Youth culture and European integration in Germany: back to European basics?

Using data of a representative survey among young people in Germany, the present article detects significant shifts in attitudes towards European integration over a relatively short time-span. Surveying these changing attitudes, the article explores the idea that these changing attitudes could signal more than mere short-term reactions to singular political events, but rather point to a reorientation towards the initial conceptualization of European integration as a peace project. Gudrun Quenzel is Lecturer at the Institute for Sociology at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Mathias Albert is Professor of Political Science at Bielefeld University.     

How European integration is perceived in Asia

From modern Asian academicians point of view European integration is multidisciplinary phenomenon. It is considered as such simply because those educators view the phenomenon from various perspectives e.g. trade and business, economics, security, law, politics, social and other relevant issues. Even though focal points of interest among Asian educators are diverse in nature but they can, perhaps, be categorised into following groups: The first group pertains to economics interest, particularly for those who wish to explain and analyze the effect of economic integration within and outside the EU. Equally interested are those who are active in the subject of world economy such as global trade and commerce. They view the EU as world economic major player similar to USA, Japan and newly emerging economy such as China–more or less as competitors between each other. The second group has a political motivation and views the EU as the most successful modern political integration. Particularly those academicians who wish to learn from the process of political integration, e.g. regionalism and enlargement of the EU. Pertaining to this group are international relations people, who, in some cases, shifted their focus to the EU as a result of the initiatives of the institutions of the European Union itself. They are also interested in the true understanding and relations among the EUs member and non-member countries. Other international relations concern such as the extent to which security and defense are becoming issues in the EU falls within this group as well. The last and perhaps the largest group views the EU social order through the method of comparative analysis among civilized societies. Comparative studies of the EU social structure and its development with other societies may bring solutions to various social problems. This group hopes to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the societal aspect of integration and hope that experiences gained through comparative analyses such as comparative law, comparative government and its welfare system, political economy of regional integration, the true effect of the acquis communautaire, etc. would contribute to new knowledge.     

Muslims' support for European integration: the role of organizational capacities

What explains Islamic organizations' differing support for European integration and the democratic reforms that it entails? The question is highly relevant in the context of European Union (EU) enlargement towards Muslim-majority countries in the Balkans as well as theoretical debates on reasons and forms of Islamic moderation. Yet, almost no comparative research has been done on Balkan Muslims' support for European integration with the exception of the Turkish case. This article explores the role of interest- and belief-related factors in explaining Muslim organizations' differential support for the EU accession project in Albania and Turkey. The comparison of the most powerful Muslim organizations in both countries enables a most similar cases research design – our cases are similar in all aspects of the identified theoretical framework except for organizational capacities, which we argue explain the difference of attitudes towards the EU.     

The European Union,regional integration,and conflict transformation in the South China Sea territorial disputes

Asia Europe Journal - This study assumes that the EU can contribute to a constructive transformation of regional conflicts in the South China Sea. To prove this assumption, the author investigates...     

The Cold War and European integration, 1947-63

The author discusses the impact the Cold War had on European Integration and, in particular, on the American efforts in support of that initiative. He shows that the perceived Communist threat was an important but not the only motivating force behind America's endorsement of a unified Europe. The other motif he singles out independently of, although not unrelated to, the Cold War was the American aim to contain a renascent Germany. It was this purpose, he maintains, that determined the American long-term option for a supranational structure for an integrated Europe after the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany.     

Lessons of the European crisis for regional monetary and financial integration in East Asia

The debt crisis in several member states of the euro area has raised doubts on the viability of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the future of the euro. While the launch of the euro in 1999 stirred a lot of interests in regional monetary integration and even monetary unification in various parts of the world, including East Asia, the current crisis has had the opposite effect, even raising expectations of a break-up of the euro area. Indeed, the crisis has highlighted the problems and tensions that will inevitably arise within a monetary union when imbalances build up and become unsustainable. This article discusses the causes of the current European crisis and the challenges that EMU countries face in solving it. Based on this analysis, it derives five lessons for regional financial and monetary cooperation and integration in East Asia.     

European experience for East Asian integration: ideas, national interests, and the international circumstance

This paper traces the possibility of East Asian integration through comparison with the early stage of European integration on three different levels: ideas, national interests, and international circumstance. Judging from the European experience, ideas always come first, then national interest contests, and eventually the international circumstance conditions the context. I compare the multilateral approach in Europe with the imperial hegemony competition in East Asia, Adenauer’s regionalization policy in Europe with the Yoshida line of Westernization detouring from Asia, and the US and Russia’s different roles in the two regions as external forces constraining the international order. My conclusion for the future of East Asia is located somewhere between views of procedural divergence and fundamental skepticism. I worry about integration for the sake of integration in which regional integration is presupposed as inherently good. Such discourse will easily be deteriorated and such a blind community simply collapses when circumstances change. For these reasons, there needs to be an adequate discussion regarding for what, by whom, and through which method integration is achieved.     

European Union and the fight against terrorism: a differentiated integration theory perspective

Asia Europe Journal - Although many EU member states experienced large scale terrorist attacks and both national and EU policymakers have repeatedly acknowledged the need to tackle the apparent...