CIAO DATE: 07/03

Journal of International Relations and Development

 

Vol. 5, No 1 (March 2002)

 

Articles

• Neither Breathtaking nor Pathbreaking: The European Commission's White Paper on Governance (PDF format, 18 pgs, 160 kb)
  by Marcus Höreth

  Romano Prodi announced at the outset of his new 2000-2005 Commission its purpose of promoting new forms of European governance as one of the key strategic objectives. Obviously, given the scandals of the previous Santer Commission such goal-setting was motivated by, and was a necessary reaction to, growing concerns for the legitimacy of the European Union's framework of governance. The provisional result of these broader institutional reflections on governance is the publication of the White Paper on Governance. Unfortunately, the White Paper's contribution to understanding and to closing the legitimacy gap of European governance is not very helpful. It can be demonstrated that the Commission's good intentions of reinforcing its role in European policy-making, in both preparing and implementing policy actions, could do serious damage to the Union's fragile institutional set-up. This is because the Commission's White Paper reveals a lack of understanding of the pre-conditions for successful governance in the multi-layered system of the European Union. Therefore, it is likely that adopting its governance proposals could in fact lead to an even deeper legitimacy crisis in the future than the European Union currently suffers from.

• The Subnational Foundations of the European Parliament (PDF format, 13 pgs, 144 kb)
  by Wolfgang Wagner

  The powerful, directly-elected European Parliament is one of the most distinguishing features of the European Union. However, even the most elaborate theory of institutional choice, namely the rationalist institutional choice theory, is unable to explain why some member-states have held strong preferences for strengthening this institution. This article presents a constructivist explanation that traces support for the European Parliament back to the principles of direct parliamentary legitimation which are institutionalised in these member-states' regional policies. A comparison between constuctivist expectations and member-states' observable preferences on the introduction of a co-decision procedure during the Maastricht negotiations illustrates the plausibility of this explanation.

• The Transition Process in Slovenia: Transformation to a EU-Compatible Economy
  by Mojmir Mrak, Matija Rojec and Janez Potocnik

  Slovenia is one of a few countries where the transition from a socialist to a market economy has been accompanied by a transition from a regional economy as part of former Yugoslavia to a national economy within the European Union (EU). The article discusses where Slovenia stands after ten years of transition with respect to its transformation and the readiness of its economy to accede to the EU. Over the past decade Slovenia has moved quickly to establish macroeconomic stability and to initiate the systematic transformation of its economy. The main objective of this process has been to generate sustainable growth and to increase the country's international competitiveness to the level allowing its successful integration into the EU. While significant progress has been made, Slovenia's economy still suffers from persistent structural weaknesses. In the enterprise sector, most privatised companies have still to establish corporate governance and to undertake offensive restructuring. The country's financial sector is also still far away from being internationally competitive either in terms of its soundness, efficiency and costs, or in terms of its product variety.

• Pondering Dramatic Endings, Probing Possible Beginnings; or Doing Politics as Usual? (Review Essay)
  by Alexander Astrov

  What is the status of politics in International Relations (IR)? Is it a manifold of political activities in the world or a single activity of ordering the world? What is the relation between world-order and world-politics? The article examines three recent contributions to various approaches within IR and highlights the distinction, implicitly present in them all, between the activities of world-governing and world-politics. Further, it is suggested that the question of politics constitutes the Outside of contemporary IR, an explicit engagement which, by going beyond IR towards International Political Theory, is both necessary and inevitable.

Book Reviews

• The Third World in the Age of Globalization: Requiem or New Agenda
  by Ash Narain Roy

• From Subsistence to Exchange and Other Essays by Omar Sanchez
  by Peter Bauer

• The New Germany and Migration in Europe by Vaclav Houzvicka
  by Barbara Marshall

• Innovation, Evolution of Industry and Economic Growth by David B. Audretsch and Steven Klepper (eds)
  by Andreja Jaklic and Patricia Kotnik

• The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History by Jörgen Lundqvist
  by Stephen C. Neff

• Human Rights in International Relations by Irena Andelkovic
  by David P. Forsythe