Roy Jenkins and the European Commission Presidency, 1976 –1980

Roy Jenkins and the European Commission Presidency, 1976 –1980
Author: N. Piers Ludlow
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2016-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137515309

Roy Jenkins brought great talent to Europe’s top job. He played a key role in re-launching European monetary integration, winning the right to attend the new global summits, and smoothing Greece’s path to EC membership. But he fell short of other targets. Commission reform remained elusive, as did an improvement of the UK’s troubled relationship with the EC. Indeed the row over Britain’s contribution to the EC budget, meant that Britain’s position in Europe was as difficult when he left Brussels as it had been when he arrived. This study will look at how Jenkins approached his role, identifying his priorities, examining his working methods, and exploring his rapport with the European and international statesmen with whom he had to work. In the process, the book will shed light on the nature of the job, on Jenkins’ own talents and limitations, and on the European Community as it struggled with the global economic crisis of the 1970s.

European Integration

European Integration
Author: Mark Gilbert
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2020-08-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1538106825

Now in a fully revised and updated edition, this book remains the standard for concise histories of the European Union. Mark Gilbert offers a clear and balanced narrative of European integration since its inception to the present, set in the wider history of the post-war period. Gilbert concludes by considering the Union’s future in light of the mood of crisis that has taken hold in the EU in the aftermath of the global recession, the refugee crisis, and Brexit. Listen to a New Books Network interview with the author at https://newbooksnetwork.com/hosts/profile/4c7e90cb-b33e-4121-99fb-9813f2889437.

Political Leadership and the European Commission Presidency

Political Leadership and the European Commission Presidency
Author: Henriette Müller
Publisher:
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2020
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0198842007

The EU's pluralistic, nonhierarchical system of multilevel governance lacks clear structures of both government and opposition. According to the EU treaties, the presidency of the European Commission is thus not explicitly expected to exercise political leadership. However, the position cannot effectively be exercised without any demonstration of such leadership due to its many leadership functions. Examining this curious mix of strong political demands, weak institutional powers, and need for political leadership, this book systematically analyses the political leadership performance of the presidents of the European Commission throughout the process of European integration. The basic argument is that Commission presidents matter not only in the process of European integration, but that their impact varies according to how the different incumbents deal with the institutional structure and the situational circumstances, and thus their available strategic choices. The primary research question is thus, What makes political leadership in European governance successful and to what extent (and why) do Commission presidents differ in their leadership performance? In addressing this question, this book departs from existing research on EU leadership, which has to date often analysed either the EU's institutional structure and its potential for leadership or mainly focused on only the most recent incumbents in case study analyses. Focusing on the multiterm European Commission presidents Walter Hallstein, Jacques Delors, and Jos� Manuel Barroso, this book conceptualizes their political leadership as a performance, and thus systematically analyzes their agenda-setting, mediative-institutional, and public outreach performance over the entire course of their presidential terms.

The Media, European Integration and the Rise of Euro-journalism, 1950s–1970s

The Media, European Integration and the Rise of Euro-journalism, 1950s–1970s
Author: Martin Herzer
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2019-12-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 3030287785

This book explains how the media helped to invent the European Union as the supranational polity that we know today. Against normative EU scholarship, it tells the story of the rise of the Euro-journalists – pro-European advocacy journalists – within the post-war Western European media. The Euro-journalists pioneered a journalism which symbolically magnified the technocratic European Community as the embodiment of Europe. Normative research on the media and European integration has focused on how the media might help to construct a democratic and legitimate European Union. In contrast, this book aims to deconstruct how journalists – as part of Western European elites – played a key role in elite European identity building campaigns.

Cassis de Dijon

Cassis de Dijon
Author: Albertina Albors-Llorens
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2021-02-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509936653

Why is the 1979 the Court of Justice judgment in Cassis de Dijon so famous and so significant in the evolution of EU trade law?. As this landmark judgment approaches middle age, this book revisits this decision with the benefit of hindsight: why did the Court of Justice decide Cassis de Dijon as it did? How has the decision been developed by the EU? And, looking forward, how has the decision been used to develop international trade? This book brings together some of the leading writers in the field of EU trade law, constitutional law and European history for a fresh examination of this ground-breaking judgment, looking at it from the perspective of its past (who, what and why); its present (is it making a difference?); and its future (how does it fit in international trade agreements).

A More Democratic Community

A More Democratic Community
Author: Sara Lorenzini
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2024-08-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1805395440

The histories of European unification and of West European democracy during the second half of the twentieth century have often been considered as separate or even antagonistic processes with the institutions of European integration being regarded as bastions of bureaucratic rule. A More Democratic Community challenges this assumption and argues that European integration benefited from the democratic accountability of member states while contributing to the validation of national democratic institutions. However, it also unveils a paradox: as integration deepened, it diminished the power of national parliaments, sparking a democratic accountability crisis within the Community. This insightful volume sheds light on pivotal reforms addressing Europe's perceived democratic deficit.

Rethinking European Integration History in Light of Capitalism

Rethinking European Integration History in Light of Capitalism
Author: Aurélie D. Andry
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2022-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000596656

This book outlines the possibilities and perspectives of an intertwining of European integration historiography with the history and concept of capitalism. Although debates on capitalism have been making a comeback since the 2008 crisis, to date the concept of capitalism remains almost completely avoided by historians of European integration. This book thus conceptualizes ‘capitalism’ as a useful analytical tool that should be used by historians of European integration and proposes three major approaches for them to do so: first, by bringing the question of social conflict, integral to the concept of capitalism, into European integration history; second, by better conceptualizing the link between European governance, Europeanization and the globalization of capitalism; and thirdly by investigating the economic, political and ideological models or doctrines that underlie European cooperation, integration, policies and institutions. This analytical encounter between European integration history and capitalism allows for a better understanding of how today’s "Europe" resulted from a complex social, economic and political conflict that took place in part at the European level. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, the European Review of History.

The Cambridge History of the European Union: Volume 2, European Integration Inside-Out

The Cambridge History of the European Union: Volume 2, European Integration Inside-Out
Author: Mathieu Segers
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 843
Release: 2023-11-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108804705

Volume II considers the history of the European Union from an inside-out perspective, focusing on the internal developments that shaped the European integration process. Taking an innovative, thematic approach, this volume will be of interest to students and researchers of European integration.

The Institutions of the European Union

The Institutions of the European Union
Author: Dermot Hodson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2017
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0198737416

This book is the key text for anyone wishing to understand the functions, powers, and composition of the EU's institutions. From the Council of Ministers to the European Central Bank, all of the most important organizations are analysed and explained by international experts, providing students with everything they need to know.

European Integration Since the 1920s

European Integration Since the 1920s
Author: Mark Hewitson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 538
Release: 2024-10-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198915969

Brexit, populism, and Euroscepticism seem to have challenged old assumptions about European integration and raised the prospect of disintegration. This book re-examines why the European Union and its forerunners were created and investigates how and why they have changed. It links contemporary events to historical explanation, arguing that there were long-term sets of conditions, dating back to the 1920s, which pushed European governments to cooperate economically and to try to resolve their diplomatic differences. The failure of the French and German governments to create what Aristide Briand had called a 'European federal union' demonstrated both the precariousness of the enterprise and its connection to the domestic politics of European states. After 1945, the unexpected advent of a 'Cold War' and the military, diplomatic and economic presence of the United States in Europe facilitated the gradual development of habits of cooperation and institutional 'integration', but they also placed limits on European governments' activities, as did disagreements between political parties and the expectations of citizens. As a consequence, supranational bodies such as the European Commission have been accompanied - and often overshadowed - by intergovernmental institutions such as the European Council, with the EU as a whole functioning in important respects as a type of confederation. The volume addresses a series of large-scale historical questions which are integral to an understanding of the European Union. It asks how and why citizens of member states have identified with the EU; how matters of 'security' affected the development of the European Community during and after the Cold War; whether economic and social convergence have taken place, and with what consequences; and why European institutions have come to function as they have. The study is thematic, focusing on the most important aspects of European integration and explaining why member states have decided to carry out - or have consented to - the unique experiment of the European Union.