This volume explores the background and development of social policy content and process in the European Union since the policy innovations of the 1991 Maastricht Treaty came into force. The study begins with an analytical overview of schools of thought on European integration which offer useful insights into EU social politics. Building on this framework, the chapters then examine in detail pre-Maastricht social policy and the social partners, the innovations of the Treaty itself, and where EU social policy stands at the end of the 1990s. Case studies of European Works Councils, parental...

Paul Teague explores the macro-economic, productive and institutional pressures faced by Europe's social model and assesses a number of economic and political programmes aimed at resolving the crisis. It also considers the role of the European Union building a social dimension to the European economy.
The findings suggest that the future of traditional institutions of Social Europe is under threat. However, they also stress that we are not on the threshold of the 'Americanisation' of European life. This study finds that the influential political forces that reject the dismantling of...

This text examines the Franco-German relationship in the EU in relation to different policy sectors. It assesses the nature and importance of the relationship for the policy process.

This study presents case studies of recent and often spectacular failures of policy, including the BSE crisis, the Arms to Iraq affair, the Poll Tax fiasco, the German currency union and the EU's common fisheries policy. Using contrasting and theoretical frameworks, this work asks what is meant by policy disaster, and looks at the different forms that disasters take and why they have occurred. It concludes with a new model for classifying the success or failure of government policy.

Europe's Digital Revolution assesses the impact of digital broadcasting on regulatory practices in Europe. The current roles and responsibilities of nation states and the EU will have to respond to rapid technological and market developments. Levy considers how these responsibilities are likely to be divided in the future, and which are the emerging issues and problems.