"Mechthild Roos' remarkable book [...] demonstrates how a perfect marriage between political science and contemporary history looks like: She shows with analytical clarity and supported by empirically rich case studies that the young Parliament developed many of the institutional norms and practices that influenced its future trajectory. [...] A must read for any EU politics and integration buff." -Berthold Rittberger, Chair of Political Science and International Relations at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. "This is a superb work of exceptional scholarship: meticulously researched, persuasively argued, and beautifully written by an outstanding historian of European political and economic integration. [...] Roos blends ideas, institutions, personalities, policies, and politics into a fascinating account of early European Union history." -Desmond Dinan, Professor of Public Policy and Jean Monnet Chair in European Public Policy at George Mason University, Virginia, USA. "With this meticulously researched book [...] Roos demonstrate[s] not only the substantive policy influence of the EP in the realm of social policy during these early years, but also the important role played by MEPs themselves in pushing for increased institutional power and European integration. [...] This book is an important, and long overdue, contribution to the study of the European Parliament and the institutional evolution of the European Union more generally." -Amie Kreppel, Jean Monnet Chair (ad personam), Director Center for European Studies and Professor of Political Science at University of Florida, USA. The European Parliament (EP) - a powerful actor in today's European Union - was not intended to be more than a consultative assembly at first. Yet this book shows that the EP was much more influential in shaping Community policy in the early years of the integration process than either the founding Treaties or most existing scholarship would allow. It studies the EP's institutional evolution through the lens of Community social policy, a policy area with a particularly strong ideational dimension. By promoting a European social dimension, Members of the EP (MEPs) presented the Parliament as the true representative of European citizens by channelling their interests and needs. MEPs thus emphasised the EP's role as a provider of democratic legitimacy for Community politics, whilst at the same time trying to convince European citizens that the Communities could have a real and positive impact on their everyday lives. Mechthild Roos is Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Augsburg University, Germany. .

The European Parliament (EP) – a powerful actor in today's European Union – was not intended to be more than a consultative assembly at first. Yet this book shows that the EP was much more influential in shaping Community policy in the early years of the integration process than either the founding Treaties or most existing scholarship would allow. It studies the EP’s institutional evolution through the lens of Community social policy, a policy area with a particularly strong ideational dimension. By promoting a European social dimension, Members of the EP (MEPs) presented the Parliament as the true representative of European citizens by channelling their interests and needs. MEPs thus emphasised the EP’s role as a provider of democratic legitimacy for Community politics, whilst at the same time trying to convince European citizens that the Communities could have a real and positive impact on their everyday lives.

Informal dimensions of European integration have received limited academic attention to date, despite their historical and contemporary importance. Particularly studies in European integration history, while frequently mentioning informal processes, have as yet rarely conceptualised the study of informality in European integration, and thus fail usually to systematically analyse conditions, impact and consequences of informal action. Including case studies that discuss both successful and failed examples of informal action in European integration, this book assembles cutting-edge research by both early-career and more experienced scholars from all over Europe to fill this lacuna. The chapters of this volume offer a guide to the study of informality and show how informality has impacted European integration history and the functioning of the EC/EU as well as other European organisations in a variety of ways. Reflecting the diversity of studies within this burgeoning field of research, within and across several academic disciplines, the book approaches the informal dimensions of European integration from different disciplinary, methodological and thematic angles. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of European integration, EU politics/studies, European politics, European Union history, and more broadly to comparative politics and international relations.

The sixteenth edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play has a triple ambition. First, it provides easily accessible information to a wide audience about recent developments in both EU and domestic social policymaking. Second, the volume provides a more analytical reading, embedding the key developments of the year 2014 in the most recent academic discourses. Third, the forward-looking perspective of the book aims to provide stakeholders and policymakers with specific tools that allow them to discern new opportunities to influence policymaking. In this 2015 edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play, the authors tackle the topics of the state of EU politics after the parliamentary elections, the socialisation of the European Semester, methods of political protest, the Juncker investment plan, the EU’s contradictory education investment, the EU’s contested influence on national healthcare reforms, and the neoliberal Trojan Horse of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Europe is undergoing a fundamental shift in its economic, political and social structures and this forms the context for significant changes in social and other public policies. The two sets of changes are obviously related - but how? Are European social policies simply responding to these economic and political changes in similar ways, or is the picture still one of difference and diversity between policies and policy systems throughout Europe?Developments in European social policy describes and analyses some of these changes and discusses the patterns of both convergence and divergence in the late 1990s. It provides an invaluable and topical review of trends in European social policy development and is intended for students on social policy, public policy and other social science courses as well as academics in the field.

Gender equality has been one of the defining projects of European welfarestates. It has proven an elusive goal, not just because of political opposition but also due to a lack of clarity in how to best frame equality and take account of family-related considerations. This wide-ranging book assembles the most pertinent literature and evidence to provide a critical understanding of how contemporary state policies engage with gender inequalities.

During the last two decades the study of European foreign policy has experienced remarkable growth, presumably reflecting a more significant international role of the European Union. The Union has significantly expanded its policy portfolio and though empty symbolic politics still exists, the Union’s international relations have become more substantial and its foreign policy more focused. European foreign policy has become a dynamic policy area, being adapted to changing challenges and environments, such as the Arab Spring, new emerging economies/powers; the crisis of multilateralism and much more. The SAGE Handbook of European Foreign Policy, Two-Volume set, is a major reference work for Foreign Policy Programmes around the world. The Handbook is designed to be accessible to graduate and postgraduate students in a wide variety of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. Both volumes are structured to address areas of critical concern to scholars at the cutting edge of all major dimensions of foreign policy. The volumes are composed of original chapters written specifically to the following themes: · Research traditions and historical experience · Theoretical perspectives · EU actors · State actors · Societal actors · The politics of European foreign policy · Bilateral relations · Relations with multilateral institutions · Individual policies · Transnational challenges The Handbook will be an essential reference for both advanced students and scholars.