This is a fully revised edition of a well-established text for students. It offers an invaluable and up-to- date interpretation of the European policy process. Helen Wallace and William Wallace have assembled a team of internationally-renowned authors to present fourteen case studies --ranging from analyses of the CAP and environmental policy, to the politics of Economic and Monetary Union and the new World Trade Organisation. Helen Wallace also provides, in the two opening chapters, an introduction and overview of European politics, policy, and institutions. In concluding thevolume, William Wallace reflects on the future for the EU as it faces calls for ever closer political integration. Policy-Making in the European Union provides the student with a timely and provocative insight into European integration in a period of critical change.
Covering the history, governing institutions, and policies of the European Union, Jonathan Olsen and John McCormick present the EU as one of the world's economic and political superpowers, which has brought far-reaching changes to the lives of Europeans and has helped its member states to take a newly assertive role on the global stage. Unlike most other books on the EU, this text pays particular attention to the implications of the EU for the United States. Thoroughly revised, with new photographs and updated tables and figures, the sixth edition of The European Union explains developments that have brought severe challenges to the Union, such as the Greek crisis, the Brexit, tensions with Russia over Ukraine, and new waves of refugees into Europe. Essential reading for students of European politics, this book offers an up-to-the-minute look at both the opportunities and existential threats facing this powerful institution.
For many observers, the European Union is mired in a deep crisis. Between sluggish growth; political turmoil following a decade of austerity politics; Brexit; and the rise of Asian influence, the EU is seen as a declining power on the world stage. Columbia Law professor Anu Bradford argues the opposite in her important new book The Brussels Effect: the EU remains an influential superpower that shapes the world in its image. By promulgating regulations that shape the international business environment, elevating standards worldwide, and leading to a notable Europeanization of many important aspects of global commerce, the EU has managed to shape policy in areas such as data privacy, consumer health and safety, environmental protection, antitrust, and online hate speech. And in contrast to how superpowers wield their global influence, the Brussels Effect - a phrase first coined by Bradford in 2012- absolves the EU from playing a direct role in imposing standards, as market forces alone are often sufficient as multinational companies voluntarily extend the EU rule to govern their global operations. The Brussels Effect shows how the EU has acquired such power, why multinational companies use EU standards as global standards, and why the EU's role as the world's regulator is likely to outlive its gradual economic decline, extending the EU's influence long into the future.
Health Politics in Europe: A Handbook is a major new reference work, which provides historical background and up-to-date information and analysis on health politics and health systems throughout Europe. In particular, it captures developments that have taken place since the end of the Cold War, a turning point for many European health systems, with most post-communist transition countries privatizing their state-run health systems, and many Western European health systems experimenting with new public management and other market-oriented health reforms. Following three introductory, stage-setting chapters, the handbook offers country cases divided into seven regional sections, each of which begins with a short regional outlook chapter that highlights the region's common characteristics and divergent paths taken by the separate countries, including comparative data on health system financing, healthcare access, and the political salience of health. Each regional section contains at least one detailed main case, followed by shorter treatments of the other countries in the region. Country chapters feature a historical overview focusing on the country's progression through a series of political regimes and the consequences of this history for the health system; an overview of the institutions and functioning of the contemporary health system; and a political narrative tracing the politics of health policy since 1989. This political narrative, the core of each country case, examines key health reforms in order to understand the political motivations and dynamics behind them and their impact on public opinion and political legitimacy. The handbook's systematic structure makes it useful for country-specific, cross-national, and topical research and analysis.
"Scott Greer has done a remarkable job in explaining how the Europeanization of health policy takes place, how institutional legacies exert an influence in lobbying, how harmonization exacerbates path-dependent welfare structures that in turn impede a 'race to the bottom', and why the idea of a European social model creates positive external effects, even if it is a only an ad hoc policy construction." Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (2) "Provides an original and thought-provoking perspective and approach, combining in-depth theoretical discussions and well-researched case studies over 11 chapters...The book is well written and insightful, and the main argument is that EU law and policy developments - directly and indirectly - have the potential of undermining domestic health systems and the political actors within them."Journal of Common Market Studies, 2010 Volume 48. Number 3 "This book provides a unique insight into what is going on, unnoticed by most, 'below the surface' in EU health policy. It serves as a wake-up call for those who continue to believe that the EU is of marginal interest and relevance in national level debates about the direction of health care. In addition, in an engaging and lively style, it provides essential guidance for students of health policy who seek to understand the labyrinthine processes and the wide ranging unintended consequences - for good and for bad - of EU policy making." Professor Naomi Chambers, Head of Health Policy and Management, Manchester Business School “In this insightful book, Scott Greer describes how European health policy has long been developed in a secret garden, where a small number of people find pragmatic solutions to immediate problems while avoiding the fundamental questions … Yet the logic of European integration is tearing down the garden's walls, creating a public park where pragmatism takes second place to principles. Something must be done, but it is not clear what. Greer's book will be essential reading … for anyone who is responsible for organising how health care is delivered in Europe.” Martin McKee CBE, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK This important new book explains how European Union (EU) developed policies shape and constrain health services. It answers the key questions asked of EU health policy: What is it? Why did it happen? What does it take to influence it and how can it be changed? Using extensive new data, Greer discusses how EU policy is influenced by lobbies in Brussels and by four big member states: France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. Shaping EU health policy takes information, coordination, nimbleness and focus. The book examines the ways that the successful health lobbies and member states work, identifies weaknesses, and emphasizes the challenge to health policymakers: if they do not influence EU health policies, they will lose influence over their own health systems. The Politics of European Union Health Policies will be of great interest to students and academics of EU policy and politics, as well as health policy makers.
Thoroughly revised, the seventh edition of this accessible and highly respected text provides a rigorous yet digestible introduction to the European Union. Additionally, it authoritatively explains developments that continue to bring challenges to this powerful institution in times of great political change. Key features: Clearly covers the history, governing institutions, and policies of the EU; Fully updated with new tables, figures, and photographs; In-text features such as Chapter Overviews, Questions to Consider, and Further Reading encourage deeper research and debate; Sustained discussion of transformative and historical change in the upheaval of Brexit and its ramifications, and the future relationship of the UK with the EU; Through reflection on destabilizing issues such as immigration and the years of refugee crisis in Europe, the continued crisis in the eurozone, tensions with Poland and Hungary, Euroskepticism, Russia, and the rise of populism; Increased coverage throughout of women or minorities within the EU. Jonathan Olsen presents the EU as one of the world's economic and political superpowers, which has brought far-reaching changes to the lives of Europeans and has helped its member states to take a newly assertive role on the global stage. Essential reading for students of European and EU politics, this book offers an up-to-the-minute look at both the opportunities and existential threats facing the EU.
COVID-19 is the most significant global crisis of any of our lifetimes. The numbers have been stupefying, whether of infection and mortality, the scale of public health measures, or the economic consequences of shutdown. Coronavirus Politics identifies key threads in the global comparative discussion that continue to shed light on COVID-19 and shape debates about what it means for scholarship in health and comparative politics. Editors Scott L. Greer, Elizabeth J. King, Elize Massard da Fonseca, and André Peralta-Santos bring together over 30 authors versed in politics and the health issues in order to understand the health policy decisions, the public health interventions, the social policy decisions, their interactions, and the reasons. The book’s coverage is global, with a wide range of key and exemplary countries, and contains a mixture of comparative, thematic, and templated country studies. All go beyond reporting and monitoring to develop explanations that draw on the authors' expertise while engaging in structured conversations across the book.
This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.
In Europe and around the world, social policies and welfare services have faced increasing pressure in recent years as a result of political, economic, and social changes. Just as Europe was a leader in the development of the welfare state and the supportive structures of corporatist politics from the 1920s onward, Europe in particular has experienced stresses from globalization and striking innovation in welfare policies. While debates in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France often attract wide international attention, smaller European countries--Belgium, Denmark, Austria, or Finland--are often overlooked. This volume seeks to correct this unfortunate oversight as these smaller countries serve as models for reform, undertaking experiments that only later gain the attention of stymied reformers in the larger countries.
Whether there is a public health need for the containment and response to swine flu, or an individual need to access health care across the border for a hip operation to alleviate pain, the EU has an increasingly powerful role in the field of human health. Health law and policy is deeply tied into fundamental rights, bioethics and values, with important implications for individuals. However, it is also an expansive area of economic regulation, of social and state arrangements. The growing role of the EU in human health law and policy is contested, particularly as it has implications for the fundamental rights and values that are enshrined in national health law and policy. This book outlines, through case studies, how the expansion of EU power is taking place through law and policy, in both public health and health care. How is law and policy in the field of human health adopted, who are the institutional actors involved, and what is the impact of these developments for fundamental rights?
