European Disintegration

This book accounts for whether and how the path of the European Union (EU) has developed towards potential disintegration. These questions have become particularly relevant since the outbreak of the debt crises in the Eurozone and the Brexit referendum. The author critically subverts theories of European integration and analyses the rise and fall of federations, empires and states in a comparative perspective. The most promising theory presented here indicates that Brexit is not likely to be followed by other member states leaving the EU. Nevertheless, the EU has been undermined from within as it cannot adequately address Eurosceptic dissatisfaction from both the left and right. This book is an essential read for everyone interested in the EU and its future.

This new book provides a comprehensive analysis of Europe on the brink of political disintegration. Observers of the European Union (EU) could be forgiven for thinking that it is in a state of permanent crisis. The Union has been beset with high levels of Eurozone debt, Russian intervention and armed conflict in Ukraine, refugees fleeing conflict zones in North Africa and the Middle East, and the decision of Britain to leave the European Union. This text offers a concise and readable assessment of the dynamics, character and consequences of these four crises and the increasingly real possibility of European disintegration. High levels of socio-economic interdependence and institutionalization have failed to result in an ever closer union, and yet the proposed theories of disintegration also fall short. Webber instead shows that it is only by looking at the role of the EU's dominant member, Germany, in each crisis that the potential for an increasingly fragmented Europe becomes clear. Until now, Germany has been the EU's stabilizing force but this is no longer guaranteed. The fate of the integration process will depend on whether other, more inclusive forms of stabilizing leadership may emerge to fill the vacuum created by Berlin's incapacity. This text is the ideal companion for upper undergraduate and postgraduate students of the European Union, as part of degrees in politics, international relations or European studies, or for anyone interested in the crises of the European Union.

Europe has changed radically since 1989 and continues to change at great speed. This book deals with the principle problems and challenges confronting Europe in the aftermath of the Cold War and the collapse of European communism. Whilst endeavouring to strike a balance between East, West, North and South, the volume is more concerned with the changing political, economic and cultural morphology of Europe, and of the relations within it, than with the formal institutional arrangements of the European Community and its successor, the European Union. There are already numerous books on the institutional development of the EU, but relatively few with a wider compass and institutional interpretations of European integration. The book shows that the study of European integration should be taken in the round, avoiding a narrow and self-centered concern with the development of the 'lesser Europe' of the EU. It demonstrates that integration should be seen as neither an inexorable predetermined process, nor as an automatic consequence of high levels of economic interdependence, but rather as something that proceeds in fits and starts and sometimes suffers reverses.

This book sets out a concrete analytical and empirical framework to understand the Euro-zone crisis and the deep disintegrative tendencies of Euro-Atlantic neo-imperialism. It explores how the authoritarianism and austerity led from above in the transatlantic world cultivate right-wing populism and racist hysteria from below, especially in relation to the global power-shift to China and other emerging economies. The authors argue that ordoliberal/neo-liberal austerity cannot reverse the decline of western economies; if anything, it precipitates their downfall and the re-launching of globalization under Asian primacy. The book will appeal to students, scholars and policymakers across the fields of International Political Economy, European Politics and Critical Social and Political Theory.

European integration is an ambitious goal that attempts to reconcile grandiose visions for the future of Europe with complicated national attitudes toward unity. The added complexity of political crises, which have characterized the European project from its outset, makes the success of the European Union far from guaranteed. Today, European unity is once again at an existential crossroad, with internal and external challenges threatening its integration. This volume uniquely brings together the novel perspectives of Europe’s emergent generation of thinkers to analyze through interdisciplinary lenses these various disintegrative pressures. Students and scholars of Europe as well as those interested in the future of European cohesion will enjoy this volume, both for the interdisciplinary analysis it brings forth and for the window it provides into the thinking of Europe’s next generation of leaders.

The European Union could soon be a thing of the past. Xenophobia is rampant and commonly reflected in elections across the continent. Great Britain may hold a referendum on whether to abandon the union altogether. Spurred by anti-EU sentiments due to the euro crisis, national interests conflict with a shared vision for the future of Europe. Is it too late to preserve the union that generated unprecedented peace for more than half a century? This is no mere academic question with limited importance for America and the rest of the world. In the past decade, the EU has declined from a unified global power to a fractious confederation of states with staggering unemployment resentfully seeking relief from a reluctant Germany. If the EU collapses and the former member states are transformed again from partners into rivals, the US and the world will confront the serious economic and political consequences that follow. In a series of revealing interviews conducted by Dr. Gregor Peter Schmitz, George Soros -- a man of vast European experience whose personal past informs his present concerns -- offers trenchant commentary and concise, prescriptive advice: The euro crisis was not an inevitable consequence of integration, but a result of avoidable mistakes in politics, economics, and finance; and excessive faith in the self-regulating financial markets that Soros calls market fundamentalism inspired flawed institutional structures that call out for reform. Despite the considerable perils of this period, George Soros maintains his faith in the European Union as a model of open society. This book is a testament to his vision for a peaceful and productive Europe.

Differentiation was at first not perceived as a threat to the European project, but rather as a tool to promote further integration. Today, more EU policies than ever are marked by concentric circles of integration and a lack of uniform application. As the EU faces increasingly existential challenges, this timely book considers whether the proliferation of mechanisms of flexibility has contributed to this newly fragile state or whether, to the contrary, differentiation has been fundamental to integration despite the heterogeneity of national interests and priorities.

Assessing the consequences of Brexit on EU policies, institutions and members, this book discusses the significance of differentiation for the future of European integration. This book theoretically examines differentiated integration and disintegration, focuses on how this process affects key policy areas, norms and institutions of the EU, and analyses how the process of Brexit is perceived by and impacts on third countries as well as other organizations of regional integration in a comparative perspective. This edited book brings together both leading and emerging scholars to integrate the process of Brexit into a broader analysis of the evolution, establishment and impact of the EU as a system of differentiation. This book will be of key interest to scholar and students of European Union politics, European integration, Brexit, and more broadly to Public Administration, Law, Economics, Finance, Philosophy, History and International Relations.