European Union Norms Research Articles

Europeanization and the “Needle's Eye”: The Transformation of Employment Policy in Germany1

AbstractWhat have been the impacts of Europeanization in European Union (EU) member states in the domain of employment policy from a gender perspective? The essay explores this question for one of the traditional “male breadwinner–female caretaker” gender policy regimes in the EU—the case of Germany. Since German women's employment status is behind the status of women in many other EU countries, it has been expected that the impact of European (EC) equal opportunity and equal treatment norms on domestic policy change has remained minimal (Ostner & Lewis, 1995). This, however, is not the case any more. On the contrary, it is argued that Europeanization, although against considerable domestic resistances and with delays, helps to “gender” German public employment policy, namely in three respects: with respect to underlying gender norms, regarding the distinction of gender specific target groups and scope, and the introduction of innovative gender‐sensitive policy instruments. This claim is illustrated by three examples. An explanation for these shifts is developed that accounts for member state change despite misfits with EU norms, not as a consequence of legal compliance mechanisms, but as an outcome of a combination of three mechanisms—the politicization of controversial issues, shifts in dominant discourses, and political advocacy building—conducive to the “gendering” of Europeanization.

Transformation of Political Islam in Turkey

The recent changes in the Islamist party’s ideology and policies in Turkey are analysed in this article. The Islamist Welfare Party (WP) was ousted from power in June 1997 and was outlawed by the Constitutional Court (CC) in March 1998. After the ban, the WP elite founded the Virtue Party and changed policies on a number of issues. They emphasized democracy and basic human rights and freedoms in the face of this external shock. The WP’s hostile policy toward the European Union (EU) was changed. This process of change is discussed and it is argued that the EU norms presented a political opportunity structure for the party elites to influence the change of direction of the party. When the VP was banned by the CC in June 2001, the VP elites split and founded two parties which differ on a number of issues but have positive policies toward the EU.

Resisting Globalization?

Turkey's relationship with the European Union (EU) is dominated by issues of democratization and human rights and is best approached from a perspective which understands the nature of the cosmopolitan regimes which work to regulate the democratic practices of nation-states and animate citizens and minority groups striving to assert their rights. Cosmopolitan or transnational processes of democratization are frequently perceived by Turkey's Kemalist political elites as being contrary to the interests of domestic harmony and a threat to national integrity. It is argued that the apparent reluctance of the Kemalist elites to embrace greater pluralism and align with the EU's Copenhagen criteria is in fact an attempt to `remake' themselves through political choices framed by global opportunities. In this sense, the mobilization of nationalist resistance to outside `interference' is calculated to secure legitimacy in an increasingly uncertain political environment. In addition, Turkey is increasingly dependent upon the very global processes that are perceived as a threat to national sovereignty, and EU standards and norms offer the means by which Turkey can safeguard national integrity.

Reform of Education in Romania in the 1990s: A Retrospective

The author, a well-known Romanian academic and politician, reflects upon the nearly three years, beginning in December 1997, that he served as Minister of National Education. A member of the Democratic Coalition government, he was granted a mandate to undertake a massive and comprehensive reform of the whole Romanian education system. His aim was to remove the last vestiges of the communist heritage from it, to adapt it to European Union norms, and thus to enable Romania to meet the educational criteria for accession to the European Union. He set in motion a reform process that was even more profound than the earlier communist reform of Romanian education in 1948.

The Clash of Security Identities: The Question of Turkey's Membership in the European Union

The author is a PhD student at the University of Bilkent, Turkey. He would like to thank one anonymous referee.THE MAIN CONTENTION OF THIS ARTICLE is that security considerations play a vital role in determining the attitudes of the European Union (EU) and Turkey towards each other. The more the Turkish elite sees the ongoing accession process and future membership in the EU as a way of enhancing Turkish security, the more willing they will be to shoulder the costs involved. The more EU members believe that Turkey's membership will contribute to EU security, the more willing they will be to pay the costs of Turkey's journey to Brussels.Even though it might seem that this is a two-way street, in reality Turkey's chances of EU membership are strongly bound to its performance in successfully adopting distinctive EU values and norms, which are less about security than they are about democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and transparent and impartial procedures. The often-heard Turkish argument is that, if the current members of the EU display a strong desire to turn their club into a global security actor with fundamental interests in Turkey's vicinity, usually defined in conventional strategic terms, they would be more accommodating towards Turkey's EU membership. But that argument simply does not hold for two main reasons. One is that 'strategic security considerations are marginal to the EU in the consideration of Turkey's full membership'(1); the other concerns the fact that the EU of today is a civil rather than a military power.(2)Given the legacy of the EU's enlargement history, one could safely argue that the compatibility of Turkey's strategic-security conceptualization with that of the EU would certainly not lead the EU to extend full membership to Turkey. Strategic-security similarities contributed in the past only to Turkey's placement in the EU's 'near abroad' as a strategic actor.(3) Therefore, what is required for Turkey's membership in the EU is not that the EU should evolve into a global military actor but that Turkey should embrace the many faceted identity of the EU. The danger for Turkey is that placing too much emphasis on 'strategic-security compatibility,' without internalizing the normative basis of the EU's distinctive identity, would in the long term make it less likely for the Europeans to conceive of any role for Turkey beyond its current presence as a strategic partner and insulator on the periphery of the EU.(4)This article begins with a short analysis of the conventional Turkish understanding of Turkey-Europe security relations, usually defined in strategic-security terms. Then an attempt is made to account for the main factors that have both fundamentally challenged this conventional view and contributed to Turkey's further estrangement from the EU in the post-cold war era by revealing the differences between Turkey's concept of the EU and the reality. Finally, I conclude that while the EU has not become a strategic security actor in the aftermath of the cold war, nor has Turkey succeeded in complying with the EU's membership criteria, which reflect the distinctive security norms of the European Union. However, the events of 11 September 2001 may provide Turkey with its longed-for opportunity to come closer to the EU in security terms even as it maintains its strategic security relationship with the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This will not be an easy task, and it will be greatly affected by the nature of Turkey's co-operation with the United States against global terrorism.THE DYNAMICS OF TURKEY-EUROPE SECURITY RELATIONS: 1923-90One can safely argue that an identity-security nexus has long been at the heart of Turkish perceptions of the EU, a legacy of the centuries-old relations between the Ottoman Empire and Europe.(5) Given that the Empire came to an end as a result of European attempts to dismember its territories, the Turkish elites of the 1920s tended to be 'cynical' about the European powers; they did not want to see the fate of the Ottomans repeated. …

Productivity, Employment and Growth in European Integration

We compare the evolution of key macroeconomic indices for the European Union (EU), viewed as a unified economy, with that of the USA and Japan for the period 1950–95, report the process of convergence in the EU, and analyze the effect of its potential enlargement through the accession of 10 Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) that are in active negotiation for EU membership. The EU has followed a path of rising labor productivity, declining capital productivity and rising capital intensity typical of advanced capitalist economies. Its productivities in the 1990s lie between those of the USA and Japan. There is evidence of convergence of EU‐15 relative labor productivity and capital intensity levels to those of the USA. Relative real wages also seem to be converging. Profit rates in all three economies fell, most rapidly before 1975. There is a general pattern of convergence in the EU members in the evolution of labor productivity, capital productivity, real wage, gross profit rate, investment per worker, consumption per worker and capital intensity. The evidence for a specific membership effect on convergence is weak. The CEEC have much lower relative labor and capital productivity than any other countries that have entered the EU. The process of development in the CEEC will have to follow an atypical path of increasing or constant capital productivity and rising labor productivity in order to converge to EU norms. EU membership might have a positive impact on the prospective economic growth in the CEEC in these respects, as the vehicle for the transmission of critical changes in technology and productive organization.