Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals

The autonomous regulatory agency has recently become the “appropriate model” of governance across countries and sectors. The dynamics of this process are captured in the authors’ data set, which covers the establishment of agencies in 48 countries and 15 sectors for the period 1966-2007. Adopting a diffusion approach to explain this broad process of institutional change, the authors explore the role of countries and sectors as sources of institutional transfer at different stages of the diffusion process. They demonstrate how the restructuring of national bureaucracies unfolds via four different channels of institutional transfer. The results challenge theoretical approaches that overemphasize the national dimension in global diffusion and are insensitive to the stages of the diffusion process. Further advance in study of diffusion depends, the authors assert, on the ability to apply both cross-sectoral and cross-national analysis to the same research design and to incorporate channels of transfer with different causal mechanisms for different stages of the diffusion process.

This paper examines whether economic sanctions destabilize authoritarian rulers. We argue that the effect of sanctions is mediated by the type of authoritarian regime against which sanctions are imposed. Because personalist regimes and monarchies are more sensitive to the loss of external sources of revenue (such as foreign aid and taxes on trade) to fund patronage, rulers in these regimes are more likely to be destabilized by sanctions than leaders in other types of regimes. In contrast, when dominant single-party and military regimes are subject to sanctions, they increase their tax revenues and reallocate their expenditures to increase their levels of cooptation and repression. Using data on sanction episodes and authoritarian regimes from 1960 to 1997 and selection-corrected survival models, we test whether sanctions destabilize authoritarian rulers in different types of regimes. We find that personalist dictators are more vulnerable to foreign pressure than other types of dictators. We also analyze the modes of authoritarian leader exit and find that sanctions increase the likelihood of a regular and an irregular change of ruler, such as a coup, in personalist regimes. In single-party and military regimes, however, sanctions have little effect on leadership stability.

As public power is increasingly exercised in structures of global governance, principles of domestic law and politics are extended to the global level, with serious repercussions for the structure of international law. Yet, as this article seeks to show for the emerging global administrative law, this extension is often problematic. Using administrative law mechanisms to enhance the accountability of global regulation faces the problem of fundamental contestation over the question of to whom global governance should be accountable. National, international and cosmopolitan constituencies are competing for primacy, and this results in an often disorderly interplay of accountability mechanisms at different levels and in different regimes. This pluralist structure, based on pragmatic accommodation rather than clear decisions, strongly contrasts with the ideals of coherence and unity in modern constitutionalism and domestic administrative law. However, given the structure of global society, it is likely to endure and it is also normatively preferable to alternative, constitutionalist approaches. It helps avoid the friction that may result from a federal-type distribution of powers and the practical problems of a consociational order, and by denying all constituencies primacy it reflects the legitimacy deficits of each of them. Mirroring divergent views on the right scope of the political order, it also respects everybody’s equal right to political participation. A pluralist global administrative law thus presents an alternative to problematic domestic models for ensuring accountability in the circumstances of global governance.

Authority is a key concept in politics and law, and it has found greater attention in the global context in recent years. Most accounts, however, employ a model of ‘solid’ authority borrowed from the domestic realm and focus primarily on commands issued by single institutions. This framing paper argues that such approaches tend to underestimate the extent of authority in global governance and misunderstand its nature, leading to skewed accounts of the emergence of authority and the challenges it poses. Building on an alternative conception – the deference model – the paper calls for including in analyses of global authority also liquid forms, characterized by a higher level of dynamism and typically driven by informality and institutional multiplicity. Such a broader account can help us to redirect empirical inquiries and reframe central questions about authority, relating in particular to the way in which it is produced, the mechanisms through which it might be made accountable and legitimate, and its relation to law.

Abstract A growing body of work has examined the relationship between media and politics from an agenda‐setting perspective: Is attention for issues initiated by political elites with the media following suit, or is the reverse relation stronger? A long series of single‐country studies has suggested a number of general agenda‐setting patterns but these have never been confirmed in a comparative approach. In a comparative, longitudinal design including comparable media and politics evidence for seven European countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), this study highlights a number of generic patterns. Additionally, it shows how the political system matters. Overall, the media are a stronger inspirer of political action in countries with single‐party governments compared to those with multiple‐party governments for opposition parties. But, government parties are more reactive to media under multiparty governments.

Highly educated citizens vote at much lower rates than less educated citizens in some countries. By contrast, electoral participation exhibits no such bias in other countries as diverse as Spain, Denmark, and South Korea. This book describes the levels of unequal participation in thirty-six countries worldwide, examines possible causes of this phenomenon, and discusses its consequences. Aina Gallego illustrates how electoral procedures, party and media systems, unionization, and income inequality impact unequal participation through an original combination of cross-national survey data and survey experiments.

New technologies have been a key driver of labor market change in recent decades. There are renewed concerns that technological developments in areas such as robotics and artificial intelligence will destroy jobs and create political upheaval. This article reviews the vibrant debate about the economic consequences of recent technological change and then discusses research about how digitalization may affect political participation, vote choice, and policy preferences. It is increasingly well established that routine workers have been the main losers of recent technological change and disproportionately support populist parties. However, at the same time, digitalization also creates a large group of economic winners who support the political status quo. The mechanisms connecting technology-related workplace risks to political behavior and policy demands are less well understood. Voters may fail to fully comprehend the relative importance of different causes of structural economic change and misattribute blame to other factors. We conclude with a list of pressing research questions.

Abstract This book explores the phenomenon of informal international organizations. These bodies are involved in governing many of the most important issues the world currently faces, and differ significantly from the highly legalized, formal organizations the world has traditionally relied on. But despite their evident importance, they remain poorly understood. This book develops a new approach to thinking about these puzzling institutions, presents new data revealing their extraordinary growth over time, and develops a novel theory about why states are creating them. The theory explains how states form preferences over the informality of international organization and how legal designs get chosen through often contentious bargaining processes. This theory of institutional design then informs a more dynamic account of the rise of informality. This account explains how major shifts occurring in the domestic political arenas of powerful states—especially growing polarization and the rise of the regulatory state—have been projected outward and reshaped the legal foundations of global governance. The book systematically tests this theory, quantitatively and qualitatively, and presents detailed accounts of the forces behind some of the most important institutions in the global economy. It concludes with an analysis of the effectiveness of informal organizations, finding that many are likely to be less capable of addressing the complex challenges the world presently confronts.

Abstract The rapid advances in the development and rollout of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies over the past years have triggered a frenzy of regulatory initiatives at various levels of government and the private sector. This article describes and evaluates the emerging global AI governance architecture and traces the contours of a nascent regime in a fragmented landscape. To do so, it organizes actors and initiatives in a two-by-two matrix, distinguishing between the nature of the driving actor(s) and whether or not their actions take place within the existing governance architecture. Based on this, it provides an overview of key actors and initiatives, highlighting their trajectories and connections. The analysis shows international organizations’ high levels of agency in addressing AI policy and a tendency to address new challenges within existing frameworks. Lastly, it is argued that we are witnessing the first signs of consolidation in this fragmented landscape. The nascent AI regime that emerges is polycentric and fragmented but gravitates around the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), which holds considerable epistemic authority and norm-setting power.

Abstract: Sequences of the internal transcribed spacers (ITS1 and ITS2) of nuclear ribosomal DNA were analysed for 44 Artemisia species (46 populations) representing all the five classical subgenera and the geographical range of the genus, 11 species from 10 genera closely related to Artemisia, and six outgroup species from five other genera of the Anthemideae. The results definitely support the monophyly of the genus Artemisia in its broadest sense (including some taxa segregated as independent genera, like Oligosporus and Seriphidium ). Eight main clades are established in this molecular phylogeny within Artemisia; they agree in part with the classical subdivision of the genus, but they also suggest that some infrageneric groups must be redefined, especially the subgenus Artemisia. The subgenera Tridentatae and Seriphidium are independent from each other. Some of the satellite genera are clearly placed within Artemisia ( Artemisiastrum, Filifolium, Mausolea, Picrothamnus, Sphaeromeria, Turaniphytum ), whereas some others fall outside the large clade formed by this genus (Brachanthemum, Elachanthemum, Hippolytia, Kaschgaria). Our results, correlated to other data such as pollen morphology, allow us to conclude that the subtribe Artemisiinae as currently defined is a very heterogeneous group. Affinities of the largest genus of the subtribe and tribe, Artemisia, and of other genera of the subtribe to some genera from other subtribes of the Anthemideae strongly suggest that subtribe Artemisiinae needs a deep revision and redefinition. Phylogenetic utility of region trnL‐F of the plastid DNA in the genus Artemisia and allies was also evaluated: sequences of the trnL‐F region in Artemisia do not provide phylogenetic information.

Contextual theories of political behaviour assert that the contexts in which people live influence their political beliefs and vote choices. Most studies, however, fail to distinguish contextual influence from self-selection of individuals into areas. This article advances understanding of this controversy by tracking the left–right position and party identification of thousands of individuals over an eighteen-year period in England before and after residential moves across areas with different political orientations. There is evidence of both non-random selection into areas and assimilation of new entrants to the majority political orientation. These effects are contingent on the type of area an individual moves into and contextual effects are weak and dominated by the larger effect of self-selection into areas.

Labour market policies are multi-dimensional: their design depends on factors such as generosity, coverage, the combination of active and passive elements, and overall cost. Political conflict on one dimension often hides agreement on others, and social groups possibly care about different aspects of policies. However, most empirical studies treat policy preferences as unidimensional. This article utilizes a novel experimental conjoint design to assess how five dimensions affect support for labour market policies in Spain. It also assesses if individuals’ self-interest and ideology affect the importance of each dimension for support for a policy. We find that individuals’ support depends mostly on the generosity of policies for the most destitute and on funding. We also find that ideology shapes which dimensions of policy citizens care most about, but economic self-interest does not. Importantly, our experimental design can be applied to study preferences for different social policies.

The political effects of the Great Recession on southern Europe were substantial. The rapid economic deterioration of Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain from 2008 onwards was accompanied by an increase in citizens’ dissatisfaction towards national political institutions. The sources of political mistrust in the southern periphery were of a political and economic nature. Using quantitative data from EU member states from 2000 to 2015, this paper evaluates the suitability of competing theories in explaining this shift in political attitudes in southern European countries. It first hypothesizes that political mistrust is explained by citizens’ rationalist evaluations of changing macroeconomic performance. It also hypothesizes that political mistrust changes according to institutional performance. The paper argues that economic crises act as an external shock that places politics, politicians and institutions in the spotlight as a result of citizens’ deteriorating performance of the economy. The findings suggest that unemployment, public debt and political corruption are key variables in understanding short-term changes in political mistrust.

Abstract The Paris Agreement has emerged as one of the world's most important international treaties. Many believe that it offers a new approach to the problem of climate change, can contribute significantly to the goal of reducing emissions, and may hold lessons for how to govern other cross‐border issues. As a result, it has been the focus of considerable debate among scholars and policy makers. But how precisely does Paris seek to govern global warming and is it likely to work in practice? We address this question by contrasting the Paris ‘model’ of climate governance with earlier ones associated with the Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Accord. These models have taken different approaches to the problem of governing climate change, each with attendant advantages and limitations. The Paris model advances upon earlier efforts in certain respects, but also blends elements from earlier models. We then lay out the central axes of the debate that has emerged about the future of the Paris model, and discuss research illuminating how it may operate in practice. The agreement's success will depend on how the agreement is implemented, and on how the UNFCCC process interacts with the complementary approaches to climate governance appearing beyond it.

Abstract We put forward a new approach to studying issue definition within the context of policy diffusion. Most studies of policy diffusion—which is the process by which policymaking in one government affects policymaking in other governments—have focused on policy adoptions. We shift the focus to an important but neglected aspect of this process: the issue‐definition stage. We use topic models to estimate how policies are framed during this stage and how these frames are predicted by prior policy adoptions. Focusing on smoking restriction in U.S. states, our analysis draws upon an original data set of over 52,000 paragraphs from newspapers covering 49 states between 1996 and 2013. We find that frames regarding the policy's concrete implications are predicted by prior adoptions in other states, whereas frames regarding its normative justifications are not. Our approach and findings open the way for a new perspective to studying policy diffusion in many different are as .

We have investigated the dynamics of water molecules in the distal pocket of horseradish peroxidase to elucidate the role that they may play in the formation of the principal active species of the enzymatic cycle (compound I, Por(o+)-Fe(IV)=O) upon reaction of the resting Fe(III) state with hydrogen peroxide. The equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations show that, in accord with experimental evidence, the active site access channel is hydrated with an average of two to three water molecules within 5 A from the bound hydrogen peroxide. Although the channel is always hydrated, the specific conformations in which a water molecule bridges H(2)O(2) and the distal histidine, which were found (Derat; et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2007, 129, 6346.) to display a low-energy barrier for the initial acid-base step of the reaction, occur with low probability but are relevant within the time scale of catalysis. Metadynamics simulations, which were used to reconstruct the free-energy landscape of water motion in the access channel, revealed that preferred interaction sites within the channel are separated by small energy barriers (<1.5 kcal/mol). Most importantly, water-bridged conformations lie on a shoulder just 1 kcal/mol above one local minimum and thus are easily accessible. Such an energy landscape appears as a requisite for the effectiveness of compound I formation, whereby the H-bonding pattern involving reactants and catalytic residues (including the intervening water molecule) has to rearrange to deliver the proton to the distal OH moiety of the hydrogen peroxide and thereby lead to heterolytic O-O cleavage. Our study provides an example of a system for which the "reactive configurations" (i.e., structures characterized by a low barrier for the chemical transformation) correspond to a minor population of the system and show how equilibrium molecular dynamics and free-energy calculations may conveniently be used to ascertain that such reactive conformations are indeed accessible to the system. Once again, the MD and QM/MM combination shows that a single water molecule acts as a biocatalyst in the cycle of HRP.

This is an original manuscript / preprint of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Service Industries Journal on 28/09/2010, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02642060802712822

G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) heteromeric complexes have distinct properties from homomeric GPCRs, giving rise to new receptor functionalities. Adenosine receptors (A1R or A2AR) can form A1R-A2AR heteromers (A1-A2AHet), and their activation leads to canonical G-protein-dependent (adenylate cyclase mediated) and -independent (β-arrestin mediated) signaling. Adenosine has different affinities for A1R and A2AR, allowing the heteromeric receptor to detect its concentration by integrating the downstream Gi- and Gs-dependent signals. cAMP accumulation and β-arrestin recruitment assays have shown that, within the complex, activation of A2AR impedes signaling via A1R. We examined the mechanism by which A1-A2AHet integrates Gi- and Gs-dependent signals. A1R blockade by A2AR in the A1-A2AHet is not observed in the absence of A2AR activation by agonists, in the absence of the C-terminal domain of A2AR, or in the presence of synthetic peptides that disrupt the heteromer interface of A1-A2AHet, indicating that signaling mediated by A1R and A2AR is controlled by both Gi and Gs proteins. We identified a new mechanism of signal transduction that implies a cross-communication between Gi and Gs proteins guided by the C-terminal tail of the A2AR. This mechanism provides the molecular basis for the operation of the A1-A2AHet as an adenosine concentration-sensing device that modulates the signals originating at both A1R and A2AR.

Combining the insights of EU-specific research on backsliding and coalitions with the literature on the international collaboration of autocrats, we argue that right-wing political leadership in Hungary and Poland have coalesced to advance their respective projects of democratic backsliding. We identify three distinct but intertwined uses of the coalition: (1) mutual protection afforded within the supranational arena aimed at limiting the EU's sanctioning capacities; (2) learning in the form of transfer of democratic backsliding policies; and (3) domestic legitimation. Three factors have driven coalescence patterns: intersecting interests, ideological proximity, and the EU’s decision rules regarding sanctions.

Abstract During the anti-regime uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, women from all walks of life were as ready as men to take to the streets to protest against the ineptitude and transgressions of their countries’ governments. Their courage was particularly noteworthy given that they suffered not only the violence of the regimes’ attempts to suppress protests by force, as did their male counterparts, but also a systematic targeting by security forces who attempted to break the women’s spirits through attacks on their honour and bodily integrity. The female presence and agency in the Arab Spring encouraged activists in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to expect an equitable role for women in the political transition processes that followed the fall of the authoritarian regimes in those countries. However, the female input in those political transitions has been scant. Moreover, in all three countries, established women’s rights are increasingly under attack and violence against women is on the rise. This article applies a gendered perspective to explore the upheavals of the Arab Spring and the political transitions in the three countries, and inquires into the insecurities that women have suffered since early 2011.