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   Josep M. Colomer: "The polarization in
the United States is foundational" 

INTERVIEW

The professor of Political Science at Georgetown University
analyzes the constitutional origin of polarization in the United States in his
latest book

JAVIER DE LA
SOTILLAWASHINGTON

LA VANGUARDIA 07/28/2024

Josep M. Colomer is a professor of Political Science at
Georgetown University in Washington. Prince of Asturias Professor since 2010,
he has taught at numerous institutions, including the Universitat Autònoma de
Barcelona, ​​the
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, New York University and SciencesPo, and has given
more than 100 lectures in 25 countries. He is an associate researcher at the
Institute of Political and Social Sciences of Barcelona and the author of 18
books, in which he has focused on the design of strategies for the
establishment and change of democratic institutions.

In his latest book, Constitutional
Polarization (Routledge), he investigates the constitutional origin of the
division that dominates the political life of the country, which has been
increasing in the last decade, and proposes solutions within the constitutional
framework. He welcomes us to Georgetown, in the midst of one of the tensest and
most polarized presidential campaigns of this century. Especially after the
assassination attempt against Donald Trump and the resignation of Joe Biden,
who has passed the baton to his vice president, Kamala Harris.

The candidates frame these elections as a plebiscite on
democracy. Is this what the US is playing for in November?

If Donald Trump meets the expectations of his Project 2025,
and based on what he began to do when he was president, it can certainly pose a
great risk. But this country is strong, the society is strong, and its
democracy will endure. I think the real threat to democracy, throughout the
West, is the great loss of prestige of governments, which do not meet
expectations and generate disaffection. People no longer vote in favor of
proposals but against the government in power: we have seen this in recent
elections in France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Brazil or Argentina.
In the US, it has been clearly seen in recent years: we were used to the
president repeating his term, but this was not the case with Trump, and it will
not be the case with Biden either.

There is a climate of growing polarization in politics,
which threatens the democratic process. But the central thesis of your book is
that this is not an exception...

Not at all: it is foundational and
goes back to the US Constitution itself. In this country, it is the
institutions that produce the polarization of citizens, and not the other way
around. The system of separation of powers between the presidency and Congress,
often in conflict, and the existence of only two parties with the possibility
of reaching power, infects citizens. There has always been polarization, but
what we see now is negative polarization. Politicians campaign by attacking
their opponents and, instead of being proactive, they focus on the issues they
believe the other has not been able to solve.

That is why Trump focuses on
immigration, which has increased during Biden's term and, when an agreement was
reached between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, he ordered his
legislators to boycott it so he could continue to blame the Democrats. And
Harris has started very strongly with abortion, stoking fears that a Republican
government will make a law to prohibit it throughout the country. And that is
negative campaigning because when the Democrats had a majority in both chambers
they did not make any federal law to protect it. 

"The real threat to democracy is the
discredit of governments" 

Why do we no longer see the great consensus that
characterized the 20th century?

Because of the absence of a great
external enemy: that is what has historically generated national unity. During
the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War, we had a period of some
internal peace and collaboration between the two parties. But when the Soviet
Union fell, in the absence of a common cause, the internal political agenda
resurfaced, with many issues that have never been resolved. This happens
because the system is inefficient: if one party wins the presidency and the
other the Congress, in the absence of consensus, the blockage is constant and
causes conflicts to stagnate.

Trump's arrival in politics eight years ago did not help
to unite the country either...

It deepened polarization. Trump's
project is, basically, to isolate and close the US: limit immigration, import
tariffs, disengage from NATO... That is the perfect recipe for internal
conflict. If he abandons foreign policy, he gives space to domestic problems,
such as race issues, women's rights, health care, education... Physics defines
it as entropy: closure to the outside and internal disorder always go together.

How can the country get back on the path of consensus and
big deals? Can the rise of China be a catalyst?

If Trump loses, the Republican
Party will have to reinvent itself. And then it will have to decide whether it
wants to continue in isolationism, a Cold War against Russia or against China,
or against both at the same time, or whether it wants to seek international
cooperation agreements that allow them to not be so obsessed and polarized by domestic
conflicts.

But there are many other ways to
mitigate polarization without having to amend the Constitution, which at this
point is unthinkable. One is to improve the relationship between Congress and
the presidency, through the figure of the vice president, who, by presiding
over the Senate, can act as a bridge and does not do so today. Another is to
give more powers to the states, because these issues of national polarization
are actually less divisive in each state, where there is more cultural and
social consensus.

"Congress' inefficiency in
legislating has created a monarchical temptation, with which the president has
been gaining power" 

When Biden explained his withdrawal, he said that George
Washington "taught us that presidents are not kings." However, as you explain
in the book, the United States was founded on a monarchical system. Where did
the founding fathers go wrong?

The drafters of the Constitution
paid the price of a novelty experiment. There was no country with a liberal
democratic constitution and they took as a reference the interpretation that
Baron de Montesquieu had made of the United Kingdom system. But there was a
problem: Montesquieu did not speak English, and he misinterpreted the British
system as an absolutist monarchy, in which the separation of powers was between
the king, the nobility and the people, whose authority came from separate
sources. However, at that time, the United Kingdom was already a parliamentary
monarchy, and the separation of powers was not such. The Founding Fathers took
that interpretation and brought it to the American system, where the powers of
the executive, the legislative and the judicial branches do not emanate from
the same support, which prevents them from collaborating on many important
issues. The difficulty of passing laws has made it a permanent temptation to
give more powers to the president, so he has become a kind of king: by its very
constitution, the country has a monarchical temptation. In the history of the
United States, there are many more executive orders (or presidential decrees)
than laws passed in Congress. For several decades, there has been more than one
executive order per week, and far fewer laws. That monarchical temptation is
seen in the electoral campaign: two characters face each other who seem to have
to solve everything.

Historically, legislators have put the interest of their
district or state before that of the party. However, it seems that now Congress
is governed by partisan lines. How did we get to this point?

That was the original idea: in his
farewell address, Washington warned against the danger of parties and
partisanship. And for the first 30 years, elections worked that way. But when
the founding fathers disappeared, they realized that the electoral system
itself favored the existence of national parties, each with a set of ideas that
were opposed to the other. This resulted in great tension, where physical
violence was common in Congress, and culminated in a civil war; but we are far
from that moment now.

In reality, the party system only
works at the national level when there are presidential elections, where there
are necessarily two clearly opposed candidates, which is reflected throughout
the country. Most of the time, each party in each state contains very diverse
positions. You see it in Congress, where there are clearly four currents
compressed into two parties: the nationalist populists of Make America Great
Again, the traditional conservatives, the liberal Democrats, and the socialist
Democrats. However, the institutional system does not allow them to act as such
and they have to meet in order to win, which causes voting along partisan
lines.

Given the dysfunctionality of Congress, the president has
been gaining powers. But what about the Supreme Court? In the ruling on Trump's
immunity, Judge Sonia Sotomayor insisted on the idea that the country should
not have kings...

I think that the Supreme Court
maintains its capacity to be a countervailing power. In fact, in the ruling on
immunity, what it did was return the case to a lower court to clarify whether
the assault on the Capitol was an official or private activity. But, if it is
determined that it is private, Trump still does not have immunity. Although
there is a conservative majority of six judges to three, in reality this
division occurs in less than one-third of the cases: according to the balance
of the last period, there are many more rulings by unanimity or mixed majorities
than polarized ones.

Thus, although the Supreme Court
has lost popularity (it is at 40% approval), especially after its decision on
abortion, it remains a stronger counter-power than Congress (with 13% support),
precisely because it has taken charge with its jurisprudence of filling the
void of the legislature, which does not legislate. The Supreme Court was the
one that confirmed Obama's universal and mandatory health care reform, rejected
Trump's veto on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, ended his isolation
of children who crossed borders and were put in cages, and accepted gay
marriage, for which there is no law. The Supreme Court has been giving and
taking away freedoms, because Congress is incapable of legislating on that, and
it is the only effective counter-power to the president.

============================ Campaign in the US: We haven't seen anything yetThe last three weeks have brought so many surprises in
American politics that one can imagine how many more there could be until the
election.   Joe Biden appeared senile and paralyzed in the debate with
Donald Trump that he had requested and for which he had set the rules; to
correct the result, he had an interview on the ABC channel that was broadcast
on tape and still made the diagnosis worse. Previously, he had attended the G-7
meeting in Italy, in which he disappeared for a whole day and did not appear at
the gala dinner offered by the President of the Republic; and later, at the
NATO summit in Washington, he confused Harris with Trump and Zelensky with
Putin. Subsequently, he proved to be a good teleprompter reader, but unable to
hold a conversation for more than a few minutes.Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has
diverted the decision on Trump's immunity in private matters to a lower court;
the process about his appropriation of secret documents has been temporarily
suspended; and the sentence of the conviction for paying the silence of the
porn adultery has been deferred. After all this, he was almost murdered, by two
centimeters, at a rally, and proclaimed candidate at the Republican Convention
as sent from God.All in just three weeks. By
definition, it is difficult to imagine surprises. But there will surely be more
and even bigger ones between now and November. In most democratic countries, an
election campaign lasts for between three and six weeks. In the United States,
it lasts ten months, from the start of the primary elections. Normally, no one is
able to guess the result before September, as so many self-appointed prophets
continue to try. It's like predicting the result of a soccer game at half-time
when they go zero to zero.Of the eight US presidential
elections that I have followed more or less closely, in two a minority
candidate won as a result of the emergence of a third candidate (Bill Clinton
thanks to Ross Perot, in 1992 and 1996); in another, the unexpected candidate won
after starting a war in response to a terrorist attack (George W. Bush, in
2004); still, another unexpected candidate won after the outbreak of a serious
financial crisis in September (Barack Obama, in 2008); and in two, the loser in
popular votes won in the Electoral College (Bush, in 2000, and Trump, in 2016).
Almost all predictions in July were dismissed.The excessive duration of
presidential campaigns in the United States is due to the outrageous purpose of
electing a single person as executive president with enormous powers with only
two candidates, that is, an extremely simple and important selection in an
extremely large and complex society. When there are several parties in
competition, the choice of candidates by citizens is less difficult, since
there is always someone who may seem more reliable or less bad to most people.
But with the high polarization created when there are only two candidates, a
large portion of voters are more likely to dislike both.In the United States, when
registering as a voter there is the option to include a party affiliation,
which is usually the condition to participate in the party's primaries, as an
independent, or as a third-party voter. In recent years, the number of
independents has increased to almost half of the electorate. This detracts a
lot from the polls that say, for example, that Trump has the support of 70% of
Republican voters, because it means that they are only 15% of the total voters,
which does not allow for a serious prediction about the general election. The
high number of independents also preludes a high abstention when, as happened
until now, the two candidates are widely rejected.A traditional postulate in
political science was the incumbent advantage, that is, the advantage of the
candidate who is already in office because he can favorably manipulate the
information about his past administration and appear as the known semi-bad
compared to the unknown good in the opposition. But in the last fifteen years,
this advantage has disappeared due to crises, new governments' inefficiency,
unfulfilled promises and expectations, loss of credibility, and protest votes.
Governments lose more re-elections than ever, new parties and candidates appear
and, in some countries, the most rookie or the one who has always been in the
opposition wins. For many voters, almost any stranger can now be less bad than
a known semi-bad, because the latter is no longer credible. If the candidates
were now Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, we would be facing an unprecedented
situation: the two would be known semi-bad, one as former president and the
other as vice president. A new candidate might be more attractive. But it would
be another big surprise if the entire Democratic Party would group behind her
or him.Most likely, the campaigns of the
next three months will have to focus on discouraging abstention and promoting
the vote that each person sees as the lesser evil. The real campaign will begin
after the holidays, in not three but six weeks. We haven't seen anything yet.    Published in El Pais, July 23, 2024





























 https://elpais.com/opinion/2024-07-23/campana-en-ee-uu-aun-no-hemos-visto-nada.html======================            The decline of the American EmpireAll empires in history have had periods of rise and periods
of decline, from the Roman Empire and a dozen empires in Asia to the European
colonial empires, such as the Spanish and British. Regarding the United States
of America, seen in perspective and taking into account its relative shares of
the world's population, economy, military, and science, there is little doubt
that the peak period was from 1940 to 1960. The United States won World War II,
one of the few just wars in history; after victory, it designed the world order
with the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,
and created NATO with European allies. The decades of the forties and fifties
were also of American technological and cultural hegemony with automobiles,
household appliances, television, Coca-Cola and Hollywood blockbusters.

The euphoria ended with the
assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. The sixties and seventies were of
internal and external disorder, with the civil rights movements on the one hand
and the absurd and criminal war in Vietnam on the other. In contrast to the
pattern of previous decades, there was a succession of presidents who did not
complete a second term: Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson withdrew from the second
primaries, Nixon resigned, Ford embarrassed himself, and Carter lost
reelection. It was a country in disorder and decline.

But there was a rebound. Since
1980, presidents Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton made a turn that could be
compared to that of Emperor Octavian Augustus in Rome, also after a decline:
concentrating on foreign and military policy and giving more autonomy to the
provinces or states in domestic affairs, including social issues. It was a new
period of imperial rise. The Cold War culminated in the reunification of
Germany and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Clinton attempted to integrate
the new Russia while continuing to support less interventionist domestic
policies on welfare and family issues.

This rebound ended with the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Thus, the two periods of ascension
were closed by two traumatic episodes of those that any citizen remembers where
he was when he knew about: the assassination of JFK and 9/11.

Since then, the Government once
again engaged in warlike adventures such as an imaginary "Global War on Terror"
and absurd "preventive" wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, now without
the mandatory draft that had generated so many rebellions, but with an army of
professional volunteers. After learning the lesson of the negative political
effects of these wars, a further step has been taken in Ukraine: professional
troops are no longer even sent, but only weapons (purchased by the Government
from American manufacturers in charge of citizens' taxes that the receiving
country will have to pay for).

At the same time, political
polarization has accentuated by an overload of the domestic public agenda with
issues of immigration, race, family, gender, gun control, and voting rights. We
are still in that decline phase.

Another rebound of the American
Empire in the future is possible because the decline is always relative and
depends on the performance of the other world empires. The main potential
rivals are not much better. Russia has been gasping and clawing after losing a
quarter of its territory and half of its population following the dissolution
of the USSR. China is already suffering from the rigidity of the dictatorship
in the face of an incipient economic crisis and will suffer an enormous loss of
population due to a shortage of women and low birth rates. And the European
Union is still a project under construction (which would need an Emperor
Augustus turn, as I already explained in the previous post).

The greatest weakness of the
United States is its inefficient political system, with separation of powers
and only two parties, which is poorly capable of governing such a large and
complex country. But whoever wins the presidential election this November,
within four years the aging boomer generation will retire, and new creative
energy will arrive from the younger ones, including women who are still new to
the Presidency.Published in La Vanguardia, July 22, 2024:https://www.lavanguardia.com/opinion/20240722/9819461/declive-imperio-americano.htmlcf

La crescita incontrollata di dati prodotti da molte sorgenti, eterogenee e di- namiche, spinge molti possessori di tali dati a immagazzinarli su server nel cloud, anche al fine di condividerli con terze parti. La condivisione di dati su server (possibilmente) non fidati fonte di importanti e non banali questioni riguardanti sicurezza, privacy, confidenzialit e controllo degli accessi. Al fine di prevenire accessi incontrollati ai dati, una tipica soluzione consiste nel cifrare i dati stessi. Seguendo tale strada, la progettazione e la realizzazione di politiche di accesso ai dati cifrati da parte di terze parti (che possono avere differenti diritti sui dati stessi) un compito complesso, che impone la presenza di un controllore fidato delle politiche. Una possibile soluzione l'impiego di un meccanismo per il controllo degli accessi basato su schemi di cifratura attribute-base (ABE ), che permette al possessore dei dati di cifrare i dati in funzione delle politiche di accesso dei dati stessi. Di contro, l'adozione di tali meccanismi di controllo degli accessi presentano due problemi (i) privacy debole: le politiche di accesso sono pubbliche e (ii) inefficienza: le politiche di accesso sono statiche e una loro modifica richiede la ricifratura (o la cifratura multipla) di tutti i dati. Al fine di porre rimedio a tali problemi, il lavoro proposto in questa tesi prende in con- siderazione un particolare schema di cifratura attribute-based, chiamato inner product encryption (IPE, che gode della propriet attribute-hiding e pertanto riesce a proteggere la privatezza delle politiche di accesso) e lo combina con le tecniche di proxy re-encryption, che introducono una maggiore flessibilit ed efficienza. La prima parte di questa tesi discute l'adeguatezza dell'introduzione di un meccanismo di controllo degli accessi fondato su schema basato su inner product e proxy re-encryption (IPPRE ) al fine di garantire la condivisione sicura di dati immagazzinati su cloud server non fidati. Pi specificamente, proponiamo due proponiamo due versioni di IPE : in prima istanza, presentiamo una versione es- tesa con proxy re-encryption di un noto schema basato su inner product [1]. In seguito, usiamo tale schema in uno scenario in cui vengono raccolti e gestiti dati medici. In tale scenario, una volta che i dati sono stati raccolti, le politiche di ac- cesso possono variare al variare delle necessit dei diversi staff medici. Lo schema proposto delega il compito della ricifratura dei dati a un server proxy parzial- mente fidato, che pu trasformare la cifratura dei dati (che dipende da una polit- ica di accesso) in un'altra cifratura (che dipende da un'altra politica di accesso) senza per questo avere accesso ai dati in chiaro o alla chiave segreta utilizzata dal possessore dei dati. In tal modo, il possessore di una chiave di decifratura corrispondente alla seconda politica di accesso pu accedere ai dati senza intera- gire con il possessore dei dati (richiedendo cio una chiave di decifratura associata alla propria politica di accesso). Presentiamo un'analisi relativa alle prestazioni di tale schema implementato su curve ellittiche appartenenti alle classi SS, MNT e BN e otteniamo incoraggianti risultati sperimentali. Dimostriamo inoltre che lo schema proposto sicuro contro attacchi chosen plaintext sotto la nota ipotesi DLIN. In seconda istanza, presentiamo una versione ottimizzata dello schema proposto in precedenza (E-IPPRE ), basata su un ben noto schema basato suinner product, proposto da Kim [2]. Lo schema E-IPPRE proposto richiede un numero costante di operazioni di calcolo di pairing e ci garantisce che gli oggetti prodotti dall esecuzione dello schema (chiavi di decifratura, chiavi pubbliche e le cifrature stesse) sono di piccole rispetto ai parametri di sicurezza e sono efficientemente calcolabili. Testiamo sperimentalmente l'efficienza dello schema proposto e lo proviamo (selettivamente nei confronti degli attributi) sicuro nei confronti di attacchi chosen plaintext sotto la nota ipotesi BDH. In altri termini, lo schema proposto non rivela alcuna informazione riguardante le politiche di accesso. La seconda parte di questa tesi presenta uno schema crittografico per la condivisione sicura dei dati basato su crittografia attribute-based e adatto per scenari basati su IoT. Come noto, il problema principale in tale ambito riguarda le limitate risorse computazionali dei device IoT coinvolti. A tal proposito, proponiamo uno schema che combina la flessibilit di E-IPPRE con l'efficienza di uno schema di cifratura simmetrico quale AES, ottenendo uno schema di cifratura basato su inner product, proxy-based leggero (L-IPPRE ). I risultati sperimentali confermano l'adeguatezza di tale schema in scenari IoT.Riferimenti [1] Jong Hwan Park. Inner-product encryption under standard assumptions. Des. Codes Cryptography, 58(3):235–257, March 2011. [2] Intae Kim, Seong Oun Hwang, Jong Hwan Park, and Chanil Park. An effi- cient predicate encryption with constant pairing computations and minimum costs. IEEE Trans. Comput., 65(10):2947–2958, October 2016. ; With the ever-growing production of data coming from multiple, scattered, and highly dynamical sources, many providers are motivated to upload their data to the cloud servers and share them with other persons for different purposes. However, storing data on untrusted cloud servers imposes serious concerns in terms of security, privacy, data confidentiality, and access control. In order to prevent privacy and security breaches, it is vital that data is encrypted first before it is outsourced to the cloud. However, designing access control mod- els that enable different users to have various access rights to the shared data is the main challenge. To tackle this issue, a possible solution is to employ a cryptographic-based data access control mechanism such as attribute-based encryption (ABE ) scheme, which enables a data owner to take full control over data access. However, access control mechanisms based on ABE raise two chal- lenges: (i) weak privacy: they do not conceal the attributes associated with the ciphertexts, and therefore they do not satisfy attribute-hiding security, and (ii) inefficiency: they do not support efficient access policy change when data is required to be shared among multiple users with different access policies. To address these issues, this thesis studies and enhances inner-product encryption (IPE ), a type of public-key cryptosystem, which supports the attribute-hiding property as well as the flexible fine-grained access control based payload-hiding property, and combines it with an advanced cryptographic technique known as proxy re-encryption (PRE ). The first part of this thesis discusses the necessity of applying the inner- product proxy re-encryption (IPPRE ) scheme to guarantee secure data sharing on untrusted cloud servers. More specifically, we propose two extended schemes of IPE : in the first extended scheme, we propose an inner-product proxy re- encryption (IPPRE ) protocol derived from a well-known inner-product encryp- tion scheme [1]. We deploy this technique in the healthcare scenario where data, collected by medical devices according to some access policy, has to be changed afterwards for sharing with other medical staffs. The proposed scheme delegates the re-encryption capability to a semi-trusted proxy who can transform a dele- gator's ciphertext associated with an attribute vector to a new ciphertext associ- ated with delegatee's attribute vector set, without knowing the underlying data and private key. Our proposed policy updating scheme enables the delegatee to decrypt the shared data with its own key without requesting a new decryption key. We analyze the proposed protocol in terms of its performance on three dif- ferent types of elliptic curves such as the SS curve, the MNT curve, and the BN curve, respectively. Hereby, we achieve some encouraging experimental results. We show that our scheme is adaptive attribute-secure against chosen-plaintext under standard Decisional Linear (D-Linear ) assumption. To improve the per- formance of this scheme in terms of storage, communication, and computation costs, we propose an efficient inner-product proxy re-encryption (E-IPPRE ) scheme using the transformation of Kim's inner-product encryption method [2]. The proposed E-IPPRE scheme requires constant pairing operations for its al- gorithms and ensures a short size of the public key, private key, and ciphertext,making it the most efficient and practical compared to state of the art schemes in terms of computation and communication overhead. We experimentally as- sess the efficiency of our protocol and show that it is selective attribute-secure against chosen-plaintext attacks in the standard model under Asymmetric De- cisional Bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption. Specifically, our proposed schemes do not reveal any information about the data owner's access policy to not only the untrusted servers (e.g, cloud and proxy) but also to the other users. The second part of this thesis presents a new lightweight secure data sharing scheme based on attribute-based cryptography for a specific IoT -based health- care application. To achieve secure data sharing on IoT devices while preserving data confidentiality, the IoT devices encrypt data before it is outsourced to the cloud and authorized users, who have corresponding decryption keys, can ac- cess the data. The main challenge, in this case, is on the one hand that IoT devices are resource-constrained in terms of energy, CPU, and memory. On the other hand, the existing public-key encryption mechanisms (e.g., ABE ) require expensive computation. We address this issue by combining the flexibility and expressiveness of the proposed E-IPPRE scheme with the efficiency of symmet- ric key encryption technique (AES ) and propose a light inner-product proxy re-encryption (L-IPPRE ) scheme to guarantee secure data sharing between dif- ferent entities in the IoT environment. The experimental results confirm that the proposed L-IPPRE scheme is suitable for resource-constrained IoT scenar- ios.References [1] Jong Hwan Park. Inner-product encryption under standard assumptions. Des. Codes Cryptography, 58(3):235–257, March 2011. [2] Intae Kim, Seong Oun Hwang, Jong Hwan Park, and Chanil Park. An effi- cient predicate encryption with constant pairing computations and minimum costs. IEEE Trans. Comput., 65(10):2947–2958, October 2016.

[spa] Por más de cien años la reelección legislativa fue una institución en el Poder Legislativo mexicano. Salvo la Constitución de Cádiz y la Constitución de Apatzingán, ninguno de los textos fundamentales que estuvieron vigentes entre 1812 y 1917, contemplaron la introducción de restricciones para la reelección indefinida de legisladores. El 29 de abril de 1933 se promulgó una Reforma Constitucional para prohibir, por primera vez en la historia de México, la reelección inmediata de legisladores. Dicha reforma, promovida por los miembros del Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR), antecesor del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), permitió la consolidación en el poder de dicho partido, logró una estricta disciplina partidista de sus militantes y derivó en la subordinación del Congreso al partido oficial. La Reforma de 1933 creó repercusiones negativas que prevalecen en la actualidad: el impedimento del establecimiento de carreras parlamentarias y la desprofesionalización de los legisladores, su falta de responsabilidad y desvinculación frente a sus representados; el debilitamiento del Legislativo y su subordinación frente al Ejecutivo; y la ineficiencia parlamentaria que se genera por la renovación total y periódica del Congreso. Además, la no reelección inmediata de legisladores instauró un sistema de rotación obligatoria de cargos, que provocó que los políticos basaran sus carreras en torno a la lealtad hacia su partido. El 10 de febrero de 2014 se publicó en el Diario Oficial de la Federación una Reforma Constitucional en materia político-electoral que entrará en vigor en 2018 y permitirá (de nuevo) la reelección inmediata de legisladores en México. Sin embargo, al ser el tema de la no reelección inmediata de legisladores en México de una gran relevancia histórica y tener una gran importancia política, el debate de sus argumentos a favor y en contra continuará en el marco de la recién aprobada Reforma y seguirá siendo motivo de análisis y discusión, pues el principio anti-reeleccionista que promovió la Revolución está muy arraigado en el sentir del mexicano. La hipótesis de la presente investigación se centra en que a pesar de la restricción constitucional, la reelección legislativa es una práctica común en México, ya que aunque está prohibido reelegirse de manera inmediata para el mismo cargo, los legisladores se reeligen consecutivamente pasando de una Cámara federal a otra, o del Congreso federal a los Congresos locales, y que lo anterior, ha permitido el desarrollo de carreras parlamentarias en México. La importancia de este trabajo radica no sólo en que entra en el debate de la no reelección legislativa consecutiva desde una óptica político-jurídica, sino que va más allá al hacer un análisis empírico de las trayectorias políticas de los 11 mil 762 legisladores que han pasado por el Congreso Federal y los Congresos Locales entre 1997 y 2018. Analiza el Poder Legislativo al completo, ya que además del Congreso de la Unión, incluye a las Legislaturas de las 32 Entidades Federativas de la República Mexicana. Así, el presente trabajo de investigación, titulado "La no reelección consecutiva de legisladores en México, 1997-2018", tiene como objetivo determinar si la reelección inmediata de legisladores (aunque no para el mismo cargo) es una práctica común que ya se daba de facto aun antes de la Reforma de 2014, y si la prohibición ha impedido la profesionalización de los legisladores y el desarrollo de verdaderas carreras parlamentarias en México. ; [cat] Per més de cent anys la reelecció legislativa va ser una institució en el Poder Legislatiu mexicà. Excepte la Constitució de Cádiz i la Constitució d'Apatzingán, cap dels textos fonamentals que van estar vigents entre 1812 i 1917, van contemplar la introducció de restriccions per a la reelecció indefinida de legisladors. El 29 d'abril de 1933 es va promulgar una Reforma Constitucional per prohibir, per primer cop en la història de Mèxic, la reelecció immediata de legisladors. Aquesta reforma, promoguda pels membres del Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR), antecessor del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), va permetre la consolidació en el poder d'aquest partit, va aconseguir una estricta disciplina partidista dels seus militants i va derivar en la subordinació del Congrés al partit oficial. La Reforma de 1933 va crear repercussions negatives que perduren en l'actualitat: l'impediment de l'establiment de carreres parlamentàries i la desprofessionalització dels legisladors, la seva falta de responsabilitat i desvinculació enfront els seus representats; el debilitament del Legislatiu i la seva subordinació davant l'Executiu; i la ineficiència parlamentària generada per la renovació total i periòdica del Congrés. A més, la no reelecció immediata de legisladors va instaurar un sistema de rotació obligatòria de càrrecs, que va produir que els polítics basessin les seves carreres al voltant de la lleialtat envers el seu partit. El 10 de febrer de 2014 es va publicar al Diari Oficial de la Federació una Reforma Constitucional en matèria polític-electoral que entrarà en vigor el 2018 i permetrà (de nou) la reelecció immediata de legisladors a Mèxic. No obstant això, en ser el tema de la no reelecció immediata de legisladors a Mèxic d'una gran rellevància històrica i tenir una gran importància política, el debat dels seus arguments a favor i en contra continuarà en el marc de la recentment aprovada Reforma i seguirà sent motiu d'anàlisi i discussió, ja que el principi anti-reeleccionista que va promoure la Revolució està molt arrelat en el sentir del mexicà. La hipòtesi de la present investigació es centra en que tot i la restricció constitucional, la reelecció legislativa és una pràctica comuna a Mèxic, ja que tot i que està prohibit reelegir de manera immediata per al mateix càrrec, els legisladors es reelegeixen consecutivament passant d'una Cambra federal a una altra, o del Congrés federal als Congressos locals, fet que ha permès el desenvolupament de carreres parlamentàries a Mèxic. La importància d'aquest treball rau no només en què entra en el debat de la no reelecció legislativa consecutiva des d'una òptica politicojurídica, sinó que va més enllà en fer una anàlisi empírica de les trajectòries polítiques dels 11 mil 762 legisladors que han passat pel Congrés Federal i els Congressos Locals entre 1997 i 2018. Analitza el Poder Legislatiu al complet, ja que a més del Congrés de la Unió, inclou les Legislatures de les 32 Entitats Federatives de la República Mexicana. Així, el present treball d'investigació, titulat "La no reelecció consecutiva de legisladors a Mèxic, 1997-2018", té com a objectiu determinar si la reelecció immediata de legisladors (encara que no per al mateix càrrec) és una pràctica comuna que ja es donava de fet fins i tot abans de la reforma de 2014, i si la prohibició ha impedit la professionalització dels legisladors i el desenvolupament de veritables carreres parlamentàries a Mèxic. ; [eng] For over hundred years the legislative re-election was an institution in the Mexican legislative power. With the exceptions of the Cadiz and Apatzingan constitutions, none of the fundamental documents active between 1812 and 1917, contemplated implementing restrictions to the indefinite reelection of legislators. On April 29th 1933 a constitutional reform was enacted to prohibit, for the first time in Mexican history, the immediate reelection of legislators. This reform, promoted by members of the National Revolution Party (PNR), former Institutional Revolution Party (PRI), endorsed the empowerment of the party, providing a strict discipline within the militants and bringing the subordination of the congress to the official party. The 1933 Reform created drawbacks that are still present nowadays: the deterrence to establish parliamentary careers and the legislator's de- professionalization, lack of liability and connection with their represented people; the weakening of the legislature and its subordination to the Executive branch; also, the parliamentary inefficiency generated when the congress is totally replaced repeatedly. On the other side, the prohibition of the immediate reelection for the legislators generated a position rotation system, encouraging the politicians to based their careers on the loyalty to the party. On February 10th 2014 the Official Federation Journal published a constitutional reform in electoral policy, permitting (once again) the immediate re-election of the Mexican legislators. This reform will become effective in 2018. However, this being a relevant topic in Mexican history and of great political importance, the debate of the arguments for and against the recently approved reform will continue, and remain a reason of analysis and dispute due to the anti- reelection principles promoted by the Revolution that is still deep rooted in the Mexican sentiment. The hypothesis of this investigation centers around that despite the current constitutional restriction, the legislative re-election is a common practice in Mexico. Although it is prohibited to be immediately reelected to the same position, the legislators get reelected consecutively going from one Federal Congress to another, or from the Federal to local congresses, allowing the development of parliamentary careers in Mexico. The importance of this work lies not only because it addresses the discussion about non-legislative consecutive re-election from a political-legal perspective, but goes further making an empirical analysis of the political trajectories of the 11,762 legislators who have passed by the Federal Congress and the Local Congress between 1997 and 2018. It analyzes the entire legislative power, because it includes the Congress of the Union and the Legislatures of the 32 Federative Entities of the Mexican Republic. The present investigation, titled "The no consecutive re-election of legislators in Mexico, 1997-2018", has the objective to determine whether the immediate re- election of legislators (with the exception of the same position) is a common practice and in fact it was already present before the 2014 Reform, and if the prohibition had impeded the legislator's professionalization together with the development of true parliamentary careers in Mexico.

The study represents a background study for the proposed Uganda Country Economic Memorandum (CEM), which seeks to address the issue of efficient use of oil resources and examine synergies between the oil industry and the rest of the economy, through growth poles or linkages. The oil industry can help Uganda to promote robust growth in the economy. However, it is important to keep in mind that it will take a number of years until oil revenues start flowing into Uganda s economy. After the Final Investment Decision (FID) is reached, it will take time to develop the oil fields and start oil production. In the meantime, there are immediate opportunities opening up for Uganda s businesses to supply the oil industry with goods and services. In most cases, Uganda s suppliers, especially micro, small and medium enterpises (MSMEs), are not expected to become first tier contractors to the International Oil Company (IOCs). The main objective of this study is to provide recommendations to the Government of Uganda (GoU) on policies and strategies of leveraging the oil discoveries for the development of the national economy in order to transform the oil resources into sustained growth. The study reviews the typology of policies for local sourcing used in the world. It includes ample examples of other countries experiences with developing their local content policies and providing support to priority sectors to boost local content which could be useful for Uganda from the standpoint of lessons learned. The study conducts a detailed analysis of the binding constraints faced by domestic oil and gas suppliers in Uganda, takes stock of existing national content support initiatives and identifies areas which are in urgent need of further support. The study examines how the oil sector can be used as a driver of agriculture and fisheries sectors in the Albertine Region and other regions of Uganda from the standpoint of food supply to the oil camps.

This paper focuses on recent theoretical developments in political economy and what role they might play in explaining and reforming individual country and global distortions in food and agricultural markets. Four groups of forces are isolated: political governance structures emphasizing the role of democratic mechanisms; the design of polycentric structures for assigned governmental authority for setting policy instruments; market structure and other socioeconomic characteristics; and the role of sector mobility and asset diversification. Each of these forces are distilled and data sources are reviewed that will allow econometric specifications that have both explanatory and policy reform implications.

More than a decade of ambitious sector reform has led to a period of stability in the Armenian energy sector. The sector faces challenges more typical of a developed economy than an emerging one: policymakers' concerns have shifted from avoiding total system collapse to optimizing the energy supply mix to provide affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy services. However, some old challenges remain and new ones have arisen. Armenia is still vulnerable to energy supply disruptions; tariffs lag the full cost of service provision; and a significant investment backlog impedes progress in energy infrastructure. The purpose of this note is to present the analysis of the challenges facing Armenia's energy sector, specifically, its electricity, natural gas, and heating subsectors. The intention of the note is not to prescribe solutions, but to present analysis of options and tradeoffs that the Government can use to inform its decision-making. Armenia's energy sector has undergone a series of reforms over the last fifteen years, which included privatization of the electricity distribution and gas companies, and some generating companies, establishment of an independent regulator, and development of a formal strategic plan for the sector. This energy sector overview highlights important outcomes from reforms and describes key sector characteristics.

Conferences are generally acknowledged to be a well-established activity of academic, scientific and professional (ASP) practice. However, there is no established mainstream field of conference learning, and the literature and opinion on the topic is scant, and thinly dispersed across a wide spread and uncollated multidisciplinary literature. This thesis looks to lift the lid on this much passed-over area of ASP practice, and in particular its role as a medium of information dissemination and knowledge transfer. Specifically it examines the role, efficacy and perception of poster presentation as a continuing education tool, and as a medium of scientific communication. The thesis begins by exploring the use of posters in conference and educational settings, and establishes their historical precedent. Poster presentation evolved as a means to allow more people to present their work, but over time the numbers of conference posters being presented have increased exponentially, and the mass of information that is made available in poster format has become unmanageable. The few studies that have examined the motivations of conference attendees have placed education (in the form of disseminating and accessing information) as the prime stated reason for attending conferences, closely followed by a wish to network with peers in their professional communities. The fields of continuing education and professional development actively recognise conferences as learning opportunities, and higher education is a consistent reference point in conference literature, with many ASP conference delegates either employed or enrolled in higher education institutions, or following professions that are grounded in higher education and training. However conferences as a site and means of learning are neglected as an area of academic study, and there is limited research that examines their educational efficacy. By way of four sub-studies, this research looked to answer the following overarching research question: What is the effectiveness of academic and scientific poster presentations, and how do academics perceive their importance in knowledge transfer? Sub-Study I carried out a state of the art literature review (51 included studies) to determine the effectiveness of poster presentations on knowledge transfer. Sub-Study II expanded this enquiry and employed an enhanced informetric mapping review that presented quantitative data on poster presentation literature from a total of 249 databases and a comparative academic search engine. Sub-Study III employed a mixed-method design survey exploring conference delegate perceptions of poster presentation, using open- and closed-ended questions among conference participants (N=37), emerging and predetermined approaches to thematic formation, and quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. Sub-Study IV conducted a series of mixed-method web-based expert interviews (N=16) to explore delegate motivations and needs for conference attendance and their perceptions of poster presentation, using open- and closed-ended questions, emerging and predetermined approaches to thematic formation, and quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. The findings are presented in two main themes: The history and research on the efficacy of poster presentations, and Conference delegates' motivations and their evaluations of poster presentations. Sub-Study I found no evidence that posters were effective as standalone media in facilitating knowledge transfer, be it through an increase in knowledge, change in attitude or behaviour. This runs contrary to the routine poster practices that can be seen at many conference events, where poster presentation is perceived as an established way of sharing knowledge, and as having to function as a standalone entity as well as a presented medium. As such, a dichotomy was seen to emerge whereby posters were being presented with an aim to inform and generate knowledge, yet the available research and theory indicated that this would be unlikely to be achieved using conventional poster practices. However, the study also showed a paucity of foundational research. Sub-Study II revealed the massive global scope of poster presentation, with returns seen from every discipline and continent. Medicine was seen as the largest contributory discipline, outpacing its nearest rivals by some 70%. However, aside from a very limited amount of published research on poster presentation, it was observed that over 99% of the returns led only to a title or abstract mention of poster presentations. Whilst Sub-Study II confirmed massive levels of engagement in poster presentation, it also uncovered literature and opinion that bemoaned its efficacy and value. In order to examine this further, the motivations of conference delegates were explored in two further sub-studies, along with their perceptions of poster presentation. The data from sub-studies III and IV confirmed the motivations of conference delegates to share and disseminate information within gathered conference peer-communities, and that this enabled them to network with like-minded peers. However, there was a clear differentiation between the subjective benefits of conference attendance (which appear to be well catered for), and the way that the objective delegate needs of effective dissemination and recognition are met. The sub-study data reflected a hierarchy of oral presentation being more highly valued than poster presentation, but despite their numeric presence at conferences, this research showed that poster presentations do not serve to disseminate or generate knowledge effectively. Moreover, there is a clear expression that the format of poster presentation is outdated, and needs to be revised in order to increase its value and effectiveness. The thesis reveals that overall, less than 50% of conference outputs are developed into publications that can be used as an effective knowledge resource by the ASP community. The inability of poster presentations to transfer and generate knowledge is consolidated by the triangulation of theory on knowledge development, and points towards a need to improve the depth of information that is made available, and also the way it is disseminated pre-, per, and post-event. The cost of this inefficiency can be further expressed in monetary terms of multi-billion dollar annual expenditures. In relation to the opinions expressed in the literature and the voices featured in this study, developments in the informational management of poster presentations (and conference outputs as a whole) would not only increase their educational efficacy, but also increase their functional value as a means of scientific communication. This research offers a reasoned and substantiated argument for conducting immediate research and development in this area. Accordingly, institutions and governmental bodies should consider the massive amounts of human and monetary capital that are committed to conference engagement on a yearly basis, and instigate and support developments that will help to make conference participation and publication a more worthwhile activity, with concrete and demonstrable outputs that support the needs of a globally connected ASP community. ; Tieteellisiä konferensseja ja niihin osallistumista pidetään vakiintuneina käytäntöinä akateemisen tiedeyhteisön keskuudessa (ASP-käytäntö; academic, scientific and professional). Siitä huolimatta konferenssien aikana tapahtuvaa oppimista tarkasteleva tieteellinen tutkimus puuttuu lähes kokonaan. Aihetta käsittelevä tutkimuskirjallisuus ja keskustelu on vähäistä. Lisäksi keskustelu on hajaantunut eri tieteenaloja koskevaan tutkimuskirjallisuuteen. Tämän väitöskirjan tarkoituksena on valaista tätä paljolti huomiotta jäänyttä ASP-käytäntöä sekä sen roolia tiedon ja oppimisen välittäjänä. Väitöskirjassa tarkastellaan erityisesti posteriesitysten roolia ja hyödyllisyyttä sekä tiedeyhteisön käsityksiä niistä elinikäisen oppimisen työkaluina ja tieteellisen kommunikaation välineinä. Väitöskirjan alussa tarkastellaan posteriesitysten käyttöä konferenssi- ja koulutusympäristöissä sekä esitellään niiden historiallista taustaa. Posteriesitykset otettiin käyttöön, jotta mahdollisimman moni akateemisen yhteisön jäsen saisi mahdollisuuden esitellä tutkimustaan. Ajan kuluessa posteriesitysten määrä on kuitenkin kasvanut räjähdysmäisesti, mikä on puolestaan johtanut siihen, että niiden sisältämästä tietomassasta on tullut hallitsematonta. Niissä harvoissa tutkimuksissa, joissa on tarkasteltu syitä konferensseihin osallistumiselle, on todettu, että tärkeimpänä syynä osallistujat ovat pitäneet oppimista (tiedon jakamista ja vastaanottamista). Lähes tulkoon yhtä tärkeäksi syyksi osallistujat mainitsivat halun verkostoitua muiden tutkijoiden kanssa heidän ammatillisissa yhteisöissään. Elinikäistä oppimista ja ammatillista kehittymistä tutkivilla aloilla konferensseja yleisesti pidetään oppimisympäristöinä, minkä lisäksi korkeakouluopetukseen viitataan alinomaa konferensseja koskevassa kirjallisuudessa. Monet ASP-konferenssien osanottajat myös joko työskentelevät tai opiskelevat korkeakouluissa tai ovat ammateissa, joiden perusta on korkeakouluopetuksessa ja koulutuksessa. Siitä huolimatta konferenssien rooli oppimisympäristönä ja -välineenä on jäänyt paitsioon akateemisessa tutkimuksessa ja vain vähäinen määrä tutkimusta tarkastelee niiden koulutuksellista hyötyä. Väitöskirja muodostuu neljästä osatutkimuksesta, joiden avulla etsitään vastausta eri aihealueet yhteen kokoavaan tutkimuskysymykseen: Kuinka hyödyllisiä akateemiset ja tieteelliset posteriesitykset ovat ja kuinka merkittävinä tiedonvälittäjinä akateeminen yhteisö niitä pitää? Ensimmäisessä osatutkimuksessa toteutettiin kirjallisuusarvio tuoreimmasta saatavilla olevasta tutkimuksesta (N=51 tutkimusta). Sen tarkoituksena oli määrittää posteriesitysten hyödyllisyys tiedonvälityksessä. Osatutkimus II laajensi tätä kysymystä käyttäen tehostettua informetristä review-tutkimusta, jossa analysoitiin kvantitatiivista dataa posteriesityksiä käsittelevästä kirjallisuudesta kaiken kaikkiaan 249 tietokannasta ja vertailuja tekevästä akateemisesta hakukoneesta. Kolmannessa osatutkimuksessa suunniteltiin ja toteutettiin monimenetelmäinen kysely, jolla kartoitettiin konferenssivieraiden (N=37) käsityksiä posteriesityksistä. Kyselyssä käytettiin avoimia ja suljettuja kysymyksiä, ennakoimatonta ja ennakoivaa lähestymistapaa temaattisessa kysymyksenasettelussa sekä kvalitatiivista ja kvantitatiivista aineistonkeruuta ja analyysia. Neljännessä osatutkimuksessa suoritettiin sarja monimenetelmäisiä verkkohaastatteluita (N=16), joilla kartoitettiin konferenssivieraiden syitä ja tarpeita konferensseihin osallistumiselle sekä heidän käsityksiään posteriesityksistä. Haastatteluissa käytettiin avoimia ja suljettuja kysymyksiä, ennakoimatonta ja ennakoivaa lähestymistapaa kysymyksenasettelussa sekä kvalitatiivista ja kvantitatiivista aineistonkeruuta ja analyysia. Tutkimustulokset esitellään kahden pääteeman mukaisesti: Posteriesitysten historia ja niiden hyödyllisyyttä koskeva tutkimus ja Konferenssivieraiden syyt osallistumiselle ja heidän arvionsa posteriesityksistä. Ensimmäisen osatutkimuksen perusteella ei löytynyt näyttöä siitä, että posteriesitykset olisivat hyödyllisiä itsenäisessä välittäjäroolissa ja helpottamassa tiedonsiirtoa, olipa kyseessä tiedon lisääminen tai muutos asenteessa tai käytöksessä. Tämä havainto on ristiriidassa yleisten ja rutiininomaisten konferenssikäytäntöjen kanssa, joissa posteriesityksiä pidetään vakiintuneena tapana jakaa tietoa sekä toimivan paitsi itsenäisenä kokonaisuutena myös suullisena esityksenä. Näin ollen esiin nousi kahtiajako: Toisaalta posteriesitysten tarkoituksena pidetään tiedottamista ja tiedon lisäämistä, mutta silti olemassa oleva tutkimus ja teoria ovat osoittaneet, että tämä tavoite ei todennäköisesti toteudu nykyisillä posteriesityskäytännöillä. Toisaalta tutkimuksessa kävi ilmi myös perustutkimuksen vähäisyys. Osatutkimus II paljasti posteriesitysten maailmanlaajuisen kattavuuden, sillä hakutuloksia saatiin joka tutkimusalalta ja maanosasta. Ylivoimaisesti eniten hakutuloksia saatiin lääketieteestä, noin 70 % enemmän kuin muilta tieteenaloilta. Joka tapauksessa, lukuun ottamatta sitä, että posteriesityksiä koskevan julkaistun tutkimuksen määrä on todella vähäinen, yli 99 % hakutuloksista johti ainoastaan mainintaan posteriesityksen otsikosta tai tiivistelmästä. Toisin sanoen, vaikka osatutkimus II vahvisti posteriesitysten vahvan aseman, se myös toi esiin tutkimuskirjallisuudesta löydettävän ja asiantuntijoiden esittämän kritiikin niiden hyödyllisyydestä ja merkityksestä. Tämän asian lähempi tarkastelu vaati konferenssivieraiden motiivien sekä heidän posteriesityksiä koskevien käsitysten kartoitusta vielä kahdessa osatutkimuksessa. Kolmannesta ja neljännestä osatutkimuksesta saatu tutkimustieto vahvisti sen, että konferenssivieraiden motivaationa toimi tiedon jakaminen ja välittäminen muun konferenssiin osallistuneen vertaisyhteisön kanssa, mikä myös mahdollisti heidän verkostoitumisensa saman alan tutkijoiden kanssa. Tutkimuksessa nousi kuitenkin esiin selkeä ero konferenssiin osallistumisen henkilökohtaisten hyötyjen saavuttamisen (joihin on panostettu ilmeisen hyvin) ja sen välillä, miten vieraiden objektiiviset tarpeet tehokkaaseen tiedonvälitykseen ja tunnustukseen täyttyivät. Osatutkimuksen tutkimustiedosta nousi esiin hierarkia, jossa suullista esitystä arvostettiin posteriesitystä enemmän. Huolimatta posteriesitysten yleisyydestä konferensseissa, ne eivät välitä tai generoi tietoa tehokkaasti. Tämän lisäksi tutkimus osoitti, että nykyisessä muodossaan posteriesitys on vanhentunut ja vaatii uudistamista, jotta sen merkitys ja hyödyllisyys saataisiin palautettua. Väitöskirjan löydösten perusteella käy ilmi, että alle 50 % konferenssiesityksistä päätyy julkaisuihin, joita ASP-yhteisö voi hyödyntää tiedonlähteinä. Myös eri teoriat tiedon kehittymisestä vahvistavat posteriesitysten kyvyttömyyttä välittää ja lisätä tietoa. On tarpeen parantaa esitysten laatua sekä tapaa, jolla niistä saatavaa tietoa välitetään ennen tapahtumaa, sen aikana sekä tapahtuman jälkeen. Tämän tehottomuuden hinta voi rahassa laskettuna nousta vuosittain monen miljardin dollarin kulueräksi. Tutkimuskirjallisuudessa esitettyjen mielipiteiden sekä tässä tutkimuksessa esiin tulleiden näkemysten perusteella posteriesitysten (sekä yleisesti kaikkien konferenssiesitysten) sisältöjen parantaminen lisäisi paitsi niiden koulutuksellista hyötyä, myös niiden tarkoituksenmukaisuutta tieteellisen kommunikaation välineenä. Tutkimus tuo esiin harkitun ja perustellun väittämän, jonka mukaan aihealue vaatii välitöntä tutkimusta ja kehitystä. Sen lisäksi eri instituutioiden ja valtion virastojen tulisi huomioida se valtava henkilö- ja rahapääoma, joka konferensseille varataan vuosittain, ja panna alulle ja tukea kehitystä, joka tekisi konferensseihin osallistumisesta ja konferenssijulkaisemisesta hyödyllisempää toimintaa, joka konkreettisilla tuloksillaan tukisi myös maailmanlaajuisen ASP-yhteisön tarpeita.

La cooperativa agraria de comercialización se presenta como una de las alternativas organizativas a disposición de los agricultores para operar en los mercados agrarios. Se trata de una organización particular, con un grado de integración intermedio entre la empresa productora-comercializadora (mayor grado de integración) y la venta directa en el mercado a través, por ejemplo, de alhóndigas (ningún tipo de integración). En esta fórmula, los socios son propietarios y controlan, una característica de la jerarquía, pero también son proveedores de producto, lo que otorga a la relación una característica de mercado. Así, la cooperativa agraria se aprovisiona casi en su totalidad de las producciones de sus socios, los cuales además son sus propietarios, usuarios de sus servicios y supervisores de una organización que distribuye al beneficio de forma igualitaria sobre la base del uso o volumen comercializado por el socio. Estas características confieren al análisis de la relación socio-cooperativa un papel muy relevante en el estudio de las cooperativas. Las cooperativas agrarias tienen que competir con otras formas de organización en unos mercados cada vez más competitivos, globales y desregulados, con frecuentes cambios legislativos, avances tecnológicos, y una demanda muy concentrada y con un gran poder de negociación. A esto se le unen los cambios en la demandas de los consumidores, con mayores exigencias en cuanto a calidad, seguridad, variedad y conveniencia. En este entorno, la capacidad para adaptarse a los nuevos cambios se presenta como un elemento capital para la supervivencia de cualquier operador, también los que se sitúan en el origen de la cadena, como es el caso de las cooperativas agrarias. Sin embargo, la cooperativa es en ocasiones criticada desde el plano teórico por su ineficiencia a la hora de conseguir recursos para financiar inversiones, recursos que tienen que provenir fundamentalmente de los socios. Se argumenta desde esta corriente teórica que las cooperativas son ineficientes dado que los propietarios (los socios) tienen los derechos sobre la propiedad vagamente definidos. Por ello, esta forma de gobierno presenta mayores dificultades a la hora de afrontar estrategias de cambio y adaptación para competir en el mercado. Por otro lado, en las cooperativas la heterogeneidad de los intereses de los miembros parece haber aumentado. En tanto que las cooperativas se orientan más hacia los consumidores, pasando de ser productores independientes de commodities hacia productores de productos específicos, necesitan de importantes inversiones, las cuales no favorecen por igual a todos sus miembros. La heterogeneidad de objetivos puede llevar a conflictos en los procesos de decisión, mermar la capacidad de coordinación y reducir el compromiso de los miembros y, con ello, su disposición a invertir en la cooperativa. Esta heterogeneidad se va también amplificada como consecuencia de los procesos de concentración empresarial que han tenido lugar en los últimos años. En nuestro país las instituciones también han hecho hincapié en la necesidad que tienen las cooperativas de alcanzar el tamaño necesario para contrarrestar la concentración de la demanda y adquirir una dimensión competitiva. Como respuesta a estas iniciativas, el sector cooperativo ha experimentado un proceso de concentración empresarial a través de fusiones, adquisiciones, formación de grupos, integración en cooperativas de segundo grado, etc. que ha tenido como resultado la existencia de un menor número de cooperativas, pero de mayor dimensión. Un problema asociado a estos procesos es que llevan aparejado un aumento de la heterogeneidad de la base social de las cooperativas, lo que hace aumentar los conflictos ya comentados asociados a las mismas. A pesar de que las cooperativas agrarias se enfrentan a los nuevos retos del mercado, a su supuesta ineficiencia para conseguir financiación y la heterogeneidad de sus bases sociales, éstas siguen operando en un número considerable y son muchos los ejemplos de éxito empresarial. Nos planteamos así como tesis del trabajo la existencia de factores en el ámbito de las relaciones de la cooperativa con su base social que contrarrestan estos problemas, factores pueden explicar la disposición de los socios a invertir y, en última instancia, el desempeño de la organización cooperativa. Objetivos Con todo ello, el objetivo principal de este trabajo es el de analizar los factores de la relación socio-cooperativa que influyen en la disposición a invertir de sus socios y el desempeño final de la cooperativa. En particular, nos planteamos como objetivos específicos los siguientes: • Analizar cómo influyen los problemas de los derechos de propiedad en la disposición a invertir de los miembros de la cooperativa. • Comprobar cómo la orientación al mercado de la base social explica su disposición a invertir y cómo su efecto puede estar moderado por la existencia de los problemas asociados a los derechos de propiedad. • Descubrir qué papel juega la heterogeneidad de los socios en su disposición a invertir en la cooperativa. • Estudiar cómo explica el oportunismo de los socios la disposición a invertir de los mismos y el desempeño de la cooperativa. • Determinar cómo influyen los mecanismos de gobierno de la relación socio-cooperativa sobre el oportunismo de los socios y el desempeño de la cooperativa. • Estudiar la influencia de la disposición a invertir de los socios en el desempeño de la cooperativa. Metodología Sobre una muestra de 249 cooperativas obtenida mediante encuestas online son testadas las hipótesis de investigación planteadas mediante regresiones lineales jerárquicas y análisis de modelos de ecuaciones estructurales. Resultados Los resultados permiten por un lado subrayar el efecto positivo que la orientación al mercado ejerce sobre la disposición a invertir de sus miembros y la moderación que ejercen los problemas de propiedad de las cooperativas limitando este efecto. Igualmente destacar el efecto de la heterogeneidad en la base social ejerce sobre esta disposición a invertir de los socios en su cooperativa, y el papel mediador y directo que desempeña también el oportunismo sobre ella. Y por otro lado, los resultados reconocen la bondad de varios mecanismos de gobierno para controlar el oportunismo y explicar el desempeño de la cooperativa. ABSTRACT Marketing cooperative's typology represents a moderate level of integration because farmers are in fact the owners of these organisations created to bargain for better prices and to handle, process, and sell their members' produce. Marketing cooperatives constitute a special type of vertical integration for farmers because the integration of their businesses, which still maintain their independence, is only partial, with a market element (the transaction relationship) and a hierarchical element (the control relationship). Additionally, unlike in other governance modes, farmers are not only owners but also users and controllers of a business that distributes benefits equitably based on use or patronage. Therefore, the economic literature has approached agricultural cooperatives as a form of vertical integration ('extension of the farm'), as an independent firm ('cooperative as a firm'), as a coalition of firms that act in a collective or collaborative manner ('the coalition approach'), or as a nexus of contracts. All of these perspectives, albeit treating the phenomenon under different lenses, share a common position on the analysis of the relationship established between the farmer or member firm and the marketing cooperative firm as a key matter of interest. These firms operate at different stages of the production and distribution chain, where market exchange is substituted by internal exchanges within the boundaries of the cooperative firm. Agricultural marketing cooperatives operate in the origin of the fresh fruit and vegetables supply chain. They have to compete against other alternative organizational forms in markets characterized by great demand's pressure caused by the high levels of the distributors' bargaining power and the increasing number of competition because of deregulation and the globalisation of the sources of supply for many of these products. These factors, along with the greater consumer's demands of variety, convenience and quality, as well as the changes on institutional and economic environment, face agricultural cooperatives to new challenges that force them to address adjustments and changing processes, whether they might be functional or organizational with the aim of increasing vertical coordination among all participants. Thus, the cooperative's innovation capabilities constitute a fundamental mean to achieve it. Nonetheless, some researchers question the efficiency of cooperatives and argue that cooperatives suffer from a host of problems unique to this specific form of governance. They are referred mainly to the relational dimension between the farmer-user-owner and the cooperative itself. This thesis is focused on this relational dimension. About this relationship, based primarily on the Property Rights Theory postulates, some authors have stressed the cooperatives' difficulties for raising equity, concluding that cooperatives are inefficient by nature. A further issue of interest is related to the issue of heterogeneity of the agricultural marketing cooperatives membership and their implications on the cooperatives' performance. Such an argument is used as another claim against the cooperatives ability to compete in nowadays markets. In particular, heterogeneity of cooperative's memberships has increased lately. In Spain, there has been a process of business concentration (less cooperatives, but bigger ones) in order to face the concentration of distributors and obtaining a competitive dimension. This has taken place through mergers, internal growth, acquisitions, groups' formation and adhesion to second-order cooperatives. These processes have resulted in a blending of different memberships (fusions, mergers and acquisitions) or the incorporation of new members (internal growth). In any case, the increase in members' heterogeneity might be causing conflicts, especially those related to gathering funds from members for equity raisings. Nevertheless, even though agricultural marketing cooperatives are faced to these new market challenges, its theoretical inefficiency and heterogeneity problems, they still coexists with investor owned firms, they hold a relevant share in agricultural markets, they have played an active role for a very long time, and they still appear as an alternative with a future. Objectives Consequently, we consider as thesis of this dissertation the existence of factors within the cooperatives relational environment established between the cooperative and its farmer-members that can offset these problems and explain the members' willingness to invest in the cooperative and, finally, the cooperatives' performance. In particular our specific objectives are: • To analyse how property rights problems affects to members' willingness to invest in the cooperative. • To check how the members' market orientation explains their willingness to invest and the impact of property rights problems on this relationship. • To find out how heterogeneity is affecting members' willingness to invest in the cooperative. • To study how perceptions about the membership general levels of opportunism explains the each member willingness to invest in the cooperative and the cooperative's performance. • To determine how governance mechanisms that rules the relationships between members and cooperative influence members' willingness to invest and cooperative's performance. • To study the effect of members' willingness to invest on cooperative's performance. Methodology We obtained data from 249 Spanish marketing agricultural cooperatives through an online survey. Several hierarchical regressions models and structural equation models were conducted in order to test the research hypotheses. Results The results have proven how certain factors inherent to the relationship between cooperatives and their members explain the members' willingness to invest and cooperative's performance. On one hand, we proved the positive effects of the membership market orientation on their willingness to invest. We have also observed the negative influence of the problems of property rights on the membership willingness to invest in the cooperative. Likewise, results showed that members' perception of opportunistic behaviours and some kinds of heterogeneity affect their willingness to invest. On the other hand, the results also showed that selection and socialisation governance mechanisms have power to control opportunism, which itself affects negatively to cooperative's performance. Likewise, selection mechanism and hostages in the form of specific investments have shown a direct effect on cooperative's performance.

Over the past couple of decades, global financing for development has changed dramatically. The biggest shifts have been the rapid increase of net private financing flows to developing countries, in particular to middle-income countries (MICs); the sustained growth of official development assistance (ODA) from Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members, even excluding debt relief; the emergence of MICs as growth poles and sources of ODA with different approaches to aid delivery than those of DAC donors; and the expanded role of private aid. In addition, past trends of proliferation, fragmentation and earmarking of aid have continued. This paper reviews broad trends in global financing for development, with a focus on ODA and the growing importance of new development partners such as the so-called BRICS. In this context, it discusses the implications of this changing landscape for aid effectiveness and the role of ODA going forward.

Infrastructure is crucial for generating growth, alleviating poverty, and increasing international competitiveness. For much of the twentieth century and in most countries, the network utilities that delivered infrastructure services such as electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railroads, and water supply were vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. But this approach often resulted in extremely weak services, especially in developing and transition economies and especially for poor people. Common problems included low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and shortfalls in investment. Over the past two decades many countries have implemented far-reaching institutional reforms restructuring, privatizing, and establishing new approaches to regulation. This article identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection within the historical, economic, and institutional context of developing and transition economies. It also reviews the outcomes of these policy changes, including their distributional consequences especially for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. Drawing on a range of international experiences and empirical studies, it recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance.

Macroeconomic expectation data are of great interest to different agents due to their importance as central input factors in various applications. To name but a few, politicians, capital market participants, as well as academics, incorporate these forecast data into their decision processes. Consequently, a sound understanding of the quality properties of macroeconomic forecast data, their quality determinants, as well as potential ways to improve macroeconomic predictions is desirable. This thesis consists of three essays on the quality of analysts' forecasts. The first essay deals with macroeconomic forecast quality on the consensus level, while the second one investigates individual analysts' predictions and their quality determinants. In the third essay a bottom-up approach is introduced to derive macroeconomic forecasts from analysts' predictions at the microeconomic level. It is generally assumed that macroeconomic consensus forecasts provide a reasonable approximation of market participants' expectations regarding upcoming macroeconomic releases. Research areas in which these expectation data are a central input to isolate the unanticipated news component of a given announcement include studies analyzing the price impact of macroeconomic news in bond markets (e.g., Balduzzi et al., 2001; Gilbert et al., 2010), stock markets (e.g., Boyd et al., 2005; Cenesizoglu, 2011) as well as in foreign exchange markets (e.g., Andersen et al., 2003; Evans and Lyons, 2008). Furthermore, these forecast data are used to study market co-movement (e.g., Albuquerque and Vega, 2009), market volatility (e.g., Beber and Brandt, 2008; Brenner et al., 2009), changes in market liquidity (e.g., Brandt and Kavajecz, 2004; Pasquariello and Vega, 2007, 2009) as well as bond and equity risk premiums (e.g., Savor and Wilson, 2012; Dicke and Hess, 2012). It appears reasonable to assume that macroeconomic consensus forecasts represent market participants' expectations properly. So far available studies on forecast rationality at the consensus level largely test for general quality properties. They commonly find no evidence of systematic or persistent inefficiencies. In contrast to these previous studies, Campbell and Sharpe (2009) test for a specific behavioral inefficiency, the anchoring bias, first documented by Tversky and Kahneman (1974) in psychological experiments. Transferred to the context of macroeconomic forecasts, anchoring means that analysts put too much importance on last months' data and therefore underweight meanwhile released relevant information. This behavior implies a false incorporation of all available information into their forecasts. Consequently, a correction, i.e., the efficient use of the entire available information set would yield forecast improvements. Our analysis reveals a counter-intuitive result: We find strong statistical significance for anchoring in most macroeconomic forecast series, but applying a look-ahead bias free estimation and adjustment procedure leads to no systematic forecast improvements. Therefore, our results question the economical significance of the anchoring bias. To provide an explanation for the disconnection of statistical and economical significance, we decompose the anchoring bias test statistic and find that the test is biased itself. While the test assumes a univariate information environment, it neglects the possibility that analysts may provide superior forecasts by using a more comprehensive information set than just the univariate time series itself. Our empirical as well as our simulation results strongly support this explanation for a broad range of macroeconomic series. Our analysis contributes to different strands of literature. First, our results directly add to the scarce literature analyzing the efficiency of macroeconomic survey forecasts by showing that informational advantages of analysts, i.e., the incorporation of related macroeconomic data, enable them to outperform mechanically generated time series forecasts. Furthermore, our results provide motivation for other research areas, such as studies analyzing equity analysts' outputs, to control for a larger information set, for instance by including earnings information of related companies or information about overall business conditions. Second, our findings strongly support the assumption that macroeconomic survey forecasts represent a reasonable proxy measure for the anticipated information component in macroeconomic releases and consequently justify their use in the above mentioned research areas. Furthermore, our results highlight the danger to test for cognitive biases in a time series context which were previously only tested in controlled experiments. Especially when experiments are conducted in a highly regulated informational setting, i.e., when information given to test participants has to be strictly controlled for, as in anchoring bias experiments, it is questionable whether a direct transfer in a time series setting is possible at all. Future studies analyzing cognitive biases in time series frameworks have to consider carefully whether informational constraints might drive the results and lead to false conclusions. The first essay provides strong evidence for the quality of macroeconomic forecasts at the consensus level, the second essay deals with individual macroeconomic forecasts and analyzes why certain analysts provide better forecasts then others. In particular, we focus on the association between the idiosyncratic predictability of a given macroeconomic indicator and the relation between analyst characteristics and macroeconomic forecast accuracy. Obviously, there might be quality differences on the individual analyst level, i.e., there are more and less precise macroeconomic analysts. Exploiting these quality differences is a desirable task, because academics would obtain better proxy measures for market participants' expectations, and for investors an information advantage should translate into higher profits. We argue that if an indicator's idiosyncratic predictability is low, i.e., the series is almost not predictable, for instance due to information constrains and very volatile processes, then analysts' forecast performance is rather random than systematic because skills cannot take effect. In contrast, if a macroeconomic indicator has a high idiosyncratic predictability, then analysts with certain characteristics benefit from their abilities and skills, and generate more precise forecasts than less skilled analysts. Accordingly, for the unpredictable indicators the relation between analyst characteristics and forecast accuracy should be less pronounced than for the predictable ones. Consequently, we hypothesize that the idiosyncratic predictability of a certain macroeconomic indicator has to be taken into account whenever the relation between analyst characteristics and forecast accuracy is analyzed. So far there is only contradictory evidence concerning differences in individual forecast quality of macroeconomic analysts. While some studies provide evidence for different forecast quality among individual macroeconomic analysts (e.g. Zarnowitz, 1984; McNees, 1987; Zarnowitz and Braun, 1993; Kolb and Stekler, 1996; Brown et al., 2008) other articles come to the opposite conclusion (e.g. Stekler, 1987; Ashiya, 2006). Despite this disagreement, the relation between macroeconomic forecast accuracy differences and analyst characteristics has not been analyzed so far, although the extensive strand of literature analyzing the association of equity analyst characteristics and earnings per share forecast accuracy (e.g. Clement, 1999; Clement and Tse, 2005; Brown and Mohammad, 2010) provides a sound framework for an analysis. Most importantly, we find that model performance heavily depends on the idiosyncratic predictability of macroeconomic indicators. With decreasing idiosyncratic predictability the relevance of analyst characteristics for forecast accuracy diminishes for some characteristics and disappears for others. In terms of economic significance we find substantial differences between macroeconomic indicators with high and low idiosyncratic predictability. Consequently, our results show that the idiosyncratic predictability of a given forecast target has to be taken into account when the association between analyst characteristics and forecast accuracy is analyzed. Our findings have implications for different research areas. Most importantly we directly add to the literature analyzing individual macroeconomic analysts' forecast performance. We provide evidence that the idiosyncratic predictability of an indicator has to be taken into account if the relation between analyst characteristics and forecast accuracy is analyzed. Differentiation among analysts is only very limited if the figure to be forecasted is virtually unpredictable, because analysts do not benefit from their abilities and experiences. Systematic forecast accuracy differences arise if the forecast target is predictable at all and more skilled analysts have the opportunity to differentiate themselves form less skilled ones based on superior skills. Since there are differences in the predictability of company earnings our framework is transferable. Analogous to our findings for macroeconomic analysts, we expect that idiosyncratic predictability plays an equally important role analyzing the association between equity analysts' characteristics and their earnings per share forecast performance, i.e., for company earnings with higher idiosyncratic predictability we expect higher heterogeneity in forecast accuracy which can be explained by analyst characteristics. The first two essays provide evidence that macroeconomic predictions are in general of high quality as they incorporate rationally information from various sources. Besides the previously analyzed macroeconomic forecasts, agents such as politicians and employers, also heavily rely on other information, for example, on coincident and leading macroeconomic indicators. Determining the current state of the economy and obtaining sound projections about future overall macroeconomic developments plays an important role in their decision processes. Coincident and leading macroeconomic indicators incorporate a large set of macroeconomic variables as well as stock and bond market measures, e.g., returns and interest rate spreads. However, there is no evidence about how expectations at the microeconomic level relate to expectations at the macroeconomic level. Consequently, an aggregate of microeconomic expectation data, i.e., individual company expectations, are not included in coincident and leading macroeconomic indicators so far. To overcome this shortcoming we introduce a bottom-up approach that aggregates individual company expectations to derive macroeconomic content. Since the development of the entire economy is closely related to the development of its individual parts, among them individual companies, aggregated company information must contain macroeconomic information. Unfortunately, there is no database containing managements' expectations, however, we use equity analysts' outputs as proxy measure. Equity analysts' information sets comprise public macroeconomic-, industry- and company-specific content as well as non-public company-specific information (Grossman and Stiglitz, 1980) and is therefore arguably the best available proxy for managements' expectations. Regarding the choice of the best analyst's output we use recommendation changes instead of earnings per share (EPS) changes, because recommendations comprise more information. Besides the one year earnings estimate, recommendations also contain a series of future earnings expectations as well as interest rate and risk premium expectations. We show that aggregated recommendation changes as proxy measure for changing company outlooks have predictive power for overall economic developments. Our results provide evidence that aggregated recommendation changes, which approximate changing expectations about individual companies' economic prospects, have predictive power for future macroeconomic developments of about one year. Controlling for other well established macroeconomic predictors our results remain robust indicating that our measure contains additional independent information. Consequently, it seems promising to include our new predictor into the set of macroeconomic predictors in future applications. Additionally, we find that EPS changes have no predictive power lending support to our assumption that more forward looking information, as included in recommendation changes, is required if one attempts to forecast future macroeconomic developments. Furthermore, our findings provide the missing link between previous studies showing that aggregated analyst outputs have predictive power for overall stock market developments (Howe et al., 2009) and those showing that the stock market leads the real economy (Stock and Watson, 1998). Our results support the notion that changes in expectations about future company performance rationally determine asset values in advance of overall economic activity changes providing the explanation why stock markets lead the real economy. Overall, the three essays in this thesis advance different strands of literature. We show that macroeconomic consensus forecasts are a reliable proxy measure for market participants' expectations. Furthermore, our results provide strong evidence that it is dangerous to transfer psychological experiments into time series frameworks without appropriately controlling the informational environment. Additionally, we show that the idiosyncratic predictability of a given forecast objective, i.e. whether a forecast task is satisfyingly feasible at all, has to be taken into account whenever the association between analyst characteristics and forecast accuracy is analyzed. Macroeconomic analysts do only benefit from their superior skills compared to their competitors if the macroeconomic series is idiosyncratically predictable. For unpredictable series, forecast accuracy is rather random than systematic, because superior skills do not systematically translate in better forecasts. Finally, we show that the aggregation of forecasts on the microeconomic level, i.e., company expectations, is a promising approach to extract macroeconomic information. Overall, we conclude that macroeconomic analysts are very efficient information processors and play an important role as intermediaries in financial markets.

During Ursula von der Leyen's first mandate as European Commission President, a number of EU defence industrial initiatives were launched, while the European Defence Fund (EDF) was implemented. The fragmentation of the EU's defence industrial policy is evident in the proliferation of tools, with EDF itself, the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP), the European Defence Industry Reinforcement through Common Procurement Act (EDIS), and the European Defence Industrial Plan (EDIP) as prime examples. Yet the current landscape of fragmented tools and modest budgets is insufficient to meet the long-term challenges arising from an increasingly complex international and geopolitical context. The second von der Leyen's Commission will have to face critical decisions to properly fund and support the European defence industry to contribute to the continent's collective deterrence and defence amidst a limited and uncertain US commitment to the region.The EDF: A good tool that needs a production complement
The EDF, which started functioning in 2021, is a primary instrument for enhancing technological and industrial cooperation in defence among EU companies and governments. The EDF has been managed directly by the Commission with a budget of approximately 8 billion euros for 2021-2027. It aims to enhance the competitiveness, innovation and efficiency of Europe's defence industry by promoting collaboration among EU companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and research centres, in order to develop outputs that are useful for the European armed forces. In doing so, it aspires to support Europe's strategic autonomy.
To meet these aims, the EDF faces significant challenges. One major issue is the need for a long-term strategy to ensure continuity in defence research and development (R&D) programmes, which often require sustained funding beyond short budget cycles. Moreover, without a follow-up programme to apply technologies developed by the EDF to the production processes, companies within EDF consortia have little incentive to really share cutting-edge technologies and develop them together, as rather happens in bilateral or trilateral forms of extra-EU cooperation that have a clear production goal to reach,[1] for example, the trilateral cooperation within the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) aimed at developing the sixth-generation fighter jet.Timely but limited support to European ammunition production for Ukraine
The outbreak and persistence of the war in Ukraine exposed the insufficiency of the tools available to European defence, particularly in addressing immediate challenges. The EDF, while valuable in fostering long-term cooperation, is constrained by lengthy timelines – for example, more than six months often elapse between the submission of a proposal and the awarding of contracts. Moreover, its impact is limited in certain critical areas, such as ammunition production, which has become an urgent priority due to stock shortages exacerbated by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
In response, in 2023, the EU institutions quickly launched ASAP, the Act in Support of Ammunition Production. It is a pillar of European assistance to Ukraine regarding ammunition and missile supply, aimed at ensuring continuity in military support and enabling a longer-term outlook. However, while addressing pressing needs, this approach risks further increasing fragmentation within the European defence landscape.
While member states initially contributed to Kyiv's defence by donating portions of their existing but limited arsenals, soon the need for joint procurement measures arose to mitigate supply chain bottlenecks and sharp price inflation.[2] The ASAP regulation[3] establishes mechanisms for mapping, monitoring and forecasting supply chain bottlenecks; provides financial support for production ramp-up within European defence industries; and introduces a temporary regulatory framework to address the ammunition supply crisis.[4]
With an EU budget allocation of 500 million euros for 2023–2025, ASAP aims to mobilise further investment, targeting around one billion euros across the ammunition production chain, with a view to increasing production in Europe to around one million shells per year. Despite its positive aspects, ASAP faces criticism as its budget appears insufficient to meet its ambitious goals. Notably, the European Peace Facility (EPF) reimbursement of member states' military donations to Ukraine amounts to a far bigger envelope of around 12 billion euros, but this measure is not primarily aimed at enhancing the European defence technological industrial base, as it does not privilege joint acquisition nor EU suppliers.Advantages and shortcomings of the European Defence Industrial Strategy
Compared with the more specific and targeted approach of the ASAP initiative, the European Commission in 2024 introduced the European Defence Industry Strategy (EDIS), a broader, long-term plan to strengthen the EU's defence industry. This strategy, now entering negotiation phases with member states and the European Parliament, is scheduled for adoption by 2025. Central to EDIS is the proposed European Defence Industrial Programme (EDIP), equipped with its regulatory framework and a budget of 1.5 billion euros through 2027, via a model similar to the EDF. Mainly motivated by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, EDIS aims to enhance the EU's military and industrial readiness. The strategy focuses on joint production and procurement of military equipment, with member states retaining ownership of the assets they finance under EDIP. Given that the current budget is inadequate in light of EDIS ambitions, a steep increase of EDIP funding over the 2028–2035 multiannual financial framework is necessary.[5]
Beyond financial incentives, one of the strategy's core proposals is establishing a European 'security of supply' regime. In practical terms, it aims to offer member states specific guarantees when procuring supplies from EU-based manufacturers, reinforcing intra-European supply reliability and reducing dependence on non-EU suppliers. To further bolster this focus, EDIS introduces a catalogue of products developed by the European defence industry, thus making EU-manufactured products more visible and possibly more appealing[6] than those from the United States that benefit from strong marketing infrastructures.
EDIS also features structural initiatives to reduce market fragmentation, by promoting mutual recognition of national certifications and standardising requirements. The Commission aims to align EU civil and military standards with NATO's Standardisation Agreements (STANAGs) to foster a more integrated market. Additionally, EDIS encourages the European Investment Bank (EIB) to revise its lending policies to support defence projects, which are now considered aligned with EU goals on sustainability and ethical finance and should attract further investment from the financial markets. The latter element could have a significant domino effect in terms of private investment in this sector, but it should be pursued by member states that play a role in the EIB governance itself.
Overall, EDIS has received positive feedback but also some criticism. Among the latter, the limited influence the strategy gives to national armed forces in defining defence market demand, focusing instead on reinforcing the relationship between the Commission and the defence industry. Additionally, the strategy's limited reference to NATO has raised concerns about the lack of alignment with the Alliance objectives, which are agreed upon by 23 members of both organisations and deeply shape these countries' defence posture, planning and needs.
The strategy also proposes creating the European Defence Board, a new body that includes member states, the High Representative and the Commission. Under Commission oversight, the Board will centralise EU procurement planning and set funding priorities, marking a gradual yet significant shift in EU governance towards more centralisation at the community level. This change goes hand in hand with the first-ever appointment of a European Defence Commissioner, former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius, with no military mandate but a significant portfolio of competencies and budget for the defence and space industry.
It remains to be seen whether and how the EDIS architecture and Commissioner's activities will align with existing intergovernmental frameworks developed over the last decade by member states together with European defence agencies, such as the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), Capability Development Plan (CDP) and Coordinated Annual Review of Defence (CARD). Indeed, the significant number of EU acronyms reflects a complex and fragmented landscape of diverse initiatives launched by different European actors over the last two decades, limited in scope and not necessarily aligned with one another.The added value of a White Paper on European defence
The framework of European defence initiatives becomes even more complex and fragmented as the second von der Leyen Commission has committed to deliver a European Defence White Paper by the end of 2024, with President von der Leyen also raising the idea of EU flagship common projects, for example, on air defence and cyber.[7] Considering the number of initiatives already launched or in the making, this White Paper should (i) bring some form of integration and rationalisation among them, (ii) focus on a few key priorities, and (iii) put financial resources proportionate to the level of ambitions on the table. Otherwise, the risk is to increase the complexity and inefficiency of the EU's toolbox and thus discourage member states from using it.
Indeed, considering the rise of the national and European defence budget since 2022 and the urgency to face the Russian threat, the prevailing tendency in Europe is to resort to national procurement, and/or to bilateral, trilateral or mini-lateral cooperation, which seem to be more effective, efficient and rapid to manage despite the resulting fragmentation and limited economies of scale. Against this backdrop, any new EU initiative should first and foremost prove its use case and timely implementation in order to provide added value.The impact of the Trump presidency on European defence spending and industry
More generally, the White Paper should recognise the changes and challenges brought about by the new US administration. The upcoming Trump presidency will indeed push in a very firm way European allies to reach the threshold of two per cent of GDP invested in defence and maintain it over the long term, linking this requirement to the US commitment to NATO.[8] Currently, seven allies still lag behind that target, including Italy and Spain, while Germany faces uncertainties over the sustainability of its two per cent spending beyond the expiration of the una tantum Zeitenwende budget in 2026. The incoming US administration and some European countries may push NATO to set up higher budgetary goals soon, as recently mentioned by the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.[9]
In parallel, President Trump is likely to strongly link security and trade considerations and push Europeans to buy US-made military equipment. Washington's pressure may well result in augmented defence spending in Europe and increased dependence on American suppliers to secure US commitment to NATO collective deterrence and defence. This will be an essential factor in the calculus of several member states with regard to the balance between EU defence industrial initiatives and procurement deals with the US.
This recent change in the US administration, along with its implications for global security, underscores the urgency for the EU to implement a comprehensive industrial strategy to strengthen its defence capabilities. In this context, the broader challenge lies in addressing the fragmented nature of the demand side of the European defence market and ensuring a clear allocation of roles and competences among EU institutions. The European Commission, increasingly asserting its leadership in defence industrial policy – exemplified by the recent appointment of Andrius Kubilius as the new commissioner –, will need to work closely with other bodies, such as the European Defence Agency (EDA), as well as member states to achieve better coordination in managing the industrial aspects of defence. To rise to the occasion, the EU should make a quantum leap in funding, integration and ambition, transforming its defence capabilities from a patchwork of modest initiatives into a cornerstone of Europe's security.Gaia Ravazzolo is a Junior Researcher in the Defence Programme at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). Alessandro Marrone is the Head of the IAI Defence Programme.[1] Michele Nones, Alessandro Marrone and Gaia Ravazzolo, "Lo stato del processo di integrazione del mercato europeo della difesa", in Approfondimenti dell'Osservatorio di politica internazionale, No. 212 (March 2024), https://www.iai.it/en/node/18240.[2] Italian Senate Research Service, "ASAP, EDIRPA e il bando 2023 di EDF: le nuove iniziative per il rafforzamento dell'industria europea della difesa", in Note su atti dell'Unione europea, No. 16 (September 2023), https://www.senato.it/japp/bgt/showdoc/19/DOSSIER/0/1387462/index.html.[3] European Parliament and Council of the EU, Regulation (EU) 2023/1525 of 20 July 2023 on Supporting Ammunition Production (ASAP), http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1525/oj.[4] European Commission DG Defence Industry and Space website: ASAP | Boosting Defence Production, https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/node/453_en.[5] Alessandro Marrone, "La nuova strategia industriale Ue per la difesa", in AffarInternazionali, 7 March 2024, https://www.affarinternazionali.it/?p=107179.[6] European Commission, First Ever Defence Industrial Strategy and a New Defence Industry Programme to Enhance Europe's Readiness and Security, 5 March 2024, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1321.[7] "Von der Leyen Pledges Air Shield in New EU Defence Push", in Reuters, 18 July 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/von-der-leyen-pledges-air-shield-new-eu-defence-push-2024-07-18.[8] Oman Al Yahyai, "Trump Urges Immediate Ceasefire in Ukraine and Suggests NATO Role Rethinking", in Euronews, 9 December 2024, https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/09/trump-urges-immediate-ceasefire-in-ukraine-and-suggests-nato-role-rethinking.[9] Lorne Cook, "NATO Chief Urges European Allies to Ramp Up Defense Spending as Trump Returns to White House", in AP News, 4 December 2024, https://apnews.com/article/3cf6e8da6da08cbf84686d0b5f518f5a.

During Ursula von der Leyen's first mandate as European Commission President, a number of EU defence industrial initiatives were launched, while the European Defence Fund (EDF) was implemented. The fragmentation of the EU's defence industrial policy is evident in the proliferation of tools, with EDF itself, the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP), the European Defence Industry Reinforcement through Common Procurement Act (EDIS), and the European Defence Industrial Plan (EDIP) as prime examples. Yet the current landscape of fragmented tools and modest budgets is insufficient to meet the long-term challenges arising from an increasingly complex international and geopolitical context. The second von der Leyen's Commission will have to face critical decisions to properly fund and support the European defence industry to contribute to the continent's collective deterrence and defence amidst a limited and uncertain US commitment to the region.The EDF: A good tool that needs a production complement
The EDF, which started functioning in 2021, is a primary instrument for enhancing technological and industrial cooperation in defence among EU companies and governments. The EDF has been managed directly by the Commission with a budget of approximately 8 billion euros for 2021-2027. It aims to enhance the competitiveness, innovation and efficiency of Europe's defence industry by promoting collaboration among EU companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and research centres, in order to develop outputs that are useful for the European armed forces. In doing so, it aspires to support Europe's strategic autonomy.
To meet these aims, the EDF faces significant challenges. One major issue is the need for a long-term strategy to ensure continuity in defence research and development (R&D) programmes, which often require sustained funding beyond short budget cycles. Moreover, without a follow-up programme to apply technologies developed by the EDF to the production processes, companies within EDF consortia have little incentive to really share cutting-edge technologies and develop them together, as rather happens in bilateral or trilateral forms of extra-EU cooperation that have a clear production goal to reach,[1] for example, the trilateral cooperation within the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) aimed at developing the sixth-generation fighter jet.Timely but limited support to European ammunition production for Ukraine
The outbreak and persistence of the war in Ukraine exposed the insufficiency of the tools available to European defence, particularly in addressing immediate challenges. The EDF, while valuable in fostering long-term cooperation, is constrained by lengthy timelines – for example, more than six months often elapse between the submission of a proposal and the awarding of contracts. Moreover, its impact is limited in certain critical areas, such as ammunition production, which has become an urgent priority due to stock shortages exacerbated by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
In response, in 2023, the EU institutions quickly launched ASAP, the Act in Support of Ammunition Production. It is a pillar of European assistance to Ukraine regarding ammunition and missile supply, aimed at ensuring continuity in military support and enabling a longer-term outlook. However, while addressing pressing needs, this approach risks further increasing fragmentation within the European defence landscape.
While member states initially contributed to Kyiv's defence by donating portions of their existing but limited arsenals, soon the need for joint procurement measures arose to mitigate supply chain bottlenecks and sharp price inflation.[2] The ASAP regulation[3] establishes mechanisms for mapping, monitoring and forecasting supply chain bottlenecks; provides financial support for production ramp-up within European defence industries; and introduces a temporary regulatory framework to address the ammunition supply crisis.[4]
With an EU budget allocation of 500 million euros for 2023–2025, ASAP aims to mobilise further investment, targeting around one billion euros across the ammunition production chain, with a view to increasing production in Europe to around one million shells per year. Despite its positive aspects, ASAP faces criticism as its budget appears insufficient to meet its ambitious goals. Notably, the European Peace Facility (EPF) reimbursement of member states' military donations to Ukraine amounts to a far bigger envelope of around 12 billion euros, but this measure is not primarily aimed at enhancing the European defence technological industrial base, as it does not privilege joint acquisition nor EU suppliers.Advantages and shortcomings of the European Defence Industrial Strategy
Compared with the more specific and targeted approach of the ASAP initiative, the European Commission in 2024 introduced the European Defence Industry Strategy (EDIS), a broader, long-term plan to strengthen the EU's defence industry. This strategy, now entering negotiation phases with member states and the European Parliament, is scheduled for adoption by 2025. Central to EDIS is the proposed European Defence Industrial Programme (EDIP), equipped with its regulatory framework and a budget of 1.5 billion euros through 2027, via a model similar to the EDF. Mainly motivated by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, EDIS aims to enhance the EU's military and industrial readiness. The strategy focuses on joint production and procurement of military equipment, with member states retaining ownership of the assets they finance under EDIP. Given that the current budget is inadequate in light of EDIS ambitions, a steep increase of EDIP funding over the 2028–2035 multiannual financial framework is necessary.[5]
Beyond financial incentives, one of the strategy's core proposals is establishing a European 'security of supply' regime. In practical terms, it aims to offer member states specific guarantees when procuring supplies from EU-based manufacturers, reinforcing intra-European supply reliability and reducing dependence on non-EU suppliers. To further bolster this focus, EDIS introduces a catalogue of products developed by the European defence industry, thus making EU-manufactured products more visible and possibly more appealing[6] than those from the United States that benefit from strong marketing infrastructures.
EDIS also features structural initiatives to reduce market fragmentation, by promoting mutual recognition of national certifications and standardising requirements. The Commission aims to align EU civil and military standards with NATO's Standardisation Agreements (STANAGs) to foster a more integrated market. Additionally, EDIS encourages the European Investment Bank (EIB) to revise its lending policies to support defence projects, which are now considered aligned with EU goals on sustainability and ethical finance and should attract further investment from the financial markets. The latter element could have a significant domino effect in terms of private investment in this sector, but it should be pursued by member states that play a role in the EIB governance itself.
Overall, EDIS has received positive feedback but also some criticism. Among the latter, the limited influence the strategy gives to national armed forces in defining defence market demand, focusing instead on reinforcing the relationship between the Commission and the defence industry. Additionally, the strategy's limited reference to NATO has raised concerns about the lack of alignment with the Alliance objectives, which are agreed upon by 23 members of both organisations and deeply shape these countries' defence posture, planning and needs.
The strategy also proposes creating the European Defence Board, a new body that includes member states, the High Representative and the Commission. Under Commission oversight, the Board will centralise EU procurement planning and set funding priorities, marking a gradual yet significant shift in EU governance towards more centralisation at the community level. This change goes hand in hand with the first-ever appointment of a European Defence Commissioner, former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius, with no military mandate but a significant portfolio of competencies and budget for the defence and space industry.
It remains to be seen whether and how the EDIS architecture and Commissioner's activities will align with existing intergovernmental frameworks developed over the last decade by member states together with European defence agencies, such as the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), Capability Development Plan (CDP) and Coordinated Annual Review of Defence (CARD). Indeed, the significant number of EU acronyms reflects a complex and fragmented landscape of diverse initiatives launched by different European actors over the last two decades, limited in scope and not necessarily aligned with one another.The added value of a White Paper on European defence
The framework of European defence initiatives becomes even more complex and fragmented as the second von der Leyen Commission has committed to deliver a European Defence White Paper by the end of 2024, with President von der Leyen also raising the idea of EU flagship common projects, for example, on air defence and cyber.[7] Considering the number of initiatives already launched or in the making, this White Paper should (i) bring some form of integration and rationalisation among them, (ii) focus on a few key priorities, and (iii) put financial resources proportionate to the level of ambitions on the table. Otherwise, the risk is to increase the complexity and inefficiency of the EU's toolbox and thus discourage member states from using it.
Indeed, considering the rise of the national and European defence budget since 2022 and the urgency to face the Russian threat, the prevailing tendency in Europe is to resort to national procurement, and/or to bilateral, trilateral or mini-lateral cooperation, which seem to be more effective, efficient and rapid to manage despite the resulting fragmentation and limited economies of scale. Against this backdrop, any new EU initiative should first and foremost prove its use case and timely implementation in order to provide added value.The impact of the Trump presidency on European defence spending and industry
More generally, the White Paper should recognise the changes and challenges brought about by the new US administration. The upcoming Trump presidency will indeed push in a very firm way European allies to reach the threshold of two per cent of GDP invested in defence and maintain it over the long term, linking this requirement to the US commitment to NATO.[8] Currently, seven allies still lag behind that target, including Italy and Spain, while Germany faces uncertainties over the sustainability of its two per cent spending beyond the expiration of the una tantum Zeitenwende budget in 2026. The incoming US administration and some European countries may push NATO to set up higher budgetary goals soon, as recently mentioned by the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.[9]
In parallel, President Trump is likely to strongly link security and trade considerations and push Europeans to buy US-made military equipment. Washington's pressure may well result in augmented defence spending in Europe and increased dependence on American suppliers to secure US commitment to NATO collective deterrence and defence. This will be an essential factor in the calculus of several member states with regard to the balance between EU defence industrial initiatives and procurement deals with the US.
This recent change in the US administration, along with its implications for global security, underscores the urgency for the EU to implement a comprehensive industrial strategy to strengthen its defence capabilities. In this context, the broader challenge lies in addressing the fragmented nature of the demand side of the European defence market and ensuring a clear allocation of roles and competences among EU institutions. The European Commission, increasingly asserting its leadership in defence industrial policy – exemplified by the recent appointment of Andrius Kubilius as the new commissioner –, will need to work closely with other bodies, such as the European Defence Agency (EDA), as well as member states to achieve better coordination in managing the industrial aspects of defence. To rise to the occasion, the EU should make a quantum leap in funding, integration and ambition, transforming its defence capabilities from a patchwork of modest initiatives into a cornerstone of Europe's security.Gaia Ravazzolo is a Junior Researcher in the Defence Programme at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). Alessandro Marrone is the Head of the IAI Defence Programme.[1] Michele Nones, Alessandro Marrone and Gaia Ravazzolo, "Lo stato del processo di integrazione del mercato europeo della difesa", in Approfondimenti dell'Osservatorio di politica internazionale, No. 212 (March 2024), https://www.iai.it/en/node/18240.[2] Italian Senate Research Service, "ASAP, EDIRPA e il bando 2023 di EDF: le nuove iniziative per il rafforzamento dell'industria europea della difesa", in Note su atti dell'Unione europea, No. 16 (September 2023), https://www.senato.it/japp/bgt/showdoc/19/DOSSIER/0/1387462/index.html.[3] European Parliament and Council of the EU, Regulation (EU) 2023/1525 of 20 July 2023 on Supporting Ammunition Production (ASAP), http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1525/oj.[4] European Commission DG Defence Industry and Space website: ASAP | Boosting Defence Production, https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/node/453_en.[5] Alessandro Marrone, "La nuova strategia industriale Ue per la difesa", in AffarInternazionali, 7 March 2024, https://www.affarinternazionali.it/?p=107179.[6] European Commission, First Ever Defence Industrial Strategy and a New Defence Industry Programme to Enhance Europe's Readiness and Security, 5 March 2024, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1321.[7] "Von der Leyen Pledges Air Shield in New EU Defence Push", in Reuters, 18 July 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/von-der-leyen-pledges-air-shield-new-eu-defence-push-2024-07-18.[8] Oman Al Yahyai, "Trump Urges Immediate Ceasefire in Ukraine and Suggests NATO Role Rethinking", in Euronews, 9 December 2024, https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/09/trump-urges-immediate-ceasefire-in-ukraine-and-suggests-nato-role-rethinking.[9] Lorne Cook, "NATO Chief Urges European Allies to Ramp Up Defense Spending as Trump Returns to White House", in AP News, 4 December 2024, https://apnews.com/article/3cf6e8da6da08cbf84686d0b5f518f5a.

IntroductionIndo-Pacific institutional development has been intensifying amid growing strategic competition. A rising China has rolled out new initiatives, Washington is building like-minded coalitions like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) faces challenges to its status as a hub for multilateral diplomacy. The dynamics this institutional flux produce is critical to the Indo-Pacific's trajectory and US interests. The emerging Indo-Pacific institutional mix in the coming years will help shape norms, the balance of power and policy areas of US importance across core Indo-Pacific subregions such as the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and Southeast Asia. This policy brief explores the ongoing Indo-Pacific institutional flux and the opportunities and challenges it creates. It is informed by conversations with policymakers and experts across key Indo-Pacific capitals, including multiple trips across the region. The brief makes three main arguments. First, this period of Indo-Pacific institutional flux is notable for the increasing pressure on multilateralism, the formation of looser bilateral partnerships as well as several varieties of minilaterals. Four types of minilaterals are particularly evident: sectoral, partnership, major-power led and issue-based minilaterals. Second, these changes impact evolving dynamics in the institutional space. Five components are especially notable: centeredness; inclusivity; value; efficiency; and transparency. Third, actors, including regional states as well as the US and its partners, can help shape the direction of this Indo-Pacific institutional flux in ways that advance a shared vision of a free and open region. Indo-Pacific Institutional Flux in PerspectiveThis period of Indo-Pacific institutional flux is just the latest we have seen over the decades. During the Cold War, Asian states formed indigenous groupings apart from the network of US alliances. This included ASEAN in Southeast Asia in 1967 or the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in South Asia in 1985. Some set up new institutions to accommodate balance of power shifts, with a case in point being the Five Power Defense Arrangements (FPDA) between Australia, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore in the face of British withdrawal from Southeast Asia. The post-Cold War period in the 1990s and into early 2000s saw greater impetus to utilize new institutions like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) to pursue integration. Meanwhile, ASEAN cemented its role as an Indo-Pacific convenor by hosting annual leader meetings via the East Asia Summit (EAS) process. But periodic crises also revealed the limits of these new institutions. The clearest example of this in the early 2000s was the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which sparked the first iteration of the subsequently revived and recalibrated Quad. The 2010s and 2020s have seen a period of Indo-Pacific institutional flux. This is characterized by greater pressures on multilateralism, proliferating minilaterals and bilateral partnerships as well as cementing of the Indo-Pacific strategic concept. Existing institutions like ASEAN are facing growing headwinds, while new groups are being created as countries seek more flexible cooperation amid a series of factors including erosion of aspects of the rules-based order; US-China competition; and the intensification of trends such as climate change and digitalization. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia, traditionally one of the Indo-Pacific's most diplomatically active countries, has termed this an "age of flux". The headlines around minilateral institutions tend to focus heavily on cases like the Australia-UK-US trilateral security mechanism (AUKUS). Beyond AUKUS or the Quad, countries apart from the US, including in Southeast Asia, are also pursuing minilateralism to address challenges more quickly and flexibly. This includes the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) kicked off between Chile, New Zealand and Singapore, or the Sulu Sea trilateral patrols between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Beyond AUKUS or the Quad, countries apart from the US, including in Southeast Asia, are also pursuing minilateralism to address challenges more quickly and flexibly.As it stands today, the minilateral label has been applied loosely to institutions of different types. These groupings exist alongside relatively newer bilateral and multilateral mechanisms. These include the EU-India Trade and Technology Council (TTC) established in 2021 or the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) grouping ASEAN, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea – the world's largest free trade pact that entered into force in 2022. Some minilaterals, such as the Australia-India-Japan trilateral, India-Israel-UAE-US mechanism (I2U2) or the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership CPTPP) in the trade space, are partnership minilaterals, with multiple countries working on issues across sectors. This is in contrast to minilaterals led by one power, as seen in the Mekong subregion in Southeast Asia with China's Lancang Mekong Cooperation (LMC) or the Mekong-US Partnership (MUSP). Similarly, some minilaterals are focused around a specific sector. Examples here include DEPA and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Others have an even narrower focus. For example, the Malacca Straits Patrols (MSP) in place since the 2000s involve policing in the Malacca Straits, and Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) touch on energy and the environment. Despite these categorizations, institutions can overlap or move across them over time for various reasons. These include membership expansion, agenda shifts and changing leaderships. Table 1: Select Categories of Minilateral Institutions in the Recent SpotlightImage CreditEvolving Strategic Dynamics This new period of Indo-Pacific institutional flux contributes to several strategic dynamics that affect calculations of key actors including ASEAN, China, the US and powers such as Australia, India and Japan. Dynamics are notable across five areas: centeredness; inclusivity; value; efficiency; and transparency. They add up to the acronym CIVET. The first is around centeredness. Most notably, the challenges ASEAN faces as an institution, coupled with the consequences of minilaterals like the Quad and AUKUS, have intensified fears in ASEAN of loss of the grouping's traditional "centrality". This threatens to sideline an organization that is the Indo-Pacific's default diplomatic convener even if it has fallen short on addressing challenges such as Myanmar or the South China Sea. The second is around inclusivity. The growth of new US- and China-led institutions amid growing competition complicates the idealistic quest for open, inclusive regionalism. The US and its partners are spearheading more exclusive and like-minded groupings like AUKUS to address Beijing's growing military capabilities in ways that multilateral fora cannot. Though China cries foul about containment, Beijing is building exclusive, China-led mechanisms to boost its influence. At times, this is done with the window dressing of "Asia for Asians" that one official described to the author as "China-first" with an "Asia -first disguise". Beyond what it means for US interests, Beijing's moves also raise concerns for other powers, be it India in the Indian Ocean or Australia in the Pacific. Periodic developments have spotlighted some of this, be it new China-led mechanisms on the Indian Ocean or aspects of Beijing's agreements with the Pacific. The third is around value. The birth of new institutions has intensified the value proposition challenge for existing and newer mechanisms alike. For instance, in the economic realm, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) has made select inroads in areas like supply chains. But it faced initial questions about its value proposition for lacking market access provisions. In the security realm, the Quad has been gradually clearer about its regional value proposition. The Quad's efforts to support scholarships and establish working groups across shared priority areas like health and climate defined an agenda beyond just balancing China. Indeed, some survey data point to relatively greater support in regions like Southeast Asia for the Quad after initial skepticism. The birth of new institutions has intensified the value proposition challenge for existing and newer mechanisms alike.The fourth is around efficiency. The growth of institutions has intensified concerns around inefficiency caused by overlaps, duplication and siloing. Silos can hamper the performance of proliferating regional frameworks, with major powers having different conceptions of how this strategic space fits into their mind maps. The Mekong subregion is an example. There have been repeated calls within the region for limiting inefficiencies caused by duplication among the over dozen Mekong frameworks in place. These include those led by regional states like Thailand or by powers like Japan and South Korea. One senior official from a Mekong country described the institutional dilemma to the author as being caught between "overdominance" by China and "overcrowding" by institutional proliferation to further national interests and check Beijing's rise. The fifth is around transparency. This is often most referenced in the security realm, with cases including the perceived lack of adequacy in initial AUKUS consultations or the disclosure of China-driven secret regional agreements on police presence or naval facilities. But this applies to the economic realm too. For instance, original Trans-Pacific Partnership talks saw repeated requests for more transparency by legislatures and civil society actors in the US and among some other negotiating partners. This raises broader questions about the extent of transparency required as countries enter looser and more informal partnerships that may not require formal approval. Table 2: Select Strategic Dynamics Components Amid Indo-Pacific Institutional FluxImage CreditPolicy ImplicationsAdjusting to this period of Indo-Pacific institutional flux will require actions from a range of actors including institutions, regional states and key powers. For the US and its partners, efforts to adjust to Indo-Pacific institutional flux would ideally both provide a foundation for countries to address shared challenges while also reinforcing a free, open and multipolar regional order rather than one dominated by China.1. Shoring Up ASEANASEAN is an indispensable part of sustainably adjusting to Indo-Pacific institutional flux as the region's default convening hub for diplomacy. At a minimum, all Southeast Asian states must set a clear floor of commitment to ASEAN centrality that includes avoiding self-inflicted wounds, as we saw with the lack of a South China Sea joint statement in 2012. Preserving a semblance of unity is part of the "collective responsibility" of member states enshrined in the ASEAN Charter. More forward-leaning Southeast Asian states should push internal structural reforms to make ASEAN more responsive and flexible. Strengthening select institutions like the East Asia Summit would be a useful step to maintain major power interest in ASEAN, even if oft-discussed steps like a formal softening of consensus-based decision-making by expanding "ASEAN Minus X" arrangements prove difficult. Efforts should also be made to streamline institutional work and boost connectivity between ASEAN and minilaterals within Southeast Asia. Recent examples include the quest for greater institutional clarity in the maritime domain and more engagement with the Mekong River Commission."ASEAN is an indispensable part of sustainably adjusting to Indo-Pacific institutional flux as the region's default convening hub for diplomacy."2. Strengthening Subregional Mechanisms and Connections to Regional ArchitectureOther active states should strengthen subregional institutions and connect them to the wider regional architecture. The Pacific is a case in point, with the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent providing an indigenous longer-term subregional plan which major powers can dock on to rather than the agenda being externally-driven. In South Asia, India plays an important bridging role given its heft and connectivity potential with institutions in other parts of the region. These include the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and Mekong Ganga Cooperation Initiative (MGC) that connect New Delhi to Southeast Asia. More diplomatically active countries like Indonesia can play a role to advocate for more ASEAN engagement with other regional institutions to facilitate connectivity. 3. Managing New Institutional Development in a Context of US-China CompetitionBoth the US and China should be mindful of actions that can undermine institutional development as the Indo-Pacific's two leading powers, be it China's lack of transparency in its Pacific engagement or the initial US discouraging of certain partners to not join Beijing's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Other regional actors like ASEAN also have a role in setting out common principles for institutional development amid major power divergences.4. Greater US Engagement in Regional "Variable Geometry"The US should engage Indo-Pacific institutions sustainably with a narrative that balances creating new institutions and engaging with the existing architecture. This counters notions that Washington is undermining ASEAN centrality or dividing the region. For example, US officials could apply the articulation of "variable geometry" to describe its global approach to institutions to message US comprehensive institutional engagement in the Indo-Pacific. This narrative would go beyond security institutions like the Quad or AUKUS and highlight US economic institutional examples, such as the private partnership under the I2U2 or the new US-Singapore technology pact – which officials say Washington only currently has with three other countries in India, Israel and South Korea.5. Entrenching a Shared Multipolar Vision in Institutional DevelopmentOther major powers have a critical role to play in shaping the institutional agenda through an open, transparent, inclusive process that promotes a multipolar region. Examples include Australia's socializing of AUKUS with the wider region after its initial mixed reception as well as Japan encouraging Washington to be more inclusive in searching for IPEF partners. Speaking out on the need for open regionalism can be helpful. One example referenced by regional interlocutors was Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar's 2022 speech, where he warned that "Asia for Asians" conceptions pushed by Beijing can seem like "narrow Asian chauvinism." 6. Linking Global Institutions to Regional ArchitectureRegional and global actors and institutions can help boost connections with Indo-Pacific architecture. This would create more options for states amid greater calls for representation in parts of the Global South and expansion efforts by other institutions such as the BRICS. Cases in point include the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) efforts to kickstart more Indo-Pacific country partnerships as well as the G-7 and G-20 being more representative about agendas and even adjusting membership as we have seen with the African Union.

IntroductionIndo-Pacific institutional development has been intensifying amid growing strategic competition. A rising China has rolled out new initiatives, Washington is building like-minded coalitions like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) faces challenges to its status as a hub for multilateral diplomacy. The dynamics this institutional flux produce is critical to the Indo-Pacific's trajectory and US interests. The emerging Indo-Pacific institutional mix in the coming years will help shape norms, the balance of power and policy areas of US importance across core Indo-Pacific subregions such as the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and Southeast Asia. This policy brief explores the ongoing Indo-Pacific institutional flux and the opportunities and challenges it creates. It is informed by conversations with policymakers and experts across key Indo-Pacific capitals, including multiple trips across the region. The brief makes three main arguments. First, this period of Indo-Pacific institutional flux is notable for the increasing pressure on multilateralism, the formation of looser bilateral partnerships as well as several varieties of minilaterals. Four types of minilaterals are particularly evident: sectoral, partnership, major-power led and issue-based minilaterals. Second, these changes impact evolving dynamics in the institutional space. Five components are especially notable: centeredness; inclusivity; value; efficiency; and transparency. Third, actors, including regional states as well as the US and its partners, can help shape the direction of this Indo-Pacific institutional flux in ways that advance a shared vision of a free and open region. Indo-Pacific Institutional Flux in PerspectiveThis period of Indo-Pacific institutional flux is just the latest we have seen over the decades. During the Cold War, Asian states formed indigenous groupings apart from the network of US alliances. This included ASEAN in Southeast Asia in 1967 or the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in South Asia in 1985. Some set up new institutions to accommodate balance of power shifts, with a case in point being the Five Power Defense Arrangements (FPDA) between Australia, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore in the face of British withdrawal from Southeast Asia. The post-Cold War period in the 1990s and into early 2000s saw greater impetus to utilize new institutions like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) to pursue integration. Meanwhile, ASEAN cemented its role as an Indo-Pacific convenor by hosting annual leader meetings via the East Asia Summit (EAS) process. But periodic crises also revealed the limits of these new institutions. The clearest example of this in the early 2000s was the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which sparked the first iteration of the subsequently revived and recalibrated Quad. The 2010s and 2020s have seen a period of Indo-Pacific institutional flux. This is characterized by greater pressures on multilateralism, proliferating minilaterals and bilateral partnerships as well as cementing of the Indo-Pacific strategic concept. Existing institutions like ASEAN are facing growing headwinds, while new groups are being created as countries seek more flexible cooperation amid a series of factors including erosion of aspects of the rules-based order; US-China competition; and the intensification of trends such as climate change and digitalization. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia, traditionally one of the Indo-Pacific's most diplomatically active countries, has termed this an "age of flux". The headlines around minilateral institutions tend to focus heavily on cases like the Australia-UK-US trilateral security mechanism (AUKUS). Beyond AUKUS or the Quad, countries apart from the US, including in Southeast Asia, are also pursuing minilateralism to address challenges more quickly and flexibly. This includes the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) kicked off between Chile, New Zealand and Singapore, or the Sulu Sea trilateral patrols between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Beyond AUKUS or the Quad, countries apart from the US, including in Southeast Asia, are also pursuing minilateralism to address challenges more quickly and flexibly.As it stands today, the minilateral label has been applied loosely to institutions of different types. These groupings exist alongside relatively newer bilateral and multilateral mechanisms. These include the EU-India Trade and Technology Council (TTC) established in 2021 or the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) grouping ASEAN, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea – the world's largest free trade pact that entered into force in 2022. Some minilaterals, such as the Australia-India-Japan trilateral, India-Israel-UAE-US mechanism (I2U2) or the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership CPTPP) in the trade space, are partnership minilaterals, with multiple countries working on issues across sectors. This is in contrast to minilaterals led by one power, as seen in the Mekong subregion in Southeast Asia with China's Lancang Mekong Cooperation (LMC) or the Mekong-US Partnership (MUSP). Similarly, some minilaterals are focused around a specific sector. Examples here include DEPA and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Others have an even narrower focus. For example, the Malacca Straits Patrols (MSP) in place since the 2000s involve policing in the Malacca Straits, and Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) touch on energy and the environment. Despite these categorizations, institutions can overlap or move across them over time for various reasons. These include membership expansion, agenda shifts and changing leaderships. Table 1: Select Categories of Minilateral Institutions in the Recent SpotlightImage CreditEvolving Strategic Dynamics This new period of Indo-Pacific institutional flux contributes to several strategic dynamics that affect calculations of key actors including ASEAN, China, the US and powers such as Australia, India and Japan. Dynamics are notable across five areas: centeredness; inclusivity; value; efficiency; and transparency. They add up to the acronym CIVET. The first is around centeredness. Most notably, the challenges ASEAN faces as an institution, coupled with the consequences of minilaterals like the Quad and AUKUS, have intensified fears in ASEAN of loss of the grouping's traditional "centrality". This threatens to sideline an organization that is the Indo-Pacific's default diplomatic convener even if it has fallen short on addressing challenges such as Myanmar or the South China Sea. The second is around inclusivity. The growth of new US- and China-led institutions amid growing competition complicates the idealistic quest for open, inclusive regionalism. The US and its partners are spearheading more exclusive and like-minded groupings like AUKUS to address Beijing's growing military capabilities in ways that multilateral fora cannot. Though China cries foul about containment, Beijing is building exclusive, China-led mechanisms to boost its influence. At times, this is done with the window dressing of "Asia for Asians" that one official described to the author as "China-first" with an "Asia -first disguise". Beyond what it means for US interests, Beijing's moves also raise concerns for other powers, be it India in the Indian Ocean or Australia in the Pacific. Periodic developments have spotlighted some of this, be it new China-led mechanisms on the Indian Ocean or aspects of Beijing's agreements with the Pacific. The third is around value. The birth of new institutions has intensified the value proposition challenge for existing and newer mechanisms alike. For instance, in the economic realm, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) has made select inroads in areas like supply chains. But it faced initial questions about its value proposition for lacking market access provisions. In the security realm, the Quad has been gradually clearer about its regional value proposition. The Quad's efforts to support scholarships and establish working groups across shared priority areas like health and climate defined an agenda beyond just balancing China. Indeed, some survey data point to relatively greater support in regions like Southeast Asia for the Quad after initial skepticism. The birth of new institutions has intensified the value proposition challenge for existing and newer mechanisms alike.The fourth is around efficiency. The growth of institutions has intensified concerns around inefficiency caused by overlaps, duplication and siloing. Silos can hamper the performance of proliferating regional frameworks, with major powers having different conceptions of how this strategic space fits into their mind maps. The Mekong subregion is an example. There have been repeated calls within the region for limiting inefficiencies caused by duplication among the over dozen Mekong frameworks in place. These include those led by regional states like Thailand or by powers like Japan and South Korea. One senior official from a Mekong country described the institutional dilemma to the author as being caught between "overdominance" by China and "overcrowding" by institutional proliferation to further national interests and check Beijing's rise. The fifth is around transparency. This is often most referenced in the security realm, with cases including the perceived lack of adequacy in initial AUKUS consultations or the disclosure of China-driven secret regional agreements on police presence or naval facilities. But this applies to the economic realm too. For instance, original Trans-Pacific Partnership talks saw repeated requests for more transparency by legislatures and civil society actors in the US and among some other negotiating partners. This raises broader questions about the extent of transparency required as countries enter looser and more informal partnerships that may not require formal approval. Table 2: Select Strategic Dynamics Components Amid Indo-Pacific Institutional FluxImage CreditPolicy ImplicationsAdjusting to this period of Indo-Pacific institutional flux will require actions from a range of actors including institutions, regional states and key powers. For the US and its partners, efforts to adjust to Indo-Pacific institutional flux would ideally both provide a foundation for countries to address shared challenges while also reinforcing a free, open and multipolar regional order rather than one dominated by China.1. Shoring Up ASEANASEAN is an indispensable part of sustainably adjusting to Indo-Pacific institutional flux as the region's default convening hub for diplomacy. At a minimum, all Southeast Asian states must set a clear floor of commitment to ASEAN centrality that includes avoiding self-inflicted wounds, as we saw with the lack of a South China Sea joint statement in 2012. Preserving a semblance of unity is part of the "collective responsibility" of member states enshrined in the ASEAN Charter. More forward-leaning Southeast Asian states should push internal structural reforms to make ASEAN more responsive and flexible. Strengthening select institutions like the East Asia Summit would be a useful step to maintain major power interest in ASEAN, even if oft-discussed steps like a formal softening of consensus-based decision-making by expanding "ASEAN Minus X" arrangements prove difficult. Efforts should also be made to streamline institutional work and boost connectivity between ASEAN and minilaterals within Southeast Asia. Recent examples include the quest for greater institutional clarity in the maritime domain and more engagement with the Mekong River Commission."ASEAN is an indispensable part of sustainably adjusting to Indo-Pacific institutional flux as the region's default convening hub for diplomacy."2. Strengthening Subregional Mechanisms and Connections to Regional ArchitectureOther active states should strengthen subregional institutions and connect them to the wider regional architecture. The Pacific is a case in point, with the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent providing an indigenous longer-term subregional plan which major powers can dock on to rather than the agenda being externally-driven. In South Asia, India plays an important bridging role given its heft and connectivity potential with institutions in other parts of the region. These include the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and Mekong Ganga Cooperation Initiative (MGC) that connect New Delhi to Southeast Asia. More diplomatically active countries like Indonesia can play a role to advocate for more ASEAN engagement with other regional institutions to facilitate connectivity. 3. Managing New Institutional Development in a Context of US-China CompetitionBoth the US and China should be mindful of actions that can undermine institutional development as the Indo-Pacific's two leading powers, be it China's lack of transparency in its Pacific engagement or the initial US discouraging of certain partners to not join Beijing's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Other regional actors like ASEAN also have a role in setting out common principles for institutional development amid major power divergences.4. Greater US Engagement in Regional "Variable Geometry"The US should engage Indo-Pacific institutions sustainably with a narrative that balances creating new institutions and engaging with the existing architecture. This counters notions that Washington is undermining ASEAN centrality or dividing the region. For example, US officials could apply the articulation of "variable geometry" to describe its global approach to institutions to message US comprehensive institutional engagement in the Indo-Pacific. This narrative would go beyond security institutions like the Quad or AUKUS and highlight US economic institutional examples, such as the private partnership under the I2U2 or the new US-Singapore technology pact – which officials say Washington only currently has with three other countries in India, Israel and South Korea.5. Entrenching a Shared Multipolar Vision in Institutional DevelopmentOther major powers have a critical role to play in shaping the institutional agenda through an open, transparent, inclusive process that promotes a multipolar region. Examples include Australia's socializing of AUKUS with the wider region after its initial mixed reception as well as Japan encouraging Washington to be more inclusive in searching for IPEF partners. Speaking out on the need for open regionalism can be helpful. One example referenced by regional interlocutors was Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar's 2022 speech, where he warned that "Asia for Asians" conceptions pushed by Beijing can seem like "narrow Asian chauvinism." 6. Linking Global Institutions to Regional ArchitectureRegional and global actors and institutions can help boost connections with Indo-Pacific architecture. This would create more options for states amid greater calls for representation in parts of the Global South and expansion efforts by other institutions such as the BRICS. Cases in point include the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) efforts to kickstart more Indo-Pacific country partnerships as well as the G-7 and G-20 being more representative about agendas and even adjusting membership as we have seen with the African Union.