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Providing a comprehensive and authoritative analyses of the impact of the Eurozone crisis on the European social dimension since 2010 - understood as the European Union’s (EU) competence in employment and social policy - this book focusses on developments in five policy areas (employment, poverty and social exclusion, pensions, wages and healthcare), all of which form part of the EU’s economic reform strategy, Europe 2020. It combines original empirical material and uses a unique theoretical approach to analyse the issue of EU governance and reveals that ‘progress’ under Europe 2020 has its consequences; notably a strengthened Brussels-led neoliberal prescription for EU social and employment policy problems. By drawing insights from political sociology and the strategic-relational approach to actors/institutions, this book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in EU politics, EU governance, political sociology, public policy and European integration.
For years the European Union has been looked on as a potential model for cosmopolitan governance, and enjoyed considerable influence on the global stage. The EU has a uniquely strong and legally binding mission statement to pursue international relations on a multilateral basis, founded on the progressive development of international law. The political vision was for the EU to export its values of the rule of law and sophisticated governance mechanisms to the international sphere. Globalization and the financial crisis have starkly illustrated the limits of this vision, and the EU's dependence on global forces partially beyond the control of traditional provinces of law. This book takes stock of the EU's role in global governance. It asks: to what extent can and does the EU shape and influence the on-going re-ordering of legal processes, principles, and institutions of global governance, in line with its optimistic mission statement? With this ambitious remit it covers the legal-institutional and substantive aspects of global security, trade, environmental, financial, and social governance. Across these topics 23 contributors have taken the central question of the extent of the EU's influence on global governance, providing a broad view across the key areas as well as a detailed analysis of each. Through comparison and direct engagement with each other, the different chapters provide a distinctive contribution to legal scholarship on global governance, from a European perspective.
Examines the nature of the EU and its external role in relation to social issues raised by globalization. It explores how the EU influences, both directly and indirectly, the rest of the world in relation to the social component of globalization.
Discussing the ongoing and future challenges of EU Cohesion Policy, this book critically addresses the economic, social and territorial challenges at the heart of the EU’s policy. It identifies the multifaceted and dynamic nature of the policy as well as the cohesions goal interlinkage with other policies and considers unresolved questions of strategic importance in territorial governance, urban and regional inequalities, and social aspects and wellbeing.
The research presented in this book based on new primary data demonstrates that in terms of civil society actors adapting to the European political space the Europeanization process has an uneven development. This innovative book integrates top-down approaches for the study of relationships within the developing EU-multilevel system (i.e., the consequences of Europeanization for civil society at the local level) and bottom-up approaches (i.e., the consequences of civil society for the process of European integration and democracy in the EU). The contributors argue that exploration of these recursive linkages requires a rethinking of the relationships between (local, national, and trans-national) civil society on the one hand, and multi-level governance on the other. In analyzing the opportunities for civil society associations to contribute to European integration and decision-making from various perspectives, the following findings are presented, amongst others: engagement with and confidence in the EU (compared to national institutions) is relatively weak among associational members party elites play a key gatekeeper role in the European space the EU and interest groups have had limited success in stimulating the development of citizen engagement, civil society and social capital in various countries. In the rapidly expanding field of research on democratic decision-making in Europe, this book will be welcomed by academics and scholars alike at postgraduate levels and above. Experts working in the field of European decision-making (such as lawyers and lobbyists) who are looking for conclusions based on high-quality empirical research will also find much in this book to engage them.
This book is the first to be dedicated entirely to the European Semester -- a new framework for policy coordination across European Union (EU) member states. The Semester represents a major advancement in EU governance. Created in 2010 in the wake of the financial and sovereign debt crises and revamped in 2015, it was intended to provide a new socio-economic governance architecture to coordinate national policies without transferring legal sovereignty to EU level. The papers in this collection are written by authors who have already contributed to this literature and have conducted original research for their studies. The book offers an empirical and theoretical assessment of the European Semester, examining its implications along three critical axes, running respectively between the economic and the social, the supranational and the intergovernmental, and the technocratic and democratic poles of EU governance. The book concludes that the European Semester challenges established theoretical understandings of EU governance, as it is a prime example of the complexity that supersedes simple polar oppositions. The chapters were originally published in a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.
The intention of this book's contributions is to focus on some key aspects of social capital in the context of civic participation, governance and civil society at both national and EU levels. The role of new EU members is particularly stressed. The texts aim to demonstrate how social capital in the form of co-operative norms and actions facilitates the self-organisation of civil society and its internal ability to articulate policy relevant alternative proposals. The efficiency and responsiveness of governance at different - local, national, transnational - levels are also addressed. Besides theoretical reconsiderations, the book draws attention to the issue of the quality of data and greater methodological reflexivity.
In recent years, the failure of the constitutional process, the difficult ratification and implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, as well as the several crises affecting Europe have revitalized the debate on the nature of the European polity and the balance of powers in Brussels. This book explains the redistribution of power in the post-Lisbon EU with a focus on the European Council. Reform of institutions and the creation of new political functions at the top of the European Union have raised fresh questions about leadership and accountability. This book argues that the European Union exhibits a political order with hierarchies, mechanisms of domination and legitimating narratives. As such, it can be understood by analysing what happens at its summit. Taking the European Council as the nexus of European political governance, contributors consider council and rotating presidencies' co-operation, rivalry and opposition. The book combines approaches through events, processes and political structures, issues and the biographical trajectories of actors and explores how the founding compromise of European integration between sovereignty and supranationality is affected by the evolving nature of this new European political model which aims to combine cooperation and integration. The European Council and European Governance will be of strong interest to students and scholars of European studies, political science, political sociology, public policy and international relations.
This book explains the emergence and functioning of three forms of governance structures within the context of the European integration and constitutionalisation process: comitology, (regulatory) agencies and the Open Method of Co-ordination. The point of departure is the insight that the intergovernmental/supranational distinction, which most theories of European integration and constitutionalisation rely on, has lost its strength. A new paradigm of EU research is therefore needed. Against this background it is suggested that the distinction between governing and governance provides a more appropriate basis for analysing the phenomenon of integration and constitutionalisation in Europe. The distinction between governing and governance allows for an understanding of the EU as a hybrid consisting of a governing dimension, characterised by legal and organisational hierarchy, and a governance dimension which operates within a network form characterised by legal and organisational heterarchy. The function of governance structures is to ensure the embeddedness of the governing dimension in the wider society. Instead of representing contradictory developments, the two dimensions are therefore mutually constitutive in the sense that more governing implies more governance and vice versa. These theoretical insights are illustrated through two detailed case studies which respectively reconstruct the operational mode of the Open Method of Coordination within EU Research & Development Policy and the regulatory system for the EU chemicals market (REACH). The book is inter-disciplinary in nature and incorporates insights from law, political science and sociology.