A Viking We Will Go! Neo-Corporatism and Social Europe

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 633-652 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Engle
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Capital Mobility ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Model ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Capital Movements ◽  
European Court ◽  
Single European Market ◽  
Consumer Borrowing

In Viking and Laval, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) adjudicated the rights of labor and capital mobility under E.U. law. Both cases strengthen the single European market through economic liberalization to generate greater prosperity for all Europeans as part of the process of European economic and political integration. Labor and capital mobility create greater prosperity for all through more rational market exchanges. Free trade is good for goods and is even better for labor. A liberalized and fully mobilized labor market results in more productivity and greater wealth in the European polity, as well as interdependence, and thereby deeper integration resulting in greater understanding and less conflict. The decisions, wrongly criticized by some as “bad for workers” are justified by the fact that they will benefit workers in Eastern Europe, consumers in Western Europe, and the Community as a whole by deepening integration. A key challenge for the European Union is to economically anchor and deepen the political restructuring of Eastern Europe by enabling the natural labor and capital movements which an open marketplace generates. Europe does this not with the failed neo-liberal model which has ravaged the wealth of the United States and squandered it in illusory booms based on consumer borrowing and deficit spending to fund war for oil. Rather, Europe is developing a neo-corporatist social model. This article uses the Viking and Laval cases as examples of this development.

Changing Patterns of Civil Society in Europe and America 1995-2005

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caire Wallace ◽  
Florian Pichler ◽  
Christian Haerpfer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
The One

This article looks at developments in Eastern European civil society (as measured by the participation in organisations) and how this has changed between 1995 and 2005 using the World Values Survey. There are comparisons with Western Europe on the one hand and the United States on the other, which show that although civic participation of this kind has declined in the United States, it remains stable in Europe, including at a low level in Eastern Europe. Surprisingly, there seemed to be little differences between countries that had joined the European Union and those that had not. The article considers reasons for this continued weakness of civil society in Eastern Europe.

Making Europe—Processes of Europe-Formation since 1945

2000 ◽  
Vol 48 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 235-256
Author(s):  
Dennis Smith
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
National Society ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National State ◽  
Civilizing Process ◽  
Norbert Elias

Dennis Smith argues that the development of the European polity that has become the European Union has been shaped by social processes similar in many respects to those analysed by Norbert Elias in The Court Society and The Civilizing Process. However, these processes have occurred at the supra-state level whereas Elias described them as they occurred at the level of the developing national state, especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During the 1940s and 1950s the United States played a key role in pacifying the European nations and imposing a framework of rules for the conduct of their economic and diplomatic affairs. States in western Europe were increasingly locked into tight bonds of interdependence. This movement towards integration was complemented by the disembedding of regions and large businesses from their close ties to the national state; they became ‘Europeanised’. Brussels became Europe's Versailles, a place where the courtier's skills were employed by the lobbyist. It is suggested that just as France represented, in Elias's eyes, a vanguard society within Europe in respect of the civilising process at the level of the national society, the European Union may play such a role globally in respect of developments at the supra-state level.

scholarly journals More Competitiveness of the Port of Koper Through Supply Chain Integration

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 251-257
Author(s):  
Igor Trupac ◽  
Elen Twrdy
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chains ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Market Potential ◽  
Supply Chain Integration ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Current State ◽  
Eastern And Western Europe ◽  
Strategic Goal

With the European Union growing eastwards and with the establishment of important production facilities in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the hinterland potential is bound to grow even more. The strategic goal of the Port of Koper is to become one of the best ports in the Southern Europe, to develop from a handling port into a commodity distributional centre. Penetrating and exploiting these markets demands cooperation (integration) with the existing inland terminals (logistic centres) and establishing of new ones positioned between Eastern and Western Europe. This paper aims to present and analyse: (I) supply chains of the flow of goods through the Port of Koper to/from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, (II) the current state and strategies to optimize the flow of goods, (III) market potential, investments in new terminals and capacities. KEY WORDS: Port of Koper, strategies, goals, supply chains, integration, new terminals, market potential, investments

The eu’s Pathological Power: The Failure of External Rule of Law Promotion in South Eastern Europe

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 318-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Mendelski
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
International Standards ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Pathological Effect ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
European Court ◽  
South Eastern Europe

What impact does the European Union (eu) have on the development of the rule of law in South Eastern Europe (see)? The author of this article argues and shows that the eu has: 1) a positively reinforcing (healthy) effect with regard to judicial capacity and substantive legality, i.e. the alignment of domestic legislation with international standards, and 2) a negatively reinforcing (pathological) effect with regard to judicial impartiality and formal legality (the inner morality of law). The author explains the pathological impact of eu-driven rule of law reforms by referring to the eu’s deficient reform approach and to unfavorable domestic conditions, which in their interplay reinforce certain reform pathologies (legal instability, incoherence, politicization) that undermine the rule of law. The main argument is supported by a mixed method study. A quantitative indicator-based analysis measures rule of law development across four key dimensions on the basis of a variety of data (e.g. survey-based indicators, cepej data, and a unique dataset on legislative output). Additionally, the author draws on a number of qualitative interviews that he conducted with magistrates from see and representatives from the eu, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Council of Europe. The author concludes from these findings that external rule of law promotion in weak rule of law countries is not transformative, but rather reinforces systemic deficiencies that undermine the rule of law.

The Notion of Consensus as a Route to Democratic Adjudication?

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 663-695
Author(s):  
Bilyana Petkova
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
Federal States ◽  
European Court ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court

AbstractBuilding on the theory of democratic constitutionalism, I assess the political implications of the constitutional space formed by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and national constitutional courts in Europe. Democratic constitutionalism helps situate the role of constitutional courts in stimulating a degree of consensus, necessary for governance of heterogeneous communities such as the United States and the European Union. Questions of legitimacy and confidence in the judiciary come to the fore. I examine a mechanism used by the US Supreme Court, the CJEU and the ECtHR alike to foster democratic constitutionalism: in order to confront challenges to judicial legitimacy and remain responsive to the extra-judicial environment, these courts rely on majoritarian trends, or consensus, inspired by, but not limited to, the constitutional law of federal states and member countries.

scholarly journals An East‑West Divide in the European Union? The Visegrad Four States in Search of the Historical Self in National Discourses on European Integration

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-191
Author(s):  
Christopher Walsch
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Member State ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Discourses ◽  
The Individual ◽  
East West ◽  
The Eu

Abstract This article explores whether a new east‑west divide exists in the enlarged European Union by analysing national discourses on European integration in the Visegrad Four (V4) states. Two V4 foreign policy legacies form the basis of analysis: the “Return to Europe” discourse and the discourses around the reconstruction of the historical self. The article gives evidence that the V4 countries share sovereignty in external policies and thus have a distinct European orientation. V4 national‑conservative governments hold sovereigntist positions, however, in policy areas that they consider falling exclusively within the realm of the member state. Comparison with Western European member states gives evidence that the post-1945 paradigm changes were more profound than those of post-1989 ones of Eastern Europe. This historic legacy can explain the more integrationist orientations in Western Europe. The article concludes that behaviour of the individual V4 state seems to be of greater importance for each member than collective V4 group action. Finally, the article gives an outlook on ways in which solidarity between the Western and Eastern halves of the EU can be exercised in an ideologically diverging Union.

East, West, and the Return of ‘Central’: Borders Drawn and Redrawn

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Lee ◽  
Robert Bideleux
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The European Union ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The Impact ◽  
East West

Western Europe has not only met but also married Eastern Europe, even if there are rumours that it was a marriage of convenience, consummated in ‘EU Europe’. Nevertheless, a significant outcome of the cohabitation has been the resurgence of debates about the status, location, and distinctiveness of ‘Central Europe’; the changing nature of borders and borderlands; and the emergence of ‘new’ East/West divides. Because World War II was predominantly fought on the Eastern Front, almost 95 per cent of Europe's fatalities of war and genocide were in Central and Eastern Europe (including Germany and Austria). These mass killings, combined with the paramount role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of the Third Reich, led to substantial reconfigurations of the borders and ethnic compositions of European states. This article examines the reconfigurations of European territories at the close of World War II, the drastic redrawing of European borders during 1945–1948 and again in the late 1980s and 1990s, the impact on European borders of the European Union and its ‘deepening’ and ‘widening’, and Europe's new East/West divide.

scholarly journals Against the Current

Poliarchia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 93-131
Author(s):  
Emma Klever
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Discourse Historical Approach ◽  
The Relationship

The political reality of the European Union is not reflected in the general discourse on the relationship between Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe, which is characterized by an adverse attitude towards the latter. This impacts identity construction on the European level, where Central and Eastern Europe has long been regarded as the “Other” against which the European “self ” was defined. However, a new discourse on this relationship has emerged in literary works written by scholars and journalists that are able to take an overarching perspective. The present study analyses four publications to see how the relationship between Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe is portrayed in terms of the self and the Other, employing the Discourse Historical Approach and a spectrum of the self and the Other perspectives. It emerges that the discussed authors share a discourse which respects differences, focuses on similarities as well as differences and shows an awareness of the interwovenness of the narratives of the self and the Other. This new, shared discourse holds directions for the further development of a European-wide discourse that includes the same notions of respect and the interwovenness of narratives, and which could in turn influence European identity construction.

scholarly journals Geopolitical Implications and Challenges of the Coronavirus Crisis for Ukraine

World Affairs ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 183 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-269
Author(s):  
Pavlo Klimkin ◽  
Andreas Umland
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
The Eu

Among various geopolitical repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic are redefinitions of the short-term priorities of many international organizations. Among others, the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are becoming absorbed by new internal challenges, and are thus even less interested in further enlargement than before. Against this background, Kyiv, Tbilisi, and Chisinau, as well as their Western friends, need to seek new paths to increase the three countries’ security, resilience, and growth before their accession to the West’s major organizations. Above all, an alternative way to decrease Ukraine’s current institutional isolation is to develop more intense bilateral relations with friendly states across the globe, including Germany and the United States. In Eastern Europe, moreover, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova should attempt to create new multilateral networks with post-communist member countries of NATO as well as the EU, and try to become part of such structures as the Three Seas Initiative or Bucharest Nine group.

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