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61. The Worried Friend, or: Hegemony vs. Globalization

Author:
Claus Leggewie
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
How real is American hegemony, given that only a few years ago talk about the decline of American power dominated discussion? How do allied states deal with a superpower that is no longer so benign? Does the United States still provide security for Western Europe and the rest of the world at all? And is a transnational world in need of Pax Americana, or what should, from a European and transatlantic perspective, take its place?
Topic:
Security and Globalization
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Europe

62. Where is Portuguese Agriculture Headed? An Analysis of the Common Agricultural Policy

Author:
Dulce Freire and Shawn Parkhurst
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
In the first part of this paper we analyze the conditions in of a shifting emphasis from the politics of prices to a social-structural policy. We also ask how well the CAP has adjusted to the ecological and social characteristics of the countries of southern Europe and whether it has actually supported the agriculture and rural citizens of these countries. In the second part of the paper, we present some of the results of the application of the CAP in Portugal, and discuss what role agriculture might have in developing the rural sections of the country. Broadly, our goal is to determine to what extent attempts to shift the CAP's focus from agriculture to the rural world and from productivity to quality can benefit Portugal and the other countries of southern Europe. Different countries and interest groups received the intercalary revision with a varying mixture of fear, caution and hope, and have opened a serious debate.
Topic:
Environment and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe and Portugal

63. What Ever Happened to Portuguese Euroscepticism? The Depolicitization of Europe and its Consequences

Author:
Pedro C. Magalhães
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
In the following sections, I will argue that although opinions about Portuguese membership in the EU have ceased to play a crucial role both in party appeals and electoral behavior, that is not the case in what concerns their impact on other forms of political behavior and attitudes. More specifically, I will suggest that the decline in electoral turnout currently experienced in Portugal, particularly since 1995, cannot be fully understood with exploring the combination between resilient Euroscepticism among a minority of the population and the depoliticization of Europe at the level of political élites. Furthermore, I will also suggest that, under the present conditions, anti-Europeanism may have developed into a more permanent and disturbing set of political attitudes of mistrust in, and disengagement from, domestic political institutions.
Topic:
Political Economy and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Portugal

64. The European Union's Trade Policy towards MERCOSUR

Author:
Jörg Faust
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Interregional relations between the European Union and MERCOSUR reflect a general trend of governments and firms to institutionalise their relations not only within but also across regions. As the global liberalization process within the WTO has been stagnating in recent years, transregional strategies have become attractive as next-best strategies. Against this background, the following analysis focuses on the institutional development of EU-MERCOSUR relations and the driving forces behind this development from a European perspective. This, because shedding some light on the political economy of relations between two of the most ambitious integration mechanisms of the 1990s should deepen our understanding of the forces shaping the growing importance of transregional and interregional trade relations. Rather than trying to explain the course of EU-MERCOSUR relations by one dominant hypothesis, I make an appeal for a multi-causal framework, highlighting three aspects of particular importance from a bottom up perspective. Firstly, one can observe that the interplay of economic interest groups has strongly influenced the course of interregional institutionalisation between the EU and MERCOSUR.) Secondly, political actors have not acted as mere agents of private interest but also have followed their own political agendas. Thirdly, the European Union's interregional trade strategy towards MERCOSUR has not been independent of the international context.
Topic:
International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe, South America, and Latin America

65. The Uneasy Triangle

Author:
Lloyd Ulman and Knut Gerlach
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
". . . It is impossible for any community to have very full employment and completely free collective bargaining and stable prices. Either one of the three will be completely sacrificed, or else all three will have to be modified. ". . . In the last resort the answer will be given not by economists or by administrators but by the public opinion. At each corner of the triangle, the limiting factor is what public opinion will stand, and the degree of comprehension that public opinion will show for an economic policy that tries to preserve balance between competing objectives.
Topic:
Government and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

66. The European Union and North America

Author:
Edward A. Fogarty
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper assesses the past, present, and future of transatlantic commercial relations in terms of EU trade strategies. After surveying the medium-term trajectories of the relationships with the United States, Mexico, and Canada-both separately and as a group-it will consider several possible sources of European Union trade preferences vis-à-vis NAFTA, including interest groups' incentives to seek to capture national and European governing institutions, the balance between the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, European leaders' desire to balance against overweening American power, and possible attempts to construct either a common Western identity or, alternatively, a European identity in contradistinction what the United States seems to represent. The hope is that these different approaches provide a contrasting set of interpretations whose comparison side-by-side allows new insights into the dynamics governing EU-North American trade relations.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Canada, North America, and Mexico

67. Germany: Managing Migration in the 21st Century

Author:
Philip L. Martin
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This monograph reviews Germany's evolution from a country of emigration to a reluctant land of immigration between the 1960s and 1980s, as guest workers settled and asylum seekers arrived. During the 1990s, Germany became a magnet for diverse foreigners, including the families of settled guest workers, newly mobile Eastern Europeans and ethnic Germans, and asylum seekers from throughout the world. Germany, with a relatively structured and rigid labor market and economy, finds it easier to integrate especially unskilled newcomers into generous social welfare programs than into the labor market. Since immigration means change as immigrants and Germans adjust to each other, an aging German populace may resist the changes in the economy and labor market that could facilitate immigrant integration as well as the changes in culture and society that invariably accompany immigrants.
Topic:
Government and Migration
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

68. Restructuring "Germany Inc." The Politics of Company and Takeover Law Reform in Germany and the European Union

Author:
John W. Cioffi
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
The reform of German company law by the Control and Transparency Law ("KonTraG") of 1998 reveals politics of corporate governance liberalization. The reforms strengthened the supervisory board, shareholder rights, and shareholder equality, but left intra-corporate power relations largely intact. Major German financial institutions supported the reform's contribution to the modernization of German finance, but blocked mandatory divestment of equity stakes and cross-shareholding. Conversely, organized labor prevented any erosion of supervisory board codetermination. Paradoxically, by eliminating traditional takeover defenses, the KonTraG's liberalization of company law mobilized German political opposition to the EU's draft Takeover Directive and limited further legal liberalization.
Topic:
Government and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

69. The Enlargement Challenge: Can Monetary Union be Made to Work in an EU of 25 Members?

Author:
Barry Eichengreen
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This lecture considers how Europe's monetary union will evolve in the next five to ten years. It concentrates on what is likely to be the most important change in that period, namely, the increasing number and heterogeneity of participating states. By 2006, less than four years from now, it is virtually certain that EMU will be enlarged to include a number of Eastern European countries that have not yet been admitted to the EU itself. These new members will differ sharply from the incumbents in terms of their economic structures, their per capita incomes, and their growth rates. The analysis focuses on the implications of this momentous change for the structure, organization and operation of EMU.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

70. Why is there no mad cow disease in the United States? Comparing the politics of food safety in Europe and the U.S.

Author:
Christoph Strünck
Publication Date:
12-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper compares approaches towards food safety regulation in Europe and the United States. It focuses on mad cow disease and examines how the British Government and the European Union handled the first big crisis in the nineties, juxtaposed to the American response. This worst public health disaster in Europe has led to new agencies and policies. However, these institutional changes do not abolish fragmentation, but extend the existing landscape regulatory bodies. The paper emphasizes that fragmentation-as the American case shows despite its shortcomings-prevents science from being captured by the state, allows interest groups broader access and ensures a distinct pattern of checks and balances.
Topic:
Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Europe