In this essay the author reflects on the subject of state-building, its interpretation and impact on the society. The government usually understands state-building differently than the opposition. The question is raised whether the development does not lead from state-building to “herd-building”, when smaller and larger groups behave like an easy-to-manipulate herd. But how can we revert this process?
We offer the quantitative estimation of stability of risk-sensitive cost optimization in the problem of optimal stopping of Markov chain on a Borel space X. It is supposed that the transition probability p(⋅|x), x∈X is approximated by the transition probability p˜(⋅|x), x∈X, and that the stopping rule f˜∗ , which is optimal for the process with the transition probability p˜ is applied to the process with the transition probability p. We give an upper bound (expressed in term of the total variation distance: supx∈X∥p(⋅|x)−p˜(⋅|x)∥) for an additional cost paid for using the rule f˜∗ instead of the (unknown) stopping rule f∗ optimal for p.
Treaty provisions on the free movement of persons do not directly address free movement of family members. The right to move to and reside in another Member State for family members of the moving EU citizens is anchored in the secondary law, namely in the Directive 2004/38. However, the Court of Justice, under certain circumstances, grants the right of residence for family members-third country nationals outside the scope of the Directive, even in the Member State of the EU citizen’s nationality, by virtue of different Treaty provisions. That brings a lot of inconsistency, legal uncertainty and, in the end, risk of injustice. This article summarizes the different legal sources of residence right for family members-third country nationals in that internal situation as adjudicated by the Court of Justice until nowadays and assesses on that background whether the time is ripe for an amendment of the Directive 2004/38.