Short description:

Contributors to this volume outline how societal actors have been closely involved in European integration from the founding of the EU to the Maastricht Treaty. Based on newly accessible sources, the authors discuss the participation of political parties, business groups and civil society organizations in European polity-building and policy-making.

Long description:

Contributors to this volume outline how societal actors have been closely involved in European integration from the founding of the EU to the Maastricht Treaty. Based on newly accessible sources, the authors discuss the participation of political parties, business groups and civil society organizations in European polity-building and policy-making.

'Students across the social sciences and history will be grateful for this volume for it realizes the promise of broad-ranging interdisciplinary research in a unique and compelling way. No volume reveals more insightfully how, in the early decades of European integration, societal groups shaped Europe and Europe shaped societal groups. The result is an original set of excellent chapters that illuminate the dynamics of Europe's multilevel polity.'

Gary Marks, Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

'Contemporary historians are currently making a decisive contribution to the new sociology of the European Union. This tightly organised volume illustrates how an interdisciplinary historical viewpoint can contribute to our understanding of the role of societal actors in the EU, who have influenced policy-making and polity-building as much in its early days as in the post-Maastricht era.'

Adrian Favell, Professor of Sociology, Centre d'études européennes, Sciences Po, Paris, France

'This is a highly innovative book on the historical impact of societal actors on national European policies and the politics of European integration.'

Hartmut Kaelble, Professor of Social History, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany

Table of Contents:

Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements Abbreviations Beyond Governments and Supranational Institutions: Societal Actors in European Integration; W.Kaiser & J-H.Meyer Europeanization of Christian Democracy? Negotiating Organization, Enlargement, Policy and Allegiance in the European People's Party; W.Kaiser Shaping European Development Policy? Socialist Parties as Mediators from the International to the European Level; C.Salm Regulating Markets: Peak Business Associations and the Origins of European Competition Policy; W.Bührer & L.Warlouzet Developing a 'European strategy': Business Groups and Trade Policy-making in the Kennedy Round; L.Coppolaro Preventing Reform: Farm Interest Groups and the Common Agricultural Policy; C.Germond From Development Business to Civil Society? Societal Actors in Development Cooperation; M.Rempe Demanding Democracy in the Workplace: The European Trade Union Confederation and the Struggle to Regulate Multinationals; F.Petrini Establishing a Constitutional Practice: The Role of the European Law Associations; M.Rasmussen Challenging the Atomic Community: The European Environmental Bureau and the Europeanization of Anti-Nuclear Protest; J-H.Meyer Beyond Maastricht: Societal Actors in European Integration since 1992; K.Heard-Lauréote Polity-Building and Policy-Making: Societal Actors in European Integration; W.Kaiser & J-H.Meyer