This paper reports newly collected empirical data sets on explicitly contested voting at ministerial level in the Council of Ministers of the European Union. These data sets cover the period 1994-2004, with more detail for the years 1998-2004. They provide us with rather steady patterns of...

The process of economic reform and trade liberalization in Latin America and the Caribbean, under way since the end of the 1980s, has brought about an increasing integration of the countries in the region into the world economy, both in terms of commercial and investment flows. At the same time,...

Over the past decade European economic integration has seen considerable institutional success, but the economic performance of the EU has been varied. While macroeconomic stability has improved and an emphasis on cohesion preserved, the EU economic system has not delivered satisfactory growth...