European Integration as an Elite Process

European Integration as an Elite Process
Author: Max Haller
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 548
Release: 2008-05-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134139896

Max Haller's impressive book presents an analysis of the process of European integration which keeps the relation between elites and citizens at the forefront. It is shown on the basis of new empirical data (surveys, interviews, analyses of documents and biographies) that European integration has been led since the beginning by the elites and that today there exists a considerable split between elites and citizens; this split is becoming more profound in the course of time. The book covers the following themes: - the structure, interests and behaviour of the different elites (political, economic, bureaucratic) - the expectations and perceptions of the populations concerning the integration process and the elites - the strategies of the elites to win the consent of the people, in view of widespread scepticism - proposals for reform of the EU, especially with regard to a strengthening of democratic elements which could reduce the split between elites and citizens. A timely and original read, this book will be a useful addition to the library of any political sociologist, political scientist or scholar of European integration.

The Europe of Elites

The Europe of Elites
Author: Heinrich Best
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2012-03-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 019960231X

The Europe of Elites is the first comprehensive study of how European political and economic leaders think and feel about Europe and about what course future European integration should take.

European Integration

European Integration
Author: Hans J. Michelmann
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 124
Release: 1994
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780819194558

This text offers a multidisciplinary overview of theories of, and academic approaches to, European integration. The authors include four political scientists, an economist, a historian and a legal scholar. They examine critically the theories of European integration, as well as related theoretical and empirical works in political science, sociology and economics.

National Political Elites, European Integration and the Eurozone Crisis

National Political Elites, European Integration and the Eurozone Crisis
Author: Nicolò Conti
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2018-06-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351064800

The global financial, economic and sovereign debt crisis since 2008 has led to increases in political disaffection among citizens, a loss of legitimacy of political institutions, the discredit of mainstream parties and the rise of extremist or anti-system political alternatives. This comparative volume sheds greater light on this critical juncture in the recent history of the European Union (EU) by focusing on the evolution of attitudes of national political elites. It examines whether the crisis has affected the legitimacy of the EU integration project as perceived by national political elites and, consequently, if the elite consensus that constituted one of the most solid fundamentals supporting that project has been eroded. Analysing these changes across the different dimensions in which support for the EU is organized and its relationship with the evolution of support towards European integration among citizens in member states, the book addresses a basic question: How have these events affected the perceptions of the EU of national political elites? Ultimately, it sheds light on the evolution of the relationship between the perception of the EU and the national contexts, as well as the likely evolution of the project of European integration in the near future. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political elites, EU politics, European integration, political parties, and more broadly to comparative politics, European studies and sociology.

The Politics of European Integration

The Politics of European Integration
Author: Michael O'Neill
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2002-09-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134829965

The debate over European integration is a central issue in the study of contemporary Europe. This book seeks to guide the student through the most important of the integration theories and academic literature on this vital topic. The reader starts with an expansive and wide ranging introductory essay which offers a clear overview and analysis of the shifting terms of the debate on European integration during the post-war period. Part two provides key extracts from the seminal authors who have contributed to and fashioned this debate throughout its duration. It brings together the most important parts from the most essential and influential literature on this important topic. This reader will be of value to the growing number of students, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, who are undertaking courses in European studies and European politics. It will be especially useful to those who require some knowledge of the origins and developments of this important issue at the centre of the debate over Europe.

Understanding European Integration

Understanding European Integration
Author: R. Pavananthi Vembulu
Publisher: Aakar Books
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2003
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9788187879107

In The Background Of New Questions Of Identity, Culture And Community Emerged After Maastricht Treaty This Book Explores The European Integration Process Since It Throws Immanent Challenge To The Existing Theoretical Paradigms Such As Nationalism And Globalization . Drawing Influence From This Intellectual Climate, This Book Tries To Understand The Integration Process Within The Cultural History Of Europe.The Study Structured Itself Along Three Axes: First, It Circled Down On The Problematic Over Defining What Europe Means; Here The Efforts Were On To Highlight The Constant Flux And Contingent Nature Of The Definition Of Europe. Second, How This Contingent Nature Of Europe Has Compelled The European Union To No Longer Skirt Away The Question Of Identity If It Is To Consolidate The Process And Expand Its Boundary Towards East. By Focusing Upon The Cultural Policy Of The Union, The Study Brought Forth The Various Efforts Of The Union, Particularly The European Commission To Transform The Loyalties And Identities Of People From The National Crucible To A Broader European Spectrum. Thirdly, The Study Critically Evaluates These Policy Initiatives And Highlights How They Are Structured Around The Nineteenth Century Colonial Discourse Of Europe.

Europe’s New Scientific Elite

Europe’s New Scientific Elite
Author: Barbara Hoenig
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2017-04-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315446022

Winner of the Harald Kaufmann Prize for Senior Researchers, 2018 This book examines the question of whether the process of European integration in research funding has led to new forms of oligarchization and elite formation in the European Research Area. Based on a study of the European Research Council (ERC), the author investigates profound structural change in the social organization of science, as the ERC intervenes in public science systems that, until now, have largely been organized at the national level. Against the background of an emerging new science policy, Europe’s New Scientific Elite explores the social mechanisms that generate, reproduce and modify existing dynamics of stratification and oligarchization in science, shedding light on the strong normative impact of the ERC’s funding on problem-choice in science, the cultural legitimacy and future vision of science, and the building of new research councils of national, European and global scope. A comparative, theory-driven investigation of European research funding, this book will appeal to social scientists with interests in the sociology of knowledge.

The European Integration Process

The European Integration Process
Author: Angelina Topan
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2002
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9783825857707

" European Integration is analysed in a historical and in a comparative perspective by applying New Institutional Economics. European Integration is shaped by rules being triggered for further Integration and simultaneously giving integration direction. The analysis starts with the European Coal and Steel Community and ends with the European Union. The functions of rules explain institutionalisation as well as non-institutionalisation of Europe. The influence of these functions varies from country to country and from integration step to integration step. Additionally, these functions can be interrelated in different ways. "

Citizens and the European Polity

Citizens and the European Polity
Author: David Sanders
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2012-07-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0191611557

This book provides a broad overview of the main trends in mass attitudes towards domestic politics and European integration from the 1970s until today. Particularly in the last two decades, the "end of the permissive consensus" around European integration has forced analysts to place public opinion at the centre of their concerns. The book faces this challenge head on, and the overview it provides goes well beyond the most commonly used indicators. On the one hand, it shows how integration's deepening and enlargement involved polities and societies whose fundamental traits in terms of political culture - regime support, political engagement, ideological polarization - have remained anything but static or homogeneous. On the other hand, it addresses systematically what Scharpf (1999) has long identified as the main sources of the democratic deficits of the EU: the lack of a sense of collective identity, the lack of a Europe-wide structure for political accountability, and the lack of recognition of the EU as a legitimate political authority. In other words, it focuses on the fundamental dimensions of how Europeans relate to the EU: identity (the sense of an "European political community"; representation (the perception that European elites and institutions articulate citizens' interests and are responsive to them); and policy scope (the legitimacy awarded to the EU as a proper locus of policy-making). It does so by employing a cohesive theoretical framework derived from the entire IntUne project, survey and macro-social data encompassing all EU member countries, and state-of-the-art methods. The IntUne series is edited by Maurizio Cotta and Pierangelo Isernia In a moment in which the EU is facing an important number of social, economic, political and cultural challenges, and its legitimacy and democratic capacities are increasingly questioned, it seems particularly important to address the issue of if and how EU citizenship is taking shape. This series intends to address this complex issue. It reports the main results of a quadrennial Europe-wide research project, financed under the 6th Framework Programme of the EU. That programme has studied the changes in the scope, nature and characteristics of citizenship presently underway as a result of the process of deepening and enlargement of the European Union. The INTUNE Project - Integrated and United: A Quest for Citizenship in an Ever Closer Europe - is one of the most recent and ambitious research attempts to empirically study how citizenship is changing in Europe. The Project lasted four years (2005-2009) and it involved 30 of the most distinguished European universities and research centres, with more than 100 senior and junior scholars as well as several dozen graduate students working on it. It had as its main focus an examination of how integration and decentralization processes, at both the national and European level, are affecting three major dimensions of citizenship: identity, representation, and scope of governance. It looked, in particular, at the relationships between political, social and economic elites, the general public, policy experts and the media, whose interactions nurture the dynamics of collective political identity, political legitimacy, representation, and standards of performance. In order to address empirically these issues, the INTUNE Project carried out two waves of mass and political, social and economic elite surveys in 18 countries, in 2007 and 2009; in-depth interviews with experts in five policy areas; extensive media analysis in four countries; and a documentary analysis of attitudes toward European integration, identity and citizenship. The book series presents and discusses in a coherent way the results coming out of this extensive set of new data.

The Process of Politics in Europe

The Process of Politics in Europe
Author: Katja Seidel
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2010-07-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0857718584

With the launch of the European integration process after World War II, a new type of administration emerged which was neither an international organisation nor a national administration. Drawing on extensive archival records and oral history interviews, this book is the first comprehensive study of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the Commission of the European Economic Community (EEC), and their personnel, the European civil servants. This administrative elite was to have a vital influence on the European integration process, devising and administering key European policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy. Katja Seidel combines administrative and biographical history and provides significant insights into the origins of Europe's supranational institutions and the administrative cultures that developed in them. She effectively shows how European administrative elites and supranational administrations are vital to understanding the process of politics in Europe. This book will be invaluable for scholars of politics, history and the development of European integration.