Power In Europe

Traces the history of European monetary negotiations from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Wim Blockmans investigates the exercise of power in European society through detailed analysis of three broad fields: politics, economics, and culture. The more these three areas overlap, he argues, the more absolute is the power. Thus, the movement of populations, the relationship of religions to secular powers, the arts of cities, courts, and villages all fall under his scrutiny.

The notion of Normative Power Europe (NPE) is that the EU is an 'ideational' actor characterised by common principles and acting to diffuse norms within international relations. Contributors assess the impact of NPE and offer new perspectives for the future exploration of one of the most widely used ideas in the study of the EU in the last decade.

This edited collection details and analyses the dramatic changes that the international political economy of energy has undergone in the past decade. This change began with the increasing assertiveness of Russia when the oil price rose above the $100 mark in 2008. This, combined with the rise of shale oil and gas, made the USA all but self-sufficient in terms of fossil fuels. The collapse of the oil price in 2014-15, Saudi Arabia’s new strategy of defending its market share and the increasingly tense and controversial relationship between the West and Russia all worked to further strengthen the geopolitical dimension of energy in Europe. The global result is a world in which geopolitics play a bigger part than ever before; the central question the authors of this volume grapple with is how the EU – and European small states – can deal with this. Chapter 4 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

An analysis of the forces which shaped politics and culture in Germany, France and Great Britain in the eighteenth century.

What is the European Union international role and identity becoming after the cold war, September 11th and the transatlantic rift? Is the second global actor challenging the trends towards a 'pax americana'? EUROPE: A CIVILIAN POWER? provides an original account of the features and the external relations of the EU as a civilian power in the making. It addresses the key questions on the new security threat, world emergencies challenging the EU, not only as a peace and democracy stablizer on a continental scale, but also as an actor which shares responsibility for global governance and world order. MARIO TELO provides a comparative analysis of regional cooperation in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America and focuses on the interregional relations with the EU. He highlights the international relevance of the current EU constitutionalization process and gives a critical review of the concepts of civilian power, soft power, civilizing power, multilateralism, multipolarism, international fragmentation, empire, hegemonic stability and global legitimacy. Analysis of the best literature on international relations and European integration is completed by MARIO's practical experience as an advisor to the EU institutions and a lecturer in Asia and Americas.

Regions in Europe explores the state of regional politics in an increasingly integrated Europe. It argues that the predicted rise of increased political power at the regional level has failed to materialise and is fraught with paradox. In doing so this study locates regions in relation to European integration, globalisation, the nation state, local government, and comparative and national perspectives. Using case studies of the main players in Europe including: * Germany * France * UK * Italy * Spain * the Netherlands * Belgium. the contributors show how and why European regions remain remarkably weak in European governance.

Deconstructing “Ideal Power Europe”: The EU and Arab Change criticizes the dominant discourse on European foreign policy, which represents the EU as a force for good in world politics. Using a poststructuralist approach, it deconstructs the EU’s representation as “an ideal power” through an analysis of European foreign policy on the Southern Mediterranean before and after the Arab uprisings. In this endeavor, it displaces three major discourses which construct the EU as “ideal”: the “postmodern and post-sovereign EU”, “the EU as a model/a virtuous example”, and, “the EU as a normative power” discourses. The major argument of the book is that the “ideal power Europe” meta-narrative is especially produced and reproduced in the EU’s approach towards the Southern Mediterranean, and, it manifests itself through the rhetoric of “responsibility” and “universality” in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings. The book also provides an analysis of how the “ideal power Europe” meta-narrative feeds into and legitimizes European governmentality in the world, in general, and, in the case of the Southern Mediterranean after the Arab uprisings, in particular. Arguing that the depiction of the EU as postmodern/post-sovereign, as a model/an exemplar, and as a normative power pertains to the representation of a “regulatory ideal”, it elucidates how the EU pursues hegemonic practices in the Southern Mediterranean. It further manifests how the EU’s governmentality is marked by a securitized, depoliticizing, and technocratic approach which feeds into and gets legitimized by the dominant discourse on European foreign policy; reproducing the EU’s “ideal” identity vis-à-vis its “imperfect” Arab other.