Small States in Europe: Challenges and Opportunities

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Routledge, 2016 M04 1 - 248 pages
The effects of recent institutional change within the European Union on small states have often been overlooked. This book offers an accessible, coherent and informative analysis of contemporary and future foreign policy challenges facing small states in Europe. Leading experts analyze the experiences of a number of small states including the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Iceland, Austria and Switzerland. Each account, written to a common template, explores the challenges and opportunities faced by each state as a consequence of EU integration, and how their behaviour regarding EU integration has been characterized. In particular, the contributors emphasize the importance of power politics, institutional dynamics and lessons of the past. Innovative and sophisticated, the study draws on the relational understanding of small states to emphasize the implications of institutional change at the European level for the smaller states and to explain how the foreign and European policies of small states in the region are affected by the European Union.
 

Contents

Part II The Challenges and Opportunities of Small European States
63
Part III The Experience of Small States with the European Union
115
Part IV Conclusion
215

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About the author (2016)

Robert Steinmetz, is a Press Secretary, Personal Assistant to the Minister, General Secretariat, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Luxembourg and Anders Wivel, is an Associate Professor, PhD, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

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