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601. Legitimate Rule in the European Union

Author:
Frank Schimmelfennig
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Two seemingly contradictory trends dominate the European debate over legitimate rule. On the one hand, there appears to be no ideologically viable alternative to liberal democracy following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. On the other, the rapid progress of European integration has triggered an intense public debate over the European Union's "legitimacy deficit" and active popular opposition in many Western European countries. This paper asks whether these two seemingly contradictory developments can be reconciled. It argues that they can once it is recognized that the modern inter-state system is undergoing profound change. State sovereignty is being undermined by the trans-nationalization of foreign policy and the inter-nationalization of governance. In particular, the European Union has crossed the border from horizontal (or anarchical) interstate cooperation to vertical (or hierarchical) policy making in a multi-level political system in which states are but one level of the policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Government, International Organization, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Europe

602. Realism and Regionalism: American Power and German and Japanese Institutional Strategies During and After the Cold War

Author:
Joseph M. Grieco
Publication Date:
04-1990
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Germany's foreign economic policy places enormous weight on formal European institutions. In contrast, Japan has not had an institutionalist orientation in regard to its East Asian neighbors. This paper addresses the question of why Germany and Japan differ so greatly on this issue of regional economi. institutions. It suggests that the differences observed in German and Japanese interests in regard to such arrangements constitute a puzzle if they are examined from the perspective of liberal ideas about the functional bases of international collaboration, or from the viewpoint of realist propositions about hegemony and cooperation and about the impact of polarity on state preferences. The paper also puts forward a realist-inspired analysis (focusing on American power in the post-Cold War era as well as American national strategy in the early years of that conflict) that might help account for the strong German bias in favor of regional economic institutions and the equally pronounced Japanese aversion to date for such arrangements.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cold War, and International Organization
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, America, Europe, Israel, East Asia, Asia, and Germany