The European Semester in the North and in the South: Domestic Politics and the Salience of EU-Induced Wage Reform in Different Growth Models*

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Developing Security Community in the Western Balkans: The Role of the EU and NATO

This paper examines how external third-parties, such as international organizations, can play a role in facilitating the development of security community and international integration within post-conflict societies. The formation of a security community includes the emergence of trust, belongingness, and reconciliation, along with internalizing the notion of resolving conflicts in a peaceful manner. This paper studies the roles of the EU and NATO in potentially fostering a regional security community in the Western Balkans. Both organizations have become heavily involved and invested in the region attempting to extend to the area the well established security community that exists among Europe and its Trans-Atlantic partners, while all the countries of the Western Balkan region have expressed a desire to join European institutions and become a part of the Euro-Atlantic community. But what are the implications of external encouragement of security community? The socialization of individual countries, rather than the region as a whole, contributes more to each country’s self-perception as a member state rather than as a part of a regional community. This study offers unique insight into how and why feelings of trust and a sense of community can be encouraged by external actors – and how and why trust and community can filter down to the most local level within post-conflict societies. Such insight will further interests in enhancing conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction

Comparative Intergovernmental Politics: CETA Negotiations between Canada and the EU

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union (EU) required long-term negotiations between two major polities of the industrialized world. During the negotiations, Canada acquiesced to the EU’s demand that Canadian provinces participate directly in discussions, setting an important precedent in the dynamics of Canadian external trade. This paper examines the dynamics of ntergovernmentalism in the policy area of external trade within the settings of the Canadian provinces and the EU member states, and uses the findings to suggest that in this realm the EU is a stronger example of federal synthesis of decision-making than is Canada. This is significant because it contradicts many established theories of federalism within political science, and implies that the EU could become a strong source of normative example for federal-style polities in the globalized world. As well, the strength of the EU’s single market lends credence to the institutions embedded within the supranational polity, and gives the EU significant normative power as a prototype for other experiments in regional integration. (author's abstract