Building the New Europe: Western and Eastern Roads to Social Partnership

[Excerpt] While the ways in which neoliberalism and economic integration undermine social partnership and the welfare state have been extensively studied, less attention has been given to the ways in which such economic forces may push actors together, in reinvigorated bargaining relationships, to find workable solutions to difficult problems. In his article, we examine the contemporary status of social partnership in four case study countries—Germany, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria and Poland—as well as for Europe as a whole. In the west, while Germany presents a case of established social partnership under pressure, the United Kingdom has stood over the past two decades on the opposite neoliberal side. In the east, Bulgaria is one of the more developed cases of post-communist tripartism, while Poland exemplifies a weaker tripartism that emerged at a later stage of the transformation process. In selecting more and less developed social partnership cases in both west and east, we test the argument that the rise of Thatcher/Reagan/ Friedman ‘free market economics’ is paradoxically driving a resurgence and consolidation of social partnership relations across the new (both western and eastern) Europe

Political & Quasi-Adjudicative Dispute Settlement Models in European Union Free Trade Agreements - Is the Quasi-Adjudicative Model a Trend or is it Just Another Model?

In this paper, interpretation and application dispute settlement provisions of European Union (EU) Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed between 1963 and 2006 are analysed. This will be through the two models of Dispute Settlement in International Law: the political and adjudicative. Political elements of dispute settlement mechanisms in Public International Law and General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) served to establish those of the EU FTAs. Adjudicative and quasi-adjudicative elements of dispute settlement mechanisms of Public International Law and World Trade Organization (WTO) Law were used as parameters to set up those of the EU FTAs. These parameters also helped to define a new and unique hybrid model. The features of this model were found in Agreements with trade issues other than FTAs. It is possible, however, for future FTAs to incorporate them. The hybrid model is based on an adjudicative framework and includes both political and adjudicative elements. In conclusion, it was found that even though WTO Members incorporated adjudicative elements in the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), the EU did not incorporate them bilaterally for a further five years. Furthermore, since the creation of the DSU in 1995, the EU has established more FTAs based on a political model than on a quasi-adjudicative. Consequently, the quasi-adjudicative dispute settlement model has not represented a clear trend in EU FTAs

Contested world order: The delegitimation of international governance

This article argues that the chief challenge to international governance is an emerging political cleavage, which pits nationalists against immigration, free trade, and international authority. While those on the radical left contest international governance for its limits, nationalists reject it in principle. A wide-ranging cultural and economic reaction has reshaped political conflict in Europe and the United States and is putting into question the legitimacy of the rule of law among states

The Political Economy of the Crisis: The End of an Era?

The article constitutes a political economy exercise in trying to understand the crisis of the euro area and draw lessons from it. The bursting of the biggest bubble in the Western financial system for decades has led to a big crisis in a currency union without a state, which is the euro area now occupying centre stage in the European political system. The culprits are many, but there have also been colossal failures in markets and institutions. A new modus vivendi between democracies and financial markets needs to be found. Banking and sovereign debt crises are closely intertwined and they both cross national borders. Yet European solutions have proved difficult to reach because of economic divergence and rising populism. The distribution of pain is hardly an easy task, while implementation has been rendered more difficult in an increasingly intergovernmental EU system. There are deep underlying differences over the overall economic strategy. Yet a lively debate has developed as manifestation of an emerging European public forum. The stakes are high. Will the crisis act as a powerful catalyst for further integration in Europe? The alternative would be disintegration at a high cost. Crises provide opportunities for change. This is arguably the end of an era. The article ends with a rallying cry for Europe the broad minded. © 2012 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd