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This book is an attempt to tackle the problem of democratization in East-Central Europe from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Its contributors look at the process of change within a comparative framework, discussing the emergence of multi-party and new electoral systems, comparing democratic transition in other parts of the world with that of Eastern Europe and analysing that region's relationship with the Soviet Union. Democratization in Eastern Europe will be indespensable to upper-level students of East European Politics, and will also be useful for those with more comparative and theoretical interests.
The collapse of communism was widely heralded as the dawn of democracy across the former Soviet region. However, the political outcome has been much less uniform. The post-communist states have developed political systems from democracy to dictatorship. Using examples and empirical data collected from twenty-six former Soviet states, Graeme Gill provides a detailed comparative analysis of the core issues of regime change, the creation of civil society, economic reform and the changing nature of post-communism. Within these individual cases, it becomes clear that political outcomes have not been arbitrary, but directly reflect the circumstances surrounding the birth of independence. Students of Comparative Politics, International Relations and Russian and Post-Soviet Studies should find this book essential reading.
This ground-breaking volume provides a new perspective on the EU’s foreign policy and offers a reconstruction of EU research that extends beyond narrow-minded concepts of ‘power’ and ‘actorness’. Focusing on two intertwined research questions, it presents a more sustainable base for studying EU foreign policy: What is the EU’s foreign policy quality in terms of ‘actorness’ and ‘power’ compared to other types of actors in international relations and global politics? What factors influence the EU’s foreign policy performance in comparison to states and international organizations? This guiding principle and application of a ‘grounded theory’ or ‘heuristic case study’ approach allows the book to deliver a structured comparative analysis of EU foreign policy, comparing findings across policy fields, different legal foundations and respective policy modes of governance. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of European Union studies, European Union foreign policy studies, international relations, and security policy studies.
This is the second volume in a two-volume series of books on democratic consolidation in Eastern Europe. The first volume focused on the issue of institutional engineering. This second volume analyses the external parameters of democratic consolidation in thirteen Eastern European countries: how different international actors and various economic, cultural and security types of transnational pressures have shaped democratic politics in the region. The aim is to contrast a set of democracy theories with empirical evidence accumulated in Eastern Europe over the last ten years. The volume tries to avoid complex debates about definitions, methods and the uses and misuses of comparative research....
Commentators call the United States an empire: occasionally a benign empire, sometimes an empire in denial, often a destructive empire. In American Umpire Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman asserts instead that America has performed the role of umpire since 1776, compelling adherence to rules that gradually earned broad approval, and violating them as well.
As the Central and East European states seek to join the European Union and NATO, they face challenging demands to adhere to specific European norms and standards. In this first comprehensive analysis, contributors examine how this process operates in a variety of domains, including civil-military relations; social, labor, and regional relations; economic and information policies; and foreign policy. Each author considers what norms are generated by (or absent from) European international organizations; how they are communicated to prospective members; and, most important, what impact they have had on the policies and actions of individual countries as well as on the region as a whole. These on-the-ground studies provide the empirical foundation needed to support theories of norm diffusion, constructivism, and liberalism in international relations and comparative politics alike.
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Throughout much of Europe the preoccupation with military security that dominated political thinking after the end of the Second World War has given way to an emphasis upon mutual interdependence. But what does this mean, both theoretically and practically, terms of a `new' agenda? The focus of this book is upon four main issues: * economic development * security * the environment * human rights These are of course not in themselves new issues, but during the period of the Cold War they were subordinated to the ideological division of the continent. Now they have emerged as decisive in the way in which Europe will develop. The authors examine the four issues in depth, and draw out the links between them. They also examine the various levels at which these problems exist - the level of the `system', of the state and of the individual. Thus it is possible for them to illustrate general issues with specific reference to local, national and Europe-wide political debates.
DIVExamines how international organizations are used as a means of bypassing domestic opposition to policy change /div