Regions and Cohesion

This article examines the phenomenon of town-twinning between Idiroko (Nigeria) and Igolo (Benin). While transboundary town twinning is the integration of settlements across distinct state territories—an emerging pattern of borderland urban evolution—this seems to be a new impact of the colonially determined borders in West Africa. Despite the challenges posed by the partition of West African culture area s, town twinning has more recently turned into an established form of regional integration based on a “bottom-up” rather than “top-down” approach in the region. Using qualitative methodology based on descriptive analysis of oral interviews, government records, geographical data, as well as diverse literature, this paper uncovers the role of “borderlanders” in negotiating borders through increased non-state transnational sociospatial cooperation and networking. Apart from altering the traditional state-centric territoriality, this new development may entail broader economic and socio-political implications in the region.

This article proposes a novel two-level instrument for analytically robust distinction of typological differences in the area of rule of law (ROL) among the European countries. The first level of analysis uses the EC’s first anti-corruption report data for a cumulative calculation of the country’s rank of anti-corruption potential. This procedure is repeated on a higher level of aggregation, wherein the EC’s anti-corruption ranking is combined with the rankings of the World Press Freedom and Rule of Law Indices. Thus, the authors create a database for the second level quantitative instrument, which is a variation of cluster analysis. The stable clusters obtained do not coincide with conventional blocks of countries that figure in the academic literature. The instrument for the measurement of the ROL ranking could be even more important for the assessment of the advancement of the candidate-states toward their full compliance with the EU ROL standards.

Estimated at 12 million, the Roma population constitutes one of the largest and most disadvantaged ethnic minority groups in Europe and the most socially marginalized and stigmatized group in the European Union (Council of Europe, 2009, 2010). In recent years, following the two waves of EU expansion in 2004 and 2007, the problem of Roma integration into educational systems generated great attention among EU member states. The European Commission’s policy of promoting multilingualism and cultural diversity to foster European citizenship has led to promising results. However, the current economic crisis and lack of effective political integration within EU member states have promoted policies of protectionism. This article provides an analysis of the current situation of Roma children from Eastern Europe, highlighting the opportunities for improving instruction and protecting human rights for this highly vulnerable school-age population. We propose specific measures based on a bilingual and cross-culturally inclusive educational model.