The European Union and the Baltic States: Changing forms of governance / Edition 1

by Bengt Jacobsson

Overview

This book explores how the Baltic States have adapted to, and been embedded in, a wider European environment and how they have become modern European states. It focuses on changes in the policies, politics and administrative practices that have taken place after 1991 in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and on the influence of rules and ideas in the European Union. The authors investigate the meeting between national traditions, rule-making and practices – on the one hand; and traditions, rule-making and practices connected to the European Union – on the other. Drawing on organization theory, and the image of states as complex and fragmented organizations, this book discusses:

• The forms of governance that are directed towards states, differentiating between regulative, inquisitive and meditative activities.
• The logic of appropriateness and the scriptedness of states. To what extent do the states have to follow the rules, and to what extent are they able to do what they want themselves?
• Adaptation processes in the state organizations.

This book examines how European integration prompts and accelerates new forms of governance in Europe; it will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, the European Union and the Baltic states.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415482769
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/13/2009
Series:	Europe and the Nation State , #12
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Bengt Jacobsson is Professor in Management and Organization Theory at Södertörn University, Sweden. He has published extensively on the relation between changing forms of regulation in Europe and transformations in the nation states, including Europeanization and Transnational States: Comparing Nordic Central Governments (also published by Routledge).

Table of Contents

1. Scripted States and Changes in Governance 2. Europeanization and Organization Theory 3. Rituals of Inquisition. European Commission Monitoring of Accession Processes 4. Governance Through Meditation. EU Twinning in Lithuania 5. Opening up for Change: Modernizing Public Administration in the Baltic States 6. Europeanization of Labor Market Policy-Making in the Baltic States 7. The Choice of Parliamentary EU Scrutiny Mechanisms in the New Member States 8. Scripted Parties: The Case of Estonian Social Democracy 9. Soft Powers (in a Community of the Willing)

Editorial Reviews

"The excellent insights on the micro-processes of accession are relevant to anyone interested in how states respond to EU pressures and adapt to the role of being members. The book advances understanding of European democracies that are relevant for the UK despite being small." - Allan Sikk, LSE Review of Books, May 2012

From the Publisher