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When the editors of this volume met in Mannheim at the European Consor­ tium of Political Research Local Government Workshop in 1999, they dis­ cussed the possibility of a North-South meeting of minds to discuss some common experiences of local government reform. Further discussions with Harald Baldersheim, Chair of the International Political Science Associa­ tions'Research Sub Committee No. 5 suggested there was room for such a meeting within the ambit of IPSA activities and, indeed, for a subsequent publication to form part of aseries of local government studies. With the financial and logistical assistance of the New South Wales Lo­ cal Government and Shires Association based in Sydney Australia, a confer­ ence entitled'Local Government at the Millennium'was organised. The editors would like to thank the NSWLGSA for their assistance in bringing together the conference speakers some of whom are contributors to this vol­ urne. In addition, we each have to ray our own debt of thanks to specific in­ stitutions which provided support with financial assistance or making avail­ able a conducive work environment to bring this collection of papers together as a book. These are the University of New South Wales, the University of Glamorgan, and the University of Troms0. The editors would especially like to thank the Norwegian Ministry of Municipal and Regional Affairs, repre­ sented by Mrs. Christine Hjortland, for financial support for editorial meet­ ings, and Mr. Murray Kidnie, Secretary of the NSWLGSA for his early commitment to the project.

The contributions to this volume are based on papers read at an international confer­ ence held in Hamburg in May 1978. Some of them are reprinted in their original form, others have been slightly modified in order to incorporate more recent findings. Since the overall concern is Middle Eastern development the various contributions deal with a wide range of problems. Studies on the Middle East are more often than not one-sided because of the pre­ dominating interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the economic factors relating to the supply of oil. At the Hamburg Conference, however, the participants concentrated main­ lyon examining such aspects of the situation as are far too often relegated to the side­ lines. In order to illustrate what those neglected topics are one should refer to two major examples: 1) the religio-cultural identity of Arabs and Israelis, 2) the tackling of political issues in Arab and Israeli literature.

Ziel des Buches ist es, einen Überblick über die wesentlichen Entwicklungslinien der Innovationsforschung zu geben und einen Eindruck davon zu vermitteln, wie heute über Innovation nachgedacht wird.

Werner Weidenfeld Since the signing of the Treaties of Rome in 1957, Western European history has been an ongoing process integrating and enlarging European institutions. Over the course of that time, the institutions now known as the European Union have become a major pillar for the security and stability for Europe as a whole. These essential functions can only be perpetuated if the Union can project its capacities and capabilities beyond its current borders. Today's European agenda is defined by integration. Offering prospects for membership in the EU has been a successful instrument for helping shape the transition in East Central Europe. The imminent first round of enlargement also calls for a deep­ ening of EU integration, which should be resolved through the EU Convention. While the European Union is preparing for ten new member states, developments in Europe are far from standing still. The countries beyond the EU's future borders in Eastern Europe and the Balkans are undertaking a threefold process of national con­ solidation, transition to a market economy and strengthening parliamentary democ­ racy. These processes entail risks that range from authoritarian regimes to armed es­ calation in Southeastern Europe. These risks have a direct impact on European secu­ rity and stability. At the same time, some areas of internal transition are making seri­ ous strides toward Western standards. For this reason, simply reducing Eastern and Southeastern Europe to a set of risks threatens to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In October 1999, some fifteen academic experts and government practitio­ ners from Germany and North America gathered for two days at the Uni ver­ sity of Augsburg to discuss the topic of'Constitutional Reform and Consti­ tutional Jurisprudence in Canada and the United States.'The present volume documents the results of that conference, a collaborative effort of the De­ partment of Political Science, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and the Institute for Canadian Studies, University of Augsburg. In organizing this workshop, we were guided by two basic sets of ideas and assumptions: First, all'established'democracies are regularly confron­ ted with the need to adjust their constitutional order to changes in their envi­ ronment lest democratic stability be transformed into rigidity; in many wes­ tern nations, including Canada and the United States, developments such as the crisis of the Keynesian welfare-state or the emergence of increasingly heterogeneous, postmodern societies have ushered in an era of heightened, yet not always successful constitutional reform activity. Secondly, however, there is no unique path towards, or model of, an'optimal'constitutional order, however defined; rather, constitutional reform processes, their under­ Iying normative principles and their outcomes are strongly path and context­ dependent. Therefore, the participants of the workshop and authors of this volume were asked to examine the specific preconditions, context, nature and impact of recent constitutional reform processes in the Uni ted States and Canada.

Few developments in the recent history of Central Europe have been more momentous than the emergence, or more precisely the re-emergence, of civil society, of organized citizen activity outside the boundaries of the state and the market. Indeed, the re-emergence of civil society was the key to all the other momentous developments that have characterized the extraordinary past two decades of Central European history - the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet empire, the re-emergence of the market, the appearance of democratic government, and now the re-integration of Europe. More than that, the re-emergence of civil society in Central Europe has revolutionized the position of civil society on the world stage more generally, boosting its visibility, enhancing its credibility, and transforming its repu­ tation from that of ineffectual supplicant to powerful instrument of social, economic, and political change. Despite its achievements, however, the Central European civil society sector remains, at least in its Visegnid segments, a fragile organism, under­ capitalized, under-staffed, and still not fully integrated into the prevailing political and economic order. It is as if these countries have not yet decided how to reconcile their new civil society institutions with their recent history of extensive state provision of social welfare services, not to mention their earlier rich histories of civil society organization and voluntary action. Indeed, this earlier history has been largely lost from view.

Hubert Heinelt This book is the result of a conference on'Democratic and Participatory Govemance: From Citizens to'Holders'?'held in Florence in September 2000. The conference which had been organised by Bemard Gbikpi, JUrgen Grote and Philippe Schmitter was part of the project'Achieving Sustainable and Innovative Policies through Participatory Govemance in a Multi-Level Context'funded by the European Commission under the 5th Framework Programme on Research and Development. The project's empirical focus is on specific policy areas - water supply and EMAS (i.e. the EU environmental management and audit scheme) - and takes account of different territariallevels of govemment. The objective is to analyze old and new forms of govemance to identify those being conducive to innovative and sustainable policies which, themselves, are based on the core values of dialogue, negotiation, active citizenship, partnership and subsidiarity. This also implies identifying the conditions that support the creation and maintenance of these forms of govemance. And last but not least, the project also aims at looking out for opportunities of EU intervention to promote these conditions in a way such that participatory forms of govemance can be achieved.

This book is the first volume of aseries that aims at taking stock of the status of local democracy at the beginning of a new century. Modern local govern­ th me nt is largely a 19 century invention in response to processes of urbanisa­ tion and industrialisation. It became charged with the mundane tasks of pav­ ing and lighting streets, collecting refuse and providing clean water and sanitary sewerage, sometimes also acquiring a role in education and health. Anyone who has experienced a breakdown in such services knows how es­ sential they are to civilised life in urban society. Urban civilisation could simply not exist without working municipalities. The importance of munici­ pal functions ensures that the control over the municipality becomes a vital political issue. In most countries, democratisation of local government pre­ ceded and was an important step towards a fuH national democracy. Munici­ palities offered potential for the realisation of democratic citizenship at a comprehensible level of government and also became training grounds for participation in democracy on a larger scale. As institutions of the industrial era, local governments may not necessarily be able to respond adequately to the needs and aspirations of citizens of a post-industrial and global age. There are signs that citizens in a number of countries are loosing patience with local government. However, many municipalities also seek to open up new chan­ nels of participation for and communication with citizens.

The initiative and leadership for this edited volume came from the European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS) based in Brussels. The book discusses various questions related to the different European perspectives on Taiwan, for example, how the European Union has dealt with the unresolved status of the Republic of China on Taiwan, the ways in which Europe has been seen as a model for Taiwan's transformation, and whether the EU model offers any lessons for cross-Strait integration. The authors, well-known specialists drawn from disciplines such as economics, political science, international law, history and cultural studies are equally interested in Taiwan's perspectives on Europe and in the historical relationship between Taiwan and Europe.

1 Research Idea: History and Regional Diversity Post-socialist societies in Europe can be assigned to three'historical regions'(Sziicz 1990) corresponding to their path of historical development. (1) The'East'was shaped by the patrimonial Muscovite state (Pipes 1977) and an estate agriculture with archaic structures at its base (Shanin 1985). The'westernisation'of Russia that began with Peter I exposed the country to western knowledge and education. However, the modernisation of state and society remained limited. The'rationalisation'of the state (Lotman 1997) systematised the administrative structure but did not change the core rules of power, that is to say autocracy and patrimonial bureaucracy. At the same time'modernising'reforms built the state on the basis of feudal eco­ nomic relations. It thus blocked the expansion of both universalistic control and market mechanisms. The commodification of production and of labour th was launched as late as the last third of the 19 century. It was stopped by the socialist revolution. The communist elites made use of western technology and science, as well as the institutional and cultural resources of traditional Russia, in order to stabilise their rule and to industrialise the country. The violent breaks of War Communism and Stalinist mobilisation dismantled the traditional institutions of the state, the nobility, the intelligentsia, and peasant society.

Which theories best fit a study of the relationship between parties at the na­ tional and European level? To date, the theoretical underpinning of works on transnational parties has generally reflected the general debate on European integration. As Haas covered the topic of transnational parties, it follows that 74 neofunctionalism has been drawn upon. This has been complemented by 75 transnationalism and domestic policy approaches. As the talk is of parties, 76 the literature on political parties has been used extensively to conceive of transnational parties as a complementary arena to national parties arenas.?7 78 More recently, the literature on networks has been used, this demonstrating the tendency to treat transnational political parties as an integral part of the ED system in which they are embedded. This move away from International Relations paradigms has also seen comparativists increasing their interest in 79 transnational parties. Again following the general debate on the nature of the 80 ED, new institutionalist approaches have also been used. In this chapter, I shall introduce the main theoretical basis of this study, New Institutionalism, which will be complemented by considerations of the transformation of political parties. Then, a hypothetical concept of'detach­ ment'will be introduced to explain the nature of inter-level party relations in the ED. From this, some hypotheses will be extracted which will be put to test in the later case study. 2. 1.

Parties in Africa are often described as organisationally and programmatically weak. On the other hand, they mobilise substantial numbers of voters at election time. This contradiction provokes an interesting question: How do political parties in Africa relate to the society? How do they mobilise their voters and sympathisers, and which strategies do they employ?Anja Osei analyses how parties in Ghana and Senegal adapt to their local context by employing locally embedded strategies.