Provides an analysis of the external relations and the European Union's (EU) identity in Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. This work allows readers to gauge the EU's identity across three levels, media analysis, public opinion survey and key stakeholder interview.

Asia and Europe have become increasingly interconnected over the last few decades; this growth in mutual interest is due largely to their economic, political, cultural, and historical ties to one another. Due to the deepening relationship between the two regions, it seems natural to ask, “How is the European Union perceived in Asia?” This question has become very relevant to Asia-Europe relations, especially as the EU is the most significant economic partner for many Asian countries, while at the same time emerging as an increasingly prominent political and security dialogue partner for the region. This second volume offers a new and reliable insight into the perception of the EU in Asia.In 2006, the Asia-Europe Foundation and National Centre for Research on Europe (University of Canterbury) created the European Studies in Asia (ESiA) Network and initiated the “EU through the Eyes of Asia” survey. This unprecedented comparative study looks at the attitudes and citizens' perceptions of the EU in Asia, and, by 2009, has been undertaken in 12 research sites throughout Asia. In each locality, the project systematically assessed daily representations of the EU in reputable local news media, as well as the EU's imagery among the general public and the EU's vision among the national stakeholders and opinion leaders.Presenting the findings of this project, this book provides a systematic and detailed empirical insight into EU visibility in the public discourses of three Southeast Asian countries — Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines — the so-called “VIP”. The data and analyses in this work cover 2008 and the first half of 2009, and it compares the findings with those published in Volume I, which examined the perceptions of the EU in China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand. EU through the Eyes of Asia is indispensable to policy-makers and opinion leaders in the Asian and European milieux, putting forward vital recommendations to the EU, Asian governments, the media and those managing relations between the two regions.

EU external democracy promotion has traditionally been based on ‘linkage’, i.e. bottom-up support for democratic forces in third countries, and ‘leverage’, i.e. the top-down inducement of political elites towards democratic reforms through political conditionality. The advent of the European Neighbourhood Policy and new forms of association have introduced a new, third model of democracy promotion which rests in functional cooperation between administrations. This volume comparatively defines and assesses these three models of external democracy promotion in the EU’s relations with its eastern and southern neighbours. It argues that while ‘linkage’ has hitherto failed to produce tangible outcomes, and the success of ‘leverage’ has basically been tied to an EU membership perspective, the ‘governance’ model of democracy promotion bears greater potential beyond the circle of candidate countries. This third approach, while not tackling the core institutions of the political system as such, but rather promoting transparency, accountability, and participation at the level of state administration, may turn out to remain the EU’s most tangible form of democratic governance promotion in the future. This book was originally published as a special issue of Democratization.

This book analyses the development of anti-corruption as a policy field in the European Union with a particular focus on the EU Anti-Corruption Report. It reconstructs the origins of anti-corruption policy in the 1990s when the EU started to recognise corruption as a serious crime with a cross-border dimension. It also analyses the processes surrounding the downfall of the Santer Commission on charges of corruption in 1999 and the enlargement of the EU. This incorporation of transitional new Member States was accompanied by a number of specific measures, instruments and monitoring mechanisms to combat corruption at the supranational level, finally leading to the introduction of the EU-wide Anti-Corruption Report in 2014. The book presents an in-depth analysis of its implementation, abandonment and the way forward under the European Semester as the new instrument for achieving EU anti-corruption reforms. It offers a new interpretation of the Report as a form of reflexive governance that operates at multiple levels and involves not only the European institutions and national governments, but also the role of civil society actors in the process of developing anti-corruption policy. It applies the theory of reflexive governance in analysing the impact of the Report in the UK, Romania and Albania, including the involvement of non-state actors in anti-corruption policy making in these countries. The book concludes with a discussion on how future EU Anti-Corruption policy can make use of reflexive governance and offers recommendations to enhance anti-corruption policies of the EU, the Member States and Candidate States.

Europeanisation of the Contemporary Far Right explores the role of transnational European identity in far-right mobilisation strategies. Focusing on the national members of two trans-European far-right coalitions – Generation Identity and Fortress Europe – the author explores the extent to which European far-right extra-parliamentary actors Europeanise their mobilisation. Drawing on social movement literature, the book argues that national extra-parliamentary actors’ Europeanisation processes are influenced by their political and discursive opportunities and resources. Focusing on the groups’ mobilisation during the ‘refugee crisis’ (2015–2017), the analysis considers the groups’ frames, collective action, and coalition-building in the period, finding that the depth of the groups’ resources particularly affects their capacity to mobilise. This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and civil society actors in fields related to the far right, European studies, social movements, and migration.