The EU’s Transformative Power

The EU’s Transformative Power
Author: H. Grabbe
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2005-11-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230510302

Between 1989 and 2004, the EU's conditionality for membership transformed Central and East Europe. The EU had enormous potential power over the whole range of domestic politics in the candidate countries. However, the EU was able to use that power at a few key points in the process leading to their accession. The EU's long-term influence worked primarily through soft power and through voluntary rather than coercive means. During the membership preparations, the EU built many different routes of influence into the candidate countries' domestic policy-making through 'Europeanization'. The Central and East Europeans voluntarily took on the Union's norms and methods, guided by the European Commission, in a massive transfer of policies and institutions. However, the EU missed important opportunities to effect change as well. The EU's Transformative Power explores in detail how the EU used its influence to control the movement of people across Europe, through both coercive use of conditionality and voluntary methods of Europeanization.

Challenges and Barriers to the European Union Expansion to the Balkan Region

Challenges and Barriers to the European Union Expansion to the Balkan Region
Author: Costa, Bruno Ferreira
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2022-01-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1799890570

Despite all efforts to create a political union capable of improving European citizens’ quality of life, there are several barriers to the European Union’s (EU) expansion to the Balkan Region. The EU enlargement and expansion to the Balkan Region is one of the Union’s greatest challenges and political objectives in recent years. In the turmoil of economic, social, and sanitarian crises, where is the space to debate the enlargement of the EU? Challenges and Barriers to the European Union Expansion to the Balkan Region presents the EU’s structure, the process of enlargement, and the challenges related to the Balkan region. This book addresses critical issues and challenges in the EU and the emerging trends for the EU’s future. Covering topics such as enlargement policy, integration, NATO, and political challenges, this book is a valuable resource for post-grad students of political science and international affairs, faculty of higher education, researchers, academicians, politicians, world leaders, and policymakers.

Europe's Transformations

Europe's Transformations
Author: Helen Wallace
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2022-01-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0192895826

Europe's transformations is the unifying theme for this collective work that brings together leading academics and policy makers from across Europe and beyond. When the geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting, the sustainability of the Western economic model is under serious challenge and internal divisions in Europe are deep, we aim at looking at the major issues in a 'big picture' perspective. We draw lessons from the way Europe has responded or not to changes both within and without in multiple crises in recent years, try to understand what is at stake and consider alternative policy proposals. All the contributors have a long and widely recognized knowledge and experience of a wide range of issues of European integration and Europe's role in the world. They cross academic and professional boundaries and bring different perspectives as top analysts and policy makers, including two former prime ministers and a former US ambassador to the EU. They come together as friends, colleagues, and former students of Loukas Tsoukalis celebrating his scholarship and overall contribution to the European public sphere. The volume is divided into three main parts. The first deals with issues of democracy and welfare. The second part deals with major changes in the European balance of power and the balance between institutions. The third part examines changes in the global system and Europe's present and potential role in it.

European Integration and Transformation in the Western Balkans

European Integration and Transformation in the Western Balkans
Author: Arolda Elbasani
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2013-09-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1136734139

The book investigates the scope and limitations of the transformative power of EU enlargement in the Western Balkans. The extension of EU enlargement policy to the region has generated high expectations that enlargement will regulate democratic institution-building and foster reform, much as it did in Central and Eastern Europe. However, there is very little research on whether and how unfavourable domestic conditions might mitigate the transformative power of the EU. This volume investigates the role of domestic factors, identifying ‘stateness’ as the missing link between the assumed transformative power of the EU and the actual capacity to adopt EU rules across the region. Including chapters on Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, leading scholars in the field offer up-to-date comparative analysis of key areas of institutional and policy reform; including state bureaucracy, rule of law, electoral management, environmental governance, cooperation with the International Court of Justice, economic liberalization and foreign policy. Looking to the future and the implications for policy change, European Integration and Transformation in the Western Balkans provides a new theoretical and empirical focus on this little understood area. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of EU politics, comparative democratisation, post-communist transitions and Balkan area studies.

Democracy Promotion and the Normative Power Europe Framework

Democracy Promotion and the Normative Power Europe Framework
Author: Marek Neuman
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2018-07-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 331992690X

This book presents a topical, holistic assessment of the European Union’s democracy promotion in South-East Europe, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, analyzed through the prism of the Normative Power Europe (NPE) framework of transnational policy formation. To do so, it brings together three scholarly domains that traditionally stand apart and are discussed separately. The first addresses the notion of the European Union conducting a normatively-driven foreign policy both near and far abroad. The second is concerned with the legitimacy, operationality, and effectiveness of promoting democracy in third-world countries. The third addresses the quality of the relationship the European Union has been able to establish with some vital – yet often troubled – countries in South-East Europe, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Finally, based on the empirical findings presented in each chapter, this volume concludes by rethinking the concept and relevance of NPE to the field’s understanding of the EU’s foreign policy making. This edited volume offers the reader both a theoretically and empirically rich analysis of the European Union’s efforts to promote democracy abroad. As such is scholars and students of EU studies, particularly EU foreign policy, as well as policy makers at EU and national level and civil society representatives responsible for designing/implementing democracy promoting projects on the ground.

The European Union and Border Conflicts

The European Union and Border Conflicts
Author: Thomas Diez
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2008-03-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139470752

It is generally assumed that regional integration leads to stability and peace. This book is a systematic study of the impact of European integration on the transformation of border conflicts. It provides a theoretical framework centred on four 'pathways' of impact and applies them to five cases of border conflicts: Cyprus, Ireland, Greece/Turkey, Israel/Palestine and various conflicts on Russia's border with the EU. The contributors suggest that integration and association provide the EU with potentially powerful means to influence border conflicts, but that the EU must constantly re-adjust its policies depending on the dynamics of each conflict. Their findings reveal the conditions upon which the impact of integration rests and challenge the widespread notion that integration is necessarily good for peace. This book will appeal to scholars and students of international relations, European politics, and security studies studying European integration and conflict analysis.

The European Union and Its Eastern Neighbourhood

The European Union and Its Eastern Neighbourhood
Author: Andriy Tyushka
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2021-11-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000483657

This edited volume brings together some of the most important scholarly perspectives – in the form of both journal article reprints and original contributions – on the structure and dynamics of the EU’s multi-layered relations with its Eastern neighbours within the Eastern Partnership (EaP) framework and beyond. In May 2019, the EU’s EaP – an ambitious and sophisticated policy framework, conjoining elements of cooperation and integration, with the EU’s six eastern neighbours, i.e. Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan – turned ten years. This anniversary, in conjunction with repeatedly voiced critique by scholars and policy-makers alike regarding the framework’s effectiveness and utility, led the EU to submit the EaP to a fundamental auditing and revision. Structured around both enduring and emerging issues in the broader EU-Eastern neighbourhood framework, this book provides a retrospective analysis of key structural and relational challenges, unfolding regional dynamics, distinctive forms of bilateral/multilateral engagement, whilst also offering a critical perspective on the contested future relations between the EU and its Eastern neighbours. Looking backwards and providing a critical and thorough assessment of the first ten years of the EaP in practice, this book thinks forward and gauges its many potential future avenues. This comes at a crucial moment, as the EU and its six Eastern neighbours are in search of new and mutually acceptable forms of association.

The European Union as a Small Power

The European Union as a Small Power
Author: A. Toje
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2010-06-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230281818

The post-Cold War period is coming to an end. After a decade of foreign policy integration Europe faces multipolarity internally divided and externally weak. Toje argues that due to the lack of a workable decision-making mechanism the EU is destined to play the limited but distinct role of a small power in global politics.

Central European Judges Under the European Influence

Central European Judges Under the European Influence
Author: Michal Bobek
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2015-11-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1782259902

The onset of the 2004 EU enlargement witnessed a number of predictions being made about the approaches, capacity and ability of Central European judges who were soon to join the Union. Optimistic voices, foreshadowing the deep transformative power that Europe was bound to exercise with respect to the judicial mentality and practice in the new Member States, were intertwined with gloomy pictures of post-Communist limited formalism and mechanical jurisprudence that could not be reformed, which were likely to undermine the very foundations of mutual trust and recognition the judicial system of the Union is built upon. Ten years later, this volume revisits these predictions and critically assesses the evolution of Central European judicial mentality, institutions and constitutionality under the influence of the EU membership. Comparatively evaluating the situation in a number of Central European Member States in their socio-legal contexts, notably Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania, the volume offers unique insights into the process of (non) Europeanisation of national legal systems and cultures.

Normative Power Europe

Normative Power Europe
Author: R. Whitman
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2011-06-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230305601

The notion of Normative Power Europe (NPE) is that the EU is an 'ideational' actor characterised by common principles and acting to diffuse norms within international relations. Contributors assess the impact of NPE and offer new perspectives for the future exploration of one of the most widely used ideas in the study of the EU in the last decade.