The European Union and global governance:a handbook

The role of the European Union in global politics has been of growing interest over the past decade. The EU is a key player in global institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and NATO. It continues to construct an emerging identity and project its values and interests throughout contemporary international relations. The capacity of the EU to both formulate and realise its goals, however, remains contested. Some scholars claim the EU’s `soft power’ attitude rivals that of the USA’s `hard power’ approach to international relations. Others view the EU as insufficiently able to produce a co-ordinated position to project upon global politics. Regardless of the position taken within this debate, the EU’s relationship with its external partners has an increasingly important impact upon economic, political and security concerns on an international level. Trade negotiations, military interventions, democracy promotion, international development and responses to the global economic crisis have all witnessed the EU playing a central role. This has seen the EU become both a major force in contemporary institutions of global governance and a template for supranational governance that might influence other attempts to construct regional and global institutions. This volume brings together a collection of leading EU scholars to provide a state-of-the-art overview covering these and other debates relating to the EU’s role in contemporary global governance. The Handbook is divided into four main sections: Part I: European studies and global governance – provides an overview and critical assessment of the leading theoretical approaches through which the EU’s role in global governance has been addressed within the literature. Part II: Institutions – examines the role played by the key EU institutions in pursuing a role for the EU in contemporary international relations. Part III: Policy and issue areas – explores developments within particular policy sectors, assessing the different impact that the EU has had in different issue areas, including foreign and security policy, environmental policy, common commercial policy, the Common Agricultural Policy, development policy, accession policy, the Neighbourhood Policy and conflict transformation. Part IV: The global multilevel governance complex and the EU – focuses on the relationship between the EU and the institutions, regions and countries with which it forms a global multilevel governance complex, including chapters on the EU’s relationship with the WTO, United Nations, East Asia, Africa and the USA.

The European Union and the racialization of immigration, 1985-2006

Over the past two decades, the European Union (EU) has played an increasingly influential role in the construction of a de facto common immigration and asylum policy, providing a forum for policy-formulation beyond the scrutiny of national parliaments. The guiding principles of this policy include linking the immigration portfolio to security rather than justice; reaffirming the importance of political, conceptual and organizational borders; and attempting to transfer policing and processing functions to non-EU countries. The most important element, I argue, is the structural racialization of immigration that occurs across the various processes and which escapes the focus of much academic scrutiny. Exploring this phenomenon through the concept of the “racial state,” I examine ways to understand the operations of immigration policy-making at the inter-governmental level, giving particular attention to the ways in which asylum-seekers emerge as a newly racialized group who are both stripped of their rights in the global context and deployed as Others in the construction of national narratives.

The Great Slump of 2008–9 and Ukraine's integration with the European Union

For a number of years following the Orange revolution of 2004, Ukraine aspired to join the European Union. Although full integration was never a short-term prospect, European integration, through the Association Agreement and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, offers considerable benefits to Ukraine. However, the country was severely affected by the Great Slump of 2008–9 in the global economy, and this profoundly negative experience has shaped Ukrainian domestic and foreign policy in the subsequent period, putting paid to aspirations to EU membership and influencing the Ukrainian government's decision to seek a closer relationship with Russia immediately following the presidential election of 2010. Nevertheless, closer relations with Russia should not adversely affect Ukraine's efforts at EU integration.

European Union development:challenges and strategies

The publication represents a multi-dimensional and multi-faced, in depth assessment of the most significant determinants of the EU development as a political, economic and legal entity, in its format emerging from the Lisbon Treaty. The book represents an important contribution to our understanding of the most profound issues in the recent process of EU integration, including the issue of maintaining its cohesion and coherence under the stress of global challanges faced also by the European Union. Autohors formulated worthwhile conclusions of high value not only for academics but also for political decision-makers, which gives the book same competitive edge over its more theoretical and, hence, less practice-oriented, knack. The arumentation presented in the book would not be left without a reaction of the academic and/or professional circles. I take it almost for granted that the overall setting of the argumentation presented in it, as well as specific points made in its various chapters would find their adequate resonance in a high profile discussion likely to emerge after the book would have been published.

Is Bologna working? Employer and graduate reflections of the quality, value and relevance of business and management education in four European Union countries

This article focuses on the relevance of undergraduate business and management higher education from the perspectives of recent graduates and graduate employers in four European countries. Drawing upon the findings of an empirical qualitative study in which data was collated and analysed using grounded theory research techniques, the paper draws attention to graduates' and employers' perceptions of the value of higher education in equipping students with discipline-specific skills and knowledge as well as softer 'generic' skills. It also highlights the importance of formal 'work-based' learning within undergraduate curricula in providing students with the skills and experiences required by employers operating within a global workplace. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Organized crime legislation in the European Union. Harmonization and approximation of criminal law, national legislations and the EU framework decision on the fight against organised crime, by Francesco Calderoni

Book review: Heidelberg, Dordrecht, London, and New York, Springer, 2010, 189 pp., £93.55 (hardcover), ISBN 978-3-642-04330-7, e-ISBN 978-3-642-04331-4