Globalizing Europe. Deepening integration, alliance capitalism and structural statecraft

Book abstract:

As the European Union enlarges and becomes economically more integrated, its role in the governance and structuring of globalisation becomes more important. This work examines the involvement of the European Union at the policy and structural levels in the deepening integration that results as trade and transnational production link economic systems across the world, particularly between the European Union and the United States

The book addresses problems such as the speculative and potentially destabilising misallocations of investment in world financial markets and the increasing vulnerabilities and adverse implications which could arise from a flight of US capital from the European Union. It urges the European Union to assume a stronger single European voice in International Monetary Fund policy making. Corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, European welfare states and macroeconomic management are also examined. Whilst much of the focus of these discussions is on Transatlantic relations, the relations between the European Union and Japan are also referred to in the context that when that country comes out of its severe recession the EU will need to increase its co-operation with a key resurgent economy.

Over the course of the book, the authors propose that the promotion of greater trust and goodwill in the EU/US relationship must be a Union objective and the development of a single EU voice in WTO negotiations is essential if the dominance of the US is to be tempered. Preoccupation with the internal problems of enlargement and the increasing complexity of decision making within the EU are seen as serious challenges to development of this outward looking approach to globalisation issues.

The volume will interest scholars students and practitioners in the fields of international economics, international political economy and international business and finance.

Thomas L Brewer is Editor of the Journal of International Business Studies and Professor in the Business Faculty of Georgetown University, Washington DC. USA.

Paul A. Brenton is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Belgium.

Gavin Boyd is an Honorary Professor in the Political Science Department at Rutgers University, Newark New Jersey, USA and Adjunct Professor in the Management Faculty at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.