This work offers a fresh perspective to the study of 'Europe' by placing the discussion of 'What is Europe?' and 'What is it to be European?', in a wider context of the study of modernity through a collection of nine case studies.

The European Union can be perceived as an enormous bilateral and multilateral process of internal and external negotiation. This book examines negotiations within member states, between member states, within and between the institutions of the Union and between the EU and other countries. It also analyzed processes, actors and interests. This book is, therefore, a unique probe into the relatively unknown arena of negotiation processes in the European Union.

Legal Aspects of the Regional Integration Processes in the Post-Soviet Area is the first ever comprehensive overview of regional integration processes in the territory of the former USSR introducing the core concepts of regional integration theory and presenting a solid foundation of factual information regarding all the regional integration agreements (RIAs) operating in the Eurasian landmass and consisting of the former Soviet republics. The book analyzes the legal nature and background of the regional integration in the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Russian-Belarusian Union, the Single Economic Space, the Eurasian Economic Community and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. It also deals with the RIAs created outside of the Russian control in the format of GUAM and among Central Asian countries. Finally, the book contains conclusive remarks attempting to assess the possibility of the creation of an Eurasian Union.

The research presented in this book provides a stakeholder analysis of human rights protection at a time when the region appears to be regressing into an insidious and deep authoritarianism. As political space shrinks in Southeast Asia, the book provides an insight into how civil society engaged with the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United Nations Human Rights Council during the first (2008-2011) and second (2012-2016) cycles. Through evidence-based research, the authors in this volume identify gaps in human rights reporting and advocacy during the UPR, notably on civil and political issues such as the right to life, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and belief, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention and claims for greater autonomy. In short, The Universal Periodic Review of Southeast Asia: Civil Society Perspectives, highlights the need for more engagement on civil and political issues during the third cycle of the UPR in 2017-2020. Failing this, the UPR process risks being reduced to a platform where civil society only engages on issues that States are willing to cooperate on. If this is the case, Southeast Asia's democratic transition will suffer a long term set back.

Divisions in the EU are considered, as well as the conflicts that have arisen from enlargement and foreign policy concerns. Leading specialists on European politics and society reflect on the nature of consensus and competition between elites, and whether the EU may be able to provide a sense of common identity and purpose for its citizens.

This book is the first history of the World Food Programme, the food aid arm of the United Nations. It tells the story of the growth of WFP from modest beginings as a three-year experiment in 1963-65 to its current role as the main source of international food aid for both disaster relief and development against the background of the evolution and development of food aid.

Protectionism is a major concern in the international trading community. The question that arises is how the emergence of protectionism can be prevented and whether regional trade arrangements are a suitable mechanism to enforce liberal trade policies. This book examines these issues, concluding that the success of regional trading arrangements in enforcing good trade policies depends on the quality of the regional agreement and its implementation--simple free trade area is unlikely to be sustainable in the long-run without firm commitments of members to deeper integration.

This systematic assessment of the -often opaque- European Council looks at its characteristics, leaders and output as well as its impact on EU supranational and intergovernmental dynamics. Taking account of historical and contemporary developments up to and beyond the Lisbon Treaty, it encourages in-depth understanding of this key institution.

Combined with the US pivot to Asia, NATO enlargement could press Russia and a rising China into a tighter alliance--but with Russia playing the role of a junior partner. This book argues for bringing Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey into a new Euro-Atlantic confederation, not only in order to draw Moscow away from forging a closer military relationship with Beijing but also to help revitalize a Europe in crisis. Concurrently, Washington and Moscow need to work together to prevent disputes between North and South Korea, Japan, and China, as well as between Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran from exploding into a major power war.

There is a glaring imbalance between the impressive amount of research into first-tier EU decision-making by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament and the limited research into second-tier EU rule-making by the Commission and the comitology committees. This book seeks to redress that imbalance and find answers to fundamental unresolved questions about the comitology system. It looks at why the system was created, how it has evolved over time and how it functions day to day. The EU Comitology System in Theory and Practice applies a novel theoretical approach, the delegation perspective, and provides answers by analysing a plurality of data sources, including EU legislative databases, survey data of comitology committees, legal documents and news reports. The book argues that member states use the comitology system to strike a balance between delegating powers to the Commission and controlling it.

This volume addresses the problem of cohesion in the European Union. It examines EU cohesion policies and other policies which significantly reduce the likelihood of cohesion being achieved, and also challenges the idea that regional policy is a form of wealth distribution. It argues that cohesion, rather than being an objective in its own right, has been systematically redefined as a tool of competitiveness, and that neo-liberal economic priorities have led to the privileging of regional autonomy over cohesion.

A major result of the Second World War was the emergence of small states which vastly increased the membership of the international system. While a number of small states existed before the war many of these had made no effort to participate actively in the system; since then, the doctrine of equality of states has been established, in theory at least, through their admission to the UN. This book, first published in 1984, deals with the factors which have contributed to the emergence of such a large number of small states, the difficulties which they have experienced in achieving statehood, and their struggle to gain political integration. A precise analysis of the foreign policy and economic factors governing the activity of small states, particularly that of Kuwait and the other Gulf states, is presented here.

A fast reduction of regional disparities within the EU is unlikely. Regional policy will thus remain an important European topic. This text analyzes regional policy and its co-ordination with other European and national public policies, namely investment grants, research and development policy and transport policy. The analysis identifies shortcomings within EU regional policy as well as co-ordination, problems with other public policies, and demonstrates how cohesion problems are often due to a lack of policy co-ordination at the domestic level.

Germany has played a leading role in the development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union. This study assesses the influence of German policy makers on EU policy and the impact of EU membership on foreign policy making at the national level. The book concludes that limitations remain on the Europeanization of German foreign and security policy and Germany's ability to play a leading role in military crisis management.

Tannam focuses on the role of bureaucracies when dealing with conflict in two international organisations, the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN), providing a unique comparative account of their policy-making procedures.

Can NATO survive? The stimulating and highly original essays contained in this volume provide important new insights into why the treaty organization was formed, how it developed, and what it has contributed both to the security and to the integration of Europe. The authors examine NATO as a strong and intricate webbing holding together the nations of Europe as well as binding them to the United States as guarantor of free world stability. This book is essential to the re-examination now under way of NATO's role in the radically different post-Cold War world.

Is the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) an effective and legitimate tool in European social policy-making? Milena Buchs analyses the goals and instruments of the OMC, discusses approaches which theorize its functioning, examines its policy content and develops a framework for its evaluation. Through the examination of a case study the author demonstrates how policy actors apply the OMC in employment in Germany and the United Kingdom. The book concludes that the OMC pursues contradictory goals and is unlikely to achieve them simultaneously.

This book examines EU discourses on Turkey in the European Commission, European Parliament and three EU member states (France, Germany and Britain), to reveal the discursive construction of European identity through EU representations of Turkey. Based on a poststructuralist framework that conceptualizes identity as discursively constructed through difference, the book applies Critical Discourse Analysis to the analysis of texts and argues that there are multiple Europe(s) that are constructed in talks over the enlargement of Turkey, varying within and between different ideological, national and institutional contexts. The book discerns four main discourse topics over which these Europe(s) are constructed, corresponding to the conceptualization of Europe as a security community, as an upholder of democratic values, as a political project and as a cultural space. The book argues that Turkey constitutes a key case in exploring various discursive constructs of European identity, since the talks on Turkey pave the way for the construction of different versions of Europe in discourse.

This study argues that the practices of European integration reproduce, rather than transcend, the practices of modern statecraft. Therefore, the project of European integration is plagued by similar ethico-political dilemmas as the modern state, and is ultimately animated by a similar desire to either expel or interiorize difference.

This work examines European democracy, showing how it has developed through key episodes in the long history of the process: precursors in the Low Countries, the founding of British parliamentary, then American federal democracy, post-revolutionary France, post-war Germany, and the European Parliament. It explores the significance of each episode in the development of national or federal democracy and concludes with a positive assessment of the prospects of liberal democracy. This book should be of interest to political scientists, historians and others concerned with the development of democracy in Europe and beyond.

This work examines the British government's negotiation of the Treaty on European Union which took place between December 1990 and December 1991. On the basis of documentary and interview-based evidence of leading participants from Britain and Europe, it offers an insight into the objectives and motivations of the British government. The author analyzes the various constraints and pressures that impinged on the British government and sets its successes and failures in the Maastricht negotiations in a broader context of British European policy. general interest

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly recognised as playing a significant role in the health sector in developing countries. This book examines the background to the growth both in the sector and interest in it, the strengths and weaknesses of NGOs and the arguments for and against their use for different aspects of the health sector. It focuses particularly on the relationship between the State and non-governmental organizations and the issues critical to the development of policies towards the sector.

This work challenges the dominant discourse of neo-liberalism which places NGOs and civil society at the forefront of democratization and development in Africa. Based on nine months field research in Uganda, the study draws on evidence from the successfully liberalizing country and shows how NGO potential for democratization and development has been subverted by state directives, structural conditions and historical conditions, as well as the internal limitiations of NGOs.

The Council of Ministers provides a comprehensive analysis of the Council of Ministers: how it works, its varied activities, functions, and its relationships with the other key EU institutions and the member states. It is a key legislative institution which lies at the fulcrum of decision-making in the European Union.

A globalization of innovation has produced the most massive spurt in biotechnology in world history.  Businesses, universities, and non-governmental organizations are collaborating to produce a "science-industrial complex" in biotechnology.  Using case studies of stem cell research, cloning, genetically modified food, in-vitro fertilization, and chimeras in a number of Eastern and Western countries around the world, I argue that much of this biotech activity is global in nature and independent of state control.  This shift in the relative influence of state and non-state actors has led to the virtual deregulation of biotechnology and the liberation of innovation from geo-political constraints.  These trends post a number of interesting social, political, and ethical issues for the contemporary period and suggest the need to rethink how controversial moral issues are handled by the science-industrial complex.