Frank Schimmelfennig analyzes the Eastern enlargement of the European Union and NATO and develops a theoretical approach of "rhetorical action" to explain why it occurred. Backed by original data, and drawing on sociological institutional theory, he demonstrates that the expansion to the East can be best understood in terms of liberal democratic values and norms. He highlights the practice of the Western community in shaming opponents into agreeing to enlargement.

Gallya Lahav's study examines the issue of immigration in the context of a Europe where the role of the nation state is in question, as the logic of the single market clashes with national policymaking. Immigration is a central issue in European politics since around a quarter of the world's migrants reside in Europe. Consequently, politicians throughout the continent are grappling with the problems this raises. Analyzing elite and public opinion, Lahav's book shows how support from both has led to the adoption of restrictive immigration policies despite the requirements of open borders.

Emergence of a common security and foreign policy has been one of the most contentious issues accompanying the integration of the European Union. With extensive empirical evidence drawn from interviews, case studies, official documents and secondary sources, Michael Smith examines the specific ways foreign policy cooperation has been institutionalized in the EU. This analysis will appeal to scholars and researchers in international relations, law, foreign policy and European studies.

Arguing that legal rules can be implemented beyond national boundaries, this volume examines compliance beyond the nation-state. Four contributors compare compliance with regulations that have been formulated in a very similar way at different levels of governance. They demonstrate that nation states do not necessarily display the best compliance records and that a high degree of legalization, verification and sanctioning systems seem to be more important.

What does EU law truly mean for the member states? This book presents the first encompassing and in-depth empirical study of the effects of 'voluntaristic' and (partly) 'soft' EU policies in all 15 member states. It examines 90 case studies across a range of EU Directives and clarifies contemporary issues in political science, integration theory, and social policy. The study concludes that major implementation failures prevail and that, to date, the European Commission has not been able to adequately perform its control function.

The European Union today stands on the brink of radical institutional and constitutional change. The most recent enlargement and proposed legal reforms reflect a commitment to democracy: stabilizing political life for citizens governed by new regimes, and constructing a European Union more accountable to civil society. Despite the perceived novelty of these reforms, this book explains (through quantitative data and qualitative case analyses) how the European Court of Justice has developed and sustained a vibrant tradition of democratic constitutionalism since the 1960s. The book documents the...

With the European Parliament comprising politicians from many different countries, cultures, languages, national parties and institutional backgrounds, one might expect politics in the Parliament to be highly-fragmented and unpredictable. By studying more than 12,000 recorded votes between 1979 and 2004 this 2007 book establishes that the opposite is in fact true: transnational parties in the European Parliament are highly cohesive and the classic 'left-right' dimension dominates voting behaviour. Furthermore, the cohesion of parties in the European Parliament has increased as the powers of...

The European Union's motto 'United in Diversity' contrasts with the cultural standardization entailed in the formation of nation-states and the forging of political identities in Europe. So what does being 'united in diversity' mean? Focusing on language politics and policies, this book offers a thorough assessment of the implications of cultural and linguistic diversity for the process of constructing a European polity. It sheds light on some of the most pressing problems associated with contemporary identity politics. It is often claimed that the recurrent celebration of diversity in...

It is often assumed that the European Commission is a unitary actor, with a shared set of values. Liesbet Hooghe's book questions this assumption through interviews with over one hundred officials on central issues in the governance of Europe. She finds that officials in fact have diverse views, are not "socialized" during their time at the Commission, and that contention over key issues within the Commission echoes debates among Europe's wider public. The Commission is not, she argues, a determinedly pro-integrationist organization with closer union as its aim.

The Europeanisation of National Administrations analyzes the impact of European policies on national bureaucracies. Knill's study is a comparative assessment of the factors influencing administrative adjustment to European policy demands in the member states, and contains a detailed account of the administrative impact of European Union environmental policy in Britain and Germany. This book will interest students and scholars of European studies, comparative politics, environmental politics, public administration and organizational studies.