Roland Erne is a Swiss political scientist (Dipl. Pol.: Free University
          Berlin/Sciences Po Paris; PhD: European University Institute Florence) and
          College Lecturer of industrial relations at University College Dublin. His
          teaching and research interests include direct and transnational democracy,
          the European Union, globalisation and the emerging trends in work and
          employment. He is also co-editor of "Transnationale Demokratie. Impulse für
          ein demokratisch verfasstes Europa" (Zürich 1995), a fellow of the
          Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe http://www.iri-europe.org/ and
          the author of several articles on direct and European democracy as well as
          comparative industrial relations, including:

          - 2004 'Italy' in: B. Kaufmann and M. D. Walters. Eds. Direct Democracy in
          Europe, Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 73-77.
          http://www.iri-europe.org/documents/almanac_content.pdf

          - 2003 'Organised Labor - A Euro-democratic Social Actor within the
          (Technocratic) European Competition Policy?' 13th World Congress of the
          International Industrial Relations Association, Berlin, 11.09.
          http://www.fu-berlin.de/iira2003/papers/track_5/Workshop_5_4_Erne.pdf

          - 2002 'Explaining transnational collective action. European trade-union
          cooperation in the ABB-Alstom-Power merger case', ECPR Joint Sessions,
          Turin, 22-27.03.
          http://www.essex.ac.uk/ECPR/events/jointsessions/paperarchive/turin/ws11/erne.pdf

          - (2002) 'Plebiszit, Referendum und Volksbegehren. Drei Typen direkter
          Demokratie im europäischen Vergleich' in: Schiller T., Mittendorf  (eds.)
          Perspektiven der direkten Demokratie, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag pp.
          77-87.