Margins In European Integration

Margins in European Integration explores a new, important perspective for an expanding Europe: that as integration attempts to accommodate to an ever greater kaleidoscope of economic interests and political positions, margins and marginality become visible, perpetual features of the 'integrated' Europe, and permanent elements in the dynamics shaping it.

Originally published in 2005. This comprehensive volume examines the issue of Europe-making related to the post EU/NATO enlargement and the post 9/11 situation. Dual enlargement and the War on Terrorism are raising important questions for various actors in Europe, in particular what these developments will mean for the future of regional cooperation and the development of a regional subjectivity. Such concerns have been further compounded by America's distinction between 'New Europe' and 'Old Europe'. The volume analyzes at both policy and conceptual levels how the dual enlargement and the War on Terrorism will impact on regional cooperation in northern Europe. It examines how events in northern Europe have helped shape the nature of European space, borders and governance, including how the EU, the US and Russia have each highlighted northern Europe as a special case to be utilized and learnt from in dealing with problems elsewhere in Europe and globally. Presenting original articles, the volume will appeal to scholars of regional politics as well as security, international relations theory and geopolitics.

This book pursues an original perspective on Europe's shifting extent and geopolitical standing: how countries and spaces marginal to it impact on Europe as a center. A theoretical discussion of borders and margins is developed, and set against nine studies of countries, regions, and identities seen as marginal to Europe.

Looks at the the emergence of new forms of marginality as part of the new map of Europe. The contributors focus on regions, cities, and social groups which at first sight are missing out; the people and places on the edge of dominant economic, political and cultural systems which carry the stigma of marginality.

This book provides a critical analysis of irregular migration to Europe from a neo-Gramscian perspective. It demonstrates how the contemporary EU migration management regime came about within the context of a neoliberal hegemonic project, which in turn was advanced using neofunctionalist methods of integration. Relying on field research that was carried out in Bulgaria, Italy, Germany and Greece, the book also describes how European migration management is experienced by irregular migrants themselves. It suggests that the social purpose of migration management cannot be understood without assessing the experiences of the objects of migration regimes. The 2015 migration crisis revealed that large-scale migration has the potential to undermine some of the greatest achievements of the European integration project such as the Schengen system and open internal borders. This book shows that this fragility is the result of inherent contradictions within the neoliberal hegemonic project for the European Union. As such this book is an interesting read for academics, students, policy makers and all those working in international migration and European integration.

The Margins of European Law attempts to provide a critical and sceptical approach to European law. The related themes of the book attempt to introduce a historical and theoretical context for European law. Ultimately, it is suggested that the new European order requires a very different legal and jurisprudential approach; one which is distinctively post-modern. European Community law, at its margins, is a mass of inconsistencies and injustices, and a post-modern model can better effect the erasing of the margins of European law.

This paper examines the effects of intensified international competition on industry profits in six European Union (EU) countries. The paper uses two methods to estimate industry profits. The traditional method uses accounting data to obtain a measure of gross price-average cost margins. The second method directly estimates markups of price over marginal cost using new empirical techniques. Import competition is found to have disciplined market power, regardless of the method used to estimate industry profits. From the analysis of the markups, there is evidence that this is due mainly to intra-EU import competition. The evidence for export discipline is much weaker.