In the past three decades, the world has witnessed many rapid and invasive changes, and seems to be changing countries have adapted their foreign policies to these changes. Building on a clear typology of foreign policy change and a consistent theoretical framework, this book offers a comparative analysis of foreign policy change in Europe throughout the post-Cold War period. Along the lines of our analytical framework, country experts discuss how and why the further ever more rapidly in ways that seemed only imaginable in movies. This book investigates how European foreign policies of eleven European countries have changed over the past thirty years. This book hereby advances our understanding of the phenomenon of foreign policy change and identifies the most important drivers and inhibitors of change.

This book examines the antecedents and consequences of citizens' confidence in different political institutions and authorities. Its main argument states that a distinction between confidence in representative and regulative institutions and authorities is of crucial importance in order to gain novel insights into the relevance of political confidence for the viability of democratic systems. Relying on individual-level data from the European Social Survey (ESS), the author provides empirical evidence that citizens from a total of twenty-one European countries make a distinction between confidence in representative institutions and authorities and confidence in regulative institutions and authorities. Furthermore, the author shows that both types of political confidence emanate from different sources and are associated with varying consequences. Overall, these findings indicate that confidence in representative and confidence in regulative institutions and authorities establish two qualitatively different types of political confidence, each with distinct implications for the functioning and well-being of modern democracies.

This book contributes to the discourse on post-colonial and globalization theories, focusing on Nigeria's transition to a federal system of government. The project analyzes 10 years of civil rule in Nigeria, between 1999 and 2009, and its constitutional arrangements while also engaging in comparative studies of other socio-political developments in Sub-Saharan Africa. The collective influences of the judiciary on the polity was improved and strengthened through globalization. In addition, organized pressure groups, non-governmental organizations, as well as the Civil Society Organization, have played significant roles as vehicles of socio-political change and transformation. They continue to act as buffers for the sustenance of democratic rule, well beyond the period in question.

Using a comparative and thematic approach, this textbook looks at key aspects of the new dynamics in East Asian politics: security, political economy and society. East Asia is changing and students need to grasp the new dynamics that shape politics and society across the region. This collection of essays by respected scholars examines the impact of development at the societal, national, and international levels on the conduct of politics in East Asia. The chapters in this unique comparative tool are organized in sections around the themes of security and foreign policy, the new political economy, and changing societies, with each section featuring a mix of region-wide and country specific chapters. The book explains what are the new features and developments in East Asian politics today. It also examines how nations, more specifically China, Japan, both Koreas, and Taiwan are responding to challenges such as globalization, information technology, and the global recession as well as the impact of resulting domestic and foreign policies for the region and the world. Its comparative nature, broad coverage, and pedagogical apparatus will make this text a key resource to teach East Asian politics at the undergraduate level.

In an increasingly multicultural world, the relationship between language and identity remains a complicated and often fraught subject for most societies. The growing political salience of questions relating to language is evident not only in the expanded implementation of new policies and legislation, but also in heated public debates about national unity, collective identities, and the rights of linguistic minorities. By taking a comprehensive approach that considers both the inclusive and exclusive dimensions of linguistic identity across Europe and North America, the studies assembled here provide a sophisticated look at one of the global era's defining political dynamics.

In this book, Ferdi De Ville and Mattias Vermeiren examine the linkages between the economic crisis in the euro area and the rise of Brazil, India and China (BICs) in the global monetary and trading system. Drawing on the insights of the comparative capitalism literature, the authors show that the latter development has been a key source of the escalation of trade imbalances in the euro area, which are widely seen as an important cause of the financial and economic crisis in the region. By pointing to the external source of these imbalances and the divergent institutional capacity of the euro area countries to deal with the intensified competition associated with the rise of the BICs, De Ville and Vermeiren go beyond the focus on the divergence in unit labor costs as the driving force of these imbalances. As such, this book provides a comprehensive policy critique of the EU's export-led growth strategy based on declining unit labor costs.

This book presents a new approach for studying peace beyond the absence of war. As war ends, the varying nature of the peace that ensues has been the object of much debate. Through in-depth case studies, including Cyprus, Cambodia, South Africa, Abkhazia, Transnistria/Russia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Myanmar, the book illustrates how conceptualising 'relational peace' provides a framework that can be applied across cases and actors, different levels of analysis, a variety of geographical contexts and using different temporal perspectives and types of data. This novel framework enables improved empirical studies of peace. The book contributes nuanced understandings of peace in particular settings and demonstrates the multifaceted nature of peaceful relations - what is termed 'relational peace practices' - making important contributions to the field of studying peace beyond the absence of war. -- .

This book assesses the quality of democracy through the study of organized interests in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) since the collapse of communism in 1989 up to 2017. It offers a much-needed comprehensive look into formal interest representation in CEE countries and compares this with the model in Western democracies. Drawing on democratic theory and comparative analysis, the authors explore the effects of a legal framework, political as well as social contexts. The volume contributes to debates on the performance of young democracies in CEE, where scholars argue that there is a 'democratic crisis' and democratic fatigue while the interest group system is often labelled as weak and, in some cases, underdeveloped. Although great efforts have been made to deepen our understanding of interest organization and lobbying tools, the current literature fails to provide a comprehensive answer on the influence of unsupportive environments on population ecology. The case of CEE countries shows significant effects of political and social contexts on interest representation, stimulating a debate about the quality of democratic institutions following the collapse of communism.

The book provides the first comprehensive comparative analysis of the development of EU enlargement conditionality across four different enlargement waves - the first (2004) and the second (2007) phase of the Eastern enlargement, the EU enlargement to Croatia (2013), and the ongoing enlargement round involving Turkey and the Western Balkans.

The withdrawal of imperial colonizers from Africa in the second half of the 20th century precipitated the need for newly independent African nations to establish political, economic, and social structures that would ensure the development of cohesive, stable, and functional nations. While Africans yearned for independence, once granted, the challenges of nation-building became apparent immediately. Nigeria, like many African nations, has stumbled through the early postcolonial period with no clear post-colonial direction, dashing the hopes of its people and undermining confidence in its future. This book makes the case that the protracted decades of underdevelopment in Africa, and especially Nigeria, is traceable to a crisis of leadership that has crystallized in the institutionalization of organized corruption as part of its professional ethos. It argues that as a direct consequence of such practices over several decades, the population has been dehumanized. The situation of Africa in general, and Nigeria in particular, has been deemed so inimical and colossal that Justice Oputa's panel advised a program of moral action "from kindergarten right through to the entire polity" (Report of the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, 2002). This is an indictment on the Nigerian population, and rightly so because for more than 40 years after independence, the country has been through a spiraling crisis in leadership and corruption such that massive looting of the national treasure is unprecedented in the history of developing countries. So many attempts have been made in search of national ideology that might spur development. This writer is proposing, in this vein, the implementation of a Conscientization philosophy similar to Paulo Freire's as a viable ideology that would arrest and reverse the deteriorating situation. Freire's thought was influenced largely by socioEconomic and political situations in Brazil. These same ugly and dehumanizing conditions are now generally characteristic of Nigeria. Hence, Freire's education as "practice of freedom" is very relevant to the Nigerian situation. This dissertation elaborates how to develop and implement the Conscientization philosophy and shows why it would be extraordinarily appropriate in Nigeria in such a way as to contribute to the good society.

Drawing on comparative politics and social network analysis, this book examines how the domestic institutional and organizational settings, as well as the network governance patterns, determine variation in administrative responses to EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in two European Union (EU) member states, Denmark and Greece. These two small member states represent the North and South dimensions of the EU. The north-south dimension in relation to administrative structures, respond differently to EU common policies and to Common Agricultural Policy, specifically which has not been studied in the Europeanization literature. Even though, the study of administrative responses to EU common policies is important as it has been especially noticeable during the current financial crisis. Europeanisation studies concentrate on either large Western European states (France, Germany and UK) or small Western Northern states. These studies produced detailed knowledge on specific countries and policy areas but they ignored the agricultural policy area and the importance of small Southern member states. By comparing a small Southern with a small Northern state since the accession to the EU, this book aims to fill this gap in the literature. Moreover, by linking the findings of the two cases to the member states that joined the EU in the 2004 fifth enlargement, and in other policy areas, it allows a better understanding of similar responses, either adaptation or inertia."This book represents an important contribution to the theoretical and empirical literature on Europeanisation and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It systematically tackles an under studied question: does Europeanisation of policies lead to administrative change and convergence among the member states? The domestic administration of the EU CAP has remained domestically designed and monitored, resulting in divergence among the member states and gaps and imbalances in the performance of EU CAP decisions. The CAP is of more general interest because it combines regulatory and market intervention policy instruments. The analysis proceeds through in depth comparative historical case studies of Denmark and Greece which uses a sophisticated combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The authoritative and informative analysis is structured by a focus on three key domestic factors. There is differentiated administration of common policies and while administration succeeds and adapts in one state, it does not necessarily do so in others, leading to differences in implementation performance. This book should provide a stimulus for further research." Wyn Grant, University of Warwick The last 40 years have been crucial for the European agriculture. The Common Agricultural Policy fulfilled its primary objective, which led Europeans to shift its objectives and cope with the shortcomings created by the success of the Policy itself manage surpluses and narrow the gap between farmers, due to price mechanism as well as, adapt the policy following the successive enlargements and follow the developments in the global economy, in which we live nowadays. Dr. Chatzopoulou gives us a very accurate image on how differently actors of the agricultural economy, farmers, cooperatives and the administrations both in Greece and Denmark, behave. But also, how different is the structure of the sector in these two countries: in Denmark, almost everything is based upon a consensus, where there does not exist a law on cooperatives, and where the administration and the sector work together to adapt or to influence the decisions to take at European level. On the other hand, in Greece, farmers struggle to make their voice heard in the absence of professional organizations, the cooperatives are bound to work in the framework of a specific and strict law and the administration was not shown very cooperative with the sector. These two realities are very well illustrated by the author and many lessons are to be learnt through this study. But, above all, the author gives us a fair idea of how complex is the process of Europeanisation in a Europe Union composed of sovereign member-States with different history, culture, social organization and different legal systems. Vaggelis Divaris, Former European Commission principal administrator (DG Agriculture and Rural Development)

In retrospect, NATO and EU enlargements can be viewed as easy; they admitted states that wanted to be involved and were lavishly rewarded. In contrast, this study explores the harder politics waged by the much larger regional organizations, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). These organizations lack material incentives or instruments of coercion, instead having to work on the basis of shared values. They also face a variety of threats from recalcitrant members. In this book, Fawn uniquely uses internal conditionality to explain how these organizations have cleverly and subtly responded to such difficulties.Drawing on interviews in a range of post-communist countries and with practitioners inside and outside the organizations, the diverse case studies in this book examine issues of conflict, democratization, the death penalty, rewarding high office and retaining institutional membership. Fawn explores how international organizations which lack powers of compulsion can respond to threatening member-states and offers practical lessons for the international promotion of norms.This book will appeal to those interested in how international underdogs work and win in tough circumstances, as well as scholars of International Relations, Central and Eastern European Studies, Post-Soviet Studies and European Security.

This volume offers a comparative analysis of Japanese and Russian politics in the 2010s, examining both domestic dimensions and foreign policy. A bi-national collaborative effort, the volume is structured to offer perspectives on each country from both Russian and Japanese scholars. An introduction by Takashi Inoguchi gives a historical overview of the two countries' paths to development as 'late comers' vis-a-vis the West in the late nineteenth century. The analysis that follows reveals that Japan and Russia have come to acquire genuinely striking contrasting features: frequent leadership change despite extraordinary societal stability and continuity in Japan and infrequent leadership change despite extraordinary ups and downs in Russia.

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labor. The evidence shows that labor has become split into two clearly differentiated constituencies: those with secure employment (insiders) and those without (outsiders). The book focuses on three policy areas: employment protection (representing the main concern of insiders), and active and passive labor market policies (the main concern of outsiders). The main thrust of the argument is that the goals of social democratic parties are often best served by pursuing policies that benefit only insiders. The implication of the book's insider-outsider model is that social democratic government is associated with higher levels of employment protection legislation but not with labor market policy. The book also argues that there are factors can reduce insider-outsider differences and weaken their influence on social democratic governments. These hypotheses are explored through the triangulation of different methodologies. The book provides an analysis of surveys and macrodata, and a detailed comparison of three case-studies: Spain, the UK and the Netherlands. Its reinterpretation of the challenges facing social democracy will represent a significant contribution to the comparative politics and political economy literatures.

This book analyzes how international organizations and the European Union engage with civil society to pursue their policy goals. Multi-stakeholder initiatives, private-public partnership, sub-contracting, political alliances, hybrid coalitions, multi-sectoral networks, pluralist co-governance, and indeed foreign policy by proxy are all considered. Bringing together the most advanced scholarship, the book examines trade, environment, development, security, and human rights with reference to both EU and global institutional settings such as the WTO, UN Climate Summits, FAO, IFAD, ICC, UNHRC, UNSC, and at the EU level the DG FISMA, TRADE, CLIMA, DEVCO, HOME and ECHO. The book also studies the use of NGOs in the foreign policy of the EU, USA, and Russia. This changing politics and the polarized debate it has generated are explored in detail.

The task of building more energy-efficient, climate-friendly and sustainable societies is the defining challenge of the 21st century. Striving to become the world's first major renewable energy economy by 2050, Germany is a global front runner in environmental policy and practice. Requiring massive investments in green technologies and infrastructure, Germany's ambitious shift from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewables requires nothing less than an 'energy revolution.' How and why did Europe's largest economy embrace a challenge that has been compared to the first landing on the moon? What does this transition entail? Is the German experience transferable to other industrialized nations such as the United States? Experts from business, academia, governmental agencies and non-profit think tanks offer multi-disciplinary perspectives on the experiences behind and the challenges ahead. They open up new viewpoints and avenues for shared insight on environmental governance, energy security, technological innovation, green landscape and urban design, as well as on the possibilities for transatlantic partnership and cooperation.

Political Power and Economic Inequality offers a balanced comparative analysis of worldwide income inequality. Charles F. Andrain explores the ways that government institutions, political parties, private corporations, labor unions, and protest movements influence public programs. How do these organizations mobilize resources so that their preferences become government decisions? What impact do these policies have on different geographic regions, occupations, ethnic-religious groups, and genders? Drawing on comprehensive worldwide data, the author highlights the similarities and differences among nations. By focusing on global trends, he explains the connections that link domestic conditions with foreign trade, overseas investment, labor migration, and communications media. Andrain argues that the globalization of income inequality explains contemporary political life in the United States as well as in other parts of the world. To fully understand global income distribution, we need to grasp how historical changes affect these trends, why social movements stage protests against the growing income gap, and how a comparative approach best explains income differences. Andrain s tightly written interdisciplinary study stresses the impact of this problem on political life and social change in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The comparative evidence probes the full dynamics of this controversial issue and its consequences for society as a whole."

This book analyses the diffusion of norms concerning gender-based violence and gender mainstreaming of aid and trade between the EU, South America and Southern Africa. Norm diffusion is conceptualized as a truly multidirectional and polycentric process, shaped by regional governance and resulting in new geometries of transnational activism.

International experts analyze Pakistan's security and insurgency issues, looking at the threats posed to and by this nuclear-armed Islamic nation. The only country in Islamic world to be formed in the name of Islam and a nuclear power, Pakistan today is struggling for its very existence and is at war with itself. "Pakistan's Quagmire" focuses on the insurgency in Pakistan, a security problem not only for the country, but also for the region and the rest of the world. To foster a thorough understanding of the many aspects of the issue, the book looks at both theoretical and practical aspects, from international relations, conflict processes, and political Islam to the annihilation of the TTP, the presence of Al-Qaeda in tribal regions, and the role of Pakistani military and agencies. The essays are contributed by international scholars, journalists, economist, nuclear security experts, security analysts, and strategists. A unique contribution, "Pakistan's Quagmire" will be an essential resource for students in conflict processes, security studies, political Islam, and US foreign policy as well as for policymakers and professionals looking to better grasp the quagmire caused by insurgency and the ongoing war on terror in Pakistan.

This book explores how technological change is influencing the dynamics of relations between mainland China and Taiwan. Using the latest research, it examines the acceleration of technology-led and how it shapes three key dimensions of the cross-Strait relationship: the overarching security context; the economic context; and the cultural context.

This book presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the governance of public procurement reform in Africa. Through a bottom-up approach to case studies and comparative analyses, scholars, practitioners, and social activists write about the organizational mechanisms and implementation gaps in public procurement governance in light of the general premises of national reform. Reforming the ways in which government purchases works, goods, and services from the private sector is one of the most sweeping policy reform undertaken in Africa in the past decade. Despite the transnational scope of policy change, very little is known about the mechanisms of public procurement governance at the subnational level. The argument in this volume is that policy reforms that mitigate contractual hazards along the three-dimensional "law-politics-business matrix" are more likely to bring about meaningful institutional transformation and broader social accountability. Key to substantive transformation of public procurement is the revitalization and professionalization of the public sector to meet the opportunities and challenges of development by contract.

Notwithstanding its contemporary critics, political representation remains at the core of democratic politics. Based on a comparative research project that gathered data from observations, surveys, experiments and expert interviews, this book examines the process and the quality of political representation in France and Germany from a dual perspective. First, it analyzes MPs' behavior during their district activities. Second, it investigates the perceptions and evaluations of the represented, the French and German citizens. In ten chapters different facets of MPs' activities as well as citizens' attitudes are comparatively investigated. The book is relevant for Politics scholars and practitioners at national parliaments to better understand representative democracies, and it may also contribute to improve representation itself.

The smaller countries of Western Europe have a reputation for being more successful than their larger neighbors. They are wealthier per capita, they are more stable politically, and they are more flexible economically. The secret to this success lies in their consensual style of politics and their corporatist style of decision-making. Unfortunately, however, that may be about to change. A political transformation underway in small states is undermining the politics of consensus and breakdown the effectiveness of corporatist institutions. Small countries are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of world markets as a result.
Belgium and the Netherlands offer clear examples of the problem at hand. The political societies of both countries were tightly organized to avoid conflict and to promote consensus. Over time, however, this tight organization has broken down, politicians have opted for conflict over consensus, and elections have become more volatile as a result. In turn, this political transformation of Belgium and the Netherlands has undermined their traditional approach to economic policymaking and economic adjustment. Belgium and the Netherlands are now more vulnerable to world market forces than at any time since the end of the 1970s. Their relative economic and political success can no longer be taken for granted. The relative success of other small states should be brought into question as well.

More than 25 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, European integration remains a work in progress, especially in those Eastern European nations most dramatically reshaped by democratization and economic liberalization. This volume assembles detailed, empirically grounded studies of eleven states-Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and the former East Germany-that went on to join the European Union. Each chapter analyzes the political, economic, and social transformations that have taken place in these nations, using a comparative approach to identify structural similarities and assess outcomes relative to one another as well as the rest of the EU.

Political liberalization and economic reform, the weakening of the state, and increased global interconnections have all had profound effects on Muslim societies and the practice of Islam in Africa. The contributors to this volume investigate and illuminate the changes they have brought, through detailed case studies of Muslim youth activists, Islamic NGOs, debates about Islamic law, secularism and minority rights, and Muslims and the political process in both conflict and post-conflict settings. Their work offers fresh perspectives on the complexity of Muslim politics in contemporary Africa.