Review: The Foreign Policies of European Union Member States
| Published date | 01 September 2001 |
| Author | Rutha Astravas |
| Date | 01 September 2001 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200105600322 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
of
a
problem
than
might
have
been
feared,
since
not
a
great
deal
of
advance
on
the
international
financial
architecture
front
has
occurred
since
Cologne. Formidable
issues,
particularly
in
relation
to
the
role
that might
be
expected
of
foreign
private
creditors
in
crisis
resolution
(the
'bail
in'
issue),
clearly
remain.
And
equally
clearly,
contagious
financial
crises
(vide
Argentina)
are
still
with
us.
Finally,
on
a
presentational note, much
of
the
book
is
quite
readable,
but
overall
it
is
less
digestible
than
it
ought
to
be.
Admittedly,
it
main-
ly
appeals
to
an
academic audience,
but
that
does
not
excuse
excesses
of
scholastic
ponderousness
or
obfuscation.
In
this
vein,
the
editors
assure
us
that
their book
'challenges
core
elements
of
the
epistemic
consensus
underlying
this
effort
[to
construct
a
new,
strengthened
international
financial
system]
by
subjecting
the
premises
and
principles
of
the
emerging
edifice
to
a
hard
analysis
of
their
economic
logic,
market
impact, and
political
feasibility'
(p
5).
Then
again,
one
finds
the state-
ment
from
one
of
the
essayists
-
a
Canadian,
unfortunately
-
that
'glob-
al
modernity
leads
to the
social
and
cultural
aspects
of
the
process
of
the
lived experience
of
the
complex
connectivity
of
global
modernity'
(p
205).
This
reader
is
still
puzzling
over
what
might
be
meant
here.
John
Crow/Toronto
THE
FOREIGN
POLICIES
OF
EUROPEAN
UNION
MEMBER
STATES
Edited
by
Ian
Manners
and
Richard
G.
Whitman
Manchester and
New
York:
Manchester
University
Press,
2000,
xi,
28 4
pp,
US$74.95
cloth
(ISBN
0-7190-5778-7),
uS$24.95
paper
(ISBN
0-7190-5779-5).
T
he collection
of
diverse
actors,
multiplicity
of
processes,
and
fuzzi-
ness
of
lines
between
foreign
and
domestic
policies
gives
even
the
most
hardened
observer
a
headache.
This
collection
is,
if
not
an
aspirin,
then
a
coherent,
comprehensive,
and
well-organized
guide
to
the
developments
and
intricacies
of
the
foreign
policies
of
the
members
of
European Union
(EU),
which
complicate the
evolution
of
a
Common
Foreign
and
Security
Policy
(CFSP).
EU
membership
acts
both
as
a
constraint
and
as
an
opportunity
in
policy
formulation
in
post-cold
war
Europe.
This
work
is
an
impressive
journey
through
the
historical
and
polit-
ical
factors
that
shape
the
foreign
policies
of
EU
members.
It
analyses
548
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL Summer2001
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