The European Union: Economy, Society, and Polity

PART I: ECONOMY; 1. Competitiveness; Introduction; The stages of economic integration; Economic integration as a means to achieve competitiveness; The impact of economic integration; Conclusion; 2. Cohesion; Introduction; National and regional disparitites in the EU; European development policies; The efficiency of European development policies after the reform of the Structural Funds; Conclusion; PART II: SOCIETY; 3. Ageing; Introduction; Demographic change in the EU; The factors behind ageing; Policies aimed at tackling demographic change; Conclusion; 4. Migration and xenophobia; Introduction; Migration and its forms; Mass migration in post-war Europe; The renewal of migration in the 1990s; The European response to migration; Conclusion; 5. Unemployment and social polarization; Introduction; Employment change in the post-industrial age; The roots of persistently high unemployment; The impact of labour market flexibility on unemployment; Conclusion; PART III: POLITY; 6. Enlargement; Introduction; Change in central and eastern Europe; The different transitions in central and eastern Europe; Enlargement and European integration; Conclusion; 7. Regionalism and regionalization; Introduction; Regional devolution in Europe; The transfer of power from the nation state to the regions; The roots of the regionalization process; Towards a 'Europe of the Regions'?; Conclusion

Andres Rodriguez-Pose is Senior Lecturer in Economic Geography, and Director of the MSc in Local Economic Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science"

'...an extraordinarily useful overview of the economic geography/macro-sociology of the EU, not least for its strongly pedagogic intentions (that include on-line maps, data, and overheads that can be used in the classroom to support the text).' Environment and Planning 2003