Download or read book The Politics of Becoming European written by Maria Mälksoo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-10-26 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book weaves together perspectives drawn from critical international relations, anthropology and social theory in order to understand the Polish and Baltic post-Cold War politics of becoming European. Approaching the study of Europe’s eastern enlargement through a post-colonial critique, author Maria Mälksoo makes a convincing case for a rethinking of European identity. Drawing on the theorist Edward Said, she contends that studies of the European Union are marked by a prevailing Orientalism, rarely asking who has traditionally been able to define European identity, and whether this identity should be presented as an historical process rather than a static category. The central argument of this book is that the historical experience of being framed as simultaneously in Europe - and yet not quite in Europe – informs the current self-understandings and security imaginaries of Poland and the Baltic States. Exploring this existential condition of ‘liminal Europeaness’ among foreign and security policy-making elites, the book considers its effects on key security policy issues, including relations with Western Europe, Russia and the United States. Supported by solid empirical analyses, this book provides an innovative and interdisciplinary approach to the post-Cold War predicament of Poland and the Baltic States. It will be of interest to students and scholars of International Relations, European Studies, Social and Political Theory, and Anthropology.
Download or read book Becoming Europe written by Samuel Gregg and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “We’re becoming like Europe.” This expression captures many Americans’ sense that something has changed in American economic life since the Great Recession’s onset in 2008: that an economy once characterized by commitments to economic liberty, rule of law, limited government, and personal responsibility has drifted in a distinctly “European” direction. Americans see, across the Atlantic, European economies faltering under enormous debt; overburdened welfare states; governments controlling close to fifty percent of the economy; high taxation; heavily regulated labor markets; aging populations; and large numbers of public-sector workers. They also see a European political class seemingly unable—and, in some cases, unwilling—to implement economic reform, and seemingly more concerned with preserving its own privileges. Looking at their own society, Americans are increasingly asking themselves: “Is this our future?” In Becoming Europe, Samuel Gregg examines economic culture—the values and institutions that inform our economic priorities—to explain how European economic life has drifted in the direction of what Alexis de Tocqueville called “soft despotism,” and the ways in which similar trends are manifesting themselves in the United States. America, Gregg argues, is not yet Europe; the good news is that economic decline need not be its future. The path to recovery lies in the distinctiveness of American economic culture. Yet there are ominous signs that some of the cultural foundations of America’s historically unparalleled economic success are being corroded in ways that are not easily reversible—and the European experience should serve as the proverbial canary in the coal mine.
Download or read book Becoming Europe written by Patrick Ireland and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2004-08-22 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across Europe, millions of immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers have often had difficulties fitting into their new societies. Most analysts have laid the blame on a clash of cultures. Becoming Europe provides evidence that institutions matter more than culture in determining the shape of ethnic relations.Patrick Ireland argues that it is incorrect blithely to anticipate unavoidable conflict between Muslim immigrants and European host societies. Noting similarities in the structure of the welfare states in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium—as well as in their respective North African and Turkish immigrant communities—he compares national- and city-level developments to show how approaches toward immigrant settlement have diverged widely and evolved over time. Becoming Europe demonstrates how policymakers have worked hard to balance immigrants' claims to distinct traditions with demands for equal treatment. Ultimately, it reveals a picture of people learning by doing in the day-to-day activities that shape how communities come together and break apart.
Download or read book Becoming European written by Christopher Prescott and published by Oxbow Books Limited. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers in this anthology provide an up-to-date survey of trends in Bell Beaker research, with a focus on western and northern Europe, as well as developments in the northern and eastern Scandinavian and Baltic regions.
Download or read book Becoming a Platform in Europe written by Maurizio Teli and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emerging out of the collaborative work conducted within the Working Group "Mechanisms to activate and support the collaborative economy" of the COST Action "From Sharing to Caring: Examining Socio-Technical Aspects of the Collaborative Economy", the book questions the varied set of organizational forms collected under the label of "collaborative" or "sharing" economy --ranging from grassroots peer-to-peer solidarity initiatives to corporate owned platforms-- from the perspective of what is known as the European social values: respect for human dignity and human rights (including those of minorities), freedom, democracy, equality, and the rule of law. Therefore, the edited collection focuses on the governance of such economic activities, and how they organize labour, cooperation and social life. From individual motivations to participating, to platform use by local groups, until platform design in its political as well as technological dimensions, the book provides a comparative overview and critical discussion on the processes, narratives and organizational models at play in the collaborative economy. On such a basis, the volume offers tools, suggestions and visions for the future that may inform the designing of policies, technologies, and business models in Europe.
Download or read book Becoming a Queen in Early Modern Europe written by Katarzyna Kosior and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-03-18 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Queens of Poland are conspicuously absent from the study of European queenship—an absence which, together with early modern Poland’s marginal place in the historiography, results in a picture of European royal culture that can only be lopsided and incomplete. Katarzyna Kosior cuts through persistent stereotypes of an East-West dichotomy and a culturally isolated early modern Poland to offer a groundbreaking comparative study of royal ceremony in Poland and France. The ceremonies of becoming a Jagiellonian or Valois queen, analysed in their larger European context, illuminate the connections that bound together monarchical Europe. These ceremonies are a gateway to a fuller understanding of European royal culture, demonstrating that it is impossible to make claims about European queenship without considering eastern Europe.
Download or read book Being German Becoming Muslim written by Esra Özyürek and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-23 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every year more and more Europeans, including Germans, are embracing Islam. It is estimated that there are now up to one hundred thousand German converts—a number similar to that in France and the United Kingdom. What stands out about recent conversions is that they take place at a time when Islam is increasingly seen as contrary to European values. Being German, Becoming Muslim explores how Germans come to Islam within this antagonistic climate, how they manage to balance their love for Islam with their society's fear of it, how they relate to immigrant Muslims, and how they shape debates about race, religion, and belonging in today’s Europe. Esra Özyürek looks at how mainstream society marginalizes converts and questions their national loyalties. In turn, converts try to disassociate themselves from migrants of Muslim-majority countries and promote a denationalized Islam untainted by Turkish or Arab traditions. Some German Muslims believe that once cleansed of these accretions, the Islam that surfaces fits in well with German values and lifestyle. Others even argue that being a German Muslim is wholly compatible with the older values of the German Enlightenment. Being German, Becoming Muslim provides a fresh window into the connections and tensions stemming from a growing religious phenomenon in Germany and beyond.
Download or read book The Passage to Europe written by Luuk van Middelaar and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides the untold story of the crises and compromises that lead to the formation of the European Union.
Download or read book Transnational Identities written by Richard K. Herrmann and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This original work explores the increasingly important phenomenon of the formation of transnational identity. Considering the ongoing relevance of the European Union, the contributors ask a series of intriguing questions: Is a European identity possible? How are the various types of European identity formed and maintained? How are these identities linked to the process of European integration? Examining the psychological, institutional, and political mechanisms that encourage or impede identification with transnational groups, the book considers these theoretical questions in light of new evidence drawn from a rich body of primary research, including field experiments, in-depth interviews with elites, and public opinion surveys. Brought together for the first time, social psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, and ethnographers share their theoretical and methodological perspectives in tackling the common issues surrounding the emergence of "European" as a political identity. Paying special attention to the role of the institutions of the EU, the authors investigate the impact of neo-functionalist strategies and find that the processes of identity formation are far more complicated than can be explained by material and institutional factors alone. The authors engage in a fruitful dialogue about how much a European identity exists and how much it matters as they delve into the sources of disagreement and their implications.
Download or read book Europe and America written by Federiga Bindi and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “America First” is “America Alone” Foreign policy is like physics: vacuums quickly fill. As the United States retreats from the international order it helped put in place and maintain since the end of World War II, Russia is rapidly filling the vacuum. Federiga Bindi’s new book assesses the consequences of this retreat for transatlantic relations and Europe, showing how the current path of US foreign policy is leading to isolation and a sharp decrease of US influence in international relations. Transatlantic relations reached a peak under President Barack Obama. But under the Trump administration, withdrawal from the global stage has caused irreparable damage to the transatlantic partnership and has propelled Europeans to act more independently. Europe and America explores this tumultuous path by examining the foreign policy of the United States, Russia, and the major European Union member states. The book highlights the consequences of US retreat for transatlantic relations and Europe, demonstrating that “America first” is becoming “America alone,” perhaps marking the end of transatlantic relations as we know it, with Europe no longer beholden to the US national interest.
Download or read book The Scramble for Europe written by Stephen Smith and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the harrowing situation of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean in rubber dinghies to the crisis on the US-Mexico border, mass migration is one of the most urgent issues facing our societies today. At the same time, viable solutions seem ever more remote, with the increasing polarization of public attitudes and political positions. In this book, Stephen Smith focuses on ‘young Africa’ – 40 per cent of its population are under fifteen – anda dramatic demographic shift. Today, 510 million people live inside EU borders, and 1.25 billion people in Africa. In 2050, 450 million Europeans will face 2.5 billion Africans – five times their number. The demographics are implacable. The scramble for Europe will become as inexorable as the ‘scramble for Africa’ was at the end of the nineteenth century, when 275 million people lived north and only 100 million lived south of the Mediterranean. Then it was all about raw materials and national pride, now it is about young Africans seeking a better life on the Old Continent, the island of prosperity within their reach. If Africa’s migratory patterns follow the historic precedents set by other less developed parts of the world, in thirty years a quarter of Europe’s population will beAfro-Europeans. Addressingthe question of how Europe cancope with an influx of this magnitude, Smith argues for a path between the two extremes of today’s debate. He advocatesmigratory policies of ‘good neighbourhood’ equidistant from guilt-ridden self-denial and nativist egoism. This sobering analysis of the migration challenges we now face will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the great social and political questions of our time.
Download or read book Becoming Europeans Attitudes Behaviour and Socialization in the European Parliament written by Roger Scully and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-08-25 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An almost universal point of agreement in contemporary political science is that 'institutions matter'. But the governing institutions of the European Union are widely presumed to matter more than most. A commonplace assumption about the EU is that those working within European institutions are subject to a pervasive tendency to become socialized into progressively more pro-integration attitudes and behaviours. The assumption has been integral to many accounts of Europeanintegration, and is also central to how scholars study individual EU institutions. However, the theoretical and empirical adequacy of this assumption has never been properly investigated. A serious study of whether political actors in the EU do tend to 'go native' or not - and why - is long overdue.This study examines this question in the context of an increasingly important EU institution, the European Parliament. The book integrates new theoretical arguments with a substantial amount of original empirical research. It develops a coherent understanding, based on simple rationalist principles, of when and why institutional socialization is effective. This theoretical argument explains the main empirical findings of the book. Drawing on several sources of evidence on MEPs' attitudes andbehaviour, and deploying advanced empirical techniques, the empirical analysis shows the commonplace assumption about EU institutions to be false. European Parliamentarians do not become more pro-integration as they are socialized into the institution.The findings of the study generate some highly important conclusions. They indicate that institutional socialization of political elites should be given a much more limited and conditional role in understanding European integration than it is accorded in many accounts. They suggest that MEPs remain largely national politicians in their attitudes, loyalties, and much of their activities, and that traditional classifications of the European Parliament as a 'supra-national' institution aremisleading. Finally, the study offers broader lessons about the circumstances in which institutions effectively socialize those working within them.
Download or read book Becoming Europeans written by M. Sassatelli and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-07-16 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this significant intervention into the academic and institutional debate on European cultural identity, Monica Sassatelli examines the identity-building intentions and effects of the European Capital of Culture programme, and also looks at the work of the Council of Europe and the recent European Landscape Convention.
Download or read book Being and Becoming European in Poland written by Marysia H. Galbraith and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2015-03-15 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overthrowing communism in 1989 and joining the European Union in 2004, the Polish people hold loyalties to region, country and now continent – even as the definition of what it means to be ‘European’ remains unclear. Paying particular attention to those who came of age in the earliest years of the neoliberal and democratic transformations, this book uses the life-story narratives of rural and urban southern Poles to reveal how ‘being European’ is considered a fundamental component of ‘being Polish’ while participants are simultaneously ‘becoming European’. Ultimately, this study demonstrates how the EU is regarded as both an idea and an instrument, and how ordinary citizens make choices that influence the shape of European identity and the legitimacy of its institutions.
Download or read book Immigration and Membership Politics in Western Europe written by Sara Wallace Goodman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-16 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are traditional nation-states newly defining membership and belonging? In the twenty-first century, several Western European states have attached obligatory civic integration requirements as conditions for citizenship and residence, which include language proficiency, country knowledge and value commitments for immigrants. This book examines this membership policy adoption and adaptation through both medium-N analysis and three paired comparisons to argue that while there is convergence in instruments, there is also significant divergence in policy purpose, design and outcomes. To explain this variation, this book focuses on the continuing, dynamic interaction of institutional path dependency and party politics. Through paired comparisons of Austria and Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands and France, this book illustrates how variations in these factors - as well as a variety of causal processes - produce divergent civic integration policy strategies that, ultimately, preserve and anchor national understandings of membership.
Download or read book Europe the Emergence of an Idea written by Denys Hay and published by Edinburgh : Edinburgh U.P. This book was released on 1968 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The United States of Europe written by T. R. Reid and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-11-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A first-rate journalist, Reid provides impressive evidence to support his hypothesis.” —The Denver Post “A lively, thought-provoking book.” —The Seattle Times To Americans accustomed to unilateralism abroad and social belt-tightening at home, few books could be more revelatory—or controversial—than this timely, lucid, and informative portrait of the new European Union. Now comprising 25 nations and 450 million citizens, the EU has more people, more wealth, and more votes on every international body than the United States. It eschews military force but offers guaranteed health care and free university educations. And the new “United States of Europe” is determined to be a superpower. Tracing the EU’s emergence from the ruins of World War II and its influence everywhere from international courts to supermarket shelves, T. R. Reid explores the challenge it poses to American political and economic supremacy. The United States of Europe is essential reading. T. R. Reid's latest book, A Fine Mess, was published by Penguin Press in 2017.
