The transformation from a closed and inward-looking economy to an active integration into the European Union is one which a number of countries are facing. This book examines the experience of southern European countries where such transformation has occurred within a short space of time and has been accompanied by important socio-political developments including the consolidation of democracy. The various contributors focus on the motivation for economic change, the problems encountered and the lessons to be learnt.

The continuous expansion of the European Union has transformed its very own self-conception. While Eastern enlargement was widely celebrated as the ‘reuniting of Europe’, the sheer number of applicants, their low economic development and the need for new states to transform in accordance with EU values required considerable adjustments to the EU’s self-image. By examining the European Council’s contentious approval of the Mediterranean and Central and Eastern European countries in the 1970s and 1990s, this book investigates why the European Union enlarges. Based on new and hitherto not analysed data, it introduces the concept of ‘anomie’ to the discourse and, in doing so, makes a timely contribution to the literature of constitutional politics and enlargement of the European Union. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of the European Union, area studies (European studies, central and east European studies, Mediterranean studies) and more broadly comparative politics and constitutional politics.

Designing Democracy is the first systematic and in-depth study of the effects of the EU's democratic conditionality, originally set out in the Copenhagen conditions of 1993, on the new political systems of Central and Eastern Europe. Using new material drawn from extensive elite interviews in several of these countries as well as in Brussels, the book throws much light on how far the EU enlargement process has really strengthened these new post-Communist democracies following their transitions in the 1990s.

Although Turkey began its transition to democracy as early as the 1950s, it is still far from having reached a level of consolidated democracy with the country's sixty-year history of democratic politics being punctuated by numerous breakdowns and restorations of democracy. In an attempt to examine why consolidation of Turkish democracy has taken so long, this book aims at analyzing various factors including state, political parties, civil society, civil-military relations, socio-economic development, the EU as an international actor and the rise of internal threats (political Islam and separatist Kurdish nationalism) that both hinder and enhance democratic consolidation in Turkey. By highlighting the strengths and shortcomings of the Turkish experience from these perspectives, this book suggests the optimal policy priorities for current and future Turkish governments to establish a consolidated democracy in Turkey. Contributors: Muge Aknur, Canan Aslan-Akman, Filiz Baskan, Gulgun Erdogan-Tosun, Siret Hursoy, Aysegul Komsuoglu, Gul M. Kurtoglu-Eskisar, Yesim Kustepeli, Nazif Mandaci, Ibrahim Saylan, & Ugur Burc Yildiz.

This volume analyses the evolution of selected public policies and the changing roles and structure of the state in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain since the 1960s. It makes a major contribution to work on recent democratic regime transition in southern Europe, demonstrating how the state has responded and adapted to the challenges and pressures associated with the overarching processes of democratization, socio-economic development, and Europeanization.

Europe Since 1989 charts the development of Europe east and west since the 1989 revolutions. It analyses the emergent European society, the development of a European public sphere, and civil society. Most books on Europe are heavily biased to the West and Europe Since 1989 takes the opposite approach. It argues that the transformation of the postcommunist world has implications for the whole of Europe and explores the interplay between long-term fundamental tendencies and chance events and the possible futures which confront contemporary Europe. With close attention to political, economic and other social transformations, and an appendix which gives special attention to European macro regions (Nordic/Baltic Europe, Mediterranean Europe), it offers a sociology of Europe with a strong interdisciplinary emphasis.

Spain is at the epicentre of a crisis that threatens the future of the Eurozone. This book explains the deep historical and structural roots of the current crisis in Spain. It analyses the nexus between European circuits of financial capital, urbanisation, and the emergent dynamics of state austerity and popular revolt.

This book combines demand-led growth models and the institutionalist approach, in order to explain the macroeconomic performance of the main European countries in recent years followed by which a coherent explanation of the institutional change since the Great Recession, including the economic policy response to the economic and financial crisis (2008) and to the debt crisis (2010) is provided. A "Comparative Political Economy" (CPE) analytical framework and provide an institutional base to the different European growth models is built, in general terms over the period 1995-2018. The results allow us to link diverse growth dynamics to the changes of the institutional framework as a consequence of the economic and financial crises. In each chapter for country case studies (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Sweden, UK and Poland) there;’s an ntroduction with a general characterization of the country and the most relevant changes that have occurred subsequently (main legislative milestones or changes in the behaviour of social agents) especially the process of dualization or deregulation of European economies. In addition, an analysis of the macroeconomic evolution and the situation of the labour market before and after the crisis from a demand-side perspective is included, concluding with the linkages between both issues and the characterization of the growth model. This book is of special interest to all the students and university professors who will use this book to be able to follow a multitude of subjects from Applied Economy to International Economic Structure but can also be useful for researchers, doctoral students and teaching staff who want to expand knowledge in the fields of comparative political economy, institutions and the European Union. In general, this book is aimed at anyone interested in expanding their knowledge of the evolution of Europe today.

The main theme of this book is the adaptation process of the new EU member states from Central-Eastern Europe (Hungary and Poland) to the multi-level system of governance in public policy, particularly in the regional and environmental policy areas. The work conceptualizes policy learning and institutional and policy adaptation within the EU system of governance and draws lessons from the experience of previous waves of enlargement-cohesion-countries (Ireland, Portugal and Greece). In doing so, the book makes an important contribution to the literature on the transformation of domestic policy-making structures, as a result of the increasing Europeanization of public policy, as well as on the conceptual tools, explanatory variables and mechanisms determining this process.

In the acclaimed Politics of Democratic Consolidation, Nikiforos Diamandouros, Richard Gunther, and their co-authors showed how democratization unfolded in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, culminating in consolidated democratic regimes. This volume continues that analysis, posing the basic question: What kind of democratic politics emerged in those countries? It presents systematic analyses of the basic institutions of government and of the dynamics of electoral competition in the four countries (set in comparative context alongside several other democracies), as well as detailed studies of the evolution of the major parties, their electorates, their ideologies, and their performances in government over the past twenty years. The authors reach two major conclusions. First, the new democracies' salient features are moderation, centripetalism, and the democratization of erstwhile antisystem parties on the Right and Left. Second, no single "Southern European model" has emerged; the systems differ from one another about as much as do the other established democracies of Europe. Contributors: P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, University of Athens • Richard Gunther, Ohio State University • Thomas C. Bruneau, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey • Arend Lijphart, University of California at San Diego • Leonardo Morlino, University of Florence • Risa A. Brooks, Stanford University • José R. Montero, Autonomous University of Madrid • Giacomo Sani, University of Pavia • Paolo Segatti, University of Trieste • Gianfranco Pasquino, University of Bologna • Takis S. Pappas, College Year, Athens • Hans-Jrgen Puhle, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main • Anna Bosco, University of Trieste