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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > International institutions
France's political leaders have been deeply committed both to maintaining France's independence and to asserting its leadership role in Europe. The end of the Cold War, the demise of the "Europe of Yalta," as well as the unification of Germany, have forced France to rethink its European and international strategies. The purpose of this study is to analyze France's effort to redefine its role in the post-Cold War era and in an integrated Europe, and what that redefined role might mean to France, to Europe, and to the United States. In examining France's international role after the Cold War, Steven Philip Kramer seeks to answer the question, "does France still count?"
Contributors offer new approaches to the study of the European Neighbourhood Policy. While the main emphasis is on the empirical assessment of the impact that the ENP has had to-date and on the factors that have shaped its implementation, it also provides new theoretical and methodological perspectives on how to study this policy area.
How should political community be seen in the context of European integration? This book combines a theoretical treatment of political allegiance with a study of ordinary citizens, examining how taxi-drivers in Britain, Germany and the Czech Republic talk politics and situate themselves relative to political institutions and other citizens.
Since the end of the Cold War the growing integration of the world markets and the emergence of an international legal system have dramatically decreased the regulation capacities of the nation states. "Building a Transnational Civil Society" analyzes structural crises of globalization processes and demonstrates chances and limits of actors in transnational civil society and political movements - in short a new cosmopolitan internationalism. The areas of investigation are new economic developments, old and new social movements and the reality of wars and humanitarian intervention.
After its failure to bring an end to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, the European Union has worked hard to close the infamous 'capabilities-expectations gap' in the field of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). In a very short timeframe, the EU agreed to the following: the institution of new political and military bodies; peculiar structures and procedures to ensure political guidance and strategic direction; principles for consultation and cooperation with non-European allies and other international organisations such as the UN and NATO; measures to enhance the Union's military and civilian capabilities; and the adoption of an acquis securitaire, including a European Security Strategy. The most striking manifestation and raison d'etre of the ESDP is the European Union's capacity to move beyond the paper security structures and back its diplomatic efforts by action on the ground. With the launching of more than twenty ESDP operations in barely five years' time, the EU has affirmed its operational capacity in ESDP. While most of the early ESDP missions were fairly successful, they have also revealed shortfalls, bottlenecks as well as broader issues in crisis management. In this book, prominent academics and leading practitioners explore this wide variety of policy and legal aspects of ESDP and present the lessons which should be taken to heart now that the EU is facing its 'maturity test' as an international crisis manager in high-risk theatres around the world. The book will be an important tool for decision-makers, officials and academics involved in the further development of ESDP. Its contents incorporate the text and potential effects of the Lisbon Treaty and the ECJ's judgment in the Small and Light Weapons/ECOWAS case. Dr Steven Blockmans is a Senior Research Fellow in EU law and Deputy Head of Research at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut, The Hague.
Shedding new light on the foundations of European competition law, this volume is a legal and historical study of the emerging law and its evolution through the 1980s. It retraces the development and critical junctures of competition law not only at the level of the European Economic Community but also at the level of major Member States of the EEC. Intensely researched and rich with insights, the chapters in this volume reflect a close collaboration among an expert group of lawyers and historians and capitalize on previously unavailable source materials. The book examines several key themes including: the influence of national and international competition law on the development of EEC competition law; the drafting of the regulations that lead to the development of modern EU competition law; the role of the European Court of Justice in establishing the protection of competition as a central pillar of the Common Market; the internal dynamics, ideologies and tensions within the Competition Directorate General (DG IV) of the European Commission; and the role of industrial policy in European integration. Combining legal analysis with a meticulous excavation of historical evidence to reveal the forces driving key actors and the interactions among them, this volume rediscovers a past largely forgotten but essential to understanding the genesis of competition law in Europe, its role in Europe's construction, its hybrid institutional traits, and its often unique substance.
Since the end of the Cold War and re-unification, Germany's policy toward and within the European Union has undergone significant changes. Once a model 'Europeanist', Germany has become increasingly reluctant to support the progressive implementation of key projects of European integration. Integrating insights from foreign policy analysis, integration theory, and social theory and providing an in-depth analysis of both refugee and security policy, the book develops an innovative framework for analysis that is capable of accounting for an incremental 'de-Europeanization' in Germany's EU policy.
The history of European expansion overseas also includes the history of the expansion of concepts and principles of European law into the non-European world. The values and ideas it expressed have, to this day, deeply influenced indigenous societies and governments. At the same time indigenous concepts of law were 'discovered' and codified by European scholars. The outcome of this was a complex and intense interaction between European and local concepts of law, which resulted in many dual legal systems in the African and Asian colonies and which is examined in this volume by prominent historians, lawyers and legal anthropologists.
Since 9/11 Western states have sought to integrate 'securitisation' measures within migration regimes as asylum seekers and other migrant categories come to be seen as agents of social instability or as potential terrorists. Treating migration as a security threat has therefore increased insecurity amongst migrant and ethnic minority populations.
The notion of the European Social Model (ESM) has been one of the fastest growing in European political and academic discourse in recent years. It is conventionally used to describe the European experience of simultaneously promoting sustainable economic growth and social cohesion. However, the concept has suffered from a lack of clear definition. And where definitions have been found in the literature, they do not necessarily converge. This book presents the outcome of a project coordinated by the European Trade Union Institute in which experts from different countries and social scientific disciplines (sociology, political science and economics) were invited to reflect on both the meaning and political status of the concept of the ESM. In addition to analysing the ambiguities and multiple meanings attributed to the concept, the authors unpick the underlying assumptions and make use of a new approach - the ESM as political project - with which European countries can build consensus and share a common understanding. Offering a new analytical framework and with new empirical evidence, "Unwrapping the European Social Model" is essential reading for all those involved in European social policy research, education, policy and practice.
The world of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) has dramatically changed during the last two decades. The author critically analyses the engagement of INGOs within the contemporary international development landscape, enabling readers to further understand INGOs involvement in the politics of social change.
A constantly evolving security agenda has become a vital part of US-EU relations. Contemporary security challenges such as the rise of international terrorism and the threat from 'states of concern' have - in recent years - forced the US and the EU to adapt their relationship and work together in new ways. Written by a leading authority, this incisive and wide-ranging book systematically examines the development of the transatlantic security relationship in the post-Cold War era. It assesses the nature of the US and EU as international actors and considers how they cooperate together. Rees argues that - despite divergences of interest after the end of the Cold War - the complex nature of contemporary challenges is driving both sides of the Atlantic towards increased cooperation. In addition, the book looks in detail at how global and European issues such as EU defence and enlargement policies, nuclear non-proliferation, and the war on terror have affected security relations.
The Changing Politics of European Security explores the key security challenges confronting Europe, from relations with the US and Russia to the use of military force and the struggle against terrorism. In the future, the authors conclude, European states will act alone, independent of America, on security matters.
The book explores the various means of making non-conventional/non-treaty law and the cross-cutting issues that they raise. Law-making by technical/informal expert bodies, Conferences of Parties, international organizations, the UN Security Council, regional organizations and arrangements and non-state actors is examined in turn. This forms the basis for the analysis of the complementarity of international treaty law, customary international law and non-traditional law-making, potential subject matters of non-treaty law-making, domestic consequences of non-treaty law-making, proliferation of actors, commissions and treaty bodies of the UN system, and International courts and tribunals.
The Role of Customs in International Treaties concentrates on issues of friction between member states of the United Nations. In view of the role played by the United Nations in resolving international disputes, Dimitris Liakopoulos hypothesizes that ""practical guides"" based on custom often catalyze the positions taken by states, courts, scholars, and other actors, constituting an ""orthodox"" position against which formulaic legal opposition will become predictably more difficult. In addition to reiterating what some would say are obvious, on some particularly controversial issues, the United Nations has essentially chosen not to take a position and allowed customs to define conflict resolution.
The contributors to this edited volume analyze and compare different kinds of citizens' initiatives, including both full scale initiatives and agenda initiatives, in eleven European democracies and the EU. The book provides a comprehensive account of the practices of citizens' initiatives in each case, including a description of the historical background of the citizens' initiatives and the political system in which they operate. Particular attention is paid to the institutional design of citizens' initiatives which largely explains how they function in different political contexts. Citizens Initiatives in Europe sheds light on issues relevant to democracy, for example, how citizens' initiatives influence patterns of political agenda-setting in representative democracies and how they contribute to the aspirations of participatory democracy.
Sixty years after its invention, the operational system of the European Union remains little-understood. The 'Community Method' provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of the functioning and achievements of the EU.
Financial capital, whether mediated through the financial market or Foreign Direct Investment has been a key factor in European economic growth. This book examines the interaction between European and global financial integration and analyses the dynamics of the monetary sector and the real economy in Europe. The key analytical focus is on the theoretical and empirical dynamics of financial markets in Europe, however, it also provides regional case studies of key institutional developments and lessons from foreign direct investment. There is a broad range of findings for Central, Eastern and Western Europe as well as EU Partner Countries. Crucially the analysis includes new approaches and options for solving the transatlantic banking crisis and suggests policy innovations for a world with unstable financial markets.
This book offers African, Asian, Latin American, European, and North American perspectives on institutions and regulations promoting sustainable economic growth in the post-2015 development agenda in areas such as environment, labour, risk management, corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, and innovation. The chapters address sustainability issues at the firm, national, regional and international levels from a multidisciplinary perspective. The chapters of this volume address the challenge of enhancing economic competitiveness of the supply side economies while pushing a sustainable development agenda. This work addresses the existing inequalities, environmental degradation, and economic/financial instability under current dynamics of international and domestic power relations in order to meet the set objectives for the post-2015 era. This volume advances the perspectives on the non-compulsory alternative to markets regulations, the United Nations Global Compact, explored in the previous volume 'The UN Global Compact: Fair Competition and Environmental and Labour Justice in International Markets' vol. 16.
In the European Union the balance of power between Brussels and the Member State governments is an ongoing matter of contention. With each treaty amendment during the Union's first 50 years, EU competences have grown, and each time critics have questioned whether the national governments are being weakened. The Treaty of Lisbon is now being considered as a replacement for the ill-fated European Constitution, and the atmosphere is one of heightened sensitivity. This timely book examines the Lisbon Treaty to determine whether the current 'dividing lines' between Member State and Union authority will be affected. Taking a broad view of what the EU is and what its members are trying to accomplish collectively, the author contrasts these aspirations for Europe with the insistence of each Member State that it must never lose its national sovereignty.
This text presents an assessment of France's policies towards NATO between 1981 and 1997. It also provides a critical assessment of these policies. It argues that France's arms length relationship with NATO's integrated military structure served its purpose during the Cold War, but increasingly came to impose high costs thereafter. The author goes on to explain this somewhat puzzling fidelity to inappropriate policies as a function of domestic pressures on French policy makers.
These essays, written in honour of retired ECJ judge Pernilla Lindh, reflect on the development of courts and judging in the EU since the founding of the Union. In particular they focus on recent reforms and proposals aimed at further increasing public confidence and democratic accountability throughout the EU judicial system.
Despite considerable progress on political and economic convergence over the last decade, financial structures of individual countries within the EU remain diverse. This book considers the future prospects of the banking industry in the context of enlargement, application of the IFRS and a potential new member country, Turkey.
Through a detailed historical and empirical account of post-independence years, this book offers a new assessment of the role of the judiciary in Pakistani politics. Instead of seeing the judiciary as helpless or struggling against an authoritarian state, it argues that the judiciary has been a crucial link in the creation of state and political inequality in Pakistan. This rubs against the central role given to the judiciary in developing countries to fix the 'corrupt politicians and stubborn bureaucracies' in the World Bank's 'Good Governance' paradigm and rule of law initiatives. It also challenges the contemporary legal and judicial discourse that extols the virtues of Public Interest Litigation. While the book's core analysis is a critique of the contemporary liberal legal project, it also adds to the critical tradition of social theory by linking political economy to a social theory of law. The theoretical aspect of the study is applicable to any developing society whose judiciary is going through foreign-sponsored 'rule of law' judicial reforms.
Focusing on the ILO, this volume explores its role as creator of international social networks and facilitator of exchange between various national and international actors since its establishment in 1919. It emphasizes the role played by the ILO in the international circulation of ideas, expertise and practices that foster the emergence and shaping of international social models, and examines the impact of its methods and models on national and local societies. By analysing the case of the ILO, the authors rethink the influence of international organizations in the shaping of the contemporary world and the emergence of a global civil society. This collection brings together a variety of new scholarship by a group of highly qualified and internationally renowned scholars and supplemented by a set of young researchers entering the field of global history and the history of international organizations. |
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