Region-building

Region-building

Author: Ludger Kühnhardt

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2010-07-01

Total Pages: 507

ISBN-13: 1845458389

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After two centuries of nation-building, the world has entered an era of region-building in search of political stability, cultural cohesion, and socio-economic development. Nations involved in the regional structures and integration schemes that are emerging in most regions of the world are deepening their ambitions, with Europe’s integration experience often used as an experimental template or theoretical model. Volume I provides a political-analytical framework for recognizing the central role of the European Union not only as a conceptual model but also a normative engine in the global proliferation of regional integration. It also gives a comprehensive treatment of the focus, motives, and objectives of non-European integration efforts. Volume II offers a unique collection of documents that give the best available overview of the legal and political evolution of region-building based on official documents and stated objectives of the relevant regional groupings across all continents. Together, these volumes are important contributions for understanding the evolution of global affairs in an age when power shifts provide new challenges and opportunities for transatlantic partners and the world community.


Institutionalist Perspectives on Development

Institutionalist Perspectives on Development

Author: Spyros Vliamos

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-31

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 3319984942

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This book depicts the role of both formal and informal institutions in achieving long-term economic efficiency and development. It is organized into three sections: the first section deals with the historical and political roots that make institutions favorable to development; the second section offers theoretical perceptions of immaterial institutions; the last section explores how the various official institutions – such as international organizations – interrelate with the process of development. As both the recent global financial crisis and the subsequent sovereign debt crisis within the Eurozone have shown, sustainable development is a combination of human, social and institutional factors that interact with each other and go beyond the strictly economic conditions of each country. With contributions from several countries in Europe as well as Iran, this volume offers readers an international and multidisciplinary perspective of the institutionalist determinants of growth in the long run.


The EU in Southeast Asian Security

The EU in Southeast Asian Security

Author: Ronja Scheler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-29

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1000331598

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This book revealingly traces the ways in which third-party perceptions of an international actor affect its agency in global affairs by using the example of the European Union’s engagement in Southeast Asian non-traditional security. Utilizing an innovative analytical framework emphasising the intersubjective nature of international actorness, it provides novel insights into cooperation between the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The book covers fields such as counter-terrorism, disaster management, or maritime security affairs and emphasises the role that ASEAN’s perceptions of the EU play in them. Based on rich empirical data gained from multiple interviews in Europe and Southeast Asia, the author uncovers the missing link between external perceptions of the EU and their impact on joint EU-ASEAN endeavours in non-traditional security fields. The book concludes by making some concrete recommendations to policy-makers engaged in EU external relations and reminds us that ‘the other’ and its domestic context might be even more important in thinking about international affairs than acknowledged thus far. This book is of key interest to scholars, practitioners and students of EU foreign policy, EU-ASEAN affairs, EU-Asia relations, and more broadly of EU studies, International Relations, regionalism and interregionalism as well as security studies.


European Neighbourhood Policy

European Neighbourhood Policy

Author: Johannes Varwick

Publisher: Verlag Barbara Budrich

Published: 2007-07-03

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 3866498624

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The enlarged European Union needs new instruments for exporting stability and change into the fragile regions and countries beyond its borders. That is why the EU is developing and implementing the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP): a strategic concept which is to enhance the Union ́s capability to be a driver of reform - without automatically promising the ""golden carrot"" of membership to the neighbours. This book provides the reader with information on what ENP wants, how it works and what the prospects of the Union ́s cooperation with neighbouring countries are.


Fiscal Management

Fiscal Management

Author: World Bank

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 9780821361429

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Accountability of government to citizens is the foundation for good governance. Unfortunately, many developing countries suffer the results of dysfunctional governance systems that fail to provide even minimal levels of vital public services. The key message of the New Institutional Economics is that incentives matter. In the public sphere, the countries' accountability frameworks rewards, sanctions, and measurement of performance shape public sector performance. This book applies this fundamental insight to fiscal/budgetary analysis and public service delivery, giving the reader tools and around the globe examples of institutional arrangements that help citizens hold government accountable for their performance.


The European Central Bank

The European Central Bank

Author: Jakob De Haan

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2005-04-15

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 0262262452

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An examination of the debates on European Central Bank monetary policy, focusing on issues of transparency, credibility, and accountability and the effect of the ECB's decentralized structure. The adoption of the euro in 1999 by 11 member states of the European Union created a single currency area second in economic size only to the United States. The euro zone's monetary policy is now set by the European Central Bank (ECB) and its Governing Council rather than by individual national central banks. This CESifo volume examines issues that have arisen in the first years of ECB monetary policy and analyzes the effect that current ECB policy strategy and structures may have in the future. After a detailed description and assessment of ECB monetary policy making that focuses on such issues as price stability and the predictability of policy decisions, the book turns to two important issues faced by European central bankers: the transparency and credibility of decision making and the ECB's decentralized structure. After showing that transparency in decision making enhances credibility, the book discusses the ECB's efforts at openness, its political independence as guaranteed by law, and its ultimate accountability. The book then considers the effects of the decentralized ECB structure, focusing on business cycle synchronization, inflation differentials, and differences in monetary policy transmission in light of the enlargement of the monetary union. The book also discusses options for ECB institutional reforms, including centralization, vote weighting, and cross-border regional banks.


Industry Agglomerations and Regional Development in Hungary

Industry Agglomerations and Regional Development in Hungary

Author: Cordula Wandel

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 9783631600917

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In context with the Eastern enlargement of the European Union, this research deals with the effects of pre- and post-enlargement integration policies on industry concentration and regional development in Hungary. Economic processes are analysed empirically and by means of regression analyses with a spatial perspective and in the framework of the new economic geography over a time span of almost two decades. The results for the manufacturing industries and for regional specialization show which economic centres played a role for the economic development of the country over time. The roles which agglomerations and regional specialization can play are discussed with a view to the problems of cohesion in Hungary, the enlarged EU and future EU accession countries. The conclusions also take into account the current political and academic debate regarding European regional policy.


European Muslims and New Media

European Muslims and New Media

Author: Merve Kayıkcı

Publisher: Leuven University Press

Published: 2017-09-07

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 9462701067

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Muslims’ online participation: Subaltern spaces, identity, community, and religious belonging European Muslims and New Media offers perspectives on the various ways in which Muslims use new media to form and reform Muslim consciousness, identities, and national and transnational belongings, and contest and negotiate tensions and hegemonic narratives in Western European societies. The authors explore how online discussion groups, social media communities, and other online sites act as a ‘new public sphere’ for Muslim youth to voice their opinions, seek new sources of knowledge, establish social relationships, and ultimately decentre established discourses that are projected on them as Muslims in Europe. The possibilities and challenges of new media transform existing debates on Islamic knowledge, authority, citizenship, communities, and networks. European Muslims and New Media critically explores the multifaceted transformations that result from Muslims using online spaces to present, represent, and negotiate their identities, ideologies, and aspirations. Contributors: Anna Berbers (KU Leuven), Claudia Carvalho (Tilburg University), Laurens de Rooij (Durham University), Leen d’Haenens (KU Leuven), Merve Kayıkcı (KU Leuven), Sahar Khamis (University of Maryland, College Park), Joyce Koeman (KU Leuven), Jana Jevtic (Central European University), Viviana Premazzi (FIERI), Roberta Riccuci (University of Torino), Charlotte van der Ploeg (Leiden University)


The EU and the Economies of the Eastern European Enlargement

The EU and the Economies of the Eastern European Enlargement

Author: Alberto Quadrio Curzio

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2008-07-19

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 3790820342

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The enlargement of the European Union towards the East from May 2004 has generated an increase of about 100 million inhabitants in the EU population, and has especially brought along major challenges and important opportunities both for the "new" countries and for the "old" member states. That is the main focus of this volume, which is divided into three sections. The first analyses the effects of the enlargement on the functioning of Community institutions, on the relations with the other Eastern European countries, and finally on regional and global economic dynamics; the second section analyses in detail the role of the monetary politics of the European Central Bank and the activities of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; and the third deals with the importance of the entrepreneurial class in ensuring the success of the transition process of the Eastern European economies.