This book discusses the European Union’s approach to governance reform in its development assistance relationships with various groups of developing countries. A group of expert authors outline the general features of the position on governance taken by the EU, which is currently the major multilateral donor of development assistance, and discuss the implementation of EU policies in a set of cases: the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), Southeastern Europe, Central Asia, the Euro-Mediterranean, Latin America and fragile states. The contributions to the book argue that the EU’s position on governance reform, particularly since the adoption of the European Consensus on Development in 2005, has had distinctly neoliberal overtones. The EU’s governance-related strategies have been instrumental to deepening market-based reform in aid-receiving countries. Policies on state-building adopted by the EU reflect mainly the interests of and ideas embraced by the EU and its member states. To an important extent, the rhetoric accompanying EU policies does not match with the political and social dynamics inherent in governance structures on the ground in many of its aid-recipient partner countries. This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

This open access book analyses the domestic politics of African dominant party regimes, most notably African governments’ survival strategies, to explain their variance of opinions and responses towards the reforming policies of the EU. The author discredits the widespread assumption that the growing presence of China in Africa has made the EU’s task of supporting governance reforms difficult, positing that the EU’s good governance strategies resonate better with the survival strategies of governments in some dominant party regimes more so than others, regardless of Chinese involvement. Hackenesch studies three African nations – Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda – which all began engaging with the EU on governance reforms in the early 2000s. She argues that other factors generally identified in the literature, such as the EU good governance strategies or economic dependence of the target country on the EU, have set additional incentives for African governments to not engage on governance reforms.

The European Union of today cannot be studied as it once was. This original new textbook provides a much-needed update on how the EU's policies and institutions have changed in light of the multiple crises and transformations since 2010. An international team of leading scholars offer systematic accounts on the EU's institutional regime, policies, and its community of people and states. Each chapter is structured to explain the relevant historical developments and institutional framework, presenting the key actors, the current controversies and discussing a paradigmatic case study. Each chapter also provides ideas for group discussions and individual research topics. Moving away from the typical, neutral account of the functioning of the EU, this textbook will stimulate readers' critical thinking towards the EU as it is today. It will serve as a core text for undergraduate and graduate students of politics and European studies taking courses on the politics of the EU, and those taking courses in comparative politics and international organizations including the EU.

Within the framework of the new European economic governance, neoliberal views on wages have further increased in prominence and have steered various reforms of collective bargaining rules and practices. As the crisis in Europe came to be largely interpreted as a crisis of competitiveness, wages were seen as the core adjustment variable for ‘internal devaluation’, the claim being that competitiveness could be restored through a reduction of labour costs. This book proposes an alternative view according to which wage developments need to be strengthened through a Europe-wide coordinated reconstruction of collective bargaining as a precondition for more sustainable and more inclusive growth in Europe. It contains major research findings from the CAWIE2 – Collectively Agreed Wages in Europe – project, conducted in 2014–2015 for the purpose of discussing and debating the currently dominant policy perspectives on collectively-bargained wage systems under the new European economic governance.

Investigates the efficacy of the European Union's promotion of good governance through its funding and conditionalities both within EU proper and in the developing world.

Laws and regulations affect the daily lives of businesses and citizens. High-quality laws promote national welfare and growth, while badly designed laws hinder growth, harm the environment and put the health of citizens at risk. This report analyses practices to improve the quality of laws ...

This book examines governance reforms in higher education in six European countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal. It focuses in particular on the governance of the systems and institutions in these countries. The book shows that each of the national reform processes has been characterised by its own specific pathways embedded in the country’s specific socio-economic contexts and cultures, but also has a number of features in common with the other countries and processes. The first chapter of the book presents a conceptual framework to analyse the reform processes as an ’implementation game’ played by several actors with diverse interests. The second chapter describes the national reform processes of the six selected countries, giving a voice to the individual university rectors and officials who played an important role during the reform processes. Their stories constitute a vivid narrative of the government drivers of reform and of the rationales of the institutions as main partners in the reform processes. These narratives are analysed, complemented by, and contrasted with a review of the literature on the subject in the third chapter. The final chapter consist of concluding remarks and lessons learned.