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English abstract: The European Union’s (EU) 2015–2016 “migration/asylum crisis” gave discussions over the relationships between migration, security and development renewed prominence in global affairs. In response to record migratory flows, the EU, like the United States (US), has implemented security responses to migration aimed at protecting territorial integrity. This article addresses the migration–security–development nexus through the lens of policy coherence for development (PCD). It compares EU and US migration policies within the framework of the “transformative development” associated with the Sustainable Development Goals. It contends that these donors have undermined transformative development through the regionalization of development aid, which has contributed to the securitization of both development and migration policies. Thus, the article contends that new mechanisms for change need to be identified. It introduces the notion of “normative coherence” and proposes a potential role for regional human rights courts in fostering migration-related PCD.

Spanish abstract: La “crisis migratoria” de la Unión Europea (UE) del 2015–2016 arrojó discusiones sobre las relaciones entre migración, seguridad y desarrollo renovando su prominencia en los asuntos globales. La UE, como los Estados Unidos de América (EE.UU), ha implementado respuestas de seguridad a la migración dirigidas a proteger la integridad territorial. Este artículo se dirige al nexo entre migración, seguridad y desarrollo a través de la lente de la coherencia de políticas públicas para el desarrollo (CPD). Compara las políticas migratorias de UE y EE.UU dentro del marco del “desarrollo transformativo” asociado con los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Sostiene que estos donantes han socavado el desarrollo transformativo mediante la regionalización de la ayuda al desarrollo, el cual ha contribuido a incorporar aspectos de seguridad. Así, el artículo sostiene que se requiere identificar nuevos mecanismos para el cambio. Se introduce la noción de “coherencia normativa” y propone el rol potencial de cortes regionales de derechos humanos para promover CPD relacionadas a la migración.

French abstract: La crise migratoire 2015-2016 de l’Union Européenne (UE) a replacé les discussions en matière de migration, de sécurité et de développement dans une perspective globale renouvelée. En réponse aux flux sans précédent, l’UE tout comme les Etats-Unis (EU) ont développé des réponses sécuritaires, destinées à protéger leur intégrité territoriale. Cet article évoque la connexion entre la migration, la sécurité et le développement à travers l’optique de la cohérence des politiques publiques pour le développement (CPD). Il compare les politiques migratoires de l’UE et des EU à partir du cadre du « développement transformateur » associé aux ODD. Il révèle que ces donateurs ont saboté le développement transformateur à travers la régionalisation de l’aide au développement, ce qui a contribué à octroyer un impératif sécuritaire. Ainsi, l’article soutient que de nouveaux mécanismes doivent être identifiés. Il introduit la « cohérence normative » et propose un rôle potentiel pour les Cours régionales des droits humaines dans la perspective de promouvoir la CPD en matière de migration.

Coal ash, the waste generated at coal-burning power plants, is one of the largest waste streams in the United States, and it contains a range of contaminants, including arsenic and mercury. Disasters at coal ash waste sites in recent years have led to increased public scrutiny of coal ash in communities and have sparked policy debates, lawsuits, and complaints throughout the country. With emphasis on federal and state coal ash policies since the 1970s, this article highlights the synthesis of government and corporate power in coal ash politics, and the bureaucratic processes affecting communities near coal ash sites. Based on ethnographic research following the 2008 Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash disaster, as well as preliminary research on the “social life” of coal ash in North Carolina, this article specifically offers ethnographic insight into the lived experiences of social and ecological violence created, perpetuated, and normalized through bureaucratic processes.

English abstract: This is a comparative study of development policy behavior, testing the Europeanization hypothesis and the idea of sub-regional identification. It examines development policies of three Benelux countries and four Nordic countries. The comparison was partly quantitative, drawing from OECD data, and partly qualitative, based on policy analysis of similarities and differences in development policies of the countries under examination. The examination provides some evidence in support of the Europeanization hypothesis as far as the EU goals towards growth in member states’ aid volume and commitment to policy coherence for development were concerned. The alternative explanation was found to be stronger in helping understand performance in multilateral aid and allocation of bilateral aid. Common to the countries under examination is that they approximate a corporatist type of political economy, which helps in understanding identification and norm diffusion within sub-regional schemes. Neither explanation proposed here succeeded in explaining commitment to donor coordination.

Spanish abstract: Este estudio comparativo del comportamiento de la política pública de desarrollo prueba la hipótesis de Europeización y la idea de identificación subregional. Las políticas públicas de desarrollo de tres países de Benelux y cuatro países Nórdicos fueron examinadas. La comparación fue cuantitativa y cualitativa, basada en análisis de similitud de política pública y diferencias en las políticas de desarrollo. El examen provee evidencia que apoya la hipótesis de Europeización tan lejos como las metas de crecimiento de la UE en volumen de ayuda y compromiso de coherencia de política de desarrollo de los estados miembros eran considerados. Se encontró sólida en ayudar entender el desempeño de la cooperación multilateral y la asignación de cooperación bilateral. Los países bajo estudio aproximan un tipo corporativista de economía política, que ayuda entender la identificación y difusión de normas dentro de esquemas subregionales. Ninguna explicación propuestas explica el compromiso con la coordinación del donante.

French abstract: Cette étude comparative évalue l’hypothèse de l’européanisation et l’idée de l’identification sous-régionale. Elle examine les politiques de développement des pays membres de deux schémas européens sous-régionaux : les trois pays du Benelux et les quatre pays nordiques. La comparaison est en partie quantitative à partir des données de l’OCDE et en partie qualitative, car elle se fonde sur une analyse de politiques publiques des similarités et des différences dans les politiques de développement des pays étudiés. L’analyse apporte des éléments en faveur de l’hypothèse de l’européanisation dans la mesure où les objectifs de l’EU en matière d’augmentation du volume de l’aide et de l’engagement en faveur de la cohérence des politiques publiques pour le développement (CPD) sont concernés. Cependant, l’explication alternative est avérée car elle permet de comprendre la performance de l’aide multilatérale et l’allocation de l’aide bilatérale. Un point commun entre les pays étudiés est qu’ils s’approchent d’un modèle corporatiste d’économie politique qui aide à comprendre l’identification et la diffusion normative à l’intérieur de cadres sous-régionaux. Cependant, aucune des explications proposées ne réussit à expliquer l’engagement en matière de coordination des donateurs.

At a time when European integration faces many crises, the efficacy of public policies decided in Brussels, and in member state capitals, for managing the everyday lives of average Europeans demands scrutiny. Most attuned to how global uncertainties interact with local realities, anthropologists and ethnographers have paid scant attention to public policies that are created by the EU, by member state governments and by local authorities, and to the collective, organised, and individual responses they elicit in this part of the world. Our critical faculties and means to test out established relations between global–local, centre–periphery, macro–micro are crucial to see how far the EU's normative power and European integration as a governance model permeates peoples' and states' lives in Europe, broadly defined. Identifying the strengths and shortcomings in the literature, this review essay scrutinises anthropological scholarship on culture, power and policy in a post-Foucaultian Europe.

This article examines the development of cultural policy recommendations, in the form of “soft law,” by the Civil Society Platform for Intercultural Dialogue, a nascent European civil society collaboration aiming to make culture a separate political endeavor within the context of European integration. Drawing on fieldwork among European bureaucrats and members of European civil society in Brussels, Belgium, the article offers an alternative discussion from common understandings of soft law, paying close attention to law as an aesthetic form that challenges dominant modes of policy-making. An investigation of soft forms of law provides a useful perspective to those who attempt to define, locate, and create European identity.

Americans commonly believe that their country is unique in its commitment to the separation of church and state. Yet by the European measure, the American separation of church and state looks strikingly weak, since Americans permit religious rhetoric to permeate their politics and even cite the Bible in court. In light of these striking differences, this article argues that it is wrong to imagine that there is some single correct measure of the separation of church and state. Instead, northern continental Europe and the United States have evolved two different patterns, whose historical roots reach back into the Middle Ages. In northern continental Europe, unlike the United States, historic church functions have been absorbed by the state. The consequences of this historic divergence extend beyond familiar questions of the freedom of religious expression, touching on matters as diverse as welfare policy and criminal law.

In a major transformation of our times, governmental organizations are increasingly turning to faith-based groups to provide basic public services, including education. Faith-government partnering derives its power symbolically from a higher order than the secular state; the secular world of technical education is metaphorically encircled and uplifted by sacrilized forces. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Tanzania and in the United States, and on analysis of education policy documents and reports, this article argues that faith-based governmental programs operate by a logic of hierarchical encompassment, a logic by which state education discourses of accountability, efficiency, and standards first supercede and transform the ideal of religious-moral education, defining all citizens as equally protected before the law, and then reinstate religious- moral instruction as a higher order value that, in turn, encompasses technically trained citizens through an ethic that values religion, spirituality, and faith in one God.