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2. Markets, Rights and Power: The Rise (and Fall?) of the Anglo-American Vision of World Order, 1975-2005
- Author:
- James Cronin
- Publication Date:
- 01-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The so-called “special relationship” has been a fixture of international relations since at least 1940, but it seemed of declining significance during the 1960s and 1970s. It has nevertheless been revived, even refounded, since then; and it has served as the strategic base on which a new Anglo-American vision of the world has been articulated. At the core of the new connection, and the vision to which it gave rise, is a strong preference for the market and a set of foreign and domestic policies that privilege markets and see their expansion as critical to peace, prosperity and the expansion of democracy. This essay examines the origins of this new paradigm as a response to a set of interrelated crises in the 1970s, its elaboration and application during the 1980s under Reagan and Thatcher, its curious history since the end of the Cold War, and the way it evolved into the failed policies of the post-9/11 era.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Cold War, and Political Theory
- Political Geography:
- America and Europe
3. When Can a Weak Process Generate Strong Results ? Entrepreneurial Alliances in the Bologna Process to Create a European Higher Education Area
- Author:
- Barbara G. Haskel
- Publication Date:
- 02-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- This paper attempts to explain how an intergovernmental process among four countries to “harmonize” the “architecture” of their higher education systems in under ten years turned into an “OMC-type” process with a full role for the European Commission and a membership of forty-six countries, a system which appears to have had some substantial results. The paper argues that the speed of the process is accounted for by a “coordination imperative,” and that the sustainability (institutionalization) of the process has been a product of the initiatives for goals, instruments, support structures, and measurements generated by an “entrepreneurial alliance” composed of the Commission and the European Universities Association as “drivers” of the process and as solver of a collective action problem among social actors interested in university re-form, in the context of a permissive consensus of the member states.
- Topic:
- International Relations and Education
- Political Geography:
- Europe
4. Foreign Trade Specialization and International Competitiveness Of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the EU 12
- Author:
- Bahri Yilmaz
- Publication Date:
- 01-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The main purpose of this paper is to examine the foreign trade patterns and/or specialization in foreign trade of three EU member countries – namely, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and candidate country Turkey – and to compare the foreign trade patterns with the EU/12 in the period 1995- 2005. The paper is divided into seven main sections. The first section summarizes the export and import developments of the countries in question between the years 1995 and 2005. The second section describes the methodology and data sets. Empirical analysis is found in the third section, where in five subsections we investigate international competitiveness and trade specialization using different indices. In the fourth part of the research we compare the dynamic products in world exports with dynamic products in the exports of the four countries. The final section gives brief conclusions drawn from the results and considers the future position of Turkey within the enlarged EU. In this research we do not intend to explain why the foreign trade patterns are different in the considered countries. We simply try to show whether and where there are any differences in foreign trade specialisation among the four countries and EU/12.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, Markets, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, and South Sudan
5. The Politics of Antitrust and Merger Review in the European Union: Institutional Change and Decisions from Messina to 2004
- Author:
- Gabriel T. Swank and Tim Büthe
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Antitrust regulation and the related merger review are essential for making a market economy work. Merger review is also among the most prominent powers of the European Commission in the Common Market of the EU. How did this supranational actor come to acquire such power? And what explains the variation in the Commission's decisions in some of the trans-atlantically most controversial merger review cases in recent years? In this paper, we develop a modified neofunctionalist theory as a historical institutionalist theory of institutional change that integrates elements of rational choice and social constructivism. We argue that it provides a superior explanation of (1) the institutional development of the European Commission's competence over antitrust matters and merger review from the 1950s negotiations over the Treaty of Rome through the changes of 2004 and (2) the Commission's decisions in some of the most prominent cases, where a high level of politicization makes a neofunctionalist explanation least likely.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Economics, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- Europe
6. The European Union as a "Green Normative Power"? EU Leadership in International Biotechnology Regulation
- Author:
- Robert Falkner
- Publication Date:
- 11-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- This paper examines the transformation of the European Union (EU) from a laggard to a leader in the international politics of biotechnology regulation. The emergence of EU leadership in global environmental politics during the 1990s seems to support recent arguments about the distinctive nature of the EU as a "normative power" in international relations. However, as this paper argues, this perspective lacks historical depth and fails to capture tensions between competing principles and conflict among domestic interest groups in Europe. The paper calls for a more critical reading of the normative power argument and identifies shifts in the domestic political economy of agricultural biotechnology as the key factors behind the EU's support for a precautionary international regime on trade in genetically modified organisms.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Development, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe
7. How European Integration Impacts on National Legislatures: The Europeanization of The German Bundestag
- Author:
- Annette Elisabeth Töller
- Publication Date:
- 02-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- In looking at the Europeanization of the German Bundestag, the paper brings together two different debates: the well-established debate on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union sees national Parliaments as guarantor of one branch of a “dual” legitimacy. The more recent debate on “Europeanization” addresses the impacts that European integration has had on its Member States. Analyzing the Europeanization of the German Bundestag, the paper identifies and analyzes three dimensions: legislative Europeanization – the extent to which legislative decision making by the German Bundestag has been influenced by European stipulations over the last twenty years; institutional Europeanization – how the Bundestag as an institution reacted to this loss of function by establishing institutional and procedural provisions for influencing the government's Euro-politics; and strategic Europeanization – the ways in which individual MPs started more recently to develop euro-political strategies that go beyond controlling the national government. The paper shows that the Bundestag only hesitantly reacted to the increasing loss of function s through legislative Europeanization by establishing effective institutional and procedural provisions for controlling the government's Euro-political activities. What is more, the establishment of institutions does not guarantee their effective use. All in all, Euro- politics continues to remain the activity of few MPs. These few, however, have more recently started to europeanize their strategies. The empirical findings support the claim that the traditional concept of chains of legitimacy is inadequate, both in conceptual and in empirical terms. With regard to the democratic legitimacy of EU governance, this indicates that, apart from major reform projects, especially with regard to everyday legislation, not too great a burden should be placed on national Parliaments.
- Topic:
- International Relations and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Europe
8. The Politics of Budget Consolidation In Britain and Germany: The Impact of Blame-Avoidance Opportunities
- Author:
- Reimut Zohlnhöfer
- Publication Date:
- 07-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- According to parts of the literature, blame avoidance opportunities, i.e. the necessity and applicability of blame avoidance strategies, may differ among countries according to the respective institutional set-ups and between governing parties according to their programmatic orientation. In countries with many veto actors, a strategy of "Institutional Cooperation" among these actors is expected to diffuse blame sufficiently to render other blame avoidance strategies obsolete. In contrast, governments in Westminster democracies should resort to the more unilateral strategies of presentation, policy design and timing. At the same time, parties of the left are expected to have an easier time implementing spending cuts while right parties are less vulnerable when proposing tax increases. Evidence from the politics of budget consolidation in Britain and Germany does not corroborate these hypotheses. Instead, it seems that party competition conditions the effects institutions and the partisan complexion of governments have on the politics of blame avoidance.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Economics, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe
9. Fiscal Perspectives in Europe: Convergence and Debt's Burden
- Author:
- Thierry Warin
- Publication Date:
- 06-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The paper addresses the question of the fiscal perspectives within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). By using a panel data analysis associated with an interpretation in terms of differences instead of levels, the results show a steady convergence of public deficits across the EMU, and that the EMU needs either to comply with the Lisbon agenda, or some kind of a growth strategy, or reduce the interest of the debt in order to regain some fiscal flexibility while abiding by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP).
- Topic:
- International Relations, Debt, and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Europe
10. The Politics of Institutional Learning and Creation: Bank Crises and Supervision in East Central Europe
- Author:
- Gerald A. McDermott
- Publication Date:
- 04-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- This article examines the political conditions shaping the creation of new institutional capabilities. It analyzes bank sector reforms in the 1990s in three leading postcommunist democracies–Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. It shows how different political approaches to economic transformation can facilitate or hinder the ability of relevant public and private actors to experiment and learn their new roles. With its emphasis on insulating power and rapidly implementing self-enforcing economic incentives, the “depoliticization” approach creates few changes in bank behavior and, indeed, impedes investment in new capabilities at the bank and supervisory levels. The “deliberativ e restructuring” approach fostered innovative, cost-effective monitoring structures for recapitalization, a strong supervisory system, and a stable, expanding bank sector.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Economics, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Eastern Europe, Poland, and Hungary
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