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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2013

        The lives of Thomas Becket

        by Michael Staunton

        This collection tells the story of Thomas Becket's turbulent life, violent death and extraordinary posthumous acclaim in the words of his contemporaries. The only modern collection from the twelfth-century Lives of Thomas Becket in English and features all his major biographers, including many previously untranslated extracts. Providing both a valuable glimpse of the late twelfth-century world, and an insight into the minds of those who witnessed the events. By using contemporary sources, this book is the most accessible way to study this central episode in medieval history. Thomas Becket features prominently in most medieval core courses. This book allows the subject to be taught as never before, and is highly suitable as a set text.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2010

        Committee governance in the European Union

        by Thomas Christiansen, Emil Kirchner, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen

        Committees are a pervasive presence in the EU policy process yet little is known about the way in which they operate. This volume, newly available in paperback, brings together an international group of experts from a number of disciplinary backgrounds to provide a comprehensive account of the role played by committees in the European Union. The book looks at committees in the context of inter-institutional relations, a focus based on the recognition that the relationships between Commission, Council, Parliament and national authorities - rather than the institutions themselves - are crucial to the understanding of European policy-making. Much of that interaction is regularised in various kinds of committees and the book provides an in-depth analysis of the nature and the effects of 'committee governance' in the EU system. A number of case studies (monetary, policy, trade, environment, spatial planning and foreign policy) examine the role of committees in specific areas. These are framed by broader perspectives which provide theoretical, statistical and normative analyses of the phenomenon of committee governance. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2012

        The European Union and industrial relations

        New procedures, new context

        by Emil Kirchner, Stijn Smismans, Thomas Christiansen

        This is the first book to provide a clear overview and innovative analysis of the multiple ways the European Union affects industrial relations. It frames the EU as the provider of both a new institutional framework and policy context for industrial relations. It first examines the European level institutional framework for industrial relations, namely the European social dialogue at cross-sectoral, sectoral and company level, as well as interactions between these and transnational developments. It then focuses on the EU's role as a driver for institutional change in industrial relations at the national level, and subsequently analyses how the EU's policy framework, such as the common market freedoms, economic governance and Agenda 2020, influences industrial relations. The book will be of great interest particularly to all those involved in industrial relations and EU studies and more generally to anyone interested in the EU's debated and contested role in socio-economic governance in the face of an economic crisis that puts into question existing national and transnational governance structures. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2008

        The politics of EU accession

        Ideology, party strategy and the European question in Hungary

        by Agnes Batory, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen

        How do parties adopt and change positions on the European question? How do they balance the demands placed upon them by ideology, voters and participation in coalition government? What are the sources of Euroscepticism, and how widespread is it among the parties and the public? This book addresses these questions by examining the politics of Hungary's accession to the European Union, from the early 1990s to 2004. The book provides a conceptually grounded yet accessible analysis of the way questions related to EU membership, and European integration in general, are channelled into political life. Starting with a comparative exploration of the impact of European integration on party politics in Western and Eastern Europe, the book goes on to review the Hungarian political parties' history, ideological profiles, electoral competition and coalition-building in government and opposition, as well as the dynamics of public opinion. It will be of interest to academics concerned with the contestation of European integration in EU member states, and specifically with party politics in Central and Eastern European. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2006

        Germany, pacifism and peace enforcement

        by Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen

        Germany, pacifism and peace enforcement is about the transformation of Germany's security and defence policy in the time between the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 war against Iraq. The book traces and explains the reaction of Europe's biggest and potentially most powerful country to the ethnic wars of the 1990s, the emergence of large-scale terrorism, and the new US emphasis on pre-emptive strikes. Based on an analysis of Germany's strategic culture it portrays Germany as a security actor and indicates the conditions and limits of the new German willingness to participate in international military crisis management that developed over the 1990s. It debates the implications of Germany's transformation for Germany's partners and neighbours and explains why Germany said 'yes' to the war in Afghanistan, but 'no' to the Iraq War. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2010

        Globalisation, Integration and the Future of European Welfare States

        by Theodora-Ismene Gizelis, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen

        This book argues that the welfare state cannot be understood purely as a set of social policy arrangements, but must be seen as a political institution, intended to achieve certain political objectives. The political dimension of the welfare state is essential for understanding its initial emergence as well as assessing its ability to deal with contemporary challenges. Governments use welfare transfers to decrease the risk of political instability that may be politically disruptive and threaten to undermine social cohesion. The success of welfare institutions stems from their ability to foster a redistribution of resources and political consensus that has enabled long-term political stability and economic development. The book develops a general model that looks at the interactive effects between welfare transfers, political instability and state capacity. It provides a unique theoretical contribution to the study of welfare spending in the context of globalisation and integration, analyses the key politial rationale for welfare programmes, namely their role in preserving social cohesion and governance and demonstrates clearly that welfare policies can be successfully adopted to meet new challenges and that retrenchment of the welfare state is not inevitable, using Scandinavia as a leading example of modern thinking policies. ;

      • Trusted Partner
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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2013

        The transatlantic divide

        Foreign and security policies in the Atlantic Alliance from Kosovo to Iraq

        by Osvaldo Croci, Emil Kirchner, Amy Verdun, Thomas Christiansen

        This books, available in paperback for the first time, examines the period between the military intervention against Serbia by NATO and the one in Iraq by the US. It has been a particularly turbulent one for transatlantic security relations. Is the malaise currently affecting the Transatlantic Alliance more serious than ever before and if so why? Will differences in the assessment of how to provide order and stability in the international system as well as in the evaluation of threats and how to respond to them mark the end of the Transatlantic Alliance? Or will the US, NATO, the EU, and EU member states work together, using different instruments and accepting a degree of division of labour, to pacify, stabilise and rebuild troublesome areas as they have done in South-Eastern Europe? This book, with contributions from leading American, Canadian and European scholars, analyses the reasons behind the latest crisis of the Transatlantic Alliance and dissects its manifestations. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2013

        The EU and its neighbours

        Values versus security in European foreign policy

        by Gergana Noutcheva, Emil Kirchner, Karolina Pomorska, Thomas Christiansen, Giselle Bosse

        Is there a tension between the normative fundamentals and strategic objectives of European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)? Is 'values versus security' an unavoidable choice to be made by the EU and its neighbours or, rather, a false dichotomy? The book argues that what is often considered a fundamental dilemma of EU foreign policy - a choice between the EU's values and its quest for security - misrepresents a much more complex reality in which values and security interplay to shape the EU's external positions. The book proposes an original conceptual framework for examining the complex interaction between values and security and situates the ENP in the broader conceptual debate about European Foreign Policy. In this way, it goes beyond the early scholarship on ENP, mainly inspired by the EU enlargement literature. The book examines the EU's evolving relations with its immediate neighbours in areas such as democracy promotion, Common Foreign and Security Policy, conflict management and resolution and soft security issues such as energy or immigration policy. By covering the whole range of EU external relations policies, the contributions to the volume provide a very unique opportunity to compare the complex interplay between values and security and its impacts across the wide policy spectrum of ENP. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        November 2012

        The activation of citizenship in Europe

        by Thomas Pfister, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen

        This instructive study examines how a transnational discourse on 'modern' social policy - based the guiding principles of 'activation' and an 'activating welfare state' - intervenes in the concepts and practices of citizenship. What are the consequences of this reorientation for citizenship? How does it relate to patterns of exclusion and inequality inherent in each historical citizenship formation? What exactly is the EU's role in this context? The detailed qualitative study focuses on the European Employment Strategy - and in particular its gender equality dimension - as a central process where the activation agenda is constructed and equipped with meanings. It traces how this discourse is received and translated into practices of citizenship in three EU member states - Germany, the UK, and Hungary. The activation of citizenship in Europe will be principally of interest to academics and practitioners in the fields of European integration, social policy, and citizenship. ;

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2011

        The Europeanisation of the Western Balkans

        EU justice and home affairs in Croatia and Macedonia

        by Florian Trauner, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen

        This book deals with the scope and nature of the EU's external influence over South-Eastern Europe in the present enlargement. By elaborating on the Europeanisation of the Western Balkans in a systematic, theory-oriented and comparative way, the book provides rich insight into the dynamics of the current enlargement and offers a comprehensive analysis of the EU's avenues of external leverage in the field of justice and home affairs, a key sector of cooperation in the EU-Western Balkans relations. The book is an important contribution towards a better understanding of how the EU's use of pre-accession conditionality has changed since the Eastern enlargement. It will be of interest to decision-makers, officials and academics concerned with adaptation and transformation processes in South-Eastern Europe and the possibilities and limitations of the EU's influence in the outside world. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2006

        Democratic citizenship and the European Union

        by Albert Weale, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen

        This book analyses the political legitimacy of the European Union, taking democratic citizenship seriously. Developing a distinctive normative theory of political association, it evaluates the project of European integration in terms of democratic values. It argues that the goods of democratic citizenship have been advanced by European integration in many respects, including environmental policy. In other respects, including social policy, democratic citizenship is best advanced by keeping primary political authority at the level of the nation-state. Weale develops these arguments through an original interplay of political science and political theory. The contents combine original normative political theory, drawing on the concept of practical reason, with applications to the fields of social policy, environmental policy, security policy and enlargement. The book is primarily an original work of political theory, but it will be of interest to all those concerned about the future of the European Union. It is written in a style that makes it accessible to students on advanced courses as well as specialists. ;

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2011

        Democratic Participation and Civil Society in the European Union

        by Dawid Friedrich, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen

        Can the participation of civil society organisations democratise policy making in the European Union? This book challenges the widespread optimism about civil society participation in European governance and offers a nuanced and realistic evaluation of its democratic potential. Friedrich argues that the participation of these groups is only of democratic value if participatory patterns are democratised through appropriate institutional means. This book systematically brings together insights from normative democratic theory with an empirical evaluation of concrete policy-processes. It demonstrates that the participation of civil society organisation cannot be conceived as a panacea for the European Union's democratic deficit, because the participatory pattern of EU policy-making violates the key democratic value of political equality. This book will be of interest to all of those concerned about the future of European democracy, those studying and teaching European politics, the European Union, international relations and democratic theory. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2005

        Constructing the path to eastern enlargement

        The uneven policy impact of EU identity

        by Ulrich Sedelmeier, Emil Kirchner, Thomas Christiansen

        This book examines the two main dimensions of the European Union's enlargement to eight central and eastern European countries (CEECs) in 2004. Why did the EU agree to enlargement, despite the costs for some incumbents who have veto-power? How can we explain the (uneven) pattern of accommodation of the CEECs' preferences in concrete policies? Combining in-depth empirical analysis with an original theoretical framework, which draws on insights from constructivism and historical institutionalism, this book focuses on the EU's discursively constructed role-identity vis-à-vis the CEECs. This role-identity forged a group of policy advocates inside the European Commission, who promoted the CEECs' preferences inside the EU, and induced a path-dependence into the enlargement process. The impact of EU identity on concrete policies was less direct. Case studies on trade liberalisation, regulatory alignment, and foreign policy consultations demonstrate that sectoral policy paradigms are a key factor that mediates the influence of the policy advocates on specific policy areas. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Plays, playscripts
        November 2016

        The Tragedy of Antigone, The Theban Princesse

        by Thomas May

        by Edited by Matteo Pangallo. Series edited by Paul Dean

        Thomas May's The Tragedy of Antigone (1631), edited by Matteo Pangallo, is the first English treatment of the story made famous by Sophocles. This edition contains a facsimile of the copy held at the Beinecke Library of Yale University, making the play commercially available for the first time since its original publication. The extensive introduction discusses, among other things, the ownership history of existing copies and their marginal annotations, and of the play's topical political implications in the light of May's wavering between royalist and republican sympathies. Writing during the contentious early years of Charles I's reign, May used Sophocles' Antigone to explore the problems of just rule and justified rebellion. He also went beyond the scope of the original, adding content from a wide range of other classical and contemporary plays, poems and other sources, including Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. This volume will be essential reading for advanced students, researchers and teachers of early English drama and seventeenth-century political history.

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