Developments in European Politics
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Book Review Developments in European Politics Paul M. Heywood, Erik Jones, Martin Rhodes and Ulrich Sedelmeier (eds.) Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, 2006, 385pp. ISBN-13: 978-0-230-00041-4 (paperback), ISBN-13: 978-0-230-00040-7 (hardback) Acta Politica (2007) 42, 473–475. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ap.5500198
This edited volume is the third version of a number of collected reflections on current political dynamics in Europe. Three of the four editors were involved in the earlier version of 2002 and two of them, Martin Rhodes and Paul Heywood, in the first edition of 1997. The extension of the editorial team for this version with Ulrich Sedelmeier, an expert on Central and Eastern European countries and the Eastern enlargement of the EU, denotes what is seen as the major development in European Politics of the last 5 years. The other two structural processes that are identified are globalization and Europe’s changing role on the world stage. The influences of the three major processes are being examined in separate contributions, subdivided in four parts. The first part deals with the theme of The European State and contains three chapters that deal respectively with the relation between the nation state and the processes of Europeanization and globalization; the relations between foreign policies of the member states and the common European foreign policy; and the influence of Europeanization on national states. All contributions stress the resilience and qualities of national institutions and policy legacies. The second part on Government and the Political Process consists of four chapters that have a strong comparative emphasis. They focus on the organization of democratic systems, political parties, elections and representation and territorial politics in Europe. A common theme in these contributions is the nature of the remaining differences between the various countries in general and between the ones in the West and the East in particular. Again, traditional institutional arrangements are regarded as highly resistant to change. The third part on Politics and Society is the most extensive part of the book with five chapters on political scandals and corruption, antisystem politics, organized economic interests, the judicialization of European politics and the state and religion. These contributions all deal with aspects of society that may function as a challenge to Europe’s liberal democratic systems. The common theme of the chapters seems to be that the traditional systems are shaken up more by their own incoherent and confused responses to
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these challenges than by the challenges itself. This point will be elaborated upon below. The last part of the book on Challenges to the Policy Process contains contributions on European welfare states, immigration and asylum, organized crime and anti-crime policies, and a final chapter called ‘Beyond Territoriality: European Security after the Cold War’. The shared conclusion of these last contributions — in line with the general impression of the volume —
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