Configurational Qualitative Method

The European Union (EU) has closely correlated different aspects of the peace process in Bosnia with progress towards European accession. The ‘power of attraction’ of EU membership would presumably induce the Bosnian authorities to accept the adaptation costs of political and economic transformation. However, the Europeanisation approach has not produced the expected results. The track record of the EU’s policies towards Bosnia represents a paradigmatic case of what would happen if almost nothing works as efficiently as in the case of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The article investigates the causes of EU policy failure in Bosnia and claims that the EU has not effectively responded to three challenges: 1) adjust the process to the needs of an ethnically divided post-war state; 2) preserve the credibility of accession conditionality, and 3) convey the proper messages on how to comply with EU rules. Therefore, the article argues for a more cohesive and consistent EU approach towards Bosnia.

Release Management is the process of managing multiple different software releases between environments in a controlled, auditable and repeatable process. This paper looks at the capabilities of the SAS 9.3 toolset to build an effective Release Management process within your organization to support the migration and maintenance of SAS code through your product lifecycle.

"After a concise introduction into Todorova's assumptions and approaches concerning the phenomenon of "Balkanism", I am going to examine whether the concept, which is linked to the Balkans as a historical region, can be applied to the seemingly neutral geopolitical EU-term Western Balkans. In the consequence, we have to shed some light on the enlargement process of the EU as such, and how it is adapted for the respective countries. Then some key documents from 2010 will be inspected, especially the conclusion papers by the European Commission addressed to the European parliament, which examine the overall progress of the countries who wish to join the EU. These documents, together with opinion communiqués and some general information, form the analytical corpus of this paper. In the consequence, a synthesis and comparison follow, where the results of the document analysis are faced with the critical Balkanism concept. Maybe we can detect a similarly negative insider-outsider discourse at hand like in the case of Turkey's EU aspirations [Madeker 2005: esp.
179-80], which is simultaneously overshadowed with emotional and historical-affective reasons instead of mere political, economic or judicial arguments against soon EU membership."

en el ámbito de las ciencias sociales se ha planteado prácticamente desde
su emergencia una reflexión en torno a cuatro diversos tipos de relaciones: en primer lugar,
con respecto a la relación entre teoría e investigación empírica; en segundo lugar, alrededor de
la relación entre la teoría y las diversas imágenes del mundo –incluidas aquí tanto aquéllas
que remiten a la religión como aquellas otras que se refieren a ideologías políticas; en tercer
lugar, sobre la relación entre la teoría y las preguntas normativas que orientan y dan sentido a
la propia investigación y, finalmente, en cuarto y último lugar, en torno a la relación entre el
saber y la comprensión teóricos por parte de los investigadores, por un lado, y el saber y la
comprensión prácticos de los actores sociales legos, por el otro (cfr., Joas/Knöbl, 2004:13 y
ss.). Es en torno a todos estos problemas que giran los trabajos que presentamos al lector en
este volumen.

Turkey-EU relations are currently in a state of flux. Turkey and the EU have moved apart in their political aspirations after accession talks faced a stalemate due to the Republic of Cyprus’ EU accession as a divided island. The EU has been shaken to its very core by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and as a result the enlargement of the EU has dropped down the agenda. In contrast Turkey has become an economic powerhouse in an extremely volatile region. The Turkish government has been following a consistent policy of establishing itself as the leader in its region and as a result a significant part of the Turkish population no longer sees EU accession as the only option to secure long-term economic growth and political stability.

The book explores the current challenges as well as opportunities facing the Turkey-EU relations, questioning the existing models in light of recent developments. The book is interdisciplinary in nature bringing together perspectives from the disciplines of international relations, political science and law.

The book analyses current shifts in the dynamics of Turkey-EU relations in order to surmise what the future of this relationship might hold. The book focuses on four main themes: the effect of the Cyprus conflict; the potential for a structured Turkey-EU cooperation particularly with regard to the Middle Eastern region in the wake of the Arab Spring; the future of democratic reform in Turkey under fading EU influence; and finally, the changing role of Europe in Turkish political discourse as well as the daily lives of Turkish citizens.

Come disciplina formale, la logica non ha conosciuto una grande fortuna nella letteratura metodologica, nonostante essa stia alla base della maggior parte delle operazioni e delle decisioni dei ricercatori. Mi riferisco qui, in particolare, alla logica induttiva ed argomentativa, in quanto è sulla base di inferenze ed argomentazioni che lo scienziato porta avanti il suo ragionamento e lo giustifica di fronte alla comunità accademica. Ancora meno fortuna ha tuttavia conosciuto la logica intesa come procedura di calcolo, sulla base delle regole della deduzione. Se escludiamo certi elementi  matematici fondamentali della statistica, ampiamente utilizzata anche nelle scienze sociali, la logica deduttiva ha conosciuto ben poche applicazioni come metodo di elaborazione dei dati. Questo almeno nell'apparenza. In realtà, i ricercatori fanno ampio utilizzo dei cosiddetti “Canoni di Mill”, che rappresentano, in forma abbozzata, i procedimenti logici tipici dell'esperimento scientifico. La scarsa consapevolezza, nella letteratura metodologica delle scienze sociali, delle possibilità che la logica deduttiva offre come vero e proprio metodo di analisi richiede non solo una maggiore attenzione verso di essa, ma anche l'elaborazione di nuovi metodi e un dibattito critico intorno ad essi. È in questo contesto che si pone il presente lavoro. Esso si propone di compiere una riflessione critica attraverso un metodo di analisi, ideato negli anni '80 ed ancora in fase di sviluppo, che ha conosciuto una certa fortuna nella ricerca sociale ed in particolare nella politica comparata. Sto parlando della Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), una procedura di elaborazione di dati qualitatitivi, in qualche modo simile ai modelli statistici di regressione, ma fondata sull'algebra di Boole (vale a dire, sulla logica deduttiva) invece che sulla consueta algebra lineare, per quanto riguarda gli algoritmi di calcolo. Essa costituisce un vero e proprio metodo di analisi causale, volto alla ricerca delle cause di un determinato fenomeno. Nel corso della trattazione esporrò le caratteristiche, i pregi ed i difetti di questa metodologia. In particolare, mi soffermerò sul suo status logico, un aspetto che a mio avviso in letteratura è stato troppe volte trascurato, o dato per scontato. Tuttavia, non ci si limiterà a discutere gli eventuali limiti della QCA, ma si proporranno direttrici di sviluppo ulteriore del metodo o soluzioni alternative. Per fare ciò, tornerà molte volte utile il confronto con un'altra metodologia di calcolo logico che ha conosciuto meno fortuna nell'ambito della ricerca, a causa anche della sua maggiore complessità operativa: sto parlando dei cosiddetti Metodi delle Corrispondenze, che sono una riformulazione logica, più rigorosa, dei Canoni di Mill. Essi costituiscono un'eccellente pietra di paragone per “mettera alla prova” i metodi della QCA sul terreno logico. Ma non mi servirò soltanto dei Metodi delle Corrispondenze per effettuare questa critica metodologica: sarà altresì necessario introdurre alcuni concetti fondamentali di calcolo deduttivo delle cosiddette logiche polivalenti, ossia logiche in cui gli enunciati possono avere più di due valori di verità, oltre ai consueti “vero” e “falso”. In particolare, il sistema a tre valori elaborato da Brouwer e Heyting costituirà un'importante punto di riferimento.

Nel Capitolo 1 introdurrò alcuni presupposti espistemologici fondamentali per comprendere a fondo la QCA; innanzitutto alcuni aspetti chiave del dibattito sull'analisi causale, dalla filosofia greca fino al giorno d'oggi. Introdurrò pure concetti fondamentali dell'analisi causale, come la classificazione dei vari tipi di cause e la loro formalizzazione per mezzo della logica deduttiva; verranno infine presentati i già citati Metodi delle Corrispondenze.

Nel Capitolo 2 esporrò i fondamenti logico-matematici della versione “classica” della QCA, vale a dire la teoria degli insiemi e l'algebra di Boole. Verranno segnalate le corrispondenze fra queste ed il calcolo enunciativo classico, e si discuterà infine il funzionamento dell'algoritmo logico che sta alla base della procedura di elaborazione dei dati della QCA.

Nel Capitolo 3 presenterò finalmente la versione “classica” della QCA, corredata da alcuni esempi. Discuterò i limiti logici e metodologici di questa strategia di analisi, soprattutto alla luce del confronto coi Metodi delle Corrispondenze, e verranno infine proposte delle soluzioni per ovviare a tali limiti.

Nel Capitolo 4 verranno introdotti alcuni elementi fondamentali delle moderne logiche polivalenti, la cui comprensione è necessaria per poter proseguire nella trattazione. Accennerò anche ad alcuni aspetti di logica modale, e si svilupperà una strategia di ricerca che abbia il suo fondamento sulla logica a tre valori di Brouwer e Heyting.

Nel Capitolo 5 infine presenterò la versione politomica della QCA, di recente creazione, evidenziandone anche stavolta i limiti logici. Si cercherà quindi di migliorare questa promettente strategia di ricerca attraverso il confronto coi metodi sviluppati nel Capitolo 4, fondati sulle logiche polivalenti.

Les relations entre l’Union Européenne et l’Afrique sont de plus en plus conditionnées par la question migratoire, abordée de façon croissante selon une optique sécuritaire. En parallèle, l’internationalisation progressive des politiques européennes d’immigration produit une dynamique d’externalisation du contrôle vers le continent africain.
Dans le cadre déséquilibré des relations euro-africaines, la délégation du contrôle des flux migratoires s’appuie sur la conclusion d’accords commerciaux et sur les concessions d’aide au développement, comme des instruments de pression. Le résultat le plus évident de cette dynamique est la création dans le continent africain d’une succession de zones tampons vis-à-vis des flux migratoires.

A partire dal caso studio del processo di smilitarizzazione di Pola e dalle pratiche d’uso della popolazione e delle associazioni locali, il volume tenta di esplorare la possibilità che le forme di pianificazione effimera, la complessità, l’improvvisazione e la sperimentazione entrino a far parte del contesto di piano.
[Through the case study of the demilitarization of Pula and the reuse of abandoned military sites by the population and local associations, this book aims at
considering the opportunity to take ephemeral forms of planning, complexity, improvisation and experimentation as key elements
of the planning process.]
Keywords: dismissione aree militari, governo del territorio, partecipazione, smilitarizzazione

Consultation is an important feature of research and, increasingly, researchers are required to work in partnership with stakeholders to increase the impact of their work. Our aim is to demonstrate what can be learned from the scholarship on, and practice of, member checking to facilitate productive knowledge exchange. Using dialogical analysis we explore three member check interactions from three different qualitative psychology projects focusing our analysis on difficult moments between researchers and participants conceptualised here as ‘sore spots’. We identify two major genres in these sequences: participant ambivalence and participant challenge. We then consider passages that allow us to explore a more theoretical understanding of these two genres in terms of the metaphor of portraits and mirrors. Overall, we outline how implicit epistemologies and theories of subjectivity (uncomplicated, blank, and complex) may be linked to the way in which stakeholders approach research. We also provide a map with regard to the theories within which member checks can be undertaken, associated research practices in terms of a range of researcher responses to stakeholder ambivalence and challenge, and implications of these moments for knowledge exchange for qualitative research but also for psychological science as a whole. We conclude that sore spots in knowledge exchange process can be productive opportunities of transformational validity.

Keywords: member check; knowledge exchange; research impact; dialogical analysis; participant validation

"This is a book on both universities and higher education in general at the turn of the millennium. The last 20 years is only a very tiny part of the history of universities.
Contents:
Chapter 1: Reconsidering European higher education:
massification, Europeanisation and globalisation
Chapter 2: Reconsidering quality: efficiency vs. confidence
Chapter 3: On higher education governance
Chapter 4: The transition
Chapter 5: University and democracy: knowledge and power
Chapter 6: Higher education as a public responsibility
Chapter 7: Beyond the transition: eutopia?"

(co-authored with Eugenio Salvati) Over the years, Eurosceptic parties have grown in both number and electoral support, together with the politicisation of European Union (EU) integration cleavage within European national polities. The term Euroscepticism denotes different aspects and degrees of opposition to the EU. For example, criticisms can point to institutions, policies, procedures, actors, as well as the integration project per se. Moreover, Euroscepticism can refer to either voters or elites. In this article, we focus on national political parties. We propose a narrow conceptualisation of Euroscepticism, by linking this concept to the concept of anti-system party. Based on several indicators, we measure the success of Euroscepticism in the member states. In our analysis, we ask why anti-system parties emerge and gain votes in some European countries, and not in others. The empirical part of the article presents a preliminary configurational analysis of necessary and sufficient conditions of Euroscepticism and related electoral successes

Aim: Our aim is to offer and illustrates a novel meta-methodology to enhance the rigour of method selection and understanding of results in pluralist qualitative research (PQR).
Method: To do so, we make innovative use of Braun and Clarke’s (2006) articulation of four discrete dimensions characterising different forms of thematic analysis. We provide secondary analyses of an interview from the Social Media, Men who have Sex with Men and Sexual Health project using critical discursive psychology, dialogical analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis, and psychosocial narrative analysis.
Results: All four methods identified aspects of three central foci: Compartmentalisation, Detachment, and Jouissance.
Conclusion: We discuss how our proposed meta-methodology provides a rationale for the selection of methods in a PQR, offer evidence that it can anticipate the relative similarity in focus of the methods employed, and argue that our meta-methodology reveals the possibility of identifying an ‘axial’ or ‘hub’ method’ of a PQR which might be particularly fruitful in exploring commonalities and differences in results. Finally, we examine the synergies and challenges of combining pairs of the methods we used.

""""This article provides a first systematic mapping of QCA applications, building upon a database of 313 peer-reviewed
journal articles. We find out that the number of QCA applications has dramatically increased during the past few years.
The mapping also reveals that csQCA remains the most frequently used technique, that political science, sociology,
and management are the core disciplines of application, that macrolevel analyses, medium-N designs, and a monomethod use of QCA remain predominant. A particular focus is also laid on the ratio between the number of cases and
number of conditions and the compliance to benchmarks in this respect.""""

The paper makes an attempt 'to map' the Copenhagen criterion of democracy and the rule of law, one of the main instruments governing the biggest enlargement in the Union history. The meaning of it, however, is still as vague today as it was more than ten years ago, at the time of introduction of the criterion. How should democracy and rule of law be interpreted in the context of enlargement? What exactly is required of the candidate countries in order to meet this criterion? Based on the analysis of the documents released by the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Council in the course of the application of the criteria and taking the experience of the previous enlargements into account, the paper outlines the core structure of the criterion and assesses the degree of change brought to the enlargement regulation by the conditionality policy applied by the Union. The paper concludes that the assessment of democracy and the rule of law criterion was not really full, consistent and impartial and that the threshold to meet this criterion was very low. As a result, the Commission failed to establish a link between the actual stage of reform in the candidate countries and the acknowledgement that the Copenhagen political criteria are met.

This paper proposes a model for analyzing democratization in hybrid regimes: autocracies with some formal democratic institutions. It firstly identifies and defines electoral authoritarianism as a subtype of autocratic rule. By stressing its multiparty character, the article proposes a theoretical framework to analyze this specific regime type. The article links structural factors with Schedler’s strategic choice theory and tries to show the interaction between regime and opposition. Moreover it argues that the international arena can fulfill a structural function, but plays an influential role as well as an additional actor within Schedler’s two-level game. Finally the paper identifies society itself as a missing element in the discussed theoretical framework. Public opinion and its mobilization potential deserve to be integrated as a fourth meaningful actor in the democratization process through further research.
Keywords: Democratization, hybrid regimes, electoral authoritarianism, competitive authoritarianism, strategic choice, preconditions, actors.

The 2004-2008 Zapatero’s government EU policy combined continuity of former socialist policies in the 1990s with some new additions in the form of a commitment with domestic constitutional reform including a reference to the EU in the Spanish constitution. The use of referendum to ratify the EU constitution, even though decided by the socialist government, had a large domestic consensus but it fitted easily with Zapatero’s proclaimed republican preferences. Even though change happened, it would be difficult to argue that it was a second transition.

This paper aims to test several hypotheses on determinants of the quality of trade in cross-country regressions, taking a sample of trade competitors in EU markets. The hypotheses are those underlying two models of vertical intra-industry trade: the so-called neo-Heckscher-Ohlin model, and an economic geography model based on market size and economic integration. The explanatory variables significantly affect the dependent variable, and we conclude that these variables give rise to specialization in different segments of the quality ...

Poland's share of private forests is relatively small compared with that of other European countries. Private Polish forests are in poor condition and have been under great economic stress. This situation has changed somewhat with respect to rural development since Poland's accession to the European Union. However, many antecedents to the innovativeness of forest owners remain unaddressed by scholars. The objective of this paper is to study the effect of forest owners' attitudes towards risk, social responsibility, learning orientation and institutional support on their innovativeness. Additionally, we aim to analyse the forest owners' attitudes towards start-ups based on nature-based tourism, which is a relatively new activity in Poland. We used both quantitative and qualitative approaches in this study and collected data via face-to-face interviews with 105 forest owners. The results showed that, although a forest owner's attitudes towards risk, social responsibility and learning orientation positively impacted the owner's innovativeness, institutional support did not. In the qualitative portion of this study, we examine nature-based tourism as a relatively new phenomenon and the factors affecting an owner's decision to initiate this type of business. The results imply that private forest owners in Poland require greater institutional support to start tourism businesses related to their forest land. However, the present support policies do not seem to have a direct positive effect on the forest owners' innovativeness. Nevertheless, policies that limit risk, promote learning and encourage social responsibility among Polish forest owners can stimulate them to become more innovative. Previous research has shown that this change, in turn, results in better economic performance and enhanced rural vitality.► We found that learning orientation, a positive attitude towards risk and a feeling of social responsibility have positive and significant effects on innovativeness. ► We did not find that institutional support had a significant or direct effect on the forest owners' innovativeness. ► Seven of 105 forest owners had started nature-based tourism businesses, and 20 forest owners were considering starting such businesses. ► The most common reasons for not initiating new activities were a pessimistic attitude, traditional habits and aversion to risk. ► We found that private forest owners in Poland require greater institutional support to start tourism businesses.

The European Social Fund (ESF) is the European Union structural fund that redistributes funds to facilitate vocational education and training (VET). With the exception of the Common Agricultural Policy it is the EU's largest instrument for redistribution. Currently linked to the European Employment Strategy it match-funds, and through its policies, directs, much of the Member State's training for unemployed people. Drawing on a discursive analysis of ESF official policy texts from 1957 to 2000, the article explores the relationship between the different actors and levels of governance involved in the construction of the EU: the Council, the Commission and the nation state. There are two strands to the article's argument: first, that Member State politicians and officials use the EU governmental space to make policies that they would otherwise find difficult to introduce at the national level. Second, that despite its apparent focus on vocational education and training the Social Fund's main function is to distribute funds to maintain political stability within, across and between the Member States and this is a vital requirement for the construction of the Union.

Atypical work has been proven to worsen employment conditions, reduce labour productivity and hinder firms from competing in higher quality market segments, yet companies still hire atypical workers to provide flexibility in response to unstable market conditions. Previous research has examined the relationship between specific job features and the incidence of atypical work. Using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis technique, we analysed interviews of service firms' managers to identify configurations that limit the use of atypical workers. We found evidence that firms limit the use of atypical contracts not only in cases of firm-specific and complex tasks but also in cases of simple and nonspecific tasks when supported by human resource management practices that aim to increase internal flexibility. Firms can take advantage of a stable workforce by strategically using human resource management flexibility practices as an alternative to labour market flexibility.

This article demonstrates that the constitutionalization of the EU began with a political struggle to set the rules by which the community would respond to applications for membership. By mobilizing to block Spain’s association with the EEC in 1962, European parliamentarians, trade unionists, and others who believed that democratic and human rights principles should be institutionalized within the community established an informal rule governing the community’s policy practice that laid the groundwork for the subsequent constitutionalization of democratic and human rights principles within the community’s treaties and jurisprudence. It demonstrates the critical contribution to the political construction of Europe made by non-state actors willing to challenge the preferences of member state governments and shows that otherwise weak actors are significantly empowered when they are able to identify their preferences with pre-existing domestic and international norms.

Under the 2008-2012 government with its slogan of 'European Serbia,' Europeanisation became synonymous with a reform of the Serbian state and society as such. In this presentation, I examine Serbia's EU integration through the ethnographic case study of the NGO-implemented ‘Slovak-Serbian EU Enlargement Fund.' My data show liberal civil society in the role familiar from the late 1990s and early 2000s – the one of the advocate of Serbia's integration into the EU and global capitalist economy. However, the state has since positioned itself as the leading actor of these processes (with rather disappointing results) while a selective rapprochement and personnel circulation has occurred between it and NGOs. The relationship of liberal civil society to Europeanisation and EU in this new context is shown to be more complex and contradictory than is routinely assumed, and continuities are suggested between EU integration and past state-led modernisation projects in Serbia, conditioned by its peripheral position in European politics and global economy.