The national politics of EU enlargement in the Western Balkans

Abstract

European enlargement has often been viewed from an institutional perspective. The academic literature in the field has tended to focus primarily on how the Commission or the Council has addressed the issue of EU expansion. Relatively little attention has been paid to the role of individual member states. This article considers the way in which domestic political concerns and national politics affects the way in which EU members approach enlargement to the Western Balkans. It does this by examining studies conducted on seven countries: Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Hungary, Greece and Cyprus. It shows that there are in fact a wide variety of factors that shape individual member state attitudes towards enlargement. These factors include economic and commercial goals, ties to the region and to individual accession states, concerns over immigration, general foreign policy priorities and national ideological approaches towards the future shape and orientation of the European Union.     

Systems analysis and welfare reform: A case study of the family assistance plan

This paper discusses the impact that systems analysis has had on the welfare reform legislation of the last four years. After a general discussion of welfare reform's objectives and constraints, and their particular application to the family assistance proposal, the state of the art of systems analysis as related to welfare problems is described. The successes and failures of the cost-effectiveness approach in developing and modifying the proposal are outlined in analyses of major issues, including the proposal's impact on state welfare programs, work incentives, the integration of cash assistance with assistance in kind, and alternatives for welfare administration.Presented at the 41st Meeting of the Operations Research Society of America on April 27, 1972.The author participated in the development of the family assistance legislation while an employee of the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (Office of the Secretary).The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the members of the Joint Economic Committee.