Suchergebnisse

First published in 1989, Political Change in Spain provides a stimulating and innovative account of Spain's maturing democracy since 1982. Challenging the accepted wisdom that Spanish democracy is a fragile plant, the author demonstrates its strong roots and healthy growth in the context of the European Community. He argues that, despite the problems of economic transformation, Spain's political attachments to Western Europe suggest that the Spanish economy will benefit in the long run from its increasing integration with its neighbours. The book also analyses the continuing threat to stability posed by separatist aspirations in the Basque country, in the context of the experiments with autonomous regional governments. This book will be valuable to anyone looking for a succinct introduction to changes in Spain, as well as to students of Western European politics, women's studies and the Spanish language.

This study challenges the easy assumption that peacekeeping as we've known it in the past will be the 'pill for every ill' in the future. A 'new world order' means new types of conflict breaking out almost anywhere in a world that is more volatile and less predictable than before. Contributors to this volume argue that we need to get back to basics; that there are sobering lessons to be learnt from Somalia, the Lebanon and Cambodia; that we need to ask some fundamental questions. Can peacekeeping be 'reformed' or must it be totally 'reinvented'? Are soldiers the best peacekeepers and, if not, who should replace them?

The fortunes of European Studies in Irish universities have tended to reflect the experience of Ireland as a member-state of the EU. At the outset, the need to prepare graduates for careers in EU institutions and more broadly for occupations directly affected by the EU such as law, banking, business, farming and tourism, was met a by wide range of courses in most Irish universities. These had a strong vocational flavour and were supported by EU-funded schemes such as Tempus, Erasmus and, later, Jean Monnet, all of which stimulated transnational mobility and subsequent standardisation of curricula by the adoption of credit transfers ECTS) under the Bologna process. In all these developments Ireland punched above its weight in a context where the country was basking in an economic success largely attributable to trade and inwards investment. More recently, and especially since the demise of the Celtic Tiger, public opinion has been more circumspect. This was evident in some negative referendum results and, more recently, by the management of the economy, by a 'troika' of external agencies. Today, European studies programmes have been the victims of tighter budgets, and 'cannibalised' by their constituent disciplines so that the label 'European Studies' is reduced to a fig leaf barely concealing the underlying fragmentation into traditional mono-disciplinary degrees.