"Desmond Dinan cuts through the complexities of the European Union to explain clearly the evolution of European integration from the 1950s to the present." "This new edition of his book retains the familiar three-part structure - history, institutions, and policies - but includes two entirely new chapters: one on key developments in the 1993-1999 period (e.g., the 1995 enlargement, the 1996-1997 intergovernmental conference, the Amsterdam Treaty, and preparations and prospects for EU enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe) and one exploring the increasingly complicated political and economic relationship between the United States and the EU, the world's leading trading powers."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A comprehensive, critical assessment of the EU after Brexit The European Union is a political order of peculiar stamp and continental scope, its polity of 446 million the third largest on the planet, though with famously little purchase on the conduct of its representatives. Sixty years after the founding treaty, what sort of structure has crystallised, and does the promise of ever closer union still obtain? Against the self-image of the bloc, Perry Anderson poses the historical record of its assembly. He traces the wider arc of European history, from First World War to Eurozone crisis, the hegemony of Versailles to that of Maastricht, and casts the work of the EU’s leading contemporary analysts – both independent critics and court philosophers – in older traditions of political thought. Are there likenesses to the age of Metternich, lessons in statecraft from that of Machiavelli? An excursus on the UK’s jarring departure from the Union considers the responses it has met with inside the country’s intelligentsia, from the contrite to the incandescent. How do Brussels and Westminster compare as constitutional forms? Differently put, which could be said to be worse?

"Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, this publication examines some of the key developments in European integration from an Irish perspective." "The book explores different aspects of Ireland's relationship with the process of European integration, including Ireland's relationship with the six founding members before it joined in 1973, and how European developments formed the backdrop to domestic debates over changing Irish economic policy in the 1950s and 1960s. The increasing importance of the European Union in different policy areas is also analysed, as is the impact the Union has had on the work of ministers and the Oireachtas, and how EU business is managed within government departments. The publication also reflects on the different amendments to the Treaty of Rome, and how Ireland has contributed to the negotiation of new treaties since the 1980s." "With contributions from both practitioners and academics, the book offers a diverse range of perspectives on how European developments have impacted on Ireland, as well as reflections on what Ireland has brought to the European integration project. In these different ways the authors offer interesting new insights into Ireland's involvement in the integration process, and illustrate how Ireland's position within the European Union has matured and entered a new phase of development."--BOOK JACKET.

Brexit traces the implications of the UK’s projected withdrawal from the EU, placing short-term political fluctuations in a broader historical and social context of the transformation of European and global society. This book provides a forum for leading Eurosociologists (broadly defined), working inside and outside the UK, to rethink their analyses of the European project and its prospects, as well as to reflect on the likely implications for the UK.

European integration has been most successful at a legal level and European influences have left an indelible mark on English Public Law. These influences must be understood by students and practitioners if they are to understand our public law and its continuing development. This new book aims to cover the debate surrounding the influence of Community law on the public law of the United Kingdom in a thematic and analytical manner.

"The process of European integration and the transfer of political authority from the national to the European level have led to the emergence of a field of EU policy making in Brussels, which attracts professionals and experts from all EU member states. This book contributes to research on the dynamics of social integration unfolding at the heart of this field. Based on in-depth interviews with officials working for the European Commission - the EU's supranational organization -, the author explores the perception and negotiation of symbolic boundaries related to their diverse national and regional backgrounds. In line with their cosmopolitan attitudes and role conception as European civil servants, Commission officials tend to de-emphasize national and regional divisions among them. Nevertheless, subtle symbolic boundaries remain in connection with their diverse organizational cultures, working language preferences, professional values and influence and career prospects. This nuanced account of patterns of social categorization and group-making in a European context will appeal to sociologists with interests in European integration and the emergence of social fields and groups beyond the nation state"--