1st Edition

The European Union and Global Social Change A Critical Geopolitical-Economic Analysis

By József Böröcz Copyright 2010
    256 Pages 57 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    256 Pages 57 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book examines just what the European Union is, in the context of the ongoing structural transformation of the global system. The author develops an integrated approach to global transformations, drawing on geopolitics, political geography, international relations, economics, economic and political history, political economy and macro-sociology to discuss how this supra-state organisation, that shares and pools the sovereignty of some of the wealthiest states of the modern world, makes sense. The book:

    • Interprets the ongoing transformation of west European public authority in the context of the global geopolitical economy of competition, cooperation and conflict
    • Examines the consequences of west European integration for the global system in a longue-durée perspective, developing a new, geopolitical dialect within world-systems analysis, sharpening some of the conceptual tools developed by its paradigm-setters.
    • Develops a new conceptualization for the EU’s global geopolitical strategy, which the author describes this strategy as the elasticity of size

    Developing a deeper understanding of global social change and west European strategies of global advantage-maintenance and power-management, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of European Politics, International Politics, International Relations Theory and Globalization Studies.

    1. Global Economic Weight in the Longue Durée: Nemesis of West European Geopolitics  2. Segments to Regions: Structural Transformation of Global Governance  3. Geopolitics of Property Relations: State Socialism under Global Capitalism  4. Elasticity of Weight: The EU as a Geopolitical Animal

    Biography

    József Böröcz is Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, USA; Faculty Associate of the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University; and Scholarly Advisor at the Institute for Political Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His publications include Leisure Migration: A Sociological Analysis; (as co-editor) A New World Order? Global Transformation in the late 20th Century and Empire’s New Clothes: Unveiling Eastern Elargement.

    Further details can be found at his website: http://borocz.net

    "There are few books that can offer such broad historical and geographical scope in an attempt to understand the present-day European Union." - American Journal of Sociology, Volume 116, Number 2 (September 2010): 710