Thomas Konig – författare

For decades the European Union tried changing its institutions, but achieved only unsatisfying political compromises and modest, incremental treaty revisions. In late 2009, however, the EU was successfully reformed through the Treaty of Lisbon. Reforming the European Union examines how political leaders ratified this treaty against all odds and shows how this victory involved all stages of treaty reform negotiations--from the initial proposal to referendums in several European countries. The authors emphasize the strategic role of political leadership and domestic politics, and they use state-of-the-art methodology, applying a comprehensive data set for actors'' reform preferences. They look at how political leaders reacted to apparent failures of the process by recreating or changing the rules of the game. While domestic actors played a significant role in the process, their influence over the outcome was limited as leaders ignored negative referendums and plowed ahead with intended reforms. The book''s empirical analyses shed light on critical episodes: strategic agenda setting during the European Convention, the choice of ratification instrument, intergovernmental bargaining dynamics, and the reaction of the German Council presidency to the negative referendums in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland.

In ten years 80 per cent of the legislation related to economics, maybe also to taxes and social aff airs, will be of Community origin.” This declaration has been largely quoted, paraphrased and deformed by different authors, creating a persistent myth according to which 80% of the legislative activity of the national legislatures would soon be reduced to the simple transposition of European norms”. This book addresses the topic of the scope and impact of Europeanization on national legislation, as a part of the Europeanization debate which raises normative concerns linked to the “democratic deficit” debate. The state of the art shows that there are many assumptions and claims on how European integration may affect national legislation and, more generally, domestic governance but that there is a lack of solid and comparative data to test them. The aim of the book is to give a solid and comparative insight into Europeanization focusing on effective outcomes in a systematic way. This book analyzes the period 1986-2008 and includes an introduction, a global overview of European legislative activities which set the background for Europeanization of national legislatures, 9 country contributions (8 EU member states + Switzerland) including systematic, comparative and standardized data, tables and figures, and a conclusion with a comparative analysis of the European and domestic reasons for Europeanization.

Dieses Buch vermittelt fundiertes Insiderwissen über die sozialen, politischen und wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen in China. Die Volksrepublik ist seit Jahrzehnten ein Markt, den kein Land oder Unternehmen mehr ignorieren kann. Chinas steigende Investitionen entlang der Seidenstraße, sein Umgang mit einer die Welt erschütternden Pandemie, Handelskonflikte mit der EU oder den USA – das Großthema China gewinnt täglich an Komplexität. Deshalb ist eine fundierte, verständliche Einordnung des Landes wichtiger denn je.

Mit ihrer einzigartigen Kombination aus persönlichem Erfahrungsbericht und objektiver Analyse ökonomischer Trends bieten die Autoren wertvolle Einsichten in das Leben und Arbeiten in China. Die 2. Auflage wurde umfassend aktualisiert und berücksichtigt auch die derzeitigen wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen, wie zum Beispiel die neue deutsch China-Politik, wirtschaftliche Entkoppelungsszenarien, sowie die Ausweitung der chinesischen Industriepolitik mit direkten Auswirkungen auf die Wirtschaftsbeziehungen zu Deutschland.

Das Buch ist der ideale Wegweiser für alle, die mit China in Berührung kommen und neben dem wirtschaftlichen Erfolg auch das kulturell-soziale Miteinander verfolgen.