This new version of a leading textbook on French politics offers expert analysis of recent national and international events, discussing their significance for France itself as well as for Europe and the wider world. It covers a wide range of current challenges facing the country under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron and considers how issues such as immigration, multiculturalism and gender and sexual politics fit with wider patterns in global politics. New to this Edition: - New co-editor Helen Drake joins the book's experienced team of editors. - Completely revised to take stock of the presidency of Francois Hollande, the first half of Emmanuel Macron's mandate, and to look forward to the future of France and its significance to European and global politics. - Covers a range of new topics including the National Rally (formerly the National Front), immigration, multiculturalism and gender and sexual politics.

How has the process of political representation changed in the era of globalization? The representation of interests is at the heart of democracy, but how is it that some interests secure a strong voice, while others do not? While each person has multiple interests linked to different dimensions of his or her identity, much of the existing academic literature assumes that interests are given prior to politics by a person's socioeconomic, institutional, or cultural situation. This book mounts a radical challenge to this view, arguing that interests are actively forged through processes of politics. The book develops an analytic framework for understanding how representation takes place - based on processes of identification, mobilization, and adjudication - and explores how these processes have evolved over time. Through a wide variety of case studies, the chapters explore how actors identify their interests, mobilize them into action, and resolve conflicts among them.

Under what conditions does the internal cohesiveness of the European Union determine its external effectiveness on the world stage? This book asks this question, investigating the frequent political assumption that the more cohesive the EU presents itself to the world, the more effective it is in achieving its goals. Contributions to this book explore this theory from a range of perspectives, from trade to foreign policy, and highlight complex patterns between internal cohesiveness and external effectiveness. These are simplified into three possible configurations: internal cohesiveness has a positive impact on external effectiveness; internal cohesiveness has no impact on external effectiveness; and internal cohesiveness has a negative impact on external effectiveness. The international context in which the EU operates, which includes the bargaining configuration and the policy arena, functions as an intervening variable that helps us to explain variation in these causal links. The book also launches a research agenda aimed at explaining these patterns more systematically and determining the marginal impact of cohesiveness on effectiveness. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

Under what conditions does the internal cohesiveness of the European Union determine its external effectiveness on the world stage? This book asks this question, investigating the frequent political assumption that the more cohesive the EU presents itself to the world, the more effective it is in achieving its goals. Contributions to this book explore this theory from a range of perspectives, from trade to foreign policy, and highlight complex patterns between internal cohesiveness and external effectiveness. These are simplified into three possible configurations: internal cohesiveness has a positive impact on external effectiveness; internal cohesiveness has no impact on external effectiveness; and internal cohesiveness has a negative impact on external effectiveness. The international context in which the EU operates, which includes the bargaining configuration and the policy arena, functions as an intervening variable that helps us to explain variation in these causal links. The book also launches a research agenda aimed at explaining these patterns more systematically and determining the marginal impact of cohesiveness on effectiveness. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

European politicians often speak of their efforts to 'manage globalization.' At one level, this is merely a rhetorical device to make globalization more palatable to citizens and prove that policy-makers are still firmly in control of their country's fate. This volume argues that the advocacy of managed globalization goes beyond rhetoric and actually has been a primary driver of major European Union (EU) policies in the past twenty years. The EU has indeed tried to manage globalization through the use of five major mechanisms: 1) expanding policy scope 2) exercising regulatory influence 3) empowering international institutions 4) enlarging the territorial sphere of EU influence, and 5) redistributing the costs of globalization. These mechanisms are neither entirely novel, nor are they always effective but they provide the contours of an approach to globalization that is neither ad hoc deregulation, nor old-style economic protectionism. The recent financial crisis may have seemed initially to vindicate the European efforts to manage globalization, but it also represented the limits of such efforts without the full participation of the US and China. The EU cannot rig the game of globalization, but it can try to provide predictability, oversight, and regularity with rules that accommodate European interests. This book was based on a special issue of Journal of European Public Policy.

European politicians often speak of their efforts to 'manage globalization.' At one level, this is merely a rhetorical device to make globalization more palatable to citizens and prove that policy-makers are still firmly in control of their country's fate. This volume argues that the advocacy of managed globalization goes beyond rhetoric and actually has been a primary driver of major European Union (EU) policies in the past twenty years. The EU has indeed tried to manage globalization through the use of five major mechanisms: 1) expanding policy scope; 2) exercising regulatory influence; 3) empowering international institutions; 4) enlarging the territorial sphere of EU influence; and 5) redistributing the costs of globalization. These mechanisms are neither entirely novel, nor are they always effective but they provide the contours of an approach to globalization that is neither ad hoc deregulation, nor old-style economic protectionism. The recent financial crisis may have seemed initially to vindicate the European efforts to manage globalization, but it also represented the limits of such efforts without the full participation of the US and China. The EU cannot rig the game of globalization, but it can try to provide predictability, oversight, and regularity with rules that accommodate European interests. This book was based on a special issue of Journal of European Public Policy.

How has the process of political representation changed in the era of globalization? The representation of interests is at the heart of democracy, but how is it that some interests secure a strong voice, while others do not? While each person has multiple interests linked to different dimensions of his or her identity, much of the existing academic literature assumes that interests are given prior to politics by a person's socioeconomic, institutional, or cultural situation. This book mounts a radical challenge to this view, arguing that interests are actively forged through processes of politics. The book develops an analytic framework for understanding how representation takes place - based on processes of identification, mobilization, and adjudication - and explores how these processes have evolved over time. Through a wide variety of case studies, the chapters explore how actors identify their interests, mobilize them into action, and resolve conflicts among them.

Fifty years ago, the leaders of six European states signed the Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community and launching the process of European integration. From that starting point evolved today's European Union (EU), the most successful example of institutionalized political cooperation in history. The EU now encompasses a much broader array of responsibilities than originally planned, its membership has widened to 25 countries, and its legislation and jurisprudence has come to supersede national law. Contestation has accompanied success, however, and the intense debate in many European countries over the EU Constitution throughout the course of 2005 revealed deep divisions between and within European countries around issues such as EU institutions, the elusive European identity, a European economic malaise, and the role of the EU as a world power. Was the constitutional crisis a turning point for European integration?
This volume argues that the EU today may be at a crossroads--not because of the failed referenda but rather because of the unresolved tensions in European governance not banished with the referenda's defeat. Meunier and McNamara's collection is the first to comprehensively examine these challenging issues using the tools of historical institutionalism to analyze the past and future political and institutional trajectory of the European Union across a wide variety of policy areas. Together, the volume's authors provide a remarkably coherent theoretical approach to the key questions facing Europe, drawing a portrait of the EU today that reveals a robust, but not invulnerable, set of institutions and practices.

The European Union, the world's foremost trader, is not an easy bargainer to deal with. Its twenty-five member states have relinquished most of their sovereignty in trade to the supranational level, and in international commercial negotiations, such as those conducted under the World Trade Organization, the EU speaks with a "single voice." This single voice has enabled the Brussels-based institution to impact the distributional outcomes of international trade negotiations and shape the global political economy.

"Trading Voices" is the most comprehensive book about the politics of trade policy in the EU and the role of the EU as a central actor in international commercial negotiations. Sophie Meunier explores how this pooling of trade policy-making and external representation affects the EU's bargaining power in international trade talks. Using institutionalist analysis, she argues that its complex institutional procedures and multiple masters have, more than once, forced its trade partners to give in to an EU speaking with a single voice.

Through analysis of four transatlantic commercial negotiations over agriculture, public procurement, and civil aviation, "Trading Voices" explores the politics of international trade bargaining. It also addresses the salient political question of whether efficiency at negotiating comes at the expense of democratic legitimacy. Finally, this book looks at how the EU, with its recent enlargement and proposed constitution, might become an even more formidable rival to the United States in shaping globalization.

This new version of a leading textbook on French politics offers expert analysis of recent national and international events, discussing their significance for France itself as well as for Europe and the wider world. It covers a wide range of current challenges facing the country under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron and considers how issues such as immigration, multiculturalism and gender and sexual politics fit with wider patterns in global politics. New to this Edition: - New co-editor Helen Drake joins the book's experienced team of editors. - Completely revised to take stock of the presidency of Francois Hollande, the first half of Emmanuel Macron's mandate, and to look forward to the future of France and its significance to European and global politics. - Covers a range of new topics including the National Rally (formerly the National Front), immigration, multiculturalism and gender and sexual politics.