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Most countries around the globe have one or two levels of regional or intermediate government, yet we have little systematic idea of how much authority they wield, or how this has changed over time. This book measures and explains the formal authority of intermediate or regional government in 42 advanced democracies, including the 27 EU member states. It tracks regional authority on an annual basis from 1950 to 2006. The measure reveals wide variation both cross-sectionally and over time. The authors examine four influences – functional pressures, democratization, European integration, and identity – to explain regionalization over the past half-century. This unique and comprehensive volume will be a vital resource for students and scholars of comparative politics, public administration and public management, federalism, democratization, nationalism, and multilevel governance.
No concept sparks more controversy in constitutional debate than "original intent." Offering a legal historian's approach to the subject, this book demonstrates that the framers deliberately obscured one of their more important decisions. Joseph M. Lynch argues that the Constitution was a product of political struggles involving regional interests, economic concerns, and ideology. The framers, he maintains, settled on enigmatic wording of the Necessary and Proper Clause and of the General Welfare provision in the Spending Clause as a compromise, leaving the extent of federal power to be determined by the political process. During ratification, however, attempts by dissident framers to undo t...
Between 1995 and 2007, financial elites in more than a dozen western European countries engaged in a cross-border battle to create some twenty new stock markets, many of which were explicitly modeled on the American Nasdaq. The resulting high-risk, high-reward markets facilitated wealth creation, rewarded venture capitalists, and drew major U.S. financial players to Europe. But they also chipped away at the European social compacts between national governments and citizens, opening the door of smaller company finance to the broad trend of marketization and its bounties, and further subjecting European households and family businesses to the rhythms of global capital. Elliot Posner explores t...
In his farewell speech, President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned us of the dangers of a military-industrial complex (MIC). In Paul Koistinen's sobering new book, that warning appears to have been both prophetic and largely ignored. As the final volume in his magisterial study of the political economy of American warfare, State of War describes the bipolar world that developed from the rivalry between the U.S. and USSR, showing how seventy years of defense spending have bred a monster that has sunk its claws into the very fabric of American life. Koistinen underscores how during the second half of the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first, the United States for the first time in...
Across the globe, more powers are being devolved to local and regional levels of government. This book provides an innovative analysis of such decentralisation in transition states in the Balkans. Using new and rich data, it shows how political elites use decentralisation strategically to ensure their access to state resources.
McDonald explores how and why the presidency has evolved into such a complex and powerful institution, unlike any other in the world. He chronicles the presidency's creation, implementation, and evolution and explains why it's still working today despite its many perceived afflictions.
Can we sidestep tedious climate policy negotiations and forge a coalition of the willing instead? Many international organizations and scholars hope to spur local climate action by orchestration, indirect and voluntary governance arrangements. Lena Bendlin looks beyond the apparent success of voluntary initiatives using the example of the Covenant of Mayors, often heralded as an exemplary multi-level EU initiative. Five in-depth case studies show why, how, and with what difficulties local governments engage in this voluntary commitment scheme. The analysis identifies durability, intensity, and causality as crucial building blocks for more cautious orchestration theorizing and derives recommendations for appropriate incentives and support at the regional, national, and international level.
Challenging dominant assumptions in international relations, Altered States demonstrates that national political institutions change more frequently--and less dramatically--than is commonly thought and with important consequences for the political landscape. Combining theory with solid empirical research--including archival evidence and interviews--the contributors explore the causes and consequences of institutional transformation in the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet Republics, and Cuba. Altered States highlights the dynamic and interactive relationship between national political institutions and reform-minded policy entrepreneurs, a perspective that will interest scholars and policy makers alike.
The purpose of this book is neither to duplicate overviews of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) nor to recapitulate narrative treatments of the European integration process. The aim is to comprehend how EU negotiations work theoretically and empirically so that a conceptual framework for analyzing EU international negotiations will be provided and juxtaposed to two key negotiations leading to the establishment of the CFP.