Based on a major international research project undertaken by The Institute for East West Studies, this book provides the first comprehensive analysis of an important, but little explored, feature of post-Cold War Europe: the emergence of subregional cooperation in areas such as the Barents, the Baltic Sea, Central Europe and the Black Sea. It analyses the role of subregional cooperation in the new Europe, provides detailed case studies of the new subregional groups and examines their relations with NATO and the European Union.

This unique book explores what subregions are in a European context and what roles they fulfil in relation to the European integration process, exploring how subregional cooperation and integration in Europe largely take place in the shadow of the European integration process.

"This book will be a valuable addition to the existing literature in the area, appealing to academics and researchers in European and transition studies."--BOOK JACKET.

This book explores the nature of regions and how they function, particularly at the local and micro-level. Whilst recent years have seen a resurgence in debates around the roles which regions can play in development, the focus has tended to be on 'macro' regional institutions such as the EU, ASEAN, ECOWAS or MERCOSUR. In contrast, this book offers a nuanced analysis of the important field of sub-regionalism and sub-national cross-border cooperation. Region-Making and Cross-Border Cooperation takes a fresh look at both theoretical and empirical approaches to 'region-making' through cooperation activities at the micro-level across national borders in Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. The book aims to explore the role that institutional dynamics play at the micro-level in shaping local and global ties, investigate what the formal and informal integration factors are that bolster regionalism and regionalization processes, and to clarify to what extent, and under what conditions, cooperation at the micro-level can be instrumental to solving common problems. Scholars and students within politics, sociology, geography, and economics would find this book an important guide to regionalism at a micro-local level perspective.

Macro-regional strategies seek to improve the interplay of the EU with existing regimes and institutions, and foster coherence of transnational policies. Drawing on macro-regional governance and Europeanization, this edited volume provides an overview of processes of macro-regionalization in Europe displaying evidence of their significant impact.

While European integration advances, many of the countries along Europe's eastern and southern periphery have fallen prey to chronic conflict punctuated by a series of small wars. Exacerbating the situation has been the lack of effective organizational means for mediating local conflicts, facilitating regional development and structuring cooperation with larger regional and international institutions. What are the prospects for enhancing security in the most volatile subregions of post-communist Europe? This text examines the external and internal factors that impede or foster subregional cooperation in South-Eastern and East-Central Europe and the Caucasus. It includes chapters situating these borderlands in the context of a wider Europe with an evolving security architecture.

The emergence of a common security and foreign policy has been one of the most contentious issues accompanying the integration of the European Union. In this book, Michael Smith examines the specific ways foreign policy cooperation has been institutionalized in the EU, the way institutional development affects cooperative outcomes in foreign policy, and how those outcomes lead to new institutional reforms. Smith explains the evolution and performance of the institutional procedures of the EU using a unique analytical framework, supported by extensive empirical evidence drawn from interviews, case studies, official documents and secondary sources. His perceptive and well-informed analysis covers the entire history of EU foreign policy cooperation, from its origins in the late 1960s up to the start of the 2003 constitutional convention. Demonstrating the importance and extent of EU foreign/security policy, the book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and policy-makers.

In today's interconnected, differentiated and polarized European Union, sub-regional groupings between the national and EU level are a highly relevant empirical phenomenon. Despite their importance, the interactions between sub-regionalisms and EU actors and processes remain under-researched. This book fills this large research gap by applying a systematic comparative approach. Taking into account a huge corpus of empirical data gained through expert interviews and document analysis, this study provides the conceptual and empirical groundwork necessary to better understand EU sub-regionalism. For the timeframe between 2009 and 2018, it analyses the scope of sub-regional cooperation in the Baltic, Benelux and Visegrád groupings. Moreover, it compares their respective institutional design, political identity, foreign policy as well as their external recognition by EU actors. A special focus lies on their role in six EU policy cases, including EU budget negotiations, TTIP, the drafting process of the EU Global Strategy, refugee relocation quotas, the revision of the posted workers directive and defence cooperation through PESCO. In its conclusion, this book identifies two sub-regional archetypes: functional hubs and political tools. While differing in many regards, the shared assessment finds that the overall bridge-building efforts of the Baltic, Benelux and Visegrád sub-regionalisms exceed their spoiling potential.

Bulgaria has faced previously unimaginable pressures over the last two decades, as it struggles to adapt to a post-Communist landscape and to reform both state and society in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, while facing the challenge of increased efforts by NATO and the EU to expand into this region. In Negotiating Diplomacy in the New Europe, Stefanos Katsikas sheds new light on the mechanisms and factors which have influenced the making and shaping of Bulgarian foreign policy, examining the extent to which both domestic factors and the international environment have affected its trajectory. Following the promulgation of Gorbachev's now-famous policies of glasnost and perestroika, and the fall from power of the Bulgarian Communist Party - led at the time by Todor Zhivkov - many have directly attributed Bulgaria's changes in foreign policy to the processes of democratization witnessed throughout Eastern Europe. However, although this was to some extent the case, the commonalities shared with the country's foreign policy during the Cold War era leave in question the extent to which the effects of democratization alone suffice to explain Sofia's post-communist diplomatic and strategic policies. By analysing the influencing factors of Bulgaria's foreign policy since 1989, Katsikas considers factors such as domestic policies, as well as the effects of EU and NATO efforts to expand their influence and membership. Rich in primary sources, including personal interviews with key protagonists who have dominated foreign policy-making in both communist and post-communist Bulgaria, Negotiating Diplomacy in the New Europe examines the shift of foreign relations not only within the context of post-Cold War democratization, but also the country's integration into wider Euro-Atlantic frameworks. It thus holds invaluable analysis for researchers of Europe's post-communist international relations, as well as those interested in the processes of democratization and those of foreign policy formation.