Suchergebnisse

In the last decades, the EU has been analysed by many scholars through diff erent theoretical perspectives. In this context, the 2008 fi nancial crisis has provoked diff erent EU policy crises which have in turn led to a reassessment of the theoretical frameworks needed to analyse them. Th is paper seeks to contribute to this reassessment, taking the EMU and the European migration and asylum policy as case studies to investigate to what extent these regimes have suff ered internal policy crises via the application of two theoretical perspectives: neo-functionalism and neo-institutionalism. On the one hand, under the neo-institutionalism approach, institutions constrain political actors in a norm-based way. According to this perspective, migration and asylum policy change during the crisis may be explained by European institutional constraints on the Member States. On the other hand, neo-functionalism may be used to investigate the EMU Europeanization policy process in which EU Member States' cooperation has reinforced the process of integration in this policy domain. In addition, due to the recent developments in European asylum cooperation, many important questions arise about the nature of the legal measures within the criteria of internal security. Th is paper tries to shed light on the problématique of asylum and migration policy-making process by looking at an innovative theoretical framework based on the cost/benefi t and public goods theories.

This paper uses neo-functionalist and institutionalist theories of geo-political integration to develop a theory of international trade unionism. In brief, the theory asserts that the type of international 'context' in which international trade unions operate presupposes the types of 'imperatives' that will dominate their interests and concerns. These imperatives are taken to operate along one of three dimensions – industrial, political and ideological, and are seen as evolving in accordance with the 'logic of spill-over' in global and sub-global integration processes. Using this interpretation the discussion provides reasons as to why ideological imperatives have historically dominated international trade union thinking, the only significant exception being regional trade unions operating in Europe, which have evolved beyond the ideological to embrace industrial and political imperatives in their modes of organisation and operation.

It will be argued that it is not of fundamental importance for growth and employment whether the EU clings to the Euro or allows for a dissolution of the Eurozone and a reemergence of national currencies but how multi-level macroeconomic coordination of different policy areas and nation-states will be achieved. Given that this insight is based on an alternative economic reasoning which is (still) not the common view of most political and economic actors relevant in the EU, it will be analysed under which conditions it would be recommendable to maintain the Euro or to reestablish national currencies.

What it meant by European Integration? We mean the historical process whereby European nation-states have been willing to transfer, or more usually pool, their sovereign powers in a collective enterprise. The European Union, which today contains twenty-eight member states, which has a complex institutional structure that includes a supranational central administration (the European Commission), an elected Parliament, a Court of Justice and a Central Bank, is the outcome of this processes. Many American and European scientists of the European Union have chided "intergovemmentalist" accounts for emphasizing the duration of member state authority over the process of European integration. This article attempts to prove these criticisms in a "historical institutionalist" account that mentions the importance of research on European integration as a political process which spreads over time. Such an aspect distinguishes the limitations of member-state control over permanent institutional improvements, due to a fixation with short-term interests, the existence of unexpected consequences, and actions that "lock in" past decisions and make affirmation of member-state control difficult. Short exploration of the development of social policy in the EC advocates the limitations of conducting the EC as an international regime promoting collective activity among sovereign states. It is important to view integration as a "path-dependent" process that has composed a dispersed, but still obvious "multitiered" European polity.

International integration & functionalism are defined as the processes whereby decisions & activities are performed by international organizations rather than by separate nations. The greatest difficulty incurred in the development of such worldwide programs is their location in the context of current national & transnational processes. Some of the other issues which must be dealt with in the creation of global models include: (1) the fact that overlapping functions of territorial units perform conflict management functions as well as performing specific functional roles, (2) organizations created for a specific need often perform interdependent functions with groups created out of a different need, (3) since many global problems transcend boundaries of rich & poor nations, some equalization of resources may be necessary to produce efficient collaboration between rich & poor groups, & (4) existing national boundaries may not necessarily reflect the nature of future global systems. 1 Figure, 1 Table. M. Cain.