This book explores how the European Union has been responding to the challenge of diversity. In doing so, it considers the EU as a complex polity that has found novel ways for accommodating diversity. Much of the literature on the EU seeks to identify it as a unique case of cooperation between states that moves past classic international cooperation. This volume argues that in order to understand the EU’s effort in managing the diversity among its members and citizens it is more effective to look at the EU as a state. While acknowledging that the EU lacks key aspects of statehood, the authors show that looking at the EU efforts to balance diversity and unity through the lens of state policy is a fruitful way to understand the Union. Instead of conceptualising the EU as being incomparable and unique which is neither an international organisation nor a state, the book argues that EU can be understood as a polity that shares many approaches and strategies with complex and diverse states. As such, its effort to build political structures to accommodate diversity offers lessons to other such polities. The experience of the EU contributes to the understanding of how states and other polities can respond to challenges of diversity, including both the diversity of constituent units or of sub-national groups and identities.

Diversity has become a key term in contemporary social politics, and is often used as both a description of complex social realities and a normative prescription for how those realities should be valued, influenced by the politics of multiculturalism and by social movements asserting "the right to be different" diversity has emerged as an open, fluid discourse that challenges reductive visions of legitimate identities and human possibilities.It is this apparent acceptance of diversity as a fact and value that this book looks at in several ways, it offers a countervailing assessment of diversity, seeing it less as a unifying social imaginary and more as a cost-free form of politics attuned to the needs of late capitalist, consumer societies.The essays collected here are developed from a research seminar entitled "Diversity, Human Rights and Participation" organised by the Partnership on Youth between the Council of Europe and the European Commission. The studies gathered here are embedded in 10 different national contexts. They track dimensions of 'diversity' in education, social services, jurisprudence, parliamentary proceedings and employment initiatives, and assess their significances for the social actors who must negotiate these frameworks in their daily experience.

After the accession of ten new member-states in 2004, the number of official EU languages increased from eleven to twenty. In 2005, the Council of the European Union decided to expand the existing legal framework for Irish and for other languages, such as Basque, Catalan and Galician, which are official in all or part of the territory of a given member-state. On 1 January 2007 Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU, increasing the number of official EU languages still further. This book addresses the challenge of respecting linguistic diversity within the EU and is intended as an introduction to the issue for those not already familiar with EU law. It also provides an analysis of the potential of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to enhance respect for linguistic diversity. Each chapter has been written by a recognised expert in the field. The appendices bring together the basic legal norms relating to linguistic diversity within EU institutions.

Gender equality is one of the founding democratic principles of the EU. However, recent studies of the Federation of Olympic Sports in Europe have shown that women occupy only fourteen percent of decision-making positions in sport organizations. This book presents a comprehensive and comparative study of how various regions and countries of Europe have addressed this lack of gender diversity, discussing which strategies have brought about change and to what extent these changes have been successful. With contributions from leading sport sociologists, covering countries such as Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Spain, Turkey and the UK, it provides a foundation for future policymaking, methodological analyses and theoretical developments that can result in sustainable gender equality in European sport governance. Gender Diversity in European Sport Governance is important reading for scholars and students in the fields of sociology of sport, sport management, sociology, gender studies and studies of organization, management and leadership. It is also a valuable resource for policy makers in the EU, as well as national sport organizations and activists.

“As a Journal Editor for over twenty-five years, I have read a lot about the European Union. I am often asked, 'what are the major gaps in EU research?' My answer is always 'implementation'. Eva Thomann's book makes a major contribution to EU implementation studies. She brings really fresh thinking to the field. This is an important book for all students of the EU and of policy implementation." —Jeremy Richardson, Co-Editor of the Journal of European Public Policy This book sheds light on the patterns, causes and consequences of the “customization” of European Union (EU) policies. Even if they comply, member states interpret and adapt EU rules in very diverse ways when putting them into practice. We can think of and measure this diversity as a phenomenon of regulatory change along the implementation chain. The book explores what explains customization, and what it means for providing policy solutions to shared problems. It studies the implementation of EU food safety policies in Austria, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Switzerland using innovative qualitative comparative techniques. After looking at the role of prominent compliance arguments and the “logics of action” for customization, the study assesses how differing degrees of customization affect the success of the implementation. The book provides a new, evidence-based perspective on “gold-plating” and better regulation in Europe for scholars, students and practitioners of policy implementation, European integration and Europeanization alike.

What concepts of ‘gender’ and ‘diversity’ emerge in the different regions and pertinent research and practical fields? On the back drop of current European developments – from the deregulation of economy, a shrinking welfare state to the dissolution and reinforcement of borders – the book examines the development of Gender and Diversity Studies in different European regions as well as beyond and focuses on central fields of theoretical reflection, empirical research and practical implementation policies and politics.

Gender is being marginalized with the increased attention to "multiple discrimination" and civil society landscape at the transnational level is increasingly diversified. The book looks at the processes of (strategic) degendering in EU policy-making and on the interaction between EU institutions and European women's organizations.