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The quality of political competition at the moment of transition explains the divergence in the domestic trajectories of East European states, steering Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic towards liberal democracy, and Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia towards illiberal democracy after 1989. From 1989 to 1994, the European Union (EU) exerted only passive leverage on its democratizing neighbours, reinforcing liberal strategies of reform but failing to avert illiberal ones. After 1995, the EU exerted active leverage on the domestic politics of credible future members through the enlargement process. The benefits and requirements of EU membership, combined with the structure of the EU’s pre-accession process, interacted with domestic factors to improve the quality of political competition and to accelerate political and economic reforms in candidate states. The enlargement of the EU has thus promoted a convergence towards liberal democracy across the region. I unpack the consequences of the pre-accession process for the quality of democracy in the new members, the dynamics of the negotiations between the old members and the candidates, and the impact of the 2004 enlargement on the future of European integration. I conclude by exploring the usefulness of the EU’s active leverage in promoting liberal democracy in other prospective members such as Turkey and the states of the Western Balkans, and the trade-offs of further enlargements for the EU itself. The most successful tool of EU foreign policy has turned out to be EU enlargement—and this book helps us understand why and how it works.

The European Union - a supranational system with its own institutional characteristics and autonomy - has a structure and functional logic which are more similar to those of the US than those of European nation states. Yet, by and large, the EU and the US tend to be analyzed more as potential geopolitical and economic rivals or allies than compared as institutional peers. By bringing together some of the most influential political scientists and historians to compare the European and American experiences of federalism, Democracy and Federalism in the European Union and the United States explores the future development, and seeks a better understanding, of a post-national European Union democracy. This book consists of three core parts: how the EU has developed and the implications of the process of European federalization the features of American federalism, tracing the intellectual debate that led to the approval of the American federal constitution in 1787 the future of European Union. This is essential reading for all students of European politics, democracy and international relations. Preface About the authors Introduction Part 1: The EU from Federalist Projects to a Supranational Polity Part 2: Features and Problems of the US Federal Polity Part 3: Market, State and Social Rights in the EU and US Part 4: The Constitutional Challenges of a Supranational Polity

The planned European legal form Societas Privata Europaea (SPE) is a limited liability company of a closed group of shareholders, and thus is comparable to the German GmbH. At the European-level, the SPE serves as a supplement to the European Limited Liability Company (SE), which proved to be too difficult for small and medium-sized companies for various reasons. The SPE will be introduced on the basis of a European regulation, the content of which has been largely agreed to by the member states.

The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership was formed in 1995 in Barcelona. In this volume, concepts of democracy, civil society, human rights and dialogue among civilizations in the Mediterranean region are addressed in the context of the new Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.

What is happening to the uneasy relationship between the States and the Union in the United States and the European Union? How to make subsidiarity and devolution work better on both sides of the Atlantic? And what are the new models of governance beyond the state that can sustain the challenge of legitimacy? This book brings together an impressive.

Over the past half-century, Europe has experienced the most radical reallocation of authority that has ever taken place in peace-time. This 2004 volume brings together a formidable group of scholars of European and comparative politics to investigate the new patterns of political conflict that are arising in the European Union.