More than 90% of EU legislation is negotiated in so-called trilogues. In this specific institutional setup, representatives of three legislative institutions – the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament – come together to negotiate EU legislation behind closed doors. Applying different theoretical perspectives on negotiations, this study analyses the interaction between institutional actors in the negotiation process. Focusing on the interaction of negotiators, the institutional venue of negotiations and the negotiation mode, the study finds that the way the negotiation process develops has clear repercussions on the legislative outcome. First, the more negotiators personally interact, the more trust develops between them. This has three consequences: it shifts negotiations to more informal venues (including less actors), and the negotiations become more cooperative. This increases the degree to which initial institutional positions can be found in the final agreement. Moreover, delegation of the negotiation – to hierarchically lower level staff and administrators – also leads to more cooperative negotiations, and, furthermore, to more technical expertise of those actors involved. It does, hence, not only increase the inclusion of initial positions in the outcome but also increases the overall legal quality of legislation. In sum, this study shows that the negotiation process in trilogues – and especially a shift to ever more remote venues of negotiations – has an impact on the outcome. And while, from a democratic point of view, these procedural aspects might be seen critically, they by and large have a positive impact on the results of the negotiations.
For policies to be legitimate, both the policy process and the underlying reasons must be transparent to the public. In the EU, the lion's share of legislation is nowadays negotiated in informal secluded meeting called trilogues. Therefore, presentation of the trilogues compromise by the rapporteur to the European Parliament (EP) plenary is, arguably, one of the few formal occasions for 'transparency in process,' i.e., public access to the details of actual interactions between policymakers. The aim of this article is thus to examine the extent to which rapporteurs are transparent about trilogue negotiations when presenting legislative compromises to the EP during plenary sessions, and to assess whether the extent of transparency is linked to the extent of conflict between legislative actors and to elements of the political context related to rapporteurs. To this purpose, we coded 176 rapporteur speeches and, on this basis, concluded that these speeches poorly discuss the trilogue negotiations. Interinstitutional negotiations are discussed in only 64% of cases, and even when they are, the extent of information about trilogues is generally small. While we do not find support for an effect of political conflicts, some characteristics linked with rapporteurs are significantly related to transparency in process of their speeches. This is the case for their political affiliation and their national culture of transparence.
For policies to be legitimate, both the policy process and the underlying reasons must be transparent to the public. In the EU, the lion's share of legislation is nowadays negotiated in informal secluded meeting called trilogues. Therefore, presentation of the trilogues compromise by the rapporteur to the European Parliament (EP) plenary is, arguably, one of the few formal occasions for 'transparency in process,' i.e., public access to the details of actual interactions between policymakers. The aim of this article is thus to examine the extent to which rapporteurs are transparent about trilogue negotiations when presenting legislative compromises to the EP during plenary sessions, and to assess whether the extent of transparency is linked to the extent of conflict between legislative actors and to elements of the political context related to rapporteurs. To this purpose, we coded 176 rapporteur speeches and, on this basis, concluded that these speeches poorly discuss the trilogue negotiations. Interinstitutional negotiations are discussed in only 64% of cases, and even when they are, the extent of information about trilogues is generally small. While we do not find support for an effect of political conflicts, some characteristics linked with rapporteurs are significantly related to transparency in process of their speeches. This is the case for their political affiliation and their national culture of transparence.
In: Friedman-Silver , Y & Hakak , Y 2015 , ' Jewish revenge : Haredi action in the Zionist sphere ' Jewish Film and New Media: An International Journal , vol 3 , no. 1 , pp. 48-76 .
Jewish ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) cinema in Israel has become increasingly prominent in recent years. Emerging as a highly controversial, secluded, and gender-segregated form of "amateur cinema," it is currently seeing gradual professionalization. This article discusses Haredi cinema in the context of the Haredi community's relationship with the Israeli state and the doctrine of Zionism. Appropriating generic conventions of mainstream Hollywood cinema, yet keeping within the secluded Haredi space, this form of minority cinema functions as an alternative (virtual) sphere in which a complex set of negotiations occurs between Jewish ultra-Orthodox ideals and those of the surrounding Israeli society and Zionism. It is reflective of and engaged in the production of recent social and discursive transformations within the Haredi community in Israel. We examine this phenomenon through a focused analysis of the male action genre, specifically the popular series Jewish Revenge (Yehuda Grovais, 2000–2010). As we demonstrate, the mode of representation and the narratives of these films bring models of masculinities and notions of heroism under scrutiny. The Zionist narrative, the national body, and the (imaginary) place of the Haredi within it are being reconfigured through the prism of body politics and fantasies of transgression.
In light of secluded decision-making and early agreements, a binding mandate for the European Parliament's negotiation team is essential to prevent agency loss in trilogue negotiations. In this article, I investigate the influence of the often-overlooked shadow rapporteurs on this mandate. Shadow rapporteurs are their party group's representatives and act as checks on the rapporteur. Drawing on novel insights from network analysis, I expect shadow rapporteurs and their stance on EU integration to affect the success of amendments they are sponsoring. I draw on a novel dataset of 1524 committee amendments and employ three-level multinomial logistic regression to test these expectations. I find shadow rapporteurs to be influential policy leaders who successfully shape the committee report and, therefore, mitigate the risk of agency loss in potential trilogues. Shadow rapporteurs can successfully check the rapporteur and thereby influence the content of EU legislation.
Vishaps are large-scale prehistoric stelae decorated with animal reliefs, erected at secluded mountain locations of the South Caucasus. This paper focuses on the vishaps of modern Armenia and traces their history of re-use and manipulations, from the end of the third millennium BCE to the Middle Ages. Since their creation at an unknown point in time before 2100 BCE, vishaps functioned as symbolic anchors for the creation and transmission of religious and political messages: they were torn down, buried, re-worked, re-erected, transformed and used as a surface for graffiti. This complex sequence of re-contextualisations underscores the primacy of mountains as political arenas for the negotiation of religious and ritual meaning.
This article examines talks that took place between British government officials and loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland at a critical moment in the most recent Troubles. In particular, this article describes talks that took place secretly at the Northern Ireland Office's 'Laneside' building, a secluded suburban house used by British diplomats and MI6 officers on the shores of Belfast Lough between 1971 and 1976. Drawing on both recently released archive material as well as interviews with those who worked at and visited Laneside, this article explores what went on at these talks and analyses their outcomes from three different perspectives. This article demonstrates that the most accurate perspective from which to view what occurred in these meetings is neither top-down (government led) nor bottom-up (paramilitary led), but one that looks at what went on there as part of a conversation which both sets of participants for a time found useful. For the loyalists, Laneside had a role as a venue to think about strategy (rather than negotiate ends). For the British these were conversations that were useful in furnishing their understanding of loyalism, and as a place where policies could be explained and problems better understood. Looking at what occurred at Laneside as a semi-autonomous governmental body in Northern Ireland reveals key insights into both the loyalist paramilitaries' political ideas as well as the aims of British policy in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, this middle perspective holds a mirror up to the more familiar talks then occurring between the very same British officials and the Provisional IRA. Adapted from the source document.
Participatory constitution-building is a trend that appears to be here to stay; particularly when new constitutions are drafted in the aftermath of war or during transitions from authoritarian to democratic rule. Anticipations as to what the involvement of the public will achieve are several, and scholars are only recently starting to systematically investigate whether or not these expectations find empirical support. Previous research has shown that public participation in the making of the constitution can have certain positive effects at an individual level of analysis, but that the actions of political elites during constitutional negotiations might affect outcomes at a macro level of analysis more than what has hitherto be acknowledged in this strand of research. Nepal is one of the most recent cases of participatory constitution-building, and the country carried out not only one, but two, such processes within a time period of only seven years. The first resulted in failure as a draft constitution was never finalized; the other in success with the adoption of a constitution in 2015. This article takes an interest in exploring and comparing these two separate processes as regards the extent of public participation vis-à-vis political elite negotiations and bargaining behind closed doors. The article finds that what primarily sets the two processes apart, is how broad based public participation and secluded elite negotiations were sequenced. In light of other empirical examples, the article also discusses if elite bargains ought to be struck before the general public are invited to participate.
Trilogues have become 'normal' structures in European Union (EU) decision-making but their functioning, based on secluded decision-making, makes it difficult to understand how institutional positions are formed and managed and which actors are better positioned to influence policy outputs. These are, however, important questions because, first, a coherent position in trilogues (one that withstands the scrutiny of the Council) enhances the European Parliament's (EP) chances of achieving a favourable outcome following negotiation; second, because it has become more complicated to find a common position within the EP due to increased levels of politicisation and polarisation (especially in the form of Euroscepticism) in EU policy-making. Therefore, this article focuses on preparatory bodies preceding trilogues and the role they play in building Parliament's positions. With the shift of political conflict from plenary to committees and now to shadows meetings, the latter have become de facto decision-making bodies. Not only do they serve to mediate intra-institutional conflict but also to anticipate Council and Commission positions. This article compares the use of shadows meetings in politicised and non-politicised issues. With the use of ethnographic data provided by participant observation and elite interviews, we aim to provide explanations on how these new instruments serve to informally manage politicisation, focusing in particular on the advantages of insularity in highly publicised negotiations.
Trilogues have become 'normal' structures in European Union (EU) decision-making but their functioning, based on secluded decision-making, makes it difficult to understand how institutional positions are formed and managed and which actors are better positioned to influence policy outputs. These are, however, important questions because, first, a coherent position in trilogues (one that withstands the scrutiny of the Council) enhances the European Parliament's (EP) chances of achieving a favourable outcome following negotiation; second, because it has become more complicated to find a common position within the EP due to increased levels of politicisation and polarisation (especially in the form of Euroscepticism) in EU policy-making. Therefore, this article focuses on preparatory bodies preceding trilogues and the role they play in building Parliament's positions. With the shift of political conflict from plenary to committees and now to shadows meetings, the latter have become de facto decision-making bodies. Not only do they serve to mediate intra-institutional conflict but also to anticipate Council and Commission positions. This article compares the use of shadows meetings in politicised and non-politicised issues. With the use of ethnographic data provided by participant observation and elite interviews, we aim to provide explanations on how these new instruments serve to informally manage politicisation, focusing in particular on the advantages of insularity in highly publicised negotiations.
Trilogues are tripartite meetings, that is informal negotiations on legislative proposals between the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission aimed at reaching early agreements on new EU legislation. Since their first appearance, trilogues have developed in practice from the need of the two branches of the legislature to manage their interdependence. Such inter-institutional negotiations have now become standard practice for the adoption of EU legislative acts. There is a clear benefit to reaching an early deal. This avoids the legislative proposal going back round the Parliament and Council for a second or even a third reading, which can add years to the decision-making process. However, trilogues are problematic from a democratic perspective: they are secluded; involve a restricted number of participants selected according to unclear criteria; and produce intermediary outcomes that have to be sanctioned by formal decision-making processes. Scholars and professionals have inquired if trilogues weaken the democracy and transparency of the EU law-making procedure and, definitely, of the EU action. Recent EU case-law addresses those critical issues providing for their valuable contribution to the efficiency of the EU law-making process, but even over the sustainable trade-off between their legitimacy and democracy shape over critics' openness and transparency claims.
Participatory constitution-building is a trend that appears to be here to stay; particularly when new constitutions are drafted in the aftermath of war or during transitions from authoritarian to democratic rule. Anticipations as to what the involvement of the public will achieve are several, and scholars are only recently starting to systematically investigate whether or not these expectations find empirical support. Previous research has shown that public participation in the making of the constitution can have certain positive effects at an individual level of analysis, but that the actions of political elites during constitutional negotiations might affect outcomes at a macro level of analysis more than what has hitherto be acknowledged in this strand of research. Nepal is one of the most recent cases of participatory constitution-building, and the country carried out not only one, but two, such processes within a time period of only seven years. The first resulted in failure as a draft constitution was never finalized; the other in success with the adoption of a constitution in 2015. This article takes an interest in exploring and comparing these two separate processes as regards the extent of public participation vis-à-vis political elite negotiations and bargaining behind closed doors. The article finds that what primarily sets the two processes apart, is how broad based public participation and secluded elite negotiations were sequenced. In light of other empirical examples, the article also discusses if elite bargains ought to be struck before the general public are invited to participate. ; How can constitution-building processes in post-conflict states and in states transitioning from authoritarian rule contribute to enhancing democracy?
Organized interests and trilogues are permanent features of the everyday policy-making of the EU, but little is known about their interaction. Can organized interests access this secluded and informal arena of EU decision making? If so, what implications does their degree of access have? Are there different patterns of interaction between different types of organized interests and the different co-decision making institutions? How do posited asymmetries between business interests and other types of civil society interests, manifest themselves when it comes to trilogues? As much as organized interests lobbying institutions, do we also find evidence of the reverse as a pathway seeking to influence trilogue negotiations? In this article we conceptualise rilogues as informal institutions delivering political choices,distinguishing between different periods of trilogue informality, and flesh out an ideal-type of contemporary trilogues as 'complementary informal institutions' in a 'post-regulatory' state. We pinpoint valuable as well as enduringly problematic features of trilogue informality and permeability. Based on a substantial recent interview survey among 100 trilogue 'insiders' and 'outsiders', we provide evidence of extensive ties between these players, their implications for the democratic quality of EU legislation. We develop further research questions surrounding the relationship between organized interests and trilogues.
(1) A liberal society is a fertile soil for the appearance and thriving of manifold groups constituted around different doctrines and conceptions of good life, including traditional and modern cultural communities and communes. In contrast, liberal society is hardly a fertile soil for secluded communes which entirely absorb the lives of their members. (2) These groups and communities are dependent on the liberal state both as the supplier of insitutional and material support, and as the protector of the individual rights and liberties of their members. (3) A liberal government has a vested interest in supporting associations, communities and communes which respect its constitutional principles, since as a rule these communities cultivate values and virtues highly important for the stability of the institutional order of the state. (4) Because of the differences and even incommensurabilities between cultural options, it is hardly possible to achieve a broad consensus on general principles of the distribution of cultural support. (5) Consequently, in liberally constituted, culturally plura societies deliberative democratic negotiation and decision procedures have to play a dominant role in finding fair solutions to conflicts concerning the distribution of cultural support. (SOI : PM: S. 182; 197) + Some theoreticians argue that the stability of liberalism is to a large extent an outcome of a continued existence of traditional and other forms of life in communities1 which are able to slow down or hinder the immoderate expansion of individualism but that liberal societies are liable to destroy that foundation of their stability. However, liberal society cannot allow the destruction of the existing forms of communal and communitarian life, because it would mean its destabilization. On the contrary, where traditional communities do not play their stabilising role, liberal societies must change their social and cultural policy in order to generate some new forms of communitarian and communal life. The article deals with some constructive and destructive influences of liberalism on the communities constituted around separate concepts of the good. It shows that modern societies may be fertile soil for a variety of cultural and other communities
The struggle to belong Dealing with diversity in 21st century urban settings. Amsterdam, 7-9 July 2011 Eye contact, clientele alignment & laissez-faire: the production of public space and neighbourhood in Phnom Penh, Cambodia Thomas Kolnberger(*) Paper presented at the International RC21 conference 2011 Session: Nr. 12 – Belonging, exclusion, public and quasi-public space (*) Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Research Unit IPSE (Identité, Politiques, Sociètes, Espace) Universität Passau, BR Deutschland Southeast Asian Studies thomas.kolnberger@uni.lu Overview Private, public or quasi-public spaces are terms that seem particularly difficult to apply to non-Western societies: as in the 'West', their boundaries are fluid and routinely transgressed, but in ways that are distinctive to the local situation and history. This paper is arguing that these concepts retain practical descriptive power, particularly for the city of Phnom Penh, a case study of demographic extremes, as nearly all her inhabitants could be classified as immigrants. In deed, the Khmer Rouge had forcefully evicted the ca. two million people-strong population of the capital in 1975, virtually erasing all 'bourgeois urbanity' during Pol Pot's Cambodian 'auto-genocide'. After the fall of the regime, the new socialist government slowly repopulated the deserted metropolis with new urban dwellers. Their social and spatial belonging needed to be set up from scratch. "Who belongs to whom" (in terms of political clientelism and patronage), "who is doing what" (regarding face-to-face control and eye contact investigation), and "who owns what" (concerning redistribution and also new original accumulation of capital) were the essential questions in this 'struggle to belong'. In this urban setting, people have been employing a mixed set of strategies for implementing 'belonging' ever since. Based on empirical surveys (mapping & interviews) and research in Cambodian and French colonial archives, this paper presents the constant negotiations of private and public space in a changing economic environment from three angles: - streets, squares, and parks as spaces of interaction: the spatial inheritance of the French colonialism in a new context - the emergence of different types of gated communities since 1975: at first by spatial inclusion strategies generating patronage networks, then by urban planning separating rich from poor - the economy of espionage and imitation of Phnom Penh's retail trade: the neighbours' curious gaze Methodology - The city of Phnom Penh in Cambodia is a case study for a `rush economic evolution´ - This paper aims in one part to highlight the role and influence of place and space for a specific process: the spatial location of business sites in a unique window of opportunity as a self-organizing process `from below´. By applying spatial analysis (GPS mapping), a specific pattern of retail agglomeration and dispersion of this `atomistic´ metropolis could be identified. The analysis is based on fieldwork investigating the use of the city's space for economic ends. 1,000 kilometres of built frontage (`streetscapes´) with 14,647 cases of land use features (e.g. shops, `pavement economy´ etc.) have been surveyed and mapped. Subsequent to this quantitative part, 100 semi-structured interviews and numerous ad hoc conversations were conducted including a dozen of expert interviews (city administration, NGO, city planners). Results and Thesis - The city of Phnom Penh in Cambodia is a case study for a `subsistence urbanization´ - Much economic geography research has focused on the importance of the social context for various transactions. 'Face-to-face contact remains central to coordination of the economy, despite the remarkable reductions in transport costs and the astonishing rise in the complexity and variety of information – verbal, visual and symbolic – which can be communicated near instantly' (Storper and Venables, 2003, p. 43 ). Visual proximity and eye-contact are particularly important in environments of imperfect information, like in Cambodia after Pol Pot. Information was scarce at this time and communication hardware rare. Thus, in Phnom Penh's initial retail business formation, an 'economy of espionage and imitation' provided the necessary information for deal-making, decisions concerning the assortments of goods, prize, and trends. The first merchants and producers were heavily dependent on visual contact 'around the corner' and close contact also proved to be beneficial to customers. This specific knowledge and information externality (an externality or transaction spillover is a cost or benefit, not transmitted through prices) could only be reaped by spatial agglomerations. While screening and socialization of network members and potential partners were essential for the build-up of Cambodia's original clientele-system during the gradual resettlement, visual contact became the decisive steering mechanism for the original distribution of business agglomeration or its dispersion. For a `subsistence urbanization´, the public and quasi-public space are the most important `common-pool resource´. The influx of the population into the city produced a `non-rivalrous´ and `non-excludable´ economic good by the neighbours' curious gaze. - The city of Phnom Penh in Cambodia is a case study for a `spatial club´ - From a New Institutionalism's point of view 'City's neighbourhoods – residential, industrial and commercial clusters – are like firms, nexuses of agreements and understandings about entitlements to share and pooled resources. They differ from firms in that they are spatial clusterings and in that they cluster around resources that remain to varying extents in the public domain. They are like spatial clubs. Members co-operate by various forms of informal and formal rules and agreements in order to ensure the continued supply and enhancement of shared public domain goods. Municipal government is itself a type of club, delivering collectively consumed infrastructure and regulations from a tax on its citizens, firms and visitors. Communities, in the social sense, are also clubs – delivering collectively consumed benefits such as a sense of belonging, security and culture' (Webster and Lai 2003, p. 58). This spontaneous `neighbouring´ as 'rational herding' (Banerjee 1992; Hung and Plott 2001) helped to reduce transaction costs during the initial resettlement process (and beyond). It can be described as a continuous act of self agglomeration of business, creating bazaar-type streets over the whole of the city, which specialise in specific goods and services forming thus, from a bird's view perspective, a `mental retail map´ for the inhabitants. This is one side of building neighbourhoods in Phnom Penh. The base for this laissez-faire et laissez passer behaviorism of the government in (micro)economy was the redistribution of Phnom Penh's real estate amongst trustworthy followers. A `New property Deal´ of first in, first served allocated the built environment piecemeal. In this political economy, two steps are discernable. First, a community-building process regarding the public administration. Each ministry was assigned to a certain area of the city and in a top-down process, starting from the top echelons to the simple civil servants and officials, distributed land and housing. Initially, each responsible could pick `his´ followers and could reward him/her with the allocation of living space, a social structure, which represents a spatially bond replica of the traditional clientelism and patronage-network in Cambodia. These 'strings' (ksae) formed the first neighbourhoods as a kind of `original´ gated community because each administrative unit was planned to be self-sufficient. Each 'cité' (Carrier 2007) was thus clearly demarcated. Its decisions were autonomous, too. In certain areas of Phnom Penh, remnants of this socio-politically gathered community can be found. In a second step, and with increasing immigration, secondary ksae (the mother's cousin, the friend of a friend) proliferated and the city was being `filled up´. Today, the pattern of co-residence in technically secluded areas of Phnom Penh resembles the typical economical founded example of gated communities as neighbourhoods around the world: the rich and the better off separate from the rest. The once moral economy of the civil war and initial post-conflict years is dissolving. Regulation, commodification and the government's efforts to demarcate public and private space is replacing/reducing the common good 'public space'.
