European Responses To Globalization

Explores the institutional, economic and ideational factors that shaped the way in which Europe adapted to, resisted, and responded to the challenges of globalization. This book reveals 3 main strategies adopted by European political actors in their response: resistance, adaptation, and the production of alternatives to global norms and practices.

This book investigates the perceptions of political actors towards the creation of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in Europe. The research is largely based on personal interviews conducted with key informants in central banks, finance ministries, employers' organizations and trade unions in Britain, France and Germany. It examines why actors perceived EMU to serve or frustrate their interests. It concludes that actors favoured EMU for a variety of reasons. The book contributes to the literature of European integration and incorporates economic, political and historical facts.

Sir Leon Brittan, Vice-President of the European Commission, has worked at the very highest levels of the European Union for most of the last decade. Sir Leon has shaped some of the landmarks of European policy, including the development of new political and economic relations between the EC and the former satellite states of the Soviet Union, has been Europe's architect of the most ambitious global trade deal ever undertaken, and has been responsible for the dramatic evolution in Europe's competition policy and the building of strong European relations with the United States, China, Japan, and many other countries. In this publication, some of Sir Leon's most important speeches are gathered together. They explain in clear and succinct terms what the implications of European integration are in the context of an increasingly globalised international economy. How should traditional concepts of sovereignty be adapted? What is the real logic and purpose of European Economic and Monetary Union? How should the transatlantic relationship develop after the Cold War? These and many other questions are tackled in a comprehensive and readily accessible way.

Globalisation turns out to be untenable because it does not guarantee minimum social equity, peace and respect for the environment, and therefore does not guarantee the effective accomplishment of human rights. This book analyzes this issue and raises proposals for a new perspective. The first part describes the soft threats to human rights, derived from the devaluation of the politics and the productive economy with regard to the finance. It entails the concealment of the reality in the shape of exploitation as the tax havens and in the shape of marginalization of the persons with different abilities. The second part include a study of hard threats to human rights and examines two cases of failed states: Afghanistan and Somalia, in which the violence has supplanted the politics and the economy. In view of these situations it is necessary to rethink the force of classic ius gentium and the humanitarian right. The third part presents the European Union as a legal and political space in which conditions of a worthy life are better defended by means of the Primacy of Practical Reason and Social State of Law, and by the requirement of peace as the main rule of international relations.

This book concentrates on how small European countries coped with economic integration and disintegration during the twentieth century. Small countries had to adapt flexibly to the drastically changing conditions outside their borders. They had to find ways of maintaining their political autonomy notwithstanding their economic dependence, and they have been quite successful in accomplishing this difficult balancing act. The authors analyse how small countries responded to the challenges of the international system and describe the different policies and strategies pursued by governments, industries and firms. Originating from the XIII. Congress of the International Economic History Association (IEHA), the contributions to this volume offer new perspectives on a widely debated topic and contribute to a better understanding of the current process of globalisation in small and large countries. The volume is divided into three sections: I. Coping with Different Regimes for International Trade and Changing Competitiveness; II. From an Open World Economy to Economic Disintegration and Protectionism; III. Trade Liberalisation, European Integration and Deregulation.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 2, University of Cape Town, course: The Political Economy of International Relations, language: English, abstract: The world order of today, unlike 50 years ago, is dominated by two phenomena: globalization and regionalism. Although globalization is the “word on everyone’s lips”, there are around 170 regional agreements today - half of these concluded since 1990 - with the European Union as probably the best known and the most unique one of these agreements (Moore 2000, p.1). Whereas some argue that regionalism is a threat to the efficiency created through globalization), others regard it either as a mean to participate in the globalization process and therefore a part of it or the only “efficient response to the challenges of a continuously deepening polarization generated by the capitalist globalization process” (Ruggiero 1997, p.2; Moore 2000, p.3; Mittelman 1999, p.27; Amir 1999, p.54). Whether regionalism contradicts globalization or complements it, depends heavily on the definition of both concepts as well as on the way a region acts within the framework of the global system (Hettne 1999, p.1). In order to address the question, whether the European Union, as a regional project, is contributing or responding to globalization and with respect to Hettne’s above mentioned argument, the first chapter of this essay will set the framework for the following discussion by defining the two concepts – globalization and regionalism. Chapter three will give a brief overview of the European Union’s core policies and its framework as they are crucial to analysing the European Union’s role in the world system. Concluding from these two chapters the initial question will be addressed in chapter five, by an analysis of the policies of the European Union. A resume will be taken in the last chapter.