After two decades of disappointment with the neo-liberal experiment, Europeans have been turning back to social democrats since the middle 1990s, but within the European Monetary Union regime that the money interests constructed during the interval. Political scientists from across Europe, and some

This book examines why social democratic political parties respond differently to the crucial question of the future of the European Union, exploring the preferences of Germany, France, the UK, Sweden and Greece, in comparative perspective.

Social democracy is in a process of change as a number of developments challenge its organizational, ideational and electoral basis. This book elaborates on how social democracy should be understood under these changing circumstances, how social democratic parties have responded and what future trajectories await.

Helleiner finds little support in the U.S. for the concessions that would be necessary to make a North American monetary union palatable in Canada. Comparing the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Monetary Union, he argues that the influence of Canada within a North American monetary union would be far less than that of individual countries within the European community. He also considers the seemingly paradoxical support of Quebec sovereignists for free trade and monetary union.

If the plans concerning EMU will be realised, by 2002 national currencies will be replaced by the Euro and national central banks will be partially replaced by the European Central Bank. The Politics of Economic and Monetary Union starts with the argument that EMU is more a political than an economic project. It develops this theme by addressing five different questions. First, precisely what is the general role of EMU in the globalising political economy? Second, how EMU will change the power relations and the relationship between `political' and `economic'? Third, what effects will EMU have on generally accepted values - including for example efficiency, self-determination, and democracy? Fourth, how does the EMU-related politics of symbols - including money - take part in constructing political identities? And last, but certainly not least, what effects EMU will have on the social and political dimension of the Union and thus also on its legitimacy? The politics of EMU includes many dimensions. The book tries to explain the hegemony of the neoliberal and German vision of Europe in the context of recent development in the global political economy. It assesses the consequences of this hegemony and the possibility for alternatives from a variety of perspectives. In many chapters, it is also argued that the legitimation problems of the Union may turn into an acute crisis also because of EMU. We should expect an actualised crisis to lead to a transformation of the Union.

An examination of policy and programme in the key social democratic parties of Britain, France, Germany and Sweden since the 1970s. It situates change in the context of capitalist restructuring and shows how the radical Left initially responded to the unfolding crisis of the post-war order.

This volume presents a radical reinterpretation of the European Community or Union as a neo-liberal construction. It was neo-liberal rather than classically liberal because it was designed and used as an external instrument to weaken the interventionist welfare state that protected working people and strengthened the hand of labor. It was founded on the vision of a free market untrammelled by public intervention and worked to ensure competition, sound money and profitability against the inflationary force of workers and unions and the welfare state. Monetary union in particular restored profitability but produced slow growth, mass unemployment, and insecurity and came under challenge, most dramatically in France, by working people from below. This view is substantiated by an economically based study of member-state performance and complemented by a series of national studies on the monetarist turn by leading scholars.

The European enlargement process culminating in 2004 was - as a follow-up to die Wende and the implosion of the Russian empire - an event of the same magnitude as 1815 and 1919. Like 1918-19, it was an â oeexit into historyâ , a momentous event in post-Westphalian Europe. Even if acceptance of ten new countries was premature, it was appropriate to the moment history provided. The presence of the â oeNew kids on the blockâ meant both problems and prospects. The end of the cold war meant the fall of the iron curtain â " but a mental remnant of the curtain remains, in terms of attitudes regarding civility, corruption, and transparency, and expectations for democratic politics. Several of the â oenewâ countries are â oelate children of 1848â . For them, entering NATO was more important than joining the EU, and also preceded EU-membership. Poland is bigger than the other 2004 countries together and has a heavy historical legacy. It is - as Germany used to be - imprinted by its special path between East and West and fear of being encircled by enemies. Although the Building of Civil Society and Democracy in countries in transformation can draw on experiences from the countries already within the EU, there is no primrose path for EU-integration. It is, moreover, an irony that the new member states, as a result of the expectations for post-Communist politics, build institutions of a kind that are no longer sufficiently efficient for â oeoldâ Europe. The new countries became a full-scale experiment in rule by experts: now by neo-liberals instead of Communists. A common European public sphere and civil society might emerge, but its form remains visible only at the horizon.