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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > International institutions
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.
Much more than a simple examination of EU-Asia relations, this book examines the idea that the EU may constitute a 'model' for East Asian regionalism. It challenges specialists on the EU to understand the EU's impact on Asia and Asia's impact on the EU whilst illustrating that there is a commonality of interests in both Europe and Asia.
Interpreting Convergence in the European Union introduces the idea of collective action as a prerequisite for achieving convergence and cohesion in the European Union. Institutional networks and social capital play a crucial role in influencing actors' preferences and shaping institutional interactions through the process of political exchange and socialization. Although the main focus of the book is on policy-making processes and governance structures in EU regional policy, its core theoretical hypotheses and conclusion are drawn from empirical research into the response of Greek regions to the challenges of Europeanization. This framework is applicable to almost all areas of EU public policy-making.
The European Union means many different things to its many peoples. In Germany, for example, the European project was conceived mainly as post-national, or even post-sovereign. In France, by contrast, President Emmanuel Macron has pursued the vision of a sovereign Europe; that is, an EU that would become a formidable geopolitical actor. Yet, instead, Europe has struggled to ascertain its values abroad and even domestically, facing a sovereignist rebellion from its newer member states, such as Hungary and Poland, and the departure of Britain. The eurozone crisis has undermined the EU's economic credentials, the refugee crisis its societal cohesion, the failure to stand up to Russia its sense of purpose, and the Covid-19 pandemic its credibility as a protector of European citizens. The key argument of this book is that the multiple crises of the European project are caused by one underlying factor: its bold attempt to overcome the age of nation-states. Left unchecked, supranational institutions tend to become ever more bureaucratic, eluding control of the people they are meant to serve. The logic of technocracy is thus pitted against the democratic impulse, which the European Union is supposed to embody. Democracy in Europe has suffered as a result.
The book uses an innovative theoretical framework to explain how the EU social dimension has taken its present form. It presents and applies a political economic framework to the European labour market integration process and offers new tools for analysing the dynamics of regional integration. The theory is applied to case studies of the EU's approach to social protection, health and safety protection at the workplace, and maternity leave. The topical issues around the future of welfare provision in Europe, how a 'Social Europe' may develop and the political and economic consequences of this are discussed.
During its first fifteen years, the EU's merger control system, unlike most others in the world, offered only minimal possibilities for taking efficiency gains into account as a mitigating factor that might offset the anti-competitive effects of a merger. This book examines the background to a change in the legal framework which occurred in May 2004 with the entry into force of a new Merger Regulation that for the first time explicitly recognises the possibility of an efficiency defence. European Merger Control assesses the likely impact of this new regulation, and discusses the pros and cons of the efficiency defence, how other merger control systems deal with efficiencies, how the investigation process can be organised to accommodate the analysis of efficiency gains and the main theoretical and practical problems which arise when anti-competitive effects have to be weighed against efficiency gains. With contributions from distinguished academics in the field of industrial economics and officials with practical experience of merger control, this book will be of interest to consulting economists practising in the field of competition policy, competition lawyers, micro-economists and officials of competition authorities.
Analyses the impact of the managerial reforms of the European Commission. In 1999 the resignation of the College of Commissioners triggered the implementation of a White Paper which listed 98 measures to overhaul the way the Commission did business. Ten years later what impact have the reforms had on the European Commission and European governance?
Much of the literature on the emerging role of the EU as a non-proliferation actor has only a minimal engagement with theory. This collection aims to rectify this by placing the role of the EU in the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons within an analytical framework inspired by emerging literature on the performance of international organisations.
Dealing with Conflict in Africa analyzes the roles of the various organizations involved in conflict resolution in Africa. The first section of the book deals with the overall issues associated with cooperation between regional organizations and the United Nations, as well as how the United Nations has approached this issue in Africa. In the second section, six case studies examine the major conflicts in Africa, such as the Congo War. For each case study, the author looks at what responsibilities and tasks were taken on by different organizations, the relationship between the organizations, and which ones are most effective in working towards successful conflict resolution. The contributors also examine the effectiveness of coalitions or leaders in comparison to the UN and regional organizations. The contributors are an international group of scholars and consultants, all of whom are well positioned to analyze these issues.
The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which the end of the Cold War led to Europeanisation in the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The analysis takes into consideration previous studies on Europeanisation and its impact on the transformation of national security and defence, and attempts to account for the development of Europeanisation and related mechanisms. These mechanisms, which have been described as framing mechanisms and negative integration, incorporate all the major relevant factors identified here (i.e. a common Strategic Culture, new security identity, domestic political decision-making, industrial base and defence-spending decline) that contributed to the realisation of the CSDP. The relevance of these factors for CSDP Europeanisation is examined through an historical and empirical analysis, and the relationship between the CSDP and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is also explored. This approach facilitates analysis of the debate concerning the emergence of the CSDP and throws light on the political shift that led European Union (EU) leaders to support the CSDP. Another aspect of this study is the empirical examination of the dynamics and limitations of the European defence sector. The changes which took place in this sector facilitated the emergence of the CSDP and are therefore analysed in the light of globalisation issues, economies of scale, economic crises, military autonomy, new security strategy and Research and Development (R&D) impact. This book will be of interest to students of European security, EU politics, defence studies and International Relations.
How did Europe get to monetary union in 1999 and how will EMU work out? Are the member countries starting in good shape and is the European Central Bank going to be a success? Should the UK enter EMU too, and if so when and how? This book provides a stocktaking of the process of European monetary integration as of early 1999 - at the start of European Monetary Union and twenty years after the creation of the European Monetary System. Based upon the first academic conference on the subject since the start of EMU by the Money, Macro and Finance Research Group and bringing together leading academics, researchers and policy-makers - including members of the European Central Bank - the book assesses recent experiences and evaluates likely future developments.
The debate over the nature and future of the United Nations began before its inception in 1945, and is likely to continue far into its second half-century. The purpose of this collection is to examine something generally ignored in the debate, even in the professional literature: what the United Nations actually does. The volume consists of original, authoritative, critical analyses of a sampling of key UN activities. In addition to their credentials in their own specialties, most contributors have extensive UN experience as staff members, delegates or consultants. Most are international lawyers and the others have a wide variety of backgrounds. They come from 12 countries. Each chapter stands on its own as a significant contribution to our understanding of both the subject and the quiet, undramatic but vital worldwide work of the United Nations. Students, scholars, and other researchers involved with the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations will find this work of particular interest.
This is a distinctive new textbook on the political dynamics of the
EU which offers a refreshing alternative to the traditional
history-policy-institutions model. Assuming no prior knowledge, it
introduces a wide range of key debates with a central focus on how
the need to accommodate a range of state interests shapes the EU
political system and on the implications this has for its
democratic functionality and the process of Europeanization and
integration.
This book provides a detailed analysis on the history and development of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) and the Conference on Disarmament (CD) and the coordination and cooperation between these two fora. Furthermore, it discusses the future challenges that these fora will have to deal with and conclude in which way the current system can change to cope with the evolution of space matters. This is necessary for the proper discussion of space matters because these matters cannot simply be divided between military and non-military, but are interrelated.
This fresh look at the 1963 crisis in the western alliance following de Gaulle's veto of the British EEC application uses much new unpublished source material to offer a fascinating insight into the personal relationships of the western leaders. It challenges the orthodox view, showing that the ultimate breakdown came after Anglo-German and Anglo-American cooperation to ensure that de Gaulle was made the sole scapegoat, in order to isolate France within the EEC.
"Offices in Brussels representing the interests of regional actors in the EU have carved out a niche position within Europe's expanding multi-level political system. They are now the most visible indicators of the growing role played by EU regions. How can we understand their contribution to EU governance? What do they deliver to Europe's regions? This book covers these issues"--
This book reinterprets the EU using classical and early modern republican political theory. Bypassing the nation-state, it presents a new theory of the creation, change and demise of organizations in world politics. It also argues that the state is a problematic solution to 'state-failure' and explores alternative republican commonwealths.
In this study, an international and multidisciplinary team take stock of the promise and shortfalls of 'Social Europe' today, examining the response to the Eurocrisis, the past decade of social policy in the image of the Lisbon Agenda, and the politics that derailed a more Delorsian Europe from ever emerging.
The book provides a comprehensive analysis of the international development policies of ten Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU between 2004 and 2007. The contributors offer the first thorough overview of the 'new' EU member states' development cooperation programmes, placing them in a larger political and societal context.
The Treaty on European Union introduced specific objectives for the Development Co-operation Policy of the Community. The inclusion of Articles 130u--y marks an important stage in the emergence of the Community's Development Co-operation Policy. It affords the Community an opportunity to eliminate the inconsistencies of the past which have arisen through the gradual and patchwork development of that policy. It also affords the Community a much-needed opportunity to adopt an integrated and coherent policy which will promote the economic and social development of all developing countries and their gradual integration into the world economy and which should make a significant contribution to the campaign against poverty in developing countries. The general scope of the objectives set for the Development Co-operation Policy are examined in Chapter One, which provides an overview of the development of the general outline of that policy up to 1992. Chapters Two to Five concentrate on the region-specific application of the Community's Development Co-operation Policy by examining the relationships established through the Lome Conventions with the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and through other agreements with the countries of the Mediterranean, Latin America and Asia. In each chapter, the focus of attention is the trading relationship established with the Community. Chapter Six is an examination of two problems of co-ordination; between the Development of Co-operation Policy and other Community policies; and between the Community Policy and those of the Member States. The conclusion emerging from the discussion is that one very important area of co-ordination was omitted from the provisions of Articles u--y, namely the co-ordination of the instruments of development co-operation themselves. The final chapter proposes a new Development Co-operation Policy for the Community to meet new objectives set by Articles 130u--y.
This collection of essays examines the diplomatic corps as an institution of international society. Contributors include both leading scholars from the field of diplomatic studies, serving diplomats, and scholar-diplomats. The central argument of the volume is that the diplomatic corps provides one of the few unambiguous ways by which an international society is constituted and finds expression. As the chapters show, however, what this means precisely varies hugely by setting and circumstance.
The democratic nation state of the post-war era has undergone major transformations since the 1970s, and political authority has been both internationalized and privatized. The thirteen chapters of this edited collection deal with major transformations of governance arrangements and state responsibilities in the countries of the OECD world. A unified conceptual and explanatory framework is used to describe trajectories of state change, to explain the internationalization or privatization of responsibilities in the resource, law, legitimacy and welfare dimensions of the democratic nation state, and to probe the state's role in the today's post-national constellation of political authority. As the contributions show, an unravelling of state authority has indeed occurred, but the state nevertheless continues to play a key role in emerging governance arrangements. Hence it is not merely a 'victim' of globalization and other driving forces of change.
This book analyzes in what way activation policies impact on given patterns of social citizenship that predominate in national contexts. It argues that the liberal paradigm of activation introduced into labour market policies in all Western European states challenges the specific patterns of social citizenship in each country.
This book is about neighbourhoods and networks between the diverse
people of contemporary Europe who live in a globalized and
globalizing world and across different types of borders: physical
and mental, geopolitical and symbolic. The book's theme is set
within the larger framework of globalization and geopolitical
re-ordering on the European continent, processes in which the
supra-national EU has played a highly significant role and where
transnational relations increasingly become the norm.
This book makes the case for a standing UN Emergency Peace Service. With this one development - effectively a UN first responder for complex emergencies - the organization would finally have a rapid, reliable capacity to help fulfill its tougher assigned tasks. To date, the UNEPS initiative has encountered an unreceptive political, fiscal, and security environment. Yet overlapping crises are now inevitable as are profound shifts. This book presents an insightful review of the worrisome security challenges ahead and analysis of two recent high-level UN reports. It addresses the primary roles, core principles, and requirements of a UNEPS, as well as the arguments for and against such a dedicated UN service. Further, it reveals that the primary impediments and lessons learned also help demonstrate what may work and, equally important, what won't. With modest support, the book shows, the next steps are feasible, although it's important to recall that ideas, even good ideas, don't work unless we do. |
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