German Unification and the Union of Europe: The Domestic Politics of Integration Policy. By Jeffrey Anderson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 240p. $59.95 cloth, $21.95 paper.

Abstract

German unification presents conceptual puzzles of which comparativists dream. Has this monumental change, which boils down to full German sovereignty, growth of German power, and the emergence of new domestic political interests, altered Germany's relationship to Europe? Is Germany withdrawing from or dominating European institutions? Does the new Germany still tread its well-worn postwar path of the model “European”? The questions are important for our understanding of the sources of policy change and continuity as well as the process of regional integration in general and the course of European integration in particular. In which issue areas has Germany's postunification policy broken with the past? Is the break caused by changes in domestic politics or the increase in the power of a unified and fully sovereign Germany? Have policy changes impeded or enhanced the speed and character of European unification? Are important continuities evident? If both policy continuity and change are present, why the variation? These are the questions Jeffrey Anderson tackles in this timely and important volume.