Endgame in the Balkans

Endgame in the Balkans PDF Author: Elizabeth Pond
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
Can Europe tame the Balkans? This is the question that veteran journalist Elizabeth Pond poses in her timely and absorbing book. With rich detail and penetrating analysis, Pond first sets the scene of the 1990s' wars of Yugoslav succession and the region's yearning to join the European Union zone of peace and prosperity. Exploring the premise that the Balkans should be seen and treated as an integral part of today's Europe, she describes how the lure of EU membership is shaping the Balkans--and how Balkan developments are reshaping the EU. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and decades of experience as a foreign correspondent, Pond moves deftly across the region, painting a vivid picture of the political, economic, and ethnic challenges each Balkan land faces as it seeks to vault from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Bulgaria, Romania, Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, and Montenegro must all carry out painful reforms to qualify for EU membership by establishing democratic institutions, rule of law, and a general tolerance. Pond examines the tension between these demands and traditional mindsets engendered by years of poverty, corruption, and chauvinism. Already, in its brief existence, the European Union has forged a historic reconciliation between France and Germany and helped consolidate democracy in Portugal, Spain, and Greece. In southeastern Europe, it faces one of its most difficult tasks yet. Is the magnetic attraction of EU membership strong enough to pull the Balkans through the agonies of reform to the democratic and market "normality" they long for? Endgame in the Balkans reveals the importance and excruciating difficulty of nation building, state building, and institution building, but also offers grounds for hope in the region.

Endgame in the Balkans

Endgame in the Balkans PDF Author: Elizabeth Pond
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
Can Europe tame the Balkans? This is the question that veteran journalist Elizabeth Pond poses in her timely and absorbing book. With rich detail and penetrating analysis, Pond first sets the scene of the 1990s' wars of Yugoslav succession and the region's yearning to join the European Union zone of peace and prosperity. Exploring the premise that the Balkans should be seen and treated as an integral part of today's Europe, she describes how the lure of EU membership is shaping the Balkans--and how Balkan developments are reshaping the EU. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and decades of experience as a foreign correspondent, Pond moves deftly across the region, painting a vivid picture of the political, economic, and ethnic challenges each Balkan land faces as it seeks to vault from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Bulgaria, Romania, Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, and Montenegro must all carry out painful reforms to qualify for EU membership by establishing democratic institutions, rule of law, and a general tolerance. Pond examines the tension between these demands and traditional mindsets engendered by years of poverty, corruption, and chauvinism. Already, in its brief existence, the European Union has forged a historic reconciliation between France and Germany and helped consolidate democracy in Portugal, Spain, and Greece. In southeastern Europe, it faces one of its most difficult tasks yet. Is the magnetic attraction of EU membership strong enough to pull the Balkans through the agonies of reform to the democratic and market "normality" they long for? Endgame in the Balkans reveals the importance and excruciating difficulty of nation building, state building, and institution building, but also offers grounds for hope in the region.

Endgame

Endgame PDF Author: John Mauldin
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118004574
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description
Greece isn't the only country drowning in debt. The Debt Supercycle—when the easily managed, decades-long growth of debt results in a massive sovereign debt and credit crisis—is affecting developed countries around the world, including the United States. For these countries, there are only two options, and neither is good—restructure the debt or reduce it through austerity measures. Endgame details the Debt Supercycle and the sovereign debt crisis, and shows that, while there are no good choices, the worst choice would be to ignore the deleveraging resulting from the credit crisis. The book: Reveals why the world economy is in for an extended period of sluggish growth, high unemployment, and volatile markets punctuated by persistent recessions Reviews global markets, trends in population, government policies, and currencies Around the world, countries are faced with difficult choices. Endgame provides a framework for making those choices.

Endgame for ETA

Endgame for ETA PDF Author: Teresa Whitfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190238046
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
The violent Basque separatist group ETA took shape in Franco's Spain, yet claimed the majority of its victims under democracy. For most Spaniards it became an aberration, a criminal and terrorist band whose persistence defied explanation. Others, mainly Basques (but only some Basques) understood ETA as the violent expression of a political conflict that remained the unfinished business of Spain's transition to democracy. Such differences hindered efforts to 'defeat' ETA's terrorism on the one hand and 'resolve the Basque conflict' on the other for more than three decades. Endgame for ETA offers a compelling account of the long path to ETA's declaration of a definitive end to its armed activity in October 2011. Its political surrogates remain as part of a resurgence of regional nationalism - in the Basque Country as in Catalonia - that is but one element of multiple crises confronting Spain. The Basque case has been cited as an ex- ample of the perils of 'talking to terrorists'. Drawing on extensive field research, Teresa Whitfield argues that while negotiations did not prosper, a form of 'virtual peacemaking' was an essential complement to robust police action and social condemnation. Together they helped to bring ETA's violence to an end and return its grievances to the channels of normal politics.

The End of the Euro

The End of the Euro PDF Author: Johan Van Overtveldt
Publisher: Agate Publishing
ISBN: 193284161X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Johan Van Overtveldt provides comprehensive documentation showing that the political dithering so apparent in the most recent euro crisis has in fact been the hallmark of the euro project from the start. --Anil Kashyap, Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Economics and Finance, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business From noted economic journalist Johan Van Overtveldt, an up-to-the-minute examination of the fate of the Euro. In a process that began with the Maastricht Treaty of 1991 and concluded on January 1, 1999, 11 Western European countries made the euro the European Union's single currency, and the European Central Bank (ECB) the EU's only policy-making central bank. Bringing together Germany, France, Italy, and other European countries into a monetary union with a single currency and a single monetary policy could only ever result in major imbalances between the member countries, thus threatening the EU itself. This was recognized from the start by many economists and other observers, and the political elite paid elaborate lip service to these warnings. However, no one really followed up on these risks in terms of actions and reforms. Instead, the politicians seemed to indicate, directly and indirectly, that if the EU showed unity, the conditions to turn itself into a well-functioning monetary union would simply come about automatically. Moreover, given the imperative to work together more closely, the monetary-union effort would strengthen the political union among the euro-countries. Thus, in spirit, the process of monetary union was often seen as a means to an end. With that reasoning, the political elite supervising monetary union turned a great idea--the creation of a unified currency for Europe--into a huge gamble. Implicit in their reasoning was the idea that Europe's leading politicians would always be able to come up with an adequate solution to any crisis that might occur. As the former Belgian prime minister and European Union leader Jean-Luc Dehaene repeated relentlessly: "The idea of a unified Europe grows and becomes reality through crises. We need crises to make progress." Dehaene and like-minded European politicians never seriously considered the possibility of an insoluble, catastrophic crisis that could potentially crash the entire EU effort. For ten years, from 1999 to 2008, it seemed that the politicians' claim was vindicated. Although there was little substantial progress toward real political union within the euro area, the euro and the euro countries in general prospered, despite a string of major shocks like the bursting of the dotcom bubble, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But things changed dramatically with the financial crisis of 2007-2008. In January 2009 Barry Eichengreen, professor of economics and political science at Berkeley, wrote that "what started as the Subprime Crisis in 2007 and morphed in the Global Credit Crisis in 2008 has become the Euro Crisis in 2009." After its immediate impact, the crisis caused the financial and capital markets to worry about the so-called sovereign risks, i.e. countries running the risk of becoming insolvent. Although budget deficits in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom were much larger than the aggregate data for the euro area, markets started to home in on the risks posed by countries inside the European monetary union. Markets recognized that the enormous problem facing everyone in the union was the long-term working of the monetary union itself. Eichengreen's "Euro Crisis" is all about the sustainability of EMU and the single currency. By early 2009 the structural imbalances within the euro area and especially the untenable situations building up in Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland were there for everybody to see. The first reaction of the political leadership was denial of any structural problem whatsoever. The second reaction was recognition of the crisis situation, but absolute denial of any link between that crisis and the workings of the monetary union. Eventually, a third phase set in: the search for external villains to blame. Those villains were found in the greed, speculation, and irresponsibility of the financial markets. As the French saying goes: "les excuses sont fait pour s'en server" ("excuses are made to take advantage of"). Fundamentally, however, the gigantic problems facing the EMU, and the euro as a currency, have little to do with either alleged criminal behavior in the financial markets or with the financial crisis of 2007-2009. The crisis of 2009-2010 was an accident waiting to happen. It could have happened earlier, or the clash could have been postponed for several more years; but given the the basic characteristics of the EMU-set-up, a major crisis was simply unavoidable. Untenable imbalances within the monetary union were enshrined in the different treaties, pacts, and political agreements that led to the creation of the euro in the first place, and guided its first ten years. That politicians never acted on this reality to make them the prime culprits of the long and highly painful death agony of the euro. The structure of this book is as follows: Chapter I gives an overview of the birth of the euro. Understanding this history is essential to understand the anomalies built into the project from the beginning. These anomalies form the subject of Chapter II, along with an analysis of how they led to the situation that turned Greece, Portugal, and Spain into euro-destroying economic disaster areas. Chapter III shows how this was not an unforeseeable situation, as Europe's history is filled with earlier failed attempts to build monetary unions. Chapter IV is focused on Germany, by far the most important country within EMU, and why the chances of Germany leaving the union are much higher than is generally assumed. The book concludes with an analysis of what lies in wait for the remains of the monetary union--and for a deeply divided and troubled continent in general. Either the EMU transforms itself fundamentally or it disintegrates, and the likeliest outcome is the latter.

Collateral Frameworks

Collateral Frameworks PDF Author: Kjell G. Nyborg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107155843
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
The first book-length study of the importance of collateral frameworks in monetary policy, focusing on the Eurozone and euro crisis.

A Safe Area

A Safe Area PDF Author: David Rohde
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bosnia and Hercegovina
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
The massacre at Srebrenica of between 3000 and 5000 Muslim prisoners by Bosnian Serbs is one of the most horrifying tales to emerge from the bitter conflict in Bosnia. It changed the course of the war and led to the deployment of US ground troops in the area. It also became the first atrocity in modern times where the well-intentioned but ineffectual Western involvment contributed directly to the mass executions.

Endgame for the Centre Left?

Endgame for the Centre Left? PDF Author: Patrick Diamond
Publisher: Policy Network
ISBN: 9781786602824
Category : Europe
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Examines the assumed decline of the centre-left parties in Europe and sets the agenda for social democracy in the years to come.

The History of European Integration

The History of European Integration PDF Author: Ivan T. Berend
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317224418
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
The foundation of the European Union was one of the most important historical events in the second half of the 20th century. In order to fully appreciate the modern state of the EU, it is crucial to understand the history of European integration. This accessible overview differs from other studies in its focus on the major roles played by both the United States and European multinational corporations in the development of the European Union. Chronologically written and drawing on new findings from two major archives (the archives of the US State Department and Archive of European Integration), this book sheds crucial new light on the integration process. The History of European Integration offers a major contribution to our understanding of Europe’s postwar history, and will be essential reading for any student of postwar European History, Contemporary History, European Politics and European Studies.

Modern Money Theory

Modern Money Theory PDF Author: L. Randall Wray
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137539925
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
This second edition explores how money 'works' in the modern economy and synthesises the key principles of Modern Money Theory, exploring macro accounting, currency regimes and exchange rates in both the USA and developing nations.

The Political Economy of the Eurozone’s Rollercoaster

The Political Economy of the Eurozone’s Rollercoaster PDF Author: Konstantinos Myrodias
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031421981
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description