Taking inspiration from the work of Douglass North, much institutional research attempts a distinction between 'formal' and 'informal' institutions. North often associated 'formal institutions' with rules enforced through a legal system. It is suggested here that this lead should be followed and...

Russia's invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory since 2014 has forced its government to implement emergency measures that challenge legal order. This paper examines how citizens' exposure to these security responses shapes their perceptions of the rule of law. Using proximity to war...

Recent advances in AI create possibilities for delegating legal decision-making to machines or enhancing human adjudication through AI assistance. Using classic normative conflicts - the trolley problem and similar moral dilemmas - as a proof of concept, we examine the alignment between AI legal...

In July 2024, the European Union (EU) and the Serbian government signed a strategic raw materials partnership. For the EU, this cooperation represents an important step towards diversifying its supply chains and strengthening economic partnerships in its neighbourhood. Serbian President...

This paper examines the state and evolution of the rule of law in Mozambique, focusing on key dimensions such as voice and political participation, judicial independence and accessibility, corruption, access to basic services, personal security, and property rights. Drawing on Afrobarometer...

Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and World Bank data, we produce a novel estimation for the prevalence of informal entrepreneurship in 60 countries in the period 2006- 2022. Using a real option framework, we test the effect of business regulation, property rights protection, and the rule of...

Constitutions as the formal foundation of a country's legal and political system have important economic and political effects. Yet, we still know little about why constitutions set effective constraints on politicians in some societies, while being largely disregarded in others. Here, we ask if...

onstitutions as the formal foundation of a country's legal and political system have important economic and political effects. Yet, we still know little about why constitutions set effective constraints on politicians in some societies, while being largely disregarded in others. Here, we ask if...

Populist governance is fundamentally at odds with constitutionalism. As a political project, populism rejects constraints on "the will of the people," including those essential to liberal-democratic constitutions. Yet, the extent to which elected populists actually undermine constitutional order...

Populist governance is fundamentally at odds with constitutionalism. As a political project, populism rejects constraints on "the will of the people," including those essential to liberal-democratic constitutions. Yet, the extent to which elected populists actually undermine constitutional order...

Academic freedom is a cornerstone of modern academic life. It is not only implied by basic liberal principles but also contributes to scientific progress and economic growth. It is therefore important to better understand what affects how free scholarly pursuits are, and to that end, we ask...

The Russian war of aggression has deepened relations between the EU and Ukraine. This can be seen, above all, in Ukraine’s EU candidate status. Despite the war, Ukraine continues to pursue many reforms, even if their pace has slowed since February 2022. The strong concentration of power in the...

On 24 March 2024, presidential elections were held in Senegal, with opposition politician Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye, who was 43 at the time, emerging as the winner. On 2 April 2024, he was sworn in as the fifth President of the Republic of Senegal. This event may mark a turning point in the...

There is a broad agreement that political and economic institutions matter for long-term development. Yet relatively little is known as to how to adopt good quality institutions and reform weak or poor institutions, for which one needs to know how institutions change. This paper provides a...

We computationally reproduce the central findings in Mehmood (2022), which studied the effect of a 2010 reform in Pakistan replacing the presidential appointment of high-court judges with peer appointments. Mehmood leveraged judicial records interpreted and coded by lawyers in Pakistan at the...

How do mechanisms that enforce cooperation emerge in a society where none are available and agents are endowed with just raw power that allows a more powerful agent to expropriate a less powerful one? We study a model where expropriation is costly and agents can choose whether to engage in...

Civil society organisations (CSOs) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) face mounting challenges, especially in authoritarian states, where they encounter closures, persecution and smear campaigns. Consequently, their crucial work in advancing human rights, good governance and inclusive...

We investigate the link between the rule of law and equity returns in post-transitional economies over the period January 2010-December 2020 by using panel data regressions. By applying several rule- of-law proxies for national legal frameworks and justice system quality as proxies for the...

Kazakhstan, with its open borders with CIS nations and significant migration flows, emerges as a key origin, transit, and destination point in human trafficking. While acknowledging Kazakhstan's modest progress in combating human trafficking, this study aims to develop comprehensive proposals...

Kazakhstan, with its open borders with CIS nations and significant migration flows, emerges as a key origin, transit, and destination point in human trafficking. While acknowledging Kazakhstan’s modest progress in combating human trafficking, this study aims to develop comprehensive proposals...

Placing constraints on elected officials is thought to bind their hands and render government policies credible. In turn, credible policies attract investment because investors can extend their policy and regulatory time horizons. Yet, a scholarship on LMICs suggests that too many constraints on...

This paper examines the state and evolution of the rule of law in Mozambique, focusing on key dimensions such as voice and political participation, judicial independence and accessibility, corruption, access to basic services, personal security, and property rights. Drawing on Afrobarometer...

In July 2024, the European Union (EU) and the Serbian government signed a strategic raw materials partnership. For the EU, this cooperation represents an important step towards diversifying its supply chains and strengthening economic partnerships in its neighbourhood. Serbian President...

Turkey is at risk of descending into autocracy. That risk persists even though the resistance put up by the opposition Republican People's Party following the arrest of Mayor of İstanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu has saved the party - at least for now - from being placed under a trustee and the...

Recent advances in AI create possibilities for delegating legal decision-making to machines or enhancing human adjudication through AI assistance. Using classic normative conflicts - the trolley problem and similar moral dilemmas - as a proof of concept, we examine the alignment between AI legal...

Russia's invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory since 2014 has forced its government to implement emergency measures that challenge legal order. This paper examines how citizens' exposure to these security responses shapes their perceptions of the rule of law. Using proximity to war...

This paper examines the impact of institutions on income inequality in 27 European Union member states over the period 2011-2022, using the method Panel Estimated Generalized Least Squares. To catch the quality of institutions we used World Governance Indicators published by World Bank,...

The Commissioner-designate made a number of commitments in his written and oral responses. These are highlighted in this document, which has been produced to support Parliament's scrutiny of the Commission over the course of the 2024-2029 term, including through the Committees' annual structured...

The Commissioner-designate made a number of commitments in his written and oral responses. These are highlighted in this document, which has been produced to support Parliament's scrutiny of the Commission over the course of the 2024-2029 term, including through the Committees' annual structured...

This in-depth analysis (IDA) has been drafted to assist the European Parliament's Committees on Budgetary Control (CONT) and Budgets (BUDG) in the context of their work on an implementation report on the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation. Based on publicly available information, it provides...

This article explores the intersection of competition law and sustainability, particularly focusing on the role that Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union may play in this context. It presents a novel approach, categorizing the relationship between Article 102 and...

This Perspective outlines the avenues, and potential obstacles, that may be encountered when a foreign investor challenges a state's invocation of national security interests in an international arbitration setting. This Perspective additionally considers the implications that increasingly...

As part of the EESC's efforts to promote fundamental rights and the rule of law, a delegation of the EESC's Group on Fundamental Rights and the Rule of Law visited Italy on 16-17 October 2024. The delegation met with several representatives of civil society, specifically from civil society...

As part of the EESC's efforts to promote fundamental rights and the rule of law, a delegation of the EESC's Group on Fundamental Rights and the Rule of Law visited Italy on 16-17 October 2024. The delegation met with several representatives of civil society, specifically from civil society...