Suchergebnisse

Values, in terms of human rights and democracy, have become important factors for individual state's participation in the international community. Janne Haaland Matláry, former Secretary of State in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Norway, explores the ethical and moral conflict between the international system and the rights of sovereign powers in cases such as Kosovo, Bosnia and Rwanda

Energy Policy in the European Union analyses the development of energy policy in the EU focusing in particular on the key period between 1985 and 1995 and the role of the major states - Germany, France, Italy, and Britain - and their interaction with the Commission. The role of interest groups as well as other EU actors is also covered in-depth as well as the European Energy Charter, EU policy towards the East, and the relationship between energy and the environment

This article takes its point of departure in an empirical analysis of the decline of the state as the major political ordering principle in Europe, with the aim of discussing norms of democratic legitimacy for polities beyond the nation-state. To this end, the genesis of plebiscitarian democratic norms is recounted, emphasizing the replacement of the natural law tradition with utilitarian justifications of individual rights. The decline of natural law meant a decline of universal or international norms, and a concomitant confining of democratic legitimation to the nation-state. In today's Europe, the empirical decline of the state entails a need for redesigning democratic institutions. The central concept here is subsidiarity, which is now the official political ordering principle of the European Union.

This article draws on an empirical study of EC energy policy between 1985 and 1992 in a theoretical discussion of the requirements for a comprehensive theory of integration for the post-1985 period. An analytical framework that improves on intergovernmentalist approaches is proposed. The author argues that a `domestic politics' approach presupposes a delineation of state strategies and state actor capability in a given issue area prior to the analysis of interstate bargaining at the EC level. Further, this approach is argued to be inadequate as a basis for a theory of integration as such, where the ability on the part of the Commission for designing policy that satisfies states' interests is argued to be a necessary condition for the achievement of integrative outcomes. Integration is defined as the intended yet often informal effect of such policy designs, and informal integration is assumed to generate political pressures towards formal integration.