Thomas König

Founded in 2007 to fund basic research, the European Research Council (ERC) has become the most revered instrument in European science policy and one of the world’s most important focal points for the funding of scientific research. Its grants are much sought-after by researchers and scholars and it is widely considered to have had a major impact on research communities and institutions across Europe. How did this remarkable organization, the creation of which was widely regarded as a ‘miracle’, come into being, what has it achieved and how is it likely to adapt in the face of current and future challenges? This book is the first comprehensive history of the creation and development of the ERC. Drawing on first-hand knowledge, Thomas König gives a detailed account of how a group of strong-minded European scientists succeeded in creating the ERC by pushing for a single goal: more money for scientific research with fewer strings attached. But he also shows how this campaign would have failed had it not been taken up by skilful officials of the European Commission, who recognized the ERC as a way to gain more influence in shaping European science policy. Once established, the ERC developed a carefully crafted self-image that emphasized its reliance on peer review and its differences from all other EU research programmes. In addition to analysing the creation and development of the ERC, this book critically examines its achievements and its claims. It also explores the implications of the rise of the ERC and the challenges and threats that it faces today, engaging with broader questions concerning the relationship of politics, science, and money at the beginning of the 21st century. It will be essential reading for all scholars and students of science policy, for decision-makers and administrators across Europe, and for researchers and academics looking to engage with and understand the ERC.

The European Research Council

Diese Studie richtet sich an all diejenigen, die an der Transformation politischer Systeme im allgemeinen und an den Problemen der europäischen Integration im speziellen interessiert sind. Sie unterscheidet sich in theoretischer und empirischer Hinsicht von bisherigen Arbeiten zur europäischen Integration. Den Untersuchungen liegt nicht nur eine außergewöhnliche Datenbasis zugrunde, sondern es werden auch neue Methoden zur Berechnung von Machtverteilungen, zur Analyse von Gesetzgebungsprozessen und zur Modellierung von Verhandlungssituationen eingeführt. In einem ersten Teil werden die Gründe für die nationale und parlamentarische Integration am Beispiel der europäischen Institutionenpolitik aufgezeigt. Es liegen Verfahren vor, welche über die Beteiligung des Europäischen Parlaments und über die Absenkung des Entscheidungskriteriums im Ministerrat die formalen Voraussetzungen für die Transformation in ein europäisches Mehrheitssystem schaffen. Im zweiten Teil werden die Konsequenzen dieser formalen Vorgaben für die Handlungsfreiheit der Mitgliedsstaaten und die Parlamentarisierung europäischer Entscheidungen analysiert. Am Beispiel von repräsentativen Fallstudien wird gezeigt, wie Mitgliedstaaten, Kommission und Europäisches Parlament ihre unterschiedlichen Politikvorstellungen koordinieren. Letztlich gibt die Qualität der Vereinbarungen Aufschluß, wie weit Europa auf dem Weg zum Mehrheitssstem vorangeschritten ist.

Gründe und Konsequenzen nationaler und parlamentarischer Integration

Europa auf dem Weg zum Mehrheitssystem

Christopher H. Achen

Robert Thomson

Frans N. Stokman

European legislation affects countless aspects of daily life in modern Europe but just how does the European Union make such significant legislative decisions? How important are the formal decision-making procedures in defining decision outcomes and how important is the bargaining that takes place among the actors involved? Using a combination of detailed evidence and theoretical rigour, this volume addresses these questions and others that are central to understanding how the EU works in practice. It focuses on the practice of day-to-day decision-making in Brussels and the interactions that take place among the Member States in the Council and among the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. A unique data set of actual Commission proposals are examined against which the authors develop, apply and test a range of explanatory models of decision-making, exemplifying how to study decision-making in other political systems using advanced theoretical tools and appropriate research design.

The European Union Decides

George Tsebelis

Marc Debus

George Tsebelis’ veto players approach has become a prominent theory to analyze various research questions in political science. Studies that apply veto player theory deal with the impact of institutions and partisan preferences of legislative activity and policy outcomes. It is used to measure the degree of policy change and, thus, reform capacity in national and international political systems. This volume contains the analysis of leading scholars in the field on these topics and more recent developments regarding theoretical and empirical progress in the area of political reform-making. The contributions come from research areas of political science where veto player theory plays a significant role, including, positive political theory, legislative behavior and legislative decision-making in national and supra-national political systems, policy making and government formation. The contributors to this book add to the current scholarly and public debate on the role of veto players, making it of interest to scholars in political science and policy studies as well as policymakers worldwide.

Veto Players and Decision-Making in Modern Democracies

Reform Processes and Policy Change

Daniel Finke

Sven-Oliver Proksch

For decades the European Union tried changing its institutions, but achieved only unsatisfying political compromises and modest, incremental treaty revisions. In late 2009, however, the EU was successfully reformed through the Treaty of Lisbon. Reforming the European Union examines how political leaders ratified this treaty against all odds and shows how this victory involved all stages of treaty reform negotiations--from the initial proposal to referendums in several European countries. The authors emphasize the strategic role of political leadership and domestic politics, and they use state-of-the-art methodology, applying a comprehensive data set for actors' reform preferences. They look at how political leaders reacted to apparent failures of the process by recreating or changing the rules of the game. While domestic actors played a significant role in the process, their influence over the outcome was limited as leaders ignored negative referendums and plowed ahead with intended reforms. The book's empirical analyses shed light on critical episodes: strategic agenda setting during the European Convention, the choice of ratification instrument, intergovernmental bargaining dynamics, and the reaction of the German Council presidency to the negative referendums in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

Realizing the Impossible

Reforming the European Union

Margarete Maria Grandner

English summary: The volume is the third of four on critically assessing the history of the University of Vienna since the mid-19th century. Starting with a reflection on the weaknesses of university history (as a sub-discipline of historiography of science), the five contributions look at very different aspects of impact of the university and the scientific practices that were established there. The university, it is widely acknowledged, played a crucial role in different political regimes during the past one and a half century. But what this resulted in, and how it reflected back on the university as a representative institution for science, research and higher education, has hardly been addressed so far. As case studies based on unique samples of sources, the indiviual contribution are ambitious attempts to tackle this gap. German description: Dieser Band nimmt neue Entwicklungen der Wissensgeschichte zum Ausgangspunkt, um die Geschichte der Universitat Wien aus unterschiedlichen kultur- wie sozialwissenschaftlichen Perspektiven zu beleuchten. Die einzelnen Beitrage werfen Schlaglichter auf die Rolle der Universitat Wien in der Konstruktion verschiedener historischer Identitaten, auf die (diskriminierenden) Aspekte von Universitatspolitik sowie die Entwicklung spezifisch gesellschaftspolitischer Expertise und institutioneller Innovationen.

Die Universität Wien als Schnittstelle wissenschaftlicher Entwicklungen und gesellschaftlicher Umbrüche

Reichweiten und Außensichten

Sylvain Brouard

Olivier Costa

In ten years 80 per cent of the legislation related to economics, maybe also to taxes and social aff airs, will be of Community origin.” This declaration has been largely quoted, paraphrased and deformed by different authors, creating a persistent myth according to which 80% of the legislative activity of the national legislatures would soon be reduced to the simple transposition of European norms”. This book addresses the topic of the scope and impact of Europeanization on national legislation, as a part of the Europeanization debate which raises normative concerns linked to the “democratic deficit” debate. The state of the art shows that there are many assumptions and claims on how European integration may affect national legislation and, more generally, domestic governance but that there is a lack of solid and comparative data to test them. The aim of the book is to give a solid and comparative insight into Europeanization focusing on effective outcomes in a systematic way. This book analyzes the period 1986-2008 and includes an introduction, a global overview of European legislative activities which set the background for Europeanization of national legislatures, 9 country contributions (8 EU member states + Switzerland) including systematic, comparative and standardized data, tables and figures, and a conclusion with a comparative analysis of the European and domestic reasons for Europeanization. All national contributions conclude that Europeanization of national legislation is much more limited than assumed in the literature and public debate. It is limited to 10 to 30% of laws (depending on the country), far less than the 80% predicted by Jacques Delors and mentioned daily by medias and public opinion leaders to demonstrate EU domination on member states. Beside that general statement, the various chapters propose a deep insight on EU constraint over national legislation, providing much information on the kind of laws and policies that are Europeanized, the evolution of this process through time, the impact of Europeanization on the balance of powers and the relations between majority and opposition at national level, the strategies developed by national institutions in that context, and many other issues, making the book of interest to academics and policy-makers concerned with Europeanization and national legislation.

The Empirical Implications of the Delors' Myth in Nine Countries

The Europeanization of Domestic Legislatures

Jantje Blatt

Kristian Brakel

Kristina Kloss

Thorsten Nilges

Franziska Woellert

Market-driven Development and Poverty Reduction

Der Geisterwaldkatalog stellt eine Bibliographie aller nach 1945 in Deutschland (incl. DDR), Österreich und der Schweiz erschienenen Phantastik-Heftromane dar. Sammlern soll damit ein, in dieser Form bislang einmaliges, Werk an die Hand gegeben werden, in dem sie alle Hefte aufgelistet finden, Informationen zu einzelnen Serien erhalten, und nachvollziehen können von welchen Autoren die einzelnen Hefte geschrieben wurden. Außerdem erhalten sie eine Übersicht darüber, welchen Wert ihre Sammlung besitzt. Hiermit liegt nun Band 1 - Horror/Grusel & Mysterie vor. Weitere Genre sollen folgen.

Thomas König

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