Where Will Europe End? Ukraine and the Limits of European Integration

In an exploratory essay, two geographers assess long-term prospects for Ukraine's integration into European economic and political structures, most notably the European Union. The analysis is based on an examination of such commonly cited yardsticks as economic reform, political liberalization, and efforts to combat corruption (“internal obstacles”) as well as geographic factors such as relative location, production structure, and commercial relations (“external obstacles”). Efforts to upgrade and, to some degree, reorient transportation linkages to facilitate connection with Europe are investigated as well. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F40, 010, 018. 3 figures, 3 tables, 42 references.     

Conservation versus Regeneration?: Case of European Capital of Culture 2010 Istanbul

The purpose of this research is to review different perceptions on the possible future role and impact of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) 2010 Istanbul in enabling conservation to contribute to regeneration. The paper attempts to understand the vicious relationship between conservation and regeneration and it analyses the ways in which the ECoC event can resolve potential contradictions enabling conservation to contribute to regeneration by constructing an empirical study based on interviews and documentary research. It concludes with specific remarks in the name of attaining more effective and sustainable outcomes from the process both for Istanbul and Turkey.     

European Regional Studies: A Coming of Age?

This article reviews current developments in European regional studies. A brief history of settlement archaeology as practiced in Europe is followed by a discussion of new approaches to regional analysis and surface survey. I argue that recent, steady investments in the technology, methods, and theory of regional archaeological analysis and surface survey have stimulated advances in the study of settlement patterns and settlement pattern change through time in many parts of Europe. When innovative technologies (e.g., remote sensing, GPS, GIS), methods (e.g., geoarchaeology, “siteless” survey), and new theoretical frameworks (both processual and postprocessual) have been combined, breakthroughs in our understanding of European settlement have resulted. In the last half of the article, I describe some of these breakthroughs in a broad discussion of European settlement history, beginning with the earliest prehistory of Europe through the Middle Ages. Shifts in perspective are particularly apparent for phases of transition: from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic, Paleolithic to Mesolithic to Neolithic, and with the rise and expansion of states.     

Habermas’s Theological Turn and European Integration

Abstract

Jürgen Habermas’s recent work is defined by two trends: an engagement with the realm of the sacred and a concern for the future of the European Union. Despite the apparent lack of connection between these themes, I argue that the early history of European integration has important implications for Habermas’s conclusions about the place of faith in public life. Although Habermas’s work on religion suggests that the sacred contains important normative resources for postsecular democracies, he continues to bar explicitly religious justifications from discourse within state institutions. I question this exclusion of faith by reconstructing the role that political Catholicism played in the foundation of the European project. By focusing on two of the most important actors involved in the creation of the first European Community, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, I show how explicitly religious reasons can broaden political perspectives, resulting in the creation of new, inclusive, postnational forms of communal life. Pushing Habermas to accept the implications of his theological turn, I argue that pluralistic, nondogmatic and nonauthoritarian religious claims should be allowed to enter into the formal public sphere through a discursively determined interpretation of secular translation.     

Turkey and the European Union: troubled European or European trouble?

This article examines EU‐Turkey relations and considers the potential impact of the EU pronouncement at the December 2004 summit and the subsequent (reluctant)decision to begin negotiations in October 2005 on Turkey's efforts to become a member of the Union. It briefly summarizes the debate over Turkish accession and outlines the main arguments and positions of EU members and institutions. It then highlights the inadequacies of the alternatives to full membership that have been offered to Turkey in the past and expresses the concern that the EU's adoption of ‘flexible integration’ may lead to Turkey being, at best, offered a ‘lower tier’ form of EU membership in the future. It continues by arguing that concerns about Turkey's suitability for EU membership because it is Islamic and its lack of ‘Europeanness’ are ill‐founded and/or irrelevant and that the best way to facilitate Turkey's continued contribution to European (and world)security and its western orientation, is to allow it to join the EU as a full member. It concludes that the decision to admit a new member is primarily a political one and that Turkey should be allowed to join the EU in the immediate future.     

A False Start? British Perspectives on Italy’s Participation in the Early Phases of the European Economic Integration Process: The Case of the OEEC (1948–1952)

Abstract

This article examines how Anglo-Italian relationships unfolded in the aftermath of the Second World War within the framework of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC). By analysing Italy’s participation in the early stages of the European integration process through the lens of British diplomacy, this contribution aims to shed new light on the international dimension of Rome’s post-1945 political and economic strategies. First, the article considers the main concerns that characterized Italy’s involvement in the OEEC activities between the late 1940s and the early 1950s: the promotion of the circulation of the intra- and extra-European manpower and the liberalization of trade and payments. Second, rather than making a ‘classic’ comparison between the divergent policies – particularly the internal and international economic programmes – that Britain and Italy pursued within the OEEC, this article highlights the extent to which an ‘asymmetry of power’ impacted Italy’s ability to realize its strategies. To conclude, the essay assesses how bilateral and multilateral relationships in the OEEC arena mutually contributed to the shaping of Italy and Britain’s patterns of post-WWII economic reconstruction.     

Industrial Districts,Innovation and I-district Effect: Territory or Industrial Specialization?

The I-district effect hypothesis establishes the existence of highly intense innovation in Marshallian industrial districts due to the presence of external localization economies. However, industrial districts are characterized by specific manufacturing specializations in such a way that this effect could be due to these dominant specializations. The objective of this research is to test whether the effect is explained by the conditions of the territory or by the industrial specialization and to provide additional evidence of the existence and causes of the highly intense innovation in industrial districts (I-district effect). The estimates for Spain of a fixed-effects model interacting territory and industry suggest that the high innovative performance of industrial districts is maintained across sectors, whereas the industrial specialization behaves differently depending on the type of the local production system in which it is placed. The I-district effect is related to the conditions of the territory more than to the industrial specialization. The territory is a key variable in explaining the processes of innovation and should be considered a basic dimension in the design of innovation and industrial policies.     

Power Shifts in the European Union? The Case of Spatial Planning

This paper seeks to describe power shifts in the European Union's multi-level system of governance in the area of spatial planning. It begins by investigating, through the economic theory of federalism, the increasing 'Europeanization' of member states' policies that produces asymmetrical power shifts towards the European Union. It draws from German, Spanish and British case studies which confirm such shifts to the European Union level as well as to sub-national levels of government, although there is a tendency for competences to be shared between the European Union, national governments of the member states and sub-national authorities.     

The Lisbonization of EU Cohesion Policy: A Successful Case of Experimentalist Governance?

This article traces the emergence of a new “experimentalist governance architecture” in EU Cohesion policy and assesses its effectiveness. Following trends in other EU policy areas, the core features of the architecture are the joint setting of objectives between EU institutions and the Member States, (semi-)autonomous implementation by the Member States and regions, the use of performance reporting and peer review mechanisms at the EU level and the periodic revision of policy objectives. The new architecture—characterized by a hybrid mix of soft and hard new modes of governance—has been instrumental in driving policy and governance change in the 2007–2013 strategies and delivery arrangements, although a direct and exclusive “EU-driven effect” is not always easy to discern. More fundamentally, the effects on mutual learning have so far been weak and are unlikely to improve unless a more structured and robust assessment and peer review process is introduced.     

How Different are Emerging Multinationals' Views of Economic Integration in Europe? A Case Study of Korean Automobile Manufacturers' Strategic Reactions

This study is a survey of Korean automobile manufacturers in Europe, which examines the different perceptions of emerging multinationals to economic integration and the subsequent strategic reactions relating to their particular characteristics. The findings show dissimilar patterns and motivations for Korean automotive foreign direct investment (FDI) when compared to those of established multinationals, which are conceptualized as a pre-emptive strategic advance, particularly in relation to the changing ownership endowments and negative perceptions of the single European market. These finding imply that conventional variables are unlikely to be applicable to emerging multinationals and show the need to segregate them from other multinationals when formulating industrial policies and firm-level competing strategies.     

Neo‐Colonialism in South–South Relations? The Case of China and North Korea

The past decade has seen the rapid expansion of economic ties between China and North Korea, leading to questions of whether this emerging relationship resembles neo‐colonialism or a more positive form of South–South cooperation. This article argues that China's engagement is driven in the first instance by strategic considerations, namely the maintenance of the geopolitical status quo on the Korean peninsula. However, North Korea has also become increasingly important in terms of Beijing's aims of revitalizing its north‐eastern region, and as such, economic relations are becoming increasingly market‐led. Although this mode of engagement bears similarities with China's engagement elsewhere in the developing world, North Korea's catastrophic economic decline in the 1990s largely preceded the more recent revival of relations with China. We argue therefore that bilateral relations between the two countries cannot usefully be regarded as ‘neo‐colonial’ since North Korea is receiving much needed trade and investment from China within the context of broader international isolation. As such, we suggest that more attention needs to be paid to how geopolitical specificities influence the manner in which South–South cooperation shapes the possibilities of development, and that the dichotomous terrain of the existing debate between optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints is unhelpful.     

A ‘German Invasion’? Irish Rural Radicalism,European Integration,and Irish Modernisation, 1958–73

Land hunger was a pervasive feature of Irish rural society which had not disappeared with the attainment of national independence. Rural agitation for land redistribution was conducted by many small indigenous farmers and it acquired an extraordinary anti-German tone after 1960. This was partially fuelled by a wave of international media speculation about Ireland as a base for Nazis eluding justice, but it was also driven by the notable success of Irish agencies in attracting German investment to Ireland. Consequently, the land question spilled into Irish efforts to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Ireland's application to join the European Economic Community (EEC). Governments were slow to respond to the demands of the rural radicals: heavy-handedness against foreign landholdings might endanger Ireland's international reputation at the very time that the country was seeking to shake off an anti-progress and insular image. Militant republican involvement in land agitation stirred additional concern. When the Irish Land Commission compulsorily purchased the properties of a handful of West Germans in 1969, the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) debated the matter. This ostensibly served as the rationale for vandalism, arson, and bomb attacks against foreign-owned farms and properties at a critical point: Northern Ireland was careering out of control and Dublin's priority was to join the EEC. The government defended the right to private property and it could not halt the EEC's liberalisation of agricultural land purchases after 1970: membership of the EEC was the overriding strategic objective. In sum, land ownership had formed part of the bedrock of Irish nationalism since at least the nineteenth century and Irish adaptation to the liberal international economy generated predictable resistance. The linkage between land ownership and national citizenship was not unique to the Irish, as the Danes, the Dutch, and several countries bordering West Germany experienced comparable difficulties in the 1960s and the 1970s.     

Anglo-American Relations: End of a Special Relationship?

Obama's election in 2008 as the United States’ first self-styled Pacific President drew a hearty round of ‘end of the affair’ editorials about Anglo-American relations. His first term was littered with ‘snubgates’, serious irritations in policy areas regarded as being core to the special relationship, and indications of an accelerating US departure from Europe with his premier foreign-policy strategy declared to be a pivot to Asia. His return for a second term in 2013 augers a continuation of first-term adjustments in US foreign policy and greater domestic focus given a divided Congress and a bitterly split and war-weary United States with domestic priorities to the fore. Doomsayers - or so-called terminalists - have been repeatedly gainsaid by the Lazarus-like quality of the relationship in the past but can the Anglo-American special relationship survive in the Obama environment? This article suggests it can and sets out the author's rather unfashionable argument in four parts: the weight of history; the canons of international-relations theory; the importance of considering interest and sentiment in explaining the special relationship's resilience; and a relativist argument that suggests the United States still really does have no better ally than the United Kingdom.     

Network Governance and Policy Integration—the Case of Regional Coastal Zone Planning in Norway

Integrated coastal zone management is characterized as a complex management situation, demanding integration across geographical borders, different policy sectors and levels of government. In Norway, the county municipalities are encouraged to take responsibility for achieving integration through regional coastal zone planning. Inspired by literature on network governance, the authors elaborate on how integration capacity might depend on an open and inclusive planning process and on the importance of conditions influencing the actors' perceived payoffs from participation. The result indicates that central actors benefiting from cooperation are more important in explaining the integration capacity, than the characteristics of the planning process itself. This illustrates the importance of the distribution of power and interdependencies among the actors in such processes.