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This Introduction discusses the conventional wisdoms dominating the scholarship on policy change in the EU's Eastern neighbourhood countries and summarises the major findings of this collection. Drawing upon the empirical evidence underpinning the contributions to our collection, we argue that compliance with or convergence to EU policies happens despite high costs, limited capacities and the lack of EU membership prospects. We also challenge country-level or policy-type explanations that emphasise membership aspirations, asymmetric interdependencies between the EU and the neighbourhood countries, or the level of politicisation or institutionalisation characterising particular policy fields. Finally, our findings point towards important differences between membership, accession and neighbourhood Europeanisation by stressing factors mediating the EU's impact on policy change in the Eastern neighbourhood countries that played a rather marginal role in domestic policy change in EU member states and accession countries.

The literature on European Union enlargement has identified misfit and membership conditionality as two factors that decisively shape the effectiveness of EU policy transfer to the Central and Eastern European accession countries. Thus, European neighbourhood countries would seem to be less likely cases of EU-induced policy change. Yet, rather than inertia or resistance, we find that European neighbourhood countries comply with some but not with other EU policies. Our essay investigates such policy-specific variation in the compliance patterns of Georgia and Armenia that give rise to differential policy change. Comparing the fight against corruption, migration and energy policy, we argue that policy-specific conditionality and preferential fit are the main factors accounting for the EU's differential policy impact in European neighbourhood countries.

This essay analyses convergence with EU rules in Ukraine in two policy areas-foreign and security policy and state aid regulation. Comparing the two, we find different levels of convergence, somewhat higher in foreign policy (but slowing down after 2010) than in state aid law regulation. We explain this by analysing the presence and actions of oligarchs as veto players that have had an extensive influence on policy in the Ukrainian political system in recent years. In policy areas where convergence with EU rules negatively affects the interests of oligarchs and their political allies, we see only limited convergence with EU legislation and policies.

This study documents the effects of the 2008–09 global financial crisis on poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In doing so, it describes and decomposes the effects of the crisis on poverty using data from comparable household budget surveys for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, and labor force surveys for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. The study also provides macro-micro modeling of crisis and no-crisis scenarios for Mexico and Brazil, as well as the big picture and program-specific details of the social protection policy responses for these countries and more. Among the findings are the following. First, the effects of the global financial crisis on those living in poverty were not trivial: more than 3 million people fell into or remained mired in poverty in 2009 as a result of the crisis. Of these, 2.5 million were Mexican. Second, the changes in poverty were driven by changes in labor incomes caused by a variable combination of changes in employment rates and real wages. Third, the macro-micro modeling revealed different adjustment mechanisms but similar final incidence results for Brazil and Mexico. The results were regressive overall, with the middle of the income distribution hit even a bit more than the poor. According to the descriptive results from the larger set of countries, changes in inequality accounted for a tenth to a third of changes in poverty. Fourth, countries were quite active in their social protection policy responses, largely taking advantage of programs built in precrisis years. Social transfers partially offset the lower labor earnings of the poor, although income protection for the unemployed was weak. Finally, overall the policy messages are that good policy helps attenuate the links between a global crisis and poverty in the LAC countries, and many of the important things need to be done ex ante such as dealing with the macro fundamentals and building social protection programs.

While the EU's policies towards non-member states are often discussed within frameworks of 'high politics', one of the most important features of the European Neighbourhood Policy is its emphasis on the 'low politics' of sectoral dialogue in functionally differentiated policy fields. Examining policy change triggered in Ukraine by the EU's neighbourhood policy framework, the essay focuses on environmental policy as a typical 'low politics' policy field. The results show that in four sub-fields of environmental policy case-specific constellations of domestic veto players, policy-specific conditionality and external capacity building determine domestic policy change.

Russia is usually considered as being obstructive to European integration in the EU's Eastern neighbourhood, while the EU is portrayed as being the key promoter of convergence with EU rules. Thus, strong economic dependence on Russia and EU active leverage should account for cross-policy variation in convergence with EU rules. By comparing convergence in Ukraine's telecommunications and food safety regulations, I show that active leverage exerted by Western European multinationals rather than by the EU accounts for divergent outcomes. Further, Russia's 'bad guy' image does not hold if we stop treating Russia as a unitary actor but distinguish between passive and active leverage exerted by Russian government policies, the Russian market and Russian multinationals investing in the Eastern neighbourhood countries on domestic policy choices.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Epistemological Issues and the History of Change Process Research Research Questions in Change Process Research Collecting Change Process Research Data Examples of Qualitative Change Process Research Data Collection Methods Qualitative Data Analysis Options Discussion: Issues in Qualitative Change Process Research References

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Rise of Complex Society in the Southern Levant Secondary State Formation Socioeconomic Transformation The Shifting Pattern of Bronze Age Settlement The Collapse of Early Bronze Age Society Middle and Late Bronze Ages (2000–1200 BC ) Summary Observations Guide to Further Reading

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Matching Nature on Land Institutional Response Land as a Coupled System Implications for Geography Bibliography

Economic Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean analyzes whether economic reforms have been beneficial to growth in the region. In doing so, it recognizes that growth is driven by a variety of factors - in some cases poor growth is due to insufficient structural reforms (e.g., low trade openness), in others to inappropriate stabilization policies (e.g., exchange rate overvaluation), and still in others to negative international conditions (e.g., growth slowdown in industrial countries). It is obvious but still correct to say that identifying the problem is the first step towards the solution. This book contributes to this effort by examining the growth performance of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, explaining the underlying sources of their economic growth, and designing a strategy for further growth.