The European Union's stalled expansion, the Euro deficit and emerging crises of economic and political sovereignty in Greece, Italy and Spain have significantly altered the image of the EU as a model of progressive civilization. However, despite recent events the EU maintains its international image as the paragon of European politics and global governance. This book unites leading scholars on Europe and Empire to revisit the view of the European Union as an 'imperial' power. It offers a re-appraisal of the EU as empire in response to geopolitical and economic developments since 2007 and asks if the policies, practices, and priorities of the Union exhibit characteristics of a modern empire. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of the EU, European studies, history, sociology, international relations, and economics.

The European Union's stalled expansion, the Euro deficit and emerging crises of economic and political sovereignty in Greece, Italy and Spain have significantly altered the image of the EU as a model of progressive civilization. However, despite recent events the EU maintains its international image as the paragon of European politics and global governance. This book unites leading scholars on Europe and Empire to revisit the view of the European Union as an 'imperial' power. It offers a re-appraisal of the EU as empire in response to geopolitical and economic developments since 2007 and asks if the policies, practices, and priorities of the Union exhibit characteristics of a modern empire. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of the EU, European studies, history, sociology, international relations, and economics.

The enlargement of European-based organisations has reached a near terminal point. The Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) currently cover virtually all states of Europe (Belarus still remains excluded from the first of these). The EU and NATO have experienced extensive processes of enlargement and the scope for continuing enlargement is now limited largely to the Balkans and the European neutrals. Given this state of affairs it is now pertinent to think of a Europe characterised not by enlargement but by post-enlargement. In International Relations (IR) conceptual thinking on Europe (as opposed just to the EU) has been undertaken using a range of scholarly tools. In this volume, attention to Europe proceeds from English School (ES) thinking, and specifically its three-fold distinction between international system, international society and world society. It is the international society element (the development/institutionalisation of shared interests and identities buttressed by rules and norms) which signifies in their most concrete form different patterns of interaction or integration between states. This book will be of interest to international relations scholars, as well as practitioners within the European Union and other intergovernmental institutions. It was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.

Turkish membership to the European Union generates significant debate among politicians, policy-makers, and academicians. At the same time, the issue of Turkish membership carries challenges for European Union policy-making as well as for theories of integration. This volume comes at a timely interval when there is a need to better understand the Turkish accession to the European Union. The purpose of this volume is twofold. First, it seeks to examine the political background of the European Union-Turkey enlargement negotiation process, and second, it aims at assessing the current strengths and weaknesses of the Turkish candidature. By analyzing the obstacles in front of Turkish negotiations, it aims to uncover the road in front of Turkey's European Union membership. The volume focuses on political, social, and economic issues relevant to the accession process and assesses the transformation at these different levels in line with the negotiations.