Over the past half-century, Europe has experienced the most radical reallocation of authority that has ever taken place in peace-time, yet the ideological conflicts that will emerge from this are ...only now becoming apparent. The editors of this 2004 volume, Gary Marks and Marco Steenbergen, have brought together a formidable group of scholars of European and comparative politics to investigate patterns of conflict that are arising in the European Union. Using diverse sources of data, and examining a range of actors, including citizens, political parties, members of the European Parliament, social movements, and interest groups, the authors of this volume conclude that political contestation concerning European integration is indeed rooted in the basic conflicts that have shaped political life in Western Europe for many years. This comprehensive volume provides an analysis of political conflict in the European Union.
How does the EU resolve controversy when making laws that affect citizens? How has the EU been affected by the recent enlargements that brought its membership to a diverse group of twenty-seven ...countries? This book answers these questions with analyses of the EU's legislative system that include the roles played by the European Commission, European Parliament and member states' national governments in the Council of Ministers. Robert Thomson examines more than 300 controversial issues in the EU from the past decade and describes many cases of controversial decision-making as well as rigorous comparative analyses. The analyses test competing expectations regarding key aspects of the political system, including the policy demands made by different institutions and member states, the distributions of power among the institutions and member states, and the contents of decision outcomes. These analyses are also highly relevant to the EU's democratic deficit and various reform proposals.
With almost a quarter of the world's migrants, Europe has been attempting to regulate migration and harmonize immigration policy at the European level. The central dilemma exposed is how liberal ...democracies can reconcile the need to control the movement of people with the desire to promote open borders, free markets and liberal standards. Gallya Lahav's book traces ten years of public opinion and elite attitudes toward immigration cross-nationally to show how and why increasing EU integration may not necessarily lead to more open immigration outcomes. Empirical evidence reveals that support from both elite and public opinion has led to the adoption of restrictive immigration policies despite the requirements of open borders. Unique in bringing together original data on European legislators and national elites, longitudinal data on public opinion and institutional and policy analyses, this 2004 study provides an important insight into the processes of European integration, and globalization more broadly.
At a time when many observers question the EU's ability to achieve integration of any significance, and indeed Europeans themselves appear disillusioned, Mai'a K. Davis Cross argues that the EU has ...made remarkable advances in security integration, in both its external and internal dimensions. Moreover, internal security integration-such as dealing with terrorism, immigration, cross-border crime, and drug and human trafficking-has made even greater progress with dismantling certain barriers that previously stood at the core of traditional state sovereignty.
Such unprecedented collaboration has become possible thanks to knowledge-based transnational networks, or "epistemic communities," of ambassadors, military generals, scientists, and other experts who supersede national governments in the diplomacy of security decision making and are making headway at remarkable speed by virtue of their shared expertise, common culture, professional norms, and frequent meetings. Cross brings together nearly 80 personal interviews and a host of recent government documents over the course of five separate case studies to provide a microsociological account of how governance really works in today's EU and what future role it is likely to play in the international environment.
"This is an ambitious work which deals not only with European security and defense but also has much to say about the policy-making process of the EU in general."-Ezra Suleiman, Princeton University
Gender considerations and civil society are both major issues in the current debate about the implementation of EU development policy. This volume provides a new perspective and focus on the ...increasingly important issues of gender equality, democracy and participation to explain how they impact on policy. This book will appeal to those interested in the European Union, in EU external relations, gender issues, civil society, and development.
English-Only Europe? explores the role of languages in the process of European integration. Languages are central to the development of an integrated Europe. The way in which the European Union deals ...with multilingualism has serious implications for both individual member countries and international relations. In this book, Robert Phillipson considers whether the contemporary expansion of English represents a serious threat to other European languages. After exploring the implications of current policies, Phillipson argues the case for more active language policies to safeguard a multilingual Europe. Drawing on examples of countries with explicit language policies such as Canada and South Africa, the book sets out Phillipson's vision of an inclusive language policy for Europe, and describes how it can be attained.
State authority and power have become diffused in an increasingly globalized world characterized by the freer trans-border movement of people, objects and ideas. As a result, some international law ...scholars believe that a new world order is emerging based on a complex web of transnational networks. Such a transnational legal order requires sufficient dialogue between national courts. This 2010 book explores the prospects for such an order in the context of refugee law in Europe, focusing on the use of foreign law in refugee cases. Judicial practice is critically analysed in nine EU member states, with case studies revealing a mix of rational and cultural factors that lead judges to rarely use each others' decisions within the EU. Conclusions are drawn for the prospects of a Common European Asylum System and for international refugee law.
This book responds to the often loud debates about the place of Muslims in Western Europe by proposing an analysis based in institutions, including schools, courts, hospitals, the military, electoral ...politics, the labor market, and civic education courses. The contributors consider the way people draw on practical schemas regarding others in their midst who are often categorized as Muslims. Chapters based on fieldwork and policy analysis across several countries examine how people interact in their everyday work lives, where they construct moral boundaries, and how they formulate policies concerning tolerable diversity, immigration, discrimination, and political representation. Rather than assuming that each country has its own national ideology that explains such interactions, contributors trace diverse pathways along which institutions complicate or disrupt allegedly consistent national ideologies. These studies shed light on how Muslims encounter particular faces and facets of the state as they go about their lives, seeking help and legitimacy as new citizens of a fast-changing Europe.
This book presents innovative and creative ethnographic perspectives on the intersection between art, anthropology, and contested cultural heritage resulting from ethnographic and artistic research ...by the TRACES project (an interdisciplinary research project funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme involving a collaboration between institutional partners in 11 European countries). The case studies in this volume critically assess and evaluate how and in which arrangements artistic/aesthetic methods and creative everyday practices contribute to strengthening communities both culturally and economically. They also explore the extent to which these methods emphasize minority voices and ultimately set in motion a process of reflexive Europeanisation from below which unfolds within Europe and beyond its borders. At the heart of these ethnographic case studies is the development of a new way of transmitting contentious cultural heritage, which responds to the present situation in Europe of unstable political conditions and a sense of Europe in crisis. With chapters looking at difficult art exhibitions on colonialism, death masks, Holocaust memorials and skull collections, the contributors articulate a response to the crisis in current economic-political conditions in Europe and advances brand new theoretical groundwork on the configuration of a renewed European identity. Through combining studies of heritage within museums, this volume will appeal to students and scholars of anthropology, heritage and museum studies, and visual culture.