Gerda Falkner

This book offers an analytical overview of schools of thought on European integration which offer useful insights into EU social politics. Building on this framework, the chapters then examine in detail pre-Maastricht social policy and the 'social partners', the innovations of the Treaty itself, and where EU social policy stands at the end of the 1990s. Case studies of European Works Councils, parental leave, and atypical work, are included to highlight the day-to-day processes at work in social policy formation and the major interest groups and EU institutions involved. This is an up-to-date and accessible study which finds the social policy-making environment in the EU has become increasingly corporatist in the 1990s.

Towards a Corporatist Policy Community

EU Social Policy in the 1990s

Patrick Müller

Recent decades have seen a rise in the significance of governance layers beyond the nation state and even Europe. Nonetheless, few efforts have been made thus far to systematically examine the EU’s interaction with global policy regimes. This book maps the relative importance of EU policies in the multi-level global governance system, in comparison with national and global activities. It provides a unique comparative analysis of the EU’s capacity for projecting its policies outward. Focusing on trade policy, agriculture, food safety, competition, social rights, environmental policy, transport, migration, nuclear non-proliferation, or financial regulation, each chapter contributes to a better understanding of the EU’s role in shaping global policies, the mechanisms it uses and the conditions leading to success or failure. The contributors’ comparative research highlights that policy export is a demanding phenomenon that faces severe limitations and frequently comes with drawbacks. Still, EU policy export played a key role in shaping the rules of the global trade regime and influenced global policy outcomes – at least to a minor extent or in technical aspects – in the majority of the covered policy areas. Overall however, this book reveals that the EU not only aims to export its policies, but interacts with its global environment in a number of distinct ways, including policy import and policy protection, to shield it from global pressures. Concluding with a comparison of all policies on the meta-level and relevant policy recommendations, this book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners of European politics, European public policy, global governance and international relations.

Shaping or taking international regimes?

EU Policies in a Global Perspective

Is European integration predominantly characterised by stalemate? The EU's Decision Traps compares a number of crucial EU policy areas discussing if and how political blockage can be overcome in the process of European integration.

Gerda Falkner

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