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36971. International Conferences: Considerations on the Evolution of the French and American Industrial Societies

Author:
Monique Borrel, Stephen Bornstein, Pierre-Eric Tixier, Chris Benner, Julia E. Kopich, and W. Norton Grubb
Publication Date:
02-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
From the beginning of the industrial era to the present time, French social history has been characterized by recurrent strikes of great magnitude. Contrary to most postwar industrialized countries where large strikes ceased to play a key role in sociopolitical changes, the French case presents an important anomaly. This research demonstrates that strikes have been instrumental in reshaping French society since the early 1950s. First, strike waves and generalized disputes supported the rapid expansion of the Welfare State throughout the postwar period. They also prompted leftist parties and unions to achieve coordination in their strategies and to orchestrate national demonstration strikes, which resulted in the emergence of a leftist electoral majority. Besides, the 1968 strike waves and the leftist strategy to achieve political power supported the upward trend in unionization in the 1970s. Beginning in the early 1980s, this French pattern of strikes has resulted in a number of perverse effects that account for the crisis of the mid1990s. In that respect, the French experience supports the idea that advanced industrial societies cannot afford recurrent general strikes without damaging the very fabric of democracy and without jeopardizing their economic future.
Topic:
Education and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
America, Europe, and France

36972. Co-Sponsored Projects: Transformation of German Party System

Author:
Wolfgang Seibel, Christopher S. Allen, Hans-Georg Betz, Henry Kreikenbaum, John Leslie, Andrei S. Markovitz, Ann L. Phillips, and Michaela W. Richter
Publication Date:
03-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
According to West German standards, there is only a weak nonprofit sector in East Germany today. The East German quasi-nonprofit sector nonetheless is an indispensable institutional ingredient of political integration. It is characterized by an amazing degree of structural and ideological continuity. Much of its organizational setting dates back to the pre-1989 era. Both funding and managerial attitudes are shaped by state-centeredness. Nonprofit institutions are heavily engaged in mitigating the social costs of economic transformation. Many of them, especially at the local level, are controlled by members of the former-communist PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism). Thus, the East German quasinonprofit sector presumably integrates two important societal groups more effectively than the regular polity: those alienated from the new democracy due to economic disappointment or deprivation and those alienated from the new democracy due to ideological reasons (former communists in particular). This indicates a remarkable institutional elasticity whose main function is to "synchronize" the dramatically accelerated pace of political change and the much slower pace of societal change.
Topic:
Cold War and Democratization
Political Geography:
Europe

36973. Co-Sponsored Projects: Germany's Role In Shaping the New Europe: Architect, Model and Bridge

Author:
Daniel N. Nelson, Andrei S. Markovits, Thomas Banchoff, Patricia A. Davis, Christian Deubner, Lily Gardner Feldman, JoEllyn Murillo Fountain, Stefan Immerfall, Michael Kreile, Carl Lankowski, Barbara Lippert, Susanne Peters, Elke Thiel, and Wolfgang Wessels
Publication Date:
04-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper seeks to explain the continuity in German policy in Europe across the 1990 divide. Although the collapse of the Soviet bloc and reunification transformed the context of German foreign policy, its fundamental direction remained unchanged. The new Germany, like the old, made solidarity with the western allies the cornerstone of its policy in Europe. Chancellor Helmut Kohl did address new policy challenges in the East. But he made stronger western institutions, and a deeper European Union in particular, his top priorities. Neorealism and neoliberalism, this paper argues, cannot adequately explain the strong western orientation of the Federal Republic in the early 1990s. The constellation of power and institutions at the international level left German leaders with different ways to combine association with the West and engagement in the East. In order to explain the priority accorded solidarity with the West, it is necessary to bring in the foreign policy priorities espoused by Kohl and the views of history and its lessons that informed them.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

36974. Discourse Analysis as Foreign Policy Theory

Author:
Ole Wæver
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
Abstract:
Where is Germany heading? So we have been asking ourselves since the wall fell. We had been reasonably calmed down: they were apparently not out for new adventures of their own. No Eastward going it alone -- neither in Eastern Europe, nor with the Russians. Nor any autonomous power politics. On the contrary, Germany has primarily made itself noticed in global politics through its continued restraint, from half-hearted support in the Gulf War to qualms over participation in UN operations.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Germany

36975. Supranational Governance: The Institutionalization of the European Union

Author:
Wayne Sandholtz and Alec Stone Sweet
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
Abstract:
We posit a continuum of modes of governance, anchored at the poles by intergovernmental and supranational politics. Movement from intergovernmental politics toward the supranational pole implies the increasing importance of three factors in EU policymaking: EU rules, EU organizations, and transnational society. We propose that an increase in one of the three factors creates conditions that favor growth in the other two. We also offer a theory as to what drives initial movement toward supranational governance: increasing levels of cross-border transactions and communications by societal actors will increase the perceived need for European-level rules, coordination, and dispute resolution mechanisms. The theory provides a coherent answer to the question of why integration proceeds faster in some domains than in others. We expect movement toward supranational governance in sectors where the intensity and value of cross-border transactions is rising.
Topic:
Government and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

36976. From Free Trade to Supranational Polity: The European Court and Integration

Author:
Alec Stone Sweet and James A. Caporaso
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
Abstract:
In this paper, we propose a dynamic theory of legal integration, test the model quantitatively, and then cross-check it by way of process tracing. We show that transnational exchange, litigation, and the production of Euro-rules have evolved interdependently, and argue that this interdependence provokes and reinforces the spillover effects that partly drive the construction of supranational governance. In case studies of the impact of the legal system on outcomes in two areas, the free movement of goods and European social provisions, we show that our model outperforms the dominant framework for understanding how the EC legal system operates - intergovernmentalism. In each of these areas, the data show that the legal system functions to reduce member-state government control over policy outcomes, and to enhance the influence of supranational institutions, national judges, and private actors.
Topic:
Government, International Law, International Organization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

36977. The Institutional Terrain of the European Union

Author:
Neil Fligstein and Jason McNichol
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
One of the central issues in making sense of the European Union is the question of the degree to which it functions as an autonomous state. One pole of this debate conceives of the EU as a supranational entity while the other argues that it remains an intergovernmental bargain. Here, we propose to analyze the EU in terms of the structuring of its policy domains. 12 of 17 domains appear organized by nongovernmental organizations. We conclude that while the governments retain direct control over important parts of the EU, they have allowed most policy domains at the EU level to become autonomous.
Topic:
International Relations and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

36978. The Path to European Integration

Author:
Paul Pierson
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Many European and American observers of the EC have criticized "intergovernmentalist" accounts for exaggerating the extent of member state control over the process of European integration. This essay seeks to ground these criticisms in a historical institutionalist" account that stresses the need to study European integration as a political process which unfolds over time. Such a perspective highlights the limits of member state control over long-term institutional development. Losses of control result from member state preoccupation with short-term concerns, the ubiquity of unintended consequences, and processes that "lock in" past decisions and make reassertions of member state authority difficult. Brief examination of the evolution of EC social policy suggests the limitations of treating the EC as an institutional "instrument" facilitating collective action among sovereign states. It is more useful to view integration as a path-dependent process that has produced a fragmented but still discernible multi-tiered European polity.
Topic:
International Organization, Politics, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
America and Europe

36979. Emergence of a Supranational Telecommunications Regime

Author:
Wayne Sandholtz
Publication Date:
11-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
Abstract:
The patchwork of national telecommunications monopolies in the EU was incapable of meeting a rapidly growing need on the part of societal actors for efficient, technologically advanced, cross-border telecommunications. The Commission mobilized various transnational actors -- equipment manufacturers, business users, providers of new services, suppliers of alternative infrastructures -- to support its plans for EU-level liberalization and harmonization. Whereas in a first phase the Commission acted as a source of initiatives and models for states whose policies were in flux, the second phase saw a dramatic shift in the nature of governance. Employing its powers under Article 90 of the Treaty (which does not require Council approval), the Commission set out to abolish national monopolies in telecoms equipment, services, and, finally, infrastructures. The telecoms case thus supports three of the project's central propositions: that societal transactions drive movement toward supranational governance; that changes in EU rules, organizations, and transnational society are interlinked; and that member states do not always control these processes of institutionalization.
Topic:
Government, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe

36980. Economic Structure and the Decision to Adopt a Common Currency

Author:
Jeffrey A. Frankel and Andrew K. Rose
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Everyone studing EMU cites the theory of Optimum Currency Areas: whether a country like Sweden should join the currency union depends on such parameters as the extent of Swedish trade with other EU members and the correlation of Sweden's income with that of other members. Few economists have focused on what we consider one of the most interesting aspects of this issue. Trade patterns and income correlation are endogenous. Sweden could fail the OCA criterion for membership today, and yet, if it goes ahead and joins anyway, could, as the result of joining, pass the Optimum Currency Area (OCA) criterion in the future. (Further, even if Sweden does not enter EMU quickly, it will be more likely to satisfy the OCA criteria in the future as a result of its recent accession to the EU.) The few economists who have identified the importance of the endogeneity of trade patterns and income correlation are divided on the nature of the relationship between the two. This is an important empirical question, which may hold the key to the answer regarding whether it is in Sweden's income interest to join EMU. We review the OCA theory, highlighting the role of trade links and income links. Then we discuss and analyze the endogeneity of these parameters. We present econometric evidence suggesting strongly that if trade links between Sweden and the rest of Europe strengthen in the future, then Sweden's income will become more highly correlated with European income in the future (not less correlated, as some have claimed). This has important implications for the OCA criterion. It means that a naïve examination of historical data gives a biased picture of the effects of EMU entry on Sweden. It also means that EMU membership is more likely to make sense for Sweden in the future than it does today.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe and Sweden