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Ministerial advisors are by now established actors at the apex of ministerial departments in many countries around the globe. They advanced to close and often the most intimate advisors to government ministers and other executive politicians and are often the only actors in the ministries allowed to provide political advice. Also, they are often closely involved in the coordination of government coalition politics alongside party-political lines and coordinate between the ministry and the party headquarter. While they, in general, fulfil a much more political role (compared to civil servants), their role and working conditions vary. The chapter looks into different types of ministerial advisory systems, their institutionalization, working dynamics and in particular their role as political advisors. And even though ministerial advisors have received considerable attention by public administration scholars for around two decades, their position has not been accounted for in general public administration or policy process theory. The chapter revises the current literature on the emergence and role of advisors in theoretical, conceptual and empirical regards to provide a state-of-the-art overview of variation in ministerial advisory systems.
Brexit initially raised the prospect of new forms of external differentiation in the European Union (EU), should the United Kingdom continue to participate in a number of the Union’s policy areas. Security and defence was one area where agreement on the terms of UK participation was more likely, given the clear interests of both sides in the development of a close partnership in this area. But agreement has been so difficult to reach, and the final Brexit deal makes no mention of collaboration in foreign, security and defence policy. We argue that the key to understanding this puzzle lies in understanding the politics of differentiated disintegration, of which Brexit is the prime example, and the distinction between strategic and political interests. While strategic interests constitute a driver for external differentiation, the political interests arising from the withdrawal process make it difficult to reach an agreement. Divorcing strategic cooperation from the short-term politics of negotiations is the first step to overcoming the stalemate, and this chapter presents several ways this can be achieved. By perceiving Brexit as a case of differentiated disintegration, this chapter accounts for the significant constraints associated with external differentiation as a mode of integration in the EU.
Seit 1995 werden im Internationalen Handbuch der Berufsbildung (IHBB) wissenschaftliche Länderstudien zu den weltweiten Berufsbildungssystemen publiziert. Das IHBB ist ein Standardwerk für diejenigen, die sich für die Berufsbildung in anderen Ländern interessieren. Dieser Jubiläumsband zum 25-jährigen Bestehen des IHBB stellt aktuelle Befunde zu unterschiedlichen Themen und Fragestellungen aus der Vergleichenden Berufsbildungsforschung vor. Die Vergleichende Berufsbildungsforschung zielt darauf ab, Merkmale und Prinzipien der Berufsbildung in verschiedenen nationalen und kulturellen Kontexten zu beschreiben, zu verstehen und zu erklären. Deutlich stärker als die allgemeine oder hochschulische Bildung ist die Berufsbildung aus internationaler Perspektive von großen Unterschieden geprägt. Doch zugleich kann die Annahme formuliert werden, dass sich die Merkmale und Prinzipien der Berufsbildung im Zuge der wachsenden Globalisierung, Internationalisierung und Europäisierung tendenziell annähern – wie in anderen gesellschaftlichen Teilsystemen auch. Der Blick auf die Berufsbildung erfolgt aus diversen wissenschaftlichen Perspektiven, aus Erziehungs- und Berufsbildungswissenschaft, Politikwissenschaft, Soziologie und Betriebswirtschaftslehre. Mit dieser Auswahl wird einem inter- und multidisziplinären Verständnis Vergleichender Berufsbildungsforschung Rechnung getragen. Der vorliegende Sammelband schließt damit den Kreis zu den Beiträgen zu Methoden und Theorien des Vergleichs aus der Anfangszeit des Handbuchs.
Insufficient access to medicines is a persistent global problem that affects billions of people in low- and middle-income countries. In this chapter, we use access to medicines as a case to understand how business can become instrumental in making progress on persistent and global problems we associate with sustainable development. We examine the emergence and evolution of access to medicines as a mandate for the pharmaceutical industry to contribute to sustainable development. More specifically, we trace the historical developments of corporate social initiatives in the industry and revisit existing research on access to medicines in management and related fields. We then introduce three distinct analytical perspectives - field emergence and change, firm heterogeneity, organizational processes - to examine access to medicine, expose managerial challenges and offer a research agenda that helps to advance research on access to medicines and, more generally, on corporate efforts to address pressing global problems subsumed under the Sustainable Development Goals.
Das vorliegende Szenario kombiniert zwei für die Sicherheitspolitik relevante Dimensionen: Der Kampf gegen Klimawandel und Terrorismus. Aufbauend auf den jüngsten Ereignissen in Südeuropa und Afghanistan entwerfen wir ein Szenario, in dem dramatische Geschehnisse erfolgreichen Bemühungen vorweggehen - erst der Schock weiterer Niederlagen an beiden Fronten (z.B. die Folgen eines verheerenden Waldbrandes rund um Athen) führt dazu, dass die internationale Gemeinschaft zu Handeln beginnt und letztlich ambitionierte Maßnahmen ergreift, um beiden Bedrohungen erfolgreich zu begegnen. Die entscheidenden Meilensteine dieses Szenarios werden dabei in Schlagzeilen und kurzen Nachrichten dargestellt. Zum Abschluss werden zwei Handlungsempfehlungen formuliert: Eine Förderung von Solarstrom-Pilotprojekten in Nordafrika und der Sahelzone sowie eine Evaluation bestehender Anti-Terror-Strategien vor dem Hintergrund holistischer Präventionskonzepte.
Climate litigation in the Global South is a novel and increasingly prominent phenomenon that prompted a first wave of scholarly work examining and systematizing its main features. Despite the rigour that these academic accounts apply to assessing the main legal arguments of both litigants and courts, they fail to address the possible tensions between climate justice and the consequences of a domestic court decision in developing nations that did not substantially contribute to the climate crisis. This piece aims to fill that gap by using case law from the Global South to examine challenges around remedies, which will underscore the tensions between climate justice and litigation. Thereafter, this piece, drawing from international norms, advocates for the recognition of a duty of international cooperation, which can inform future courts’ orders in climate cases in both the Global North and the Global South. This normative exercise provides the basis to reconcile climate litigation in the Global South with climate justice, two reputed allies.
Kommunikation zwischen Regierenden und Regierten ist eine notwendige Bedingung für repräsentative Demokratien. Bürgerinnen und Bürger müssen wissen, wofür Parteien und Kandidaten stehen. Gleichzeitig müssen diese über Interessen und Bedürfnisse der Bevölkerung informiert sein. Kurzum: ohne Kommunikation funktioniert repräsentative Demokratie nicht. Politik und politische Kommunikation sind für die allermeisten von uns aber nicht unmittelbar, sondern nur mittelbar erfahrbar - hier spielen die Medien als „Fenster zur Welt“ eine zentrale Rolle. In aller Kürze werden wir uns der Bedeutung der medialen Veränderung (Radio, Fernsehen, Internet, soziale Medien) für die politische Kommunikation nähern. Hierum geht es in einem ersten Teil meines Beitrags. Daran anschließend, im zweiten Teil: Streit! Die politische Auseinandersetzung als Herzstück der Demokratie und besondere Form der Kommunikation. Hart in der Sache, anständig im Ton um die beste politische Lösung ringen - so der Idealfall. Doch wo findet diese Auseinandersetzung statt? Im dritten Teil des Beitrags wird das Konzept der Öffentlichkeit genauer beleuchtet. Vor wenigen Jahrzehnten unterhielt man sich über dieselbe Sendung, die man am Abend davor gesehen hatte - das „rituelle Zusammensein der Nation“. Heute leben wir in geteilten und getrennten Öffentlichkeiten. Filterbubbles, Echokammern. Welche Auswirkungen lassen sich daraus für die demokratische Debatte und die politische Kommunikation ableiten? Im vierten Abschnitt widmet sich der Beitrag großen Fragen, ohne abschließende Antworten zu liefern: Braucht es Regulierung? Kann Kommunikation überhaupt reguliert werden? Und von wem?
This chapter examines the caselaw of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on access to protection, the Dublin system and presumptions of 'safety', and detention, in order to provide critical insights into the concept of effective judicial protection in Europe since the so-called 'refugee crisis' of 2015. The two courts have not provided effective protection in a transformative sense, in that they have not adopted progressive rulings to overcome the crisis-inducing elements of European asylum and migration law. Instead, they have deferred to governmental accounts of 'crisis' and accepted dubious factual and legal arguments. Against this backdrop, we note that the need for effective judicial protection in even a minimal sense, to hold the line on the most basic of rights in this field - protection against refoulement and arbitrary detention - is more acute than ever, and may also be in decline.
As the research domain of digital government continues to develop as an important body of scholarly research, it is important to understand the core theoretical and philosophical basis of the discipline. Yet, in the domain of digital government, such an understanding does not exist. Therefore, there is currently a need for critical discussion about the concrete role of research philosophy in digital government research. This paper makes a first step in driving such a discussion by presenting arguments and discussion on the relevance of an interpretivist research philosophy for the domain of digital government. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of an interpretivist ontology and epistemology for digital government, discusses relevant theories and methods, and concludes with an overview of what is essential for conducting and carrying out interpretivist digital government research. This paper’s contributions represent one of the first concentrated efforts to lay out initial foundations for the role of interpretivism, and research philosophy more generally, for digital government research.
Bundestagswahl 2021
(2022)
Searching for the centre of power in the German political system can be a cumbersome endeavour due to the strong separation of powers rooted in German history. Considering both formal and informal institutions, this chapter analyses the current state of the core executive in Germany at the end of the ‘era Merkel’. It outlines the German institutional setting with the role of the chancellor and the chancellery, defines main characteristics of politico-administrative relations and mechanisms of government coordination and discusses changes in the distribution of power related to recent developments of crisis management, Europeanisation and summitry, and personalisation and mediatisation. The analysis shows that the steering capacity of the German core executive is institutionally limited due to the strong coordination requirements stemming from administrative federalism, coalition governments and the strong departmental principle. Accordingly, the German core executive is no strong centre of power despite the international developments that have contributed to centralisation in many countries. The German core executive remains remarkably stable in formal terms and in international comparison despite some short-term power shifts in reaction to a changing environment.
With its constitutional separation of power between the executive and administration, over the years Sweden has frequently been held up as a shining example of modern state governance. However, recent decades of internationalising politics, EU membership and growing public-sector complexities have placed greater demands on the Swedish executive. In recent years, the established governance system has changed in several respects. First, the previously highly decentralised system has become more centralised and central-local relations remain tense. Second, at the central level, the government has sought to increase control through politicisation. Third, Swedish pandemic policy highlighted the promises and pitfalls of ‘Swedish dualism’. And fourth, government communication has become ever more mediatised. In consequence, the chapter concludes that what from the outside looks like an exemplar of meritocratic democracy is rather a tactically flexible realpolitik built on interpretive ambiguities in the constitution—providing the Swedish executive with much-needed responsiveness in times of significant change, but also the veil for greater centralisation and control from afar.
How to Square the Circle Between Economic Globalization, Social Cohesion, and Liberal Democracy?
(2022)
This chapter discusses the dialectic relationship of general principles and the evolution of human rights in the EU legal order. Human (or fundamental) rights are of specific signifcance for general principles as an area of reference in a number of ways: in regard to the methodology of defining and identifying general principles; their link to constitutional values of the EU, the relationship between different sources of human rights in the EU; the relationship between unwritten general principles and a codified source; the specific, active and multidimensional dynamics of general principles in the context of fundamental rights; the relationship of general principles in the area of fundamental rights with their codification in the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights; and their possible continued relevance for courts in adjudicating human rights in the UK in post-Brexit.
This contribution takes Turkey’s use of the derogation mechanism in the aftermath of the failed military coup of 15 July 2016 as a springboard to critically address the operation and the fallacies of the contemporary European derogation regime. The assessment will reveal whether the European system of human rights protection has succeeded in adopting an adequate and viable approach that can counterbalance the increased leeway accorded to derogating states, and formulate safeguards to mitigate human rights abuses. The contribution concludes by providing a road map proposal for adequate oversight marked by rigorous scrutiny of derogation claims that can be described as a ‘consultation and cooperation process’. This process would place the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in a more active and operationally focused position to influence state decisions, to counterbalance the increased leeway accorded to derogating states, and to formulate safeguards to mitigate human rights abuses.
Wind Power Generation
(2022)
Wind power plays a major role in the decarbonization of the power sector. Already now, it supplies increasing shares of the global energy demand. This book chapter provides an overview on the economics of wind energy and highlight global trends in the wind sector. It describes the technical characteristics of onshore and offshore wind energy and explains how these affect the economic competitiveness of the respective technologies. The authors describe how wind power, as an intermittent source of energy, can be integrated into power systems. They also discuss how renewable energy support schemes contribute in fostering the deployment of wind power.
Solar Power Generation
(2022)
Solar energy supplies increasing shares of global energy demand. As a renewable source of energy, it will play a major role in decarbonizing electricity supply. This chapter provides an overview on the solar sector from an economic perspective. It describes the technical characteristics of photovoltaic and concentrated solar power and explains how these affect the economic competitiveness of solar energy. The authors highlight trends in the solar sector and elaborate on how this intermittent source of energy can be integrated into a power system. They conclude with a discussion on how renewable energy support schemes can be designed to foster the deployment of solar power by accounting for the specific characteristics of solar power.
Tracing Transparency: Public Governance of Algorithms and the Experience of Contact Tracing Apps
(2022)
Country Size and Educational Change: Comparing Reforms of Skill Formation in Germany and Switzerland
(2021)
This conference paper argues that country size can play a crucial role in shaping the type of gradual change observed in collective skill formation systems. Collectively governed dual-apprenticeship training has its base in the industrial and crafts sectors of the economy and builds on the decentralized cooperation of multiple public and private stakeholders. As a result, it tends to be strongly path dependent, which favours gradual over radical forms of change. However, in recent years, dual-apprenticeship training has been increasingly challenged by the rise of the knowledge and service economy and the growing popularity of academic forms of education. In this context, I compare policy responses in Switzerland and Germany, which represent one small and one large collective skill formation system respectively. The historical-institutionalist analysis finds that the dominant trajectory of change is conversion in Switzerland but layering in Germany, with different implications for the future viability of collective skill formation.
The chapter examines article 31 of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention), the provision which purports to protect refugees from penalization for ‘illegal entry and stay’. The chapter draws on the previous work by the authors for UNHCR, including a review of national caselaw and practice on article 31 from over forty States. It reflects on the crucial role of the provision in safeguarding the right to seek asylum and argues that non-penalization constitutes one of the objects and purposes of the Refugee Convention. As a result, the chapter considers the distinct obligation on States to refrain from any acts frustrating the treaty’s object and purpose. Beyond article 31 of the Refugee Convention, the chapter explores international human rights law as a potentially wider source of protection. It examines whether the criminalization of irregular migration itself may be regarded as a human rights violation, thereby opening up a new avenue for legal research and advocacy. Finally, the chapter argues that aside from treaty obligations under international refugee and human rights law there is an emerging general principle of law relating to non-penalization of refugees and some other migrants.
In South Africa, one of the world’s most carbon-intense economies and a society marked by gross social inequality, climate change is not a popular topic. As of 2018, more than half of the population had never heard of climate change and only one in five South Africans believed that human activities lead to global warming. The communication of climate change in South Africa is influenced by the notorious inequality that the country still suffers decades after the apartheid regime has ended. Few South Africans are able to live a life in prosperity and security on par with life in industrialized nations, more than half of the population are considered poor, almost a third of the population are chronically unemployed, and many work for carbon-intense industries.
The country’s prevalent inequality and its economic dependency on coal influence the way climate change is communicated and interpreted. Environmental NGOs, journalists, and scientists frequently set communication cues on climate change. However, their messages are largely circulated in newspapers catering to an urban and educated readership and resonate less with people living in rural areas or those who rely on employment in the coal and mining sector.
In South Africa, most people hear about climate change in mass media, but journalists frequently lack the resources and training necessary to investigate climate change stories or to interact with local scientists. Environmental NGOs, in contrast, provide easily comprehendible communication cues for unspecialized journalists and often share similar worldviews and demographic backgrounds with dedicated environmental reporters. However, because Black South Africans are underrepresented among environmental journalists and because many affordable local newspapers cannot afford to hire specialized reporters, climate change is covered mostly in high-quality English-language outlets to which most people have no access. Moreover, environmental NGOs are frequently accused of prioritizing abstract ecological concerns, like climate change, over the interests of the South Africans workers, a sentiment that is informed by the country’s history of racial injustice. Counterintuitively, living in a coal area is associated with higher climate change awareness and belief, likely because coal companies and trade unions conduct awareness-raising programs among their workers and because many residents experience the adverse impact of coal mining and combustion firsthand.
Global trends, such as an ever-rising service economy, rapid technological change and digitalization, challenge skill formation systems. Focussing on European countries, this edited volume examines the variety of European VET governance and VET governance research. In particular, it provides insights into regional, local and decentralized governance at meso (e.g. professional associations) as well as micro level (e.g. learning arrangements). As such, the edited volume sheds light on the hitherto far less explored dimensions of VET governance and highlights challenges as well as opportunities in VET governance in the 21st century.
Charitable Foundations
(2021)
Foundations are private institutions for public benefit. With a long history that reaches back to antiquity, inside the United States and globally, foundations are a growing organizational form that policy makers increasingly view with both potential (as a source of private funds to complement government services) and caution (given their autonomy and low level of accountability). Alongside the rise in commerce and finance, foundations experienced an initial growth period in the late Middle Ages and a second in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, following the Industrial Revolution. Political stability, an increase in demand for social, educational, and cultural services of all kinds, and economic prosperity are certainly significant factors behind this growth. Since the dawn of the 21st century, foundations have remained the primary legal structure through which newly minted and emerging wealthy individuals practice their philanthropy. The foundation form, or some similar iteration, is growing not just in many Western democratic countries but even in communist and other political regimes such as China and Russia. The reason for this growth is the way in which foundations have been envisioned as instruments of welfare state reform in the broadest sense. This growth implies a more important role for foundations as providers of relief to those most in need, protectors of traditional institutions and the status quo, and, to a lesser extent, as change agents. In particular, this is apparent among the “new philanthropists” of the 21st century, drawn from technology entrepreneurs, who are more actively engaged in public policy.
Die Personalarbeit hat sich stark verändert. Prägend sind der demografische Wandel, neue Werte in der Arbeitswelt und technologische Transformationen, die Unternehmen, Personalabteilungen und Mitbestimmungsakteure herausfordern.
Eine konstruktive Zusammenarbeit zwischen Personal- und Mitbestimmungsverantwortlichen ist - so die Botschaft dieses Buchs - der Schlüssel für gute und breit akzeptierte Lösungen. Wissenschaftliche Analysen und Praxisbeispiele zeigen, dass Mitbestimmung auf Augenhöhe die Zufriedenheit der Beschäftigten erhöht und zu einer besseren wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und ökologischen Nachhaltigkeit führt.
Dieses Buch eröffnet durch seinen Dreiklang aus Wissenschaft, Arbeitgeber- und Arbeitnehmersicht neue Perspektiven für die strategische Personalarbeit. Die praktischen Empfehlungen greifen dabei auf betriebliche Beispiele zurück, in denen Personalverantwortliche und Akteure der Mitbestimmung über Hürden und Erfolge im beruflichen Alltag berichten. Leserinnen und Leser gewinnen so wertvolle Denkanstöße und erhalten Gestaltungsimpulse für das weite Feld von Personalarbeit und Mitbestimmung.
Die Sozialpartnerschaft begleitete sowohl den ökonomischen Wiederaufstieg Deutschlands nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg als auch die permanent notwendigen Anpassungsprozesse an veränderte wirtschaftliche, soziale und gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen. In vielen Sektoren hat die Sozialpartnerschaft ihre Präge- und Gestaltungskraft jedoch eingebüßt. Mitgliederrückgang, Arbeitgeberverbände ohne Tarifbindung und neue Geschäftsmodelle sind taktgebende Treiber dieses Wandels. (...) Ist die Sozialpartnerschaft nur noch der Rahmen für einen etablierten, gleichwohl kleiner werdenden Club von Unternehmen und Beschäftigten, oder gelingt es, die Reichweite wieder zu erhöhen? Werden das Prinzip der Sozialpartnerschaft und die konkrete Praxis des FTV als Rahmen revitalisiert, um die Interessenskonflikte der Dekarbonisierung und Digitalisierung im fairen Ausgleich zu bewältigen? Dafür werden wir zunächst die Fragen der Organisationsmacht auf Arbeitnehmer- und Arbeitgeberseite klären, anschließend Lösungsperspektiven aufzeigen und zuletzt die Relevanz der Sozialpartner im Kontext der Transformation beleuchten.
Fintech applications such as robo-financial advisors (RAs) are complex algorithmic decision making systems, which gained prominence with their claim to democratize finance. Lack of transparency and explanations for these automated decisions leads to a trust deficit for users, limiting the potential of these applications. Our research aims to analyse the effectiveness of user-centric explanations in conveying the decision-making logic of complex algorithmic systems. Our user study tests techniques from explainable AI, varying in complexity and transparency. The quantitative aspects of our study determine the efficacy and usability of explanations and the qualitative aspects measure the effect of explanations on users and system usability. Our study finds trust and confidence of users in the system is positively correlated with comprehension and transparency provided by the presence of an explanation. There is a notable reduction in comprehension and trust between transparent white and opaque black box explanations of algorithms. This study is designed to aid policymakers and regulators in order to understand user needs which are crucial to designing better policies around algorithmic explainability for RAs.
In starkem Kontrast zu anderen Wissenschaftsnationen hat Deutschland bis vor kurzem kaum Public Policy Schools hervorgebracht. Damit gemeint sind universitäre Einrichtungen, die in der Forschung interdisziplinär und anwendungsorientiert ausgerichtet sind und in der Lehre vornehmlich postgraduelle Abschlüsse anbieten. Zwar gibt es seit der Jahrtausendwende Neugründungen – denken wir an die Hertie School of Governance, die NRW School of Governance oder die Willy-Brand-School of Governance an der Universität Erfurt, die Hochschule für Politik an der Technischen Universität München und in gewisser Hinsicht auch seit längerem die Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer – aber es sind letztlich doch wenige im Vergleich zu den zahlreichen Einrichtungen in den USA, Kanada und Großbritannien.
Nongovernmental organizations or NGOs are part of a larger set of organizations that are self-governing, not-for-profit, noncompulsory, and institutionally separate from government. They emerged mostly during the process of mid-twentieth-century modernization and globalization, grew in scale and scope in subsequent decades, and assumed greater importance following the end of the Cold War. This was largely due to favorable economic, political, and social conditions after 1989. They fulfill four major roles: as service providers, innovators, value-guardians, and advocates. NGOs are trying to adjust to less favorable conditions in the early twenty-first century while many innovations are taking place.
This chapter argues that the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2004 and its subsequent ratification by more than 180 parties indicates universal agreement on the norms of quality of government, putting an end to moral relativist arguments. While UNCAC does not define corruption, it defines good governance and sets ethical universalism as its key benchmark. The chapter then follows the intellectual history of this concept and its remarkable success, with the norm of equal, fair, and nondiscriminatory treatment of every citizen present in every current constitutional contract. Ratification does not necessarily mean implementation when corruption is concerned, and the chapter surveys limitations to the practice of ethical universalism in governance and existing approaches to narrow the gap between norm and practice.
Keywords: corruption, quality of government, equality of opportunity, ethical universalism, good governance
Although local governments are essential providers of public services and infrastructure across Europe, they ultimately depend on funding from higher levels of government. The clear relevance of local government finances necessitates effective regulation in order to ensure financial sustainability, but as of yet there has been hardly any comparative research regarding this particular topic. The 18 chapters contained in this volume bring together the work of 40 experts in the disciplines of political science, economics, and public administration research to approach the subject of local financial regulation in various scales and contexts across Europe. In this introductory chapter, we first outline key concepts such as fiscal decentralisation and regulation and briefly describe associated underlying theories and research. Secondly, we present comparative fiscal data to demonstrate the variance and trends of fiscal decentralisation across Europe. It also introduces the concept and components of regulatory regimes and develops the argument, that the effectiveness and outcome of fiscal regulation depends not only on the quality of individual components but also on the interactions of those components. We finally present the three guiding questions of this volume and provide a short overview of the chapters to follow.
In this contribution, we explore evolution and stasis in EU asylum law and policy. We identify two tensions at the heart of the CEAS, between the commitment to protection and deflection of protection obligations, and between internal mobility within the EU and the immobilization of asylum seekers and refugees. We note the role of these foundational tensions in generating and exacerbating the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015/16. This chapter is premised on a widely-shared understanding of the role of EU asylum policy in that crisis, namely that by illegalizing the travel of asylum seekers and refugees in search of protection, it contributes to the dangerous mass flight, which in turn generates humanitarian and political crises. We then analyse four key dimensions of EU asylum policy in light of these tensions: access to asylum, responsibility-allocation, legislative harmonisation, and institutionalised practical co-operation. Across these four fields, we identify the limits of EU law, and its general stasis, in spite of changes in Treaty telos, law-making processes, and EU enlargement. We briefly consider the role of the CJEU, still very much in the shadow of the ECtHR in asylum, in spite of its numerous rulings on the CEAS. Overall, we demonstrate its fairly minimalist approach in this area, avoidance of controversial cases by dubious use of inadmissibility findings, and failure to catalyse policy changes. Against this backdrop of legislative, political and judicial caution and inertia, we identify two key trends: a move towards greater institutional cooperation, including through the creation of a dedicated agency, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), and a general flight from law in this policy field. We conclude by considering the likely impact of these trends on EU asylum law.
Despite the growing significance of fiscal rules, there is little research about tools and practices of enforcement at the local level. Addressing this knowledge gap, this chapter makes three contributions: first, we review the literature on regulatory enforcement in the ‘public-to-private’ context and discuss six key insights. Second, we provide an empirical overview of enforcement instruments across 21 European countries and discuss them in light of those key insights. Third, we present findings from an in-depth over-time analysis of enforcement practices in Germany’s largest state, North Rhine-Westphalia. We find that European supervisory bodies have a range of instruments that broadly follow the logic of the ‘enforcement pyramid’ at their disposal, but there is substantial cross-national variation in the instruments used. The case study reveals a ‘back and forth’ enforcement style alternating between strengthening and loosening rules and enforcement measures. We find political logics, regulators’ capacities and economic contexts as key drivers. Finally, we conclude that the idea of enforcement as a rational application of legal norms is unrealistic. In order to increase compliance, regulators should make more of an effort to understand the underlying rationale for compliance and violations; they need to secure political support and a credible strategy for escalating sanctions in case of non-compliance.