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The chapter discusses the implications for comparative politics of the debate over revising & reshaping social theory, focusing in particular on the contributions of constructivists. A general description of constructivism is followed by comments on alternative, competing constructivisms, then by a discussion of why constructivism is a valuable approach for comparativists. The next section examines a case study of sovereignty & the construction of political/economic boundaries in early modern Europe, an example that demonstrates the usefulness of the constructivist approach. The following section explicated the theoretical & methodological advantages of constructivism & conceptual histories. 2 Tables, 85 References. K. Coddon

International audience ; This article explores the reasons for the introduction of anticorruption agencies of a specific type in Eastern Europe. It is argued that one of the important functions of these agencies—which are stronger on information gathering, coordination and strategy rather than on investigation of concrete cases—is to give to the government some leverage over the anticorruption discourse. Presenting the anticorruption commissions and agencies as (discourse-controlling) instruments gives an answer to the troubling question why are at all interested in the introduction of such bodies. Apart from instrumentalization in political discourse, anticorruption bodies in Eastern Europe have had other effects as well. As shown in the Baltic case, institutional engineering provides for a brief window of opportunity during which political forces committed to integrity could gain the upper hand. The problem in Eastern Europe, however, is not the lack of such windows of opportunities—it is more the lack of really committed political forces capable of continuous and consistent anticorruption effort.

This article explores the reasons for the introduction of anticorruption agencies of a specific type in Eastern Europe. It is argued that one of the important functions of these agencies—which are stronger on information gathering, coordination and strategy rather than on investigation of concrete cases—is to give to the government some leverage over the anticorruption discourse. Presenting the anticorruption commissions and agencies as (discourse-controlling) instruments gives an answer to the troubling question why governing parties are at all interested in the introduction of such bodies. Apart from instrumentalization in political discourse, anticorruption bodies in Eastern Europe have had other effects as well. As shown in the Baltic case, institutional engineering provides for a brief window of opportunity during which political forces committed to integrity could gain the upper hand. The problem in Eastern Europe, however, is not the lack of such windows of opportunities—it is more the lack of really committed political forces capable of continuous and consistent anticorruption effort.

Abstract
Scholars have done a great deal to unpack the motivations sitting behind nationalists' appropriation of Holocaust-related memory laws in several eastern European and Baltic states. While these accounts have shed important light on memory politics, there remains much scope for further study. For example, several Eastern European and Baltic states have passed resolutions recognizing the Armenian genocide, as well. Furthermore, the existing literature does not provide any analytical tools to conceptualize the dynamic and complex processes giving rise to memory laws. This article broadens the memory laws scholarship through an original analysis of Latvia's Armenian genocide recognition resolution of 2021. The findings highlight how diverse actors support and pass memory laws through a process of constructivist memory politics. Constructivist memory politics involves the strategies political actors employ to change the salience or meaning of historical events in the creation and promotion of memory laws. Although the analysis focuses on a single case, it provides the analytical tools to reorient how scholars approach memory laws both in Europe and elsewhere.

The European Union's (EU's) 2006 Global Europe communication established an offensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA) agenda premised on serving the interests of the EU's upmarket exporters at the expense of the EU's remaining "pockets of protection". This has remained in place with the advent of the 2010 Trade, Growth and World Affairs strategy. Such a development defies both rationalist International Political Economy (IPE) explanations – which emphasise the protectionist bias of societal mobilisation – and accounts stressing the institutional insulation of policy-makers from societal pressures because the recent economic crisis and the increased politicisation of EU trade policy by the European Parliament have coexisted without leading to greater protectionism. Adopting a constructivist approach, we show that this turn of events can be explained by the neoliberal ideas internalised by policy-makers in the European Commission's Directorate-General (DG) for Trade. We then deploy a novel heuristic to illustrate how DG Trade acted upon these ideas to strategically construct a powerful discursive imperative for liberalisation.