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With the advancement of the eastern enlargement of the EU in the early 2000s, some experts and advocates of the European social model began labeling enlargement as the “Trojan horse” against Europeanization, for the Americanization of Europe. According to them the idea of the European social model would be seriously challenged after enlargement because the candidate countries from the formerly communist region had developed more liberal regimes in the course of their post-communist transformation, and were practicing a rather different brand of social partnership. Based on such concerns, the EU decided to include special requirements and recommendations for the strengthening of the forms of negotiations among the social partners in candidate countries. This paper reveals four major venues for change of the existing tripartite institutions in accession countries: (1) emphasis on a new philosophy of social dialogue as social governance rather than a more narrow “social peace” and interest intermediation mechanism; (2) broadening the scope of participants in social dialogue, development of social dialogue beyond the existing tripartite structures, as a broader civic engagement; (3) development of autonomous and multi-level social dialogue among the organizations of employees and employers, without the participation of the state, and especially in regard to the lower sectoral and regional levels; and (4) development of the capacity of the social partners to participate in social dialogue at the European level. The concluding section of the paper critically evaluates the development of social dialogue in the new EU member states, and addresses the issue about the extent to which their “revised” structures of social dialogue are able to contribute towards the sustainability of the European social model in an era of increased neo-liberal pressures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why have some of the newest members of the European Union consolidated their democratic transitions while others have lagged behind? This paper tests the hypothesis that the difference in democratic consolidation between Central and Eastern European countries could be attributable to factors associated with membership in international governmental organizations. Three countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, have consolidated their democratic political systems while three others, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, have not. This paper utilizes aggregate data to compare the differences in political outcomes in Central and Eastern Europe and measure the effect of the assistance provided by the European Union upon these political outcomes. This process of norm diffusion suggests ideational factors should be taken into account for democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most neglected topics in the general studies of the European Integration is how the statehood of the member states is implicated in the whole process of the integration. The existing approaches in the literature on the European Integration hardly provide analytical tools that would enable us to track continuities and changes in statehood in the context of the European Integration. In my discussion, I will bring spatial analysis with the debates on state sovereignty. I will argue that the spatial nature of statehood or state territoriality has two different components, external and internal, underlying two different types of statehood, juridical or legal and empirical or sociological. In Europe, the external component of state territoriality underlying the juridical dimension of statehood is eroding; the states are giving up their 'exclusive rights' to have ultimate authority within a given territorial jurisdiction in an increasing number of policy areas. However, the internal component of state territoriality underlying the empirical or sociological dimension of statehood is still strong; the states still hold remarkable administrative, extractive and coercive capacities. My thesis is that the spatial nature of the statehood in Europe is changing, and we have increasingly "quasi-states" in Europe, which are strong in internal territoriality and empirical statehood, but weak in external territoriality and juridical statehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parliamentarization and the institutionalization of human rights are two processes of constitutionalization in the EU that constitute a puzzle for explanations inspired by both rationalist and constructivist institutionalism. We propose to analyze these processes as strategic action in a community environment: Community actors use the liberal democratic identity, values and norms that constitute the EU's ethos strategically to put social and moral pressure on those community members that oppose the constitutionalization of the EU. Theoretically, this process will be most effective under conditions of high salience, legitimacy, publicity and resonance. In a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of the EU's constitutional decisions from 1951 to 2004, we show salience to be the by far most relevant condition of constitutionalization in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Rhetorical action" is one of the most promising explanations of the EU expansion to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It claims that even though the immediate economic gains for existing member states from expansion to CEE are negligible, the CEE states were able to draw on prior rhetorical commitments within EU to equal and fair consideration of all applications for membership to exert moral and symbolic pressure and to obtain the more tangible benefits of EU membership. Thus, this explanation begins to engage with the question of the different kinds of power - material, symbolic - that can be brought to bear in international negotiations between states (and international organizations). In this paper, I discuss the interplay between material and symbolic forms of power within the logic of honour to sharpen these analytical distinctions in order to account for the paradoxes, tensions and possibilities contained in relations between states who have to maintain the important presumption that they are (formally) equal entities while remaining constrained by asymmetrical distributions of material power (economic, military, political). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The factors contributing to the success or failure of transitional societies in Central and Eastern European countries acceding to the European Union (EU) are many. This article aims to analyse only one important aspect underlying the outcome of this transition â€" the transformation of the mass medias. It will first briefly illustrate how the medias in Central and Eastern European countries acceding to the EU have been transformed during the process of joining the EU (i.e. how did the determination to "transform" and join western liberal organisations such as the EU affect the medias). The hypothesis is that the transformation of medias in this region was primarily influenced by complex liberal conditionalities imposed by the two main organisations which these countries have sought to join since the fall of their authoritarian regimes: the Council of Europe's conditionality, and the political criterion of the so called "Copenhagen criteria". Finally, the article highlights some assumptions about the future of the medias in the enlarged EU of 27 Member States. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]