Richard Youngs

Puzzle of Non-Western Democracy

The European Union is in inexorable decline. The outlook is gloomy for the economy and nobody listens to European politicians. Any authority or power that it once had on the world stage is being lost, and its claims to the moral high ground in international affairs are increasingly shaky. But this lamentable state of affairs is neither inevitable nor irreversible. The emerging new world order offers opportunities for the EU, if it can only act systematically and develop a new cosmopolitan strategy based on principled and consistent support for universal values. Here is a bold analysis of the problem and a brilliant proposal for a remedy. 'Richard Youngs has produced a passionate but clear-headed analysis of Europe's shrinking status in world affairs. Sarkozy and Merkel should read and react to this wake-up call to reverse Europe's decline before it is too late.' Denis MacShane MP, Britain's longest serving Europe minister

The Struggle Against Global Irrelevance

Europe's Decline and Fall

The creation of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in 1995 was seen, at the time, as a forward-thinking foreign policy which would strengthen ties between Europe and the Mediterranean Arab states. Since that time, however, almost none of this initial ambition has been translated into positive, successful policy. Twenty years on from the creation of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (now the Union for the Mediterranean), this book collects some of the most influential articles published in the Mediterranean Politics journal since 1995 ¿ and suggests what these articles tell us about the state of relations between Europe and the Middle East. The selection of articles gives a sense of the way in which analytical debate has changed in the journal¿s lifetime, a lifetime which has seen the journal at the forefront of academic study on a variety of issues in the Mediterranean region. As such, the selection is naturally a reflection of the different periods from which the articles are taken, and, taken together, they paint a picture of how the Euro-Mediterranean partnership has been reshaped over time.

Twenty Years of Euro-Mediterranean Relations

Senior Associate Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Professor of International Relations Richard Youngs

This book argues that in a range of policy areas - trade, multilateral diplomacy, security, development cooperation, democracy and human rights, energy security – the EU appears to be in retreat from liberal internationalism.

A Retreat from Liberal Internationalism

The EU's Role in World Politics

Richard Gillespie

This volume assesses the evolution of Spain's external relations during the 1990s, within and beyond Europe, and assesses the principal challenges facing the country at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The coincidence of several crucial global and European developments has had a profound effect on Spain. Adjustment of the economy and changes in foreign policy perspectives have become unavoidable. In turn, Spain, as an increasingly self-confident member of the EU, has itself become a significant actor in European-level developments. Spain's relationship with Europe and the wider world is increasingly balanced between new constraints and new opportunities for international influence.

The European and International Challenges

Spain

One of the signal events in global politics in the last decade has been the transformation of political and civic activism. Not only is the new activism qualitatively different in character from what it was in 2000; its intensity and frequency have dramatically increased. Activists are developing a new type of civic movement, applying innovative forms of direct action against governments and often operating without leaders or even any well-defined set of aims. In Civic Activism Unleashed, Carnegie scholar Richard Youngs examines the changing shape of contemporary civic activism. He shows how the emerging civic activism has important implications for the whole concept of civil society-and for the relationship between citizens, political institutions, and states. Youngs contends that the rise and spread of these new forms of direct-action civic activism, and the way the trend has driven the dramatic events in global politics in recent years, requires us to update our understanding of what civil society actually is and which types of organizations are in its vanguard. He further looks at the global impact of recent civic activism and offers a set of variables to help explain cases of success and failure. Youngs' larger aim is to explore in depth the new forms of civic activism that are emerging around the world and assess how they differ from more established practices of civil society activity. Theoretically ambitious and global in scope, Civic Activism Unleashed forces us to reconsider the nature of contemporary social and civic activism and how it is reshaping contentious politics in countries across the world.

New Hope or False Dawn for Democracy?

Civic Activism Unleashed

Debates on EU foreign policy have been dominated by two opposing schools of argument. One includes a broad range of work that extols the virtues of a European liberal concept of power and the other sees the EU’s commitment to cosmopolitan liberalism and soft power as a sign of weakness rather than strength. This book judges the EU on its own terms as a liberal power, examining its policy record, rather than simply asserting that the EU’s liberal commitments in themselves denote either a superior or inferior foreign policy approach. Youngs argues that the challenges facing Europe’s role in the world appear to be in its retreat from liberal internationalism through a series of case studies on policy areas: trade, multilateral diplomacy, security, development cooperation, democracy and human rights, and energy security. Presenting detailed evidence that show the EU is moving away from cosmopolitan strategy, Youngs asserts that Europe needs to reassess its foreign policies if it is to defend the kind of liberal world order necessary for its own and other countries’ long term interests. This book will be of strong interest to students and scholars of European politics, Foreign Policy and International Relations.

Richard Youngs

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