and Catalonia and Galicia. Utilising elite
interviews and employing a frame analysis approach as part of a comparative
methodology, this study is interested in the changing perceptions of central hierarchy,
political careers and opportunity structures, the locus of authority and decision-
making as well as changing ideas about the state, and spheres of solidarity. This
research contributes to, and seeks to expand upon, a relatively recent and valuable
literature on statewide parties in multinational states, but it also aims to address
some developing ideas of democracy, nationalism, and the role of political parties as

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part of the politics of Western Europe from the perspective of those in the web of
multi-level Western European politics.

Citizens’ Voice in the Transitional Race to Democracy: NGOs’ Agenda

Ownership and Political Participation
Denitsa Filipova

Civil participation in political life is gaining importance as an essential characteristic of

healthy democracy. However, levels of citizen involvement in political life are very low
in Central and Eastern European countries. This may be attributed to their post-
communist legacy and lack of extensive social capital, which hinder the development
of third sector networks. Moreover, the majority of non-governmental organizations in
the region rely on donor aid and the implementation of external agendas. There are
barely any independent intermediaries that can channel grassroots claims into the
actual policy formulation process.

The main goal of my research is to determine why civil engagement in Central and
Eastern European countries has not translated into “voice” and actual participation in
policy making. Existing explanations of this phenomenon include the “agency
capture” of a weak state and a weak third sector as well as structural obstacles and
unsupportive governance frameworks. Answering this question, however, requires
considering the little-examined impact of the EU’s and IMF’s political and economic
conditionalities on civil society development. In order to shed light on these issues,
this project employs a comparative methodological approach using Bulgaria and
Romania as case studies. Discourse and regression analysis are the main tools used
to evaluate civil participation levels and to compare them between the two countries
and across international conditionalities.

The Role of External and Internal Actors Towards Minority Protection Policy in
Latvia and Kazakhstan
Andris Kokins

The protection of national minorities has firmly established itself as an issue within
the international discourse since the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Following the
collapse of the Soviet Union the minority issue discourse has entered a new phase
and gave an opportunity to examine the ways in which newly independent countries
have addressed minority demands through either violent confrontation or peaceful
coexistence. I will argue that successful minority protection depends on the
interaction between the key actors: international organisations, the kin-state and
domestic government.

The paper will focus on minority protection policy comparing two post-Soviet states. It
will address some of the external and internal factors that influence policy in Latvia
and Kazakhstan. I will examine the role international organisations and kin-states
play in formulating polices on protecting and promoting minority rights. Then, I will
discuss not only how domestic governments have responded to these initiatives but
also how they have developed their own approaches to protect these rights. It is no
longer enough to analyse policy making towards national minority protection
excluding some of key actors. A more nuanced understanding of this issue can be
achieved by considering complex interaction between the actors.