Description
Book SynopsisThe process of European integration is marked both by continued deepening and widening, and by growing evidence of domestic disquiet and dissent. Against this background, this volume examines three key themes: the challenge to the power of member states - as subjects of European integration - to determine the course of the integrationist project and to shape European public policies; the increasing constraints in the domestic political arena experienced by member states as objects of European integration; and the contestation over both the ''constitutive politics of the EU'' and specific policy choices. These three themes - power, constraint and contestation - and their interdependence are explored with specific reference to contemporary Germany.The main findings call for a revision of the ''conventional wisdom'' about Germany''s Europeanization experience. First, while Germany continues to engage intensively in all aspects of the integration process, its power to ''upload'' - ''hard''
Trade ReviewAn important contribution to the updating and re-evaluation of literature on the EU and the German political system. * Perspectives on Political Science *
Table of ContentsLiving with Europe: Power, Constraint, and Contestation ; Europeanization in Context; Concept and Theory ; The Federal Executive: Bureaucratic Fusion versus Governmental Bifurcation ; The Bundestag: Institutional Incrementalism Behavioural Reticence ; ; The German Lander: From Milieu-Shaping to Territorial Politics ; Public Law: Towards a Post-National Model ; The Party System: Structure, Policy and Europeanization ; Interest Groups: Opportunity Structures and Organizational Capacity ; The Media Agenda: The Marginalization and Domestication of Europe ; Economic Policies: From Pace-Setter to Beleaguered Player ; ; Competition Policy: From Centrality to Muddling Through? ; Electricity and Telecommunications: Fit for the European Union? ; Social Policy: Transforming Pensions, Challenging Health Care? ; Environmental Policy: A Leader State under Pressure? ; Justice and Home Affairs: Europeanization as a Government-Controlled Process ; Foreign and Security Policy: On the Cusp Between Transformation and Accomodation ; Europeanization Compared: The Shrinking Core and the Decline of 'Soft' Power
