The European Union and the member states : cooperation, coordination, and compromise /

The European Union and the process of European integration remain an important dynamic in the evolving global political economy. In addition to their own introduction, Zeff and Pirro provide 13 essays that present a useful history and analysis of the EU along with instructive insights into the EU's future prospects. As these chapters make clear, the progress of the EU has not always been smooth. An early essay sets the tone by examining the public policy structure of the EU, a useful beginning since this process is quite distinct from the one that normally prevails in a state system. The chapters that follow deal with the original six states--France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries--that formed the Common Market in 1957. A second group of chapters include the "second wave" that include Britain, Denmark, and Ireland, the southern European countries that joined in the 1980s after democratizing, and the most recent additions of Austria, Sweden, and Finland. Europe, though, remains a diverse region with substantial elements within each national community retaining reservations about European integration. Recommended for upper-division undergraduates, graduates, and faculty. M. Slann Clemson University