Wider Europe Research Articles

The EU and ‘Wider Europe’: Toward an Alternative Geopolitics of Regional Cooperation?

In response to enlargement, the EU’s ‘Wider Europe’ initiative and emerging European Neighbourhood Policy envisage ‘positive interdependence’ with neighbouring countries of the ‘East’ and ‘South’. ‘Partnerships’ are seen as an alternative to direct EU membership and thus as a sustainable incentive for regional cooperation. In order to be effective, such regional partnerships must transcend market logics and accommodate heterogeneous economic and socio-political realities. However, Wider Europe is characterised, in terms of realpolitik, by competing rationales of ‘stability’, ‘prosperity’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘security’ and thus by considerable potential for exclusionary policies. It is unclear whether exclusion can be counterbalanced by multilevel and ‘de-centred’ forms of regional engagement that also define Wider Europe. Applying a pragmatic approach, discussion will centre on rationales, discourses and reconceptualisations of European space upon which the notion of Wider Europe is being constructed and on whether they signal gradual changes in the direction of a ‘post-Westphalian’ geopolitics.

A vision of a Twin City: Exploring the only case of adjacent urban settlements at the Finnish‐Russian Border

The article aims to illustrate through a case study the contingencies, complexities and paradoxes which characterize the external borders of the European Union. The study focuses on the only cross‐border urban area along the Finnish‐Russian border region, that of Imatra and Svetogorsk. Firstly, the peculiarities of this region are described by comparing it to other cooperating border communities in the EU. Next, the twin‐town initiative by the local governments is analyzed, the development potential of the cross‐border region is evaluated, and the motives for and obstacles to cooperation are examined for assessing the prospects of cooperation in a wider European context. It is concluded that the distinctive features of this highly asymmetric case have been taken into account by the local actors when they have defined the aim and scope of their cooperation strategy. Due to these contextual factors, it is also understandable that the concrete results of the twin city initiative have remained limited thus far. Although integrated cross‐border structures are nearly nonexistent, the local cooperation activities provide an interesting laboratory for observing and assessing the objectives and practices of a “Wider Europe” at a local scale.

Europe’s new region: The Black Sea in the wider Europe neighbourhood

Situated at the crossroads between Europe and Asia as well as Russia and the Middle East, the Black Sea is more than a region of local strategic significance, representing an axis of increasing geo‐political importance to the European Union. With its mosaic of problems, the wider Black Sea region is one of the more important challenges that the enlarged EU will face. Once Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey become members, the EU will directly border the Black Sea, accounting half of its coastline. As such, it will have to develop policies for regional issues and problems. Finding ways to prevent likely destabilizing factors to come to the fore in regional level and dealing with them before affecting the EU area would be a trial for the EU, which so far resisted calls to develop a regional approach towards the Black Sea and to actively participate in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation organization. It might be the right time now to reconsider that position in the ‘wider Europe‐neighbourhood’ context.

Populism and representative politics in contemporary Europe

In this paper I apply the definition of populism that I laid out in P. Taggart, Populism (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000) and argue that recent developments in Europe provide a fertile ground for the emergence of populism. Europe is taken to in its widest sense to include the European Union as well as the ‘wider Europe’. The argument of the paper is that populism will emerge (and has already appeared) in many different forms and will appear as a series of fractured instances. Combined with the self‐limiting effects of populism this means that populism will not amount to a wider ‘European’ force but its appearance does highlight dilemmas of representative politics in Europe.

A Two‐Tier or Multi‐Tier Europe? Assessing the Innovation Capacities of Central and East European Countries in the Enlarged EU

AbstractThis article assesses the innovation capacities of the candidate central and east European countries (CEECs) and the countries of the EU by using a new framework for measuring national innovation capacity (NIC), based on 25 indicators. Based on regression and cluster analysis the article shows that NIC in the enlarged EU does not follow a simple east–west divide. The wider Europe is structured into three groups of countries, and CEECs fall into two, the less‐developed and medium‐developed EU groups. NICs in the enlarged EU are assessed across four dimensions of capacity: absorptive, R&D, diffusion and demand. In each of these dimensions a two‐ to three‐tiering of countries is observed, which goes beyond a simple east–west pattern. The results of this assessment have important implications for new Member States and candidate countries, as well as for the EU policy towards structural assistance.

Emerging Gender Regimes and Policies for Gender Equality in a Wider Europe

This article addresses some implications for gender equality and gender policy at European and national levels of transformations in family, economy and polity, which challenge gender regimes across Europe. Women's labour market participation in the west and the collapse of communism in the east have undermined the systems and assumptions of western male breadwinner and dual worker models of central and eastern Europe. Political reworking of the work/welfare relationship into active welfare has individualised responsibility. Individualisation is a key trend west – and in some respects east – and challenges the structures that supported care in state and family. The links that joined men to women, cash to care, incomes to carers have all been fractured. The article will argue that care work and unpaid care workers are both casualties of these developments. Social, political and economic changes have not been matched by the development of new gender models at the national level. And while EU gender policy has been admired as the most innovative aspect of its social policy, gender equality is far from achieved: women's incomes across Europe are well below men's; policies for supporting unpaid care work have developed modestly compared with labour market activation policies. Enlargement brings new challenges as it draws together gender regimes with contrasting histories and trajectories. The article will map social policies for gender equality across the key elements of gender regimes – paid work, care work, income, time and voice – and discuss the nature of a model of gender equality that would bring gender equality across these. It analyses ideas about a dual earner–dual carer model, in the Dutch combination scenario and ‘universal caregiver’ models, at household and civil society levels. These offer a starting point for a model in which paid and unpaid work are equally valued and equally shared between men and women, but we argue that a citizenship model, in which paid and unpaid work obligations are underpinned by social rights, is more likely to achieve gender equality.

EU external governance in 'wider Europe'

The 'wider Europe' initiative opens the possibility for a far-reaching association of the EU's eastern and southern European neighbours which, by offering 'everything but institutions' (Prodi), proposes an alternative to membership. This article presents this initiative as part of an ambitious external governance agenda by the enlarged Union with the aim to manage its new interdependence in an altered geopolitical context. Focusing on the conception of interdependence and the institutional configuration of EU relations with its near abroad, external governance is defined and examined in three prominent 'soft security' issues: justice and home affairs, environmental and energy policy. It is argued that external governance seeks to expand the 'legal boundary' of the Union with only limited openings of its 'institutional boundary', thereby oscillating between an inclusionary and exclusionary approach towards its near abroad.

Culture shift on the future Eastern border of the EU1

In May 2004 the eastern border of the European Union will move eastwards, and much of it will coincide with the border which formerly divided the Soviet Union from its satellite states. The states which are to become members of the EU will then be responsible for the security of the outer Schengen border. This is likely to cause relations with neighbouring states outside the new Union, which have been carefully nurtured since 1990, to become difficult. In order to try to counteract this possibility, the EU has recently introduced the concept of ‘Wider Europe’ with the prospect of special new funding streams to help the EU's new eastern neighbours. This article shows how a variety of institutions, local, regional and transnational, are already cooperating in initiatives across the future EU border; in order to improve living standards in these impoverished border regions and bring together peoples who have been separated over generations. There are, however; still many problems to be solved in changing the border culture, and the question remains as to whether the cross‐border cooperation agenda will be able to continue to improve relations at the eastern edge of the new Europe, without security considerations being compromised.

From stigma to demolition: Australian debates about housing and social exclusion

Although the concept of social exclusion is well established in the UK and wider Europe, as an alternative to the use of poverty and inequality, it only recently entered Australian housing and urban policy debates. This paper explores the dominant debates that emerged about housing and inequality in two major reports, which investigated future options for East Fairfield (Villawood) public housing estate in New South Wales prior to its demolition. In conceptualising the debates, the analysis draws on the framework devised by Watt and Jacobs (2000, Housing, theory and society, 17(1), 14–26), which identified three different discourses of social exclusion in British housing and urban policy. It is concluded that the dominant debate at East Fairfield estate drew extensively on a moral underclass discourse that implicated public housing tenure as a major cause of inequality. Whilst there is little doubt that serious problems existed on the estate, questions are raised about the utility of this moral underclass depiction and the rationale it provided for adopting demolition as the definitive solution. The experience of East Fairfield demonstrates that demolition is not a low-cost solution in financial or social terms.

Exporting Europeanization to the Wider Europe: The Twinning Exercise and Administrative Reform in the Candidate Countries and Beyond

This article looks at the EU's efforts to assist administrative reform in Eastern Europe, with particular attention to the twinning exercise, conceptually linked to Europeanization. The article argues that much of the debate on Europeanization has focused predominantly on the way in which existing member states are being transformed as a result of their participation in EU structures. Yet the political importance attached to EU membership by the accession applicants, as well as EU's determination to ensure compliance with the acquis communautaire prior to entry, indicates that Europeanization is not only confined to existing EU member states, but can be exported outside the geographical borders of the EU. Against this background the article argues that extending the scope of the Europeanization thesis beyond existing members can not only help us understand better the process of transformation in Eastern Europe and the ongoing accession negotiations, but can also contribute towards the refinement of the term's rather blurred conceptual content.

Trade and Investment in the Wider Europe

Trade and Investment in the Wider Europe

The Two Sides of Euroscepticism

This article aims to make a three-fold contribution to the study of Euroscepticism in the wider Europe. First, it presents a two-dimensional conceptualization of party positions on European integration in general, and of Euroscepticism in particular, distinguishing between diffuse and specific support for European integration (i.e. `support for the ideas of European integration' and `support for the EU'). Second, it analyses the location, type, and electoral strength of party-based Euroscepticism in the four candidate countries of East Central Europe - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Third, it contributes to the ideology vs. strategy debate, showing that ideology is the dominant explanation for both types of support, although strategy at times plays a role in explaining specific support.

Environmental policy in a wider Europe

European EnvironmentVolume 12, Issue 2 p. 61-63 Editorial Environmental policy in a wider Europe First published: 14 March 2002 https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.288Citations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume12, Issue2Special Issue: Environmental Policy and Post-Socialism: Ten Years OnMarch/April 2002Pages 61-63 RelatedInformation

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development, The European Union’s Trade Policies and Their Economic EffectsK. Dyson, The Politics of the Euro‐ZoneN. Vanhove, Regional Policy: A European ApproachK. Cordell, Poland and the European UnionR. Hall, A. Smith and L.Tsoukalis, Competitiveness and Cohesion in EU PoliciesV. Borschnier, State‐building in Europe. The Revitalization of Western European IntegrationJ. Ellison, Threatening Europe. Britain and the Creation of the European Community, 1955–1958J. Holscher, Financial Turbulence and Capital Markets in Transition CountriesJ.A. Usher, The Law of Money and Financial Services in the ECJ. Shaw, Social Law and Policy in an Evolving European UnionM. Baun, A Wider Europe: The Process of Politics of European Union EnlargementA. Stevens with H. Stevens, Brussels Bureaucrats? The Administration of the European UnionP. Andreas and T. Snyder, The Wall around the West. State Borders and Immigration Controls in North America and EuropeB. White, Understanding European Foreign PolicyG. Bertola, T. Boeri and G. Nicoletti, Welfare and Employment in a United EuropeM. Anderson with E. Bort, The Frontiers of the European UnionE. E. Zeff and E. B. Pirro, The European Union and the Member States: Cooperation, Coordination, and CompromiseD. K. Xenakis and D. N. Chryssochoou, The Emerging Euro‐Mediterranean SystemS. Togan and V. N. Balasubramanyan, Turkey and Central and Eastern European Countries in Transition: Towards Membership of the EUC. Hill and K. E. Smith, European Foreign Policy: Key DocumentsM. Maclean and J‐M. Trouille, France, Germany and Britain: Partners in a Changing WorldD. J. Howarth, The French Road to European Monetary UnionJ. Pinder, The European Union: A Very Short IntroductionC. Brewin, The European Union and Cyprus

A wider Europe: the view from Minsk and Chisinau

The expansion of NATO and the enlargement of the EU will produce outside states in which perceptions and policies will be influenced by feelings of exclusion and isolation. Building on an earlier article published in International Affairs (January 2000) on Russia and Ukraine, this article analyses two countries ‘inbetween’ in which these feelings are particularly strong. Belarus and Moldova, two classic borderlands, are small, new states with borders not of their own choosing and little sense of identity. Their economies are in dire straits and each has a large problem that hampers European integration. For Belarus the problem is its president; for Moldova it is the separatist regime controlling 12 per cent of its territory. Based on elite interviews, opinion surveys and the analysis of focus group discussions, this article compares and contrasts the attitudes towards NATO and the EU in these two countries.

Engaging Russia in Asia Pacific by Koji s> Watanabe (review)

572 SEER, 79, 3, 200I advicefromRussiacan allhelp 'createincentivesin favourof Europe'(p. I87). If such a policy bringsresults,in the long run 'Europe'sreluctantparticipant' (P. I73) may not be so reluctant. Overall, even given Lukashenka's apparent deafness to influence, the argument is a good one and the authors make it well. This is an excellent study, one that breaksnew ground in explaining Belarus'simportance in the new wider Europe. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies ANDREW WILSON University College London Watanabe, Koji (ed.). EngagingRussia in Asia Pacfic. Japan Center for International Exchange, Tokyo and New York, I999. I90 pp. Notes. Bibliographies.Appendices. $25.00 (paperback). SPECIFICALLY Asian perspectives on major issues of international politics could be a useful adjunct to the predominantlyWesternliteraturewhich has traditionallyoccupied the lion's share of discursive space in this field. This book is the work of seven scholars from China, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea involved in a research project on the 'desirability'of enlistingpost-Soviet Russia's 'positiveengagement' in the economic and politicaldevelopment ofwhat they referto as 'AsiaPacific'.The project covers the period from mid-1997 to mid-iggg, although few of the contributorstake adequate account of the Russian economic crisisof August I998 and subsequentevents. Consequently, the study is based on a snapshot of economic and political reality in a relatively uneventful period in the evolution of Russian domestic and foreign policy. Fortunately,in a special appendix, two prominent Russian specialists, along with some others from Australiaand the USA, are given the opportunity to comment on the issues raisedby the main contributors.This additionhelpsto roundout the coverage in the main body of the work. On the whole, the two Chinese contributors,Yang Mingjie and LiJingjie, seem to have the most sympathetic and realisticallycritical perspective on Russia'srole inAsia Pacific.The formerarguesthatRussiamustceaseviewing the East as merely instrumentalto her primarypolicy orientation toward the West. Russia should be, as a matter of course, included in economic and security issues, such as North Korea, while KEDO and the whole matter of nucleardevelopment shouldhave been expanded to include Russia, aswell as Japan. On Japan, he maintains that domestic political considerations in Russiapreclude the sortof concessions on the so-called 'NorthernTerritories' (thefour SouthernKuril Islands)thatJapan demands in returnfor economic assistance. LiJingjie, focusing on Sino-Russian securityrelations, notes that unlikethe WestandJapan, China has not soughtto takeadvantageof present Russian internal weaknesses to exclude Moscow from strategic institutionbuilding in the region. He also envisages Chinese participation in the development of the resourceand productionpotentialof the RussianFarEast. FortheJapanese contributorsthe NorthernTerritoryissuebulksverylarge. They view it as much more of an injusticeto Japan than her exclusion from REVIEWS 573 the parts of China, Korea and Southeast Asia which Japan occupied during her imperial expansionary trajectory.There is some merit in this distinction, since Stalin'sactions in occupying the Kurils at the very end (and even after) the war were clearly a violation of the Russo-Japanese Neutrality Treaty of 13 April I94I. This position, however, ignoresthe importantsecurityvalue of the islands as a gateway to the Sea of Okhotsk, where the ballistic missile submarines of the Russian Pacific Fleet are deployed. Japan's sudden economic vulnerability,her enhanced securitylinkages to the USA and her participation in Washington's national and theatre missile defence schemes have undoubtedly diminished her capacity for successful dialogue with the Russians.This facthas surelyincreasedthe desirabilityof Russiaas a 'strategic partner'for China in the evolving securitymechanismsin Asia Pacific.Fewof these vital considerations are given adequate attention by the contributors. Most of them look upon Russia's inclusion in the economic and security machinery of the region as useful, but they don't seem to take Russia very seriously, arguing somewhat short-sightedly,that Moscow has little to offer economically or strategicallytoward the creation of such machinery for the foreseeablefuture. The essayswere writtenbefore the riseof V. V. Putinasfirst,RussianPrime Minister,and subsequentlyPresident.Indeed, most of the commentaryon the Russian economy ends in I997, when prospects seemed fairly good; that is, before the collapse of August I998 and the subsequent turnaroundin 2000. Much of the detailed analysis is, thus, at best dated, and at worst naively fixatedon unreliableofficialstatistics.Fortunately,the two Russiancommentatorsare able to set the recordstraighton a numberof these issuesand to give an alternativeperspective:for example, that...

Russia, NATO and the handling of conflicts at Russia's southern periphery: At a crossroads?

The institutional arrangements and mechanisms for preventing and managing conflicts will determine the future of European security and the balance of power in a wider Europe. Russian policy and Russia‐NATO relations are anaylsed within the context of the ongoing changes at Russia's southern periphery. The embryos of three distinct security systems are developing ‐ a Russia‐led, a NATO‐led and one led by the international community. The article suggests that instability in the southern periphery in the future will require security cooperation and a joint approach by Russia and NATO countries.

A Wider Europe: the View from Moscow and Kyiv

The expansion of NATO and the enlargement of the EU will produce outside states in which perceptions and policies will be influenced by feelings of exclusion and isolation. Russia and Ukraine are two important examples. In Russia the sense of exclusion results from NATO expansion and it was exacerbated by the air strikes against Serbia. Although Ukraine also responded negatively to NATO's attack on Serbia, Ukrainian perceptions of exclusion are caused primarily by disappointment that EU membership is proving so difficult to attain. Based on elite interviews, opinion surveys and the analysis of focus group discussions, this article compares and contrasts the attitudes towards NATO and the EU in the two countries.

Europe's precarious centre: Franco‐German co‐operation and the CFSP

This article takes the pulse of the Franco‐German security relationship and analyses its implications for the future development of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It starts with a brief historical overview of this relationship before discussing Europe's contemporary and future security challenges from the perspectives of Paris and Berlin. It evaluates Europe's ‘lessons‐learned’ from the war against Yugoslavia over Kosovo and concludes that in a more complex and wider Europe, the Franco‐German axis may be one important partnership among many, but certainly not the quintessential and fundamental driving force for further European integration as during past decades. Especially in the security and defence fields, an Anglo‐French‐German entente is likely to emerge which will be beneficial for the development of a European CFSP and European security in general.

European Memories of the Second World War

Part One: Disempowering through Racism, How a Dream was Shattered by Patrick Janssens Explaining Increased Racial Conflict in Post-industrial Societies: the Creation of Systemic 'Competitive' Youth Unemployment by Troy Duster, Racial Conflicts in British Cities by Eric Seward, Limits of Tolerance and Limited Tolerance: How Tolerant are the Danes? by Peter Hervik, The Politics of 'Caste is Race': the Impact of Urbanisation by Dipankar Gupta, Playing the Media: the Durban Case by Guy Poppe, The Relevance of the Language of Race in South Asian Conflicts by Sumit Sarkar, The Fremmede and the Dalit are Silent: Danish and Indian Cultural Worlds by Donald Robotham, Approaching Racism: Attitudes, Actions and Social Structure by Robert A. Rubinstein / Part Two: Empowering to Combat Racism, The Paradox of Secondary Ethnicity by Emanuel Marx,Is Harmony Possible in a Multiracial Society? The Case of Singapore by Mary Judd, Racism and Intercultural Issues in Urban Europe by Jagdish S. Gundara, Antiracist Empowerment through Culture and Legislation by Johan Leman, Racism in Large Cities: the Means to Empower/Disempower Groups and Communities by Glyn Ford, Riding the Tiger: the Difficult Relationship between NGOs and the Media by Marc Peirs, Urban Crowds Manipulated: Assessing the Austrian Case as an Example in Wider European Tendencies, Andre Gingrich, Some Reflections on Culture and Violence by Erwin Jans