This paper highlights one of the major benefits of qualitative comparative methodology as applied within a “small-N” research design, namely its potential use for specifying the scope conditions of (theoretically competing) causal mechanisms. It is argued that the identification of...

This paper draws on material from a recently-published book that considers the extent to which Europeanization advances multi-level governance within member states and, if so, of what type(s), and through what processes. The empirical focus is on EU cohesion policy and particularly the domestic...

Why do democracies give birth to bureaucracies and bureaucrats? How and why has a seemingly undesirable and unviable organizational form weathered relentless criticism over many years and is possibly experiencing a renaissance? Normative democratic theory, theories of formal organizations, and...

According to the original scheme of the ‘Founding Fathers’, the relations between supranational authorities and national administrations were to be characterised by a strict separation of their respective spheres of competence. This did in fact hold true, at least in the original treaties...

This article presents some key research questions and discusses some advancements and controversies in the field of implementation studies in the European Union. In addition to calling for the further development of reliable quantitative indicators, the article suggests three issues worth...

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the type of allegiance that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is based on. Charters as Bills of Rights establish or entrench fundamental rights, democracy and the rule of law, and the relevant sense of allegiance and attachment...

Why and to what extent do states differ in their implementation of international norms? Furthermore, why and to what extent do states differ in their mode of resolving conflicts regarding non-implementation of international norms? In this article the empirical focus is on implementation of...

This paper examines the networks that connect the European Commission to various levels of governance within higher education as a policy sector. The central question is how the development of European networked administrative capacity can be understood taking into consideration the traditional...

How can we explain that small states are able to influence decisions over the EU's external policy? The aim of this article is to explain why small states are able to influence decisions in the EU's foreign and security policy with a detailed analysis of the Swedish-Finnish initiative on...