Contemporary Europe
Contemporary Europe

Author: William Outhwaite

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-10-04

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1317297725

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Europe is one of the most dynamic and interesting areas of the world, pioneering in the European Union a new form of governance for half a billion people, represented in the world’s first directly elected transnational parliament. This book situates the European Union in a broader European, global, historical and geographical context, providing a readable presentation of the most important facts and drawing on the theoretical approaches which have transformed the study of contemporary Europe over the past two decades. The European Union is still on the road to what has been called 'an unknown destination', and this book presents its economic, political, legal and social trajectory from the middle of the last century to the present. Contemporary Europe covers some of these issues in an interdisciplinary framework, aiming to situate the development of the European Union in a broader context of pan-European and global processes. Europe has been cut down to size, but it does not have to become a global backwater, and the study of contemporary Europe’s institutional reality does not have to be boring The book counter this misperception, conveying the essential facts and theories of contemporary European reality in a clear and approachable analysis. It will serve as a readable introduction both to the academic field of European studies and to contemporary Europe itself.

Routledge Handbook of European Politics
Routledge Handbook of European Politics

Author: José M. Magone

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-17

Total Pages: 1028

ISBN-13: 1317628365

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Since the Treaty of the European Union was ratified in 1993, the European Union has become an important factor in an ever-increasing number of regimes of pooled sovereignty. This Handbook seeks to present a valuable guide to this new and unique system in the twenty-first century, allowing readers to obtain a better understanding of the emerging multilevel European governance system that links national polities to Europe and the global community. Adopting a pan-European approach, this Handbook brings together the work of leading international academics to cover a wide range of topics such as: the historical and theoretical background the political systems and institutions of both the EU and its individual member nations political parties and party systems political elites civil society and social movements in European politics the political economy of Europe public administration and policy-making external policies of the EU. This is an invaluable and comprehensive resource for students, scholars, researchers and practitioners of the European Union, European politics and comparative politics.

The European Union After the Crisis
The European Union After the Crisis

Author: Hugo Radice

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 111

ISBN-13: 1317495624

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The global financial and economic crisis struck the European Union and its member states with particular force from 2009 onwards. The immediate problem was the knock-on effects of the crisis on each country’s public finances. Bank bail-outs imposed a massive increase in sovereign debt on member states, while the economic recession unavoidably led to ballooning budget deficits via the usual mechanisms of reduced taxes and increased welfare spending. Subsequently, the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis exposed the hidden weaknesses in the monetary and financial arrangements that had accompanied the launch of the Euro; the severe economic imbalance between member states, rooted in longer-term structural divergences, and the inadequate institutional mechanisms for resolving these difficulties. This book originated from an EU-funded international research network on "Systemic Risks, Financial Crises and Credit: the Roots, Dynamics and Consequences of the Sub-Prime Crisis". Contributions explore and evaluate some of the ways in which the institutions and policies of the European Union and its member states have changed in response to the problems brought about by the crisis. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary European Studies.

Rethinking the New World Order
Rethinking the New World Order

Author: Georg Sørensen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-08-29

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1137483261

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The end of the Cold War gave rise to much talk of a 'new' global order and debate about just how new or orderly it was and would be. Attempts to analyse the nature of this order have been many and various. This important new text assesses the main approaches and offers its own analysis arguing that, while chaos and raw anarchy are not on the cards, each of the major domains of power - security, economics, institutions and values - contains elements of potentially major instability. Interstate war may be receding, but there are no simple solutions to comprehensive violent conflict inside fragile states, and the non-democratic great powers continue to have major regional ambitions. There is a global liberal market economy, but it is increasingly unequal and its financial infrastructure remains fragile and crisis-prone. There is a comprehensive set of international institutions but they are rather weak and in need of reform. Liberal values are nominally endorsed by most states but they are in internal conflict and make up no firm basis for a stable world order. Finally, world order is threatened from within because the social compacts, political infrastructures, and national economic capacities of many states will decline. This will have negative consequences for the willingness to bring about effective global governance. The result may be a destructive dynamic which might take us towards a Hobbesian world in ways which Hobbes himself had never imagined.

European Integration
European Integration

Author: Chris J. Bickerton

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2012-12-13

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 0191611573

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European integration confuses citizens and scholars alike. It appears to transfer power away from national capitals towards Brussels yet a close study of the EU reveals the absence of any real leap towards supranationalism. The EU is dominated by cooperation between national representatives and national officials yet it continually appears to us as something external and separate from national political life. This book takes on these paradoxes by arguing that European integration should no longer be studied as the transcendence of states or as merely an expression of national interests. Rather, we should approach it as a process of state transformation. This transformation is from nation-state to member state. The book explores in detail the concept of member state, arguing that it provides us with the best tool for understanding the European integration process. Member states differ from traditional nation-states. They are not founded on the idea of popular sovereignty or the nation. They rest upon the idea that the governance of domestic societies requires external frameworks of rule that can bind the hands of national politicians. National authority is thus exercised through external rules and norms. Member statehood differs from earlier forms of statehood because it rests upon a presumption of conflict between state and society rather than an identity of interests between ruler and ruled. The book outlines in empirical detail these mysteries and paradoxes of European integration. It then outlines in detail the theory and history of member statehood. It applies the concept of member state to the study of two EU policy areas: macro-economic governance and foreign and security policy.

Global Power Europe - Vol. 1
Global Power Europe - Vol. 1

Author: Astrid Boening

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-28

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 3642324126

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This two-volume project provides a multi-sectoral perspective over the EU's external projections from traditional as well as critical theoretical and institutional perspectives, and is supported by numerous case studies covering the whole extent of the EU’s external relations. The aim is to strive to present new approaches as well as detailed background studies in analyzing the EU as a global actor. Volume 1: The first volume “Theoretical and Institutional Approaches to the EU’s External Relations” addresses the EU's overall external post-Lisbon Treaty presence both globally and regionally (e.g. in its "neighborhood"), with a special emphasis on the EU’s institutional framework. It also offers fresh and innovative theoretical approaches to understanding the EU’s international position. - With a preface by Alvaro de Vasoncelos (former Director European Union Institute for Security Studies) Volume 2: The second volume “Policies, Actions and Influence of the EU’s External Relations”, examines in both quantitative and qualitative contributions the EU's international efficacy from a political, economic and social perspective based on a plethora of its engagements.

A Global Perspective on the European Economic Crisis
A Global Perspective on the European Economic Crisis

Author: Bruno Dallago

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-24

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1317281160

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The financial and economic crisis in Europe is not over, and the radically opposing strategies on how to proceed has only increased the complexity of problems in the region, revealing the shortcomings of the EU’s architecture. The European Union, perhaps for the first time in its history of more than seventy years, is being perceived as a threat to the financial and monetary stability of the world. A Global Perspective on the European Economic Crisis explores the connection between internal EU actions and institutions and the external factors that influence the ongoing response to the European crisis. With a unique collection of international and interdisciplinary essays, this book considers the complex macroeconomic and challenging political landscape of Europe, looking at how and why the European Union is untenable in its current state. The chapters outline what should be done to make the common currency area more resilient, and explain why external events are particularly problematic for the EU, ultimately offering suggestions for what Europeans should do in order to avoid harmful internal consequences. This volume confronts the causes of the crisis’ persistence, its economic and political consequences, and the impact of more recent events and policy decisions. It will be of interest to researchers and policy-makers keen to understand the EU relations and the influence of international organizations in the European economic crisis.

A Value-driven European Future
A Value-driven European Future

Author: Léonce Bekemans

Publisher: P.I.E-Peter Lang S.A., Editions Scientifiques Internationales

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13:

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Comprising a well structured, interdisciplinary view of culturally founded and value driven reflections on Europe's future this volume brings together a number of papers from an international workshop organised by the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence of the University of Padua on October 2011 with some additional contributions. The essays are posed within a policy-oriented, institutional and international law of human rights framework, following a non-conventional but inspiring approach. This book provides a valuable resource for European scholars, policy-makers and interested and critical citizens committed to the idea of Europe. It proposes a reading of the complexities of transforming realities, oriented towards a common destiny of sustainable and cohesive societies in a globalised world, providing a human-centric outline for Europe's future development.

The New Technocracy
The New Technocracy

Author: Esmark, Anders

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2020-04-08

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 1529200911

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The rise of populist parties and movements across the Western hemisphere and their contempt for ‘experts’ has shocked the establishment. This book examines how the ‘post-industrial’ technocratic regime of the 1980’s – of managerialism, depoliticisation and the politics of expertise – sowed the seeds for the backlash against the political elites that is visible today. Populism, Esmark augues, is a sign that the technocratic bluff has finally been called and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exasperate existing problems. This book sets a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, showing that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation.

Politics and Social Visions
Politics and Social Visions

Author: Maurizio Ferrera

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-03-04

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0192608436

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The starting point of this book is the 'civil war' of ideas that broke out during the early 2010s about the purpose and even the desirability of the European Union as a polity, with a number of right-wing populist formations openly advocating for exiting the Union. The sovereign debt crisis triggered a spiral of ideological decommunalization: national leaders seemed to have lost that sense of 'togetherness' and mutual bonds that had been laboriously developed over decades of integration. Politics and Social Visions explores this politically disruptive process from an ideational perspective, on the assumption that symbols and visions play a crucial role. In processes of polity formation, ideologies offer competing partisan views, but tend to converge along the 'communal' dimension, which defines the nature and boundaries of the emerging polity. This convergence has been a challenge for the EU since its origins, as it has required the construction of a coherent and acceptable image of Europe as a compound polity of nation-states with a divisive past. Maurizio Ferrera offers a reconstruction of how the main ideological currents have struggled - and often failed - to reconfigure their horizontal profiles (i.e. their images of the national within Europe) into a new vertical profile (i.e. an image of the European within the national). The challenge has been especially demanding for European left-wing parties, which have been largely unable to forge a shared and recognizable 'social vision' of the European Union. Only during the COVID pandemic have the seeds of a novel communal consensus emerged that might prove capable of defeating the anti-communal views of Eurosceptic ideologies and free market technocrats.