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The purpose of this Introduction to the book is to provide a point of reference and context for the eleven country studies that follow. It begins with a brief discussion of national co-ordination and why it matters to governments at the European level, and then outlines the tasks and difficulties that face national co-ordinators in Brussels, looking at the EU as a political system, and at its complex institutional structure (the Council of the Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission). The following section looks at the tasks that national co-ordinators are called to perform in routine policy-making, and identifies four phases: policy initiation, policy formulation, deliberation and decision; and implementation and enforcement. A brief section on ‘heroic’ decision-making by national governments follows, and then the matter of the emergence of an overall pattern in national co-ordination—of convergence or divergence—is considered. The next section looks at the effectiveness of national arrangements in Brussels, and the concluding one introduces the eleven country case studies.

The conclusion ends the book with an explication of the Federalists’ idea of an American national state.

It starts by pointing out that the ratification of the US Constitution did not mean the end of politics, nor the end of the debate about the future course of the American republic, for now the Federalists faced the next step of state building: creating the institutions of government that would realize their ideas about a national state in America. The mainstream interpretation of the Federalist argument presents it as a call for limited government and protection of minority rights, but this study has offered a different interpretation. It sees the Federalist argument as an attempt to convince the American public about the need to build a powerful state and to explain how this state would work – the idea of an American national state that the Federalists developed during the ratification debate was the result of creative thinking in the face of serious challenges. This conclusion is devoted to an explication of both the challenge that the Federalists faced and the concept of the state they developed, but the basic issue may be summed up as follows: what the Federalists had to do, and what they did, in the debate over ratification, was to develop a conceptual framework that made it possible to accommodate the creation of a powerful national government to the strong anti‐statist current in the American political tradition.

Discusses the issue of accountability. Argues that the holders of political power in the EU institutions must be made more accountable. The so‐called ‘permissive consensus’, in which Europe's leaders can build a European polity without requiring a priori consent from their voters, no longer exists. The challenge for the EU institutions is that a central element of the practice of democracy in all political systems is the ability of citizens to ‘throw out’ the holders of executive office through the process of competitive elections. The EU has, however, a ‘dual executive’. On the one hand, national governments possess long‐term executive power; on the other hand, in the everyday making of EU social and economic policies, the EU Commission exercises considerable executive power. In the exercise of these powers, moreover, whereas the Council is a true ‘collegial executive’ with a rotating president, the Commission is more like a national cabinet, where the Commission President is the primus inter pares, the ‘first among equals’. Prior to the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, neither of these branches of the dual EU executive was accountable via the classic indirect or direct methods. In concluding, the chapter suggests that the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties have increased the democratic accountability of at least one part of the EU executive. However, critical questions remain to be addressed, e.g. has this quasi‐parliamentary model of EU executive selection really allowed Europe's voters to choose the EU executive? Can European citizens throw out the Commission President? Or is more fundamental institutional reform needed?

Chapter 8 and the corresponding Ch. 13 in Part Three of the book show how the Federalists responded to the Antifederalist objections to a stronger national government in the “fiscal‐military” sphere, thereby creating an understanding of the kind of state that was proper to American conditions. In their defense of the military clauses of the US Constitution, the Federalists argued for the need to maintain a peace establishment of regulars, also arguing that the national government had to possess an unrestricted power over mobilization; in Federalist minds, both military professionalism and the unlimited power over mobilization were necessary to preserve the independence, liberties, and interests of the American nation. The Antifederalists, by contrast, raised objections to the right of Congress to create and maintain a standing army in time of peace, and were also concerned about the unrestricted nature of Congress's military powers. Their objections can be subsumed under three headings: first, they believed that the new system of government would change the administration of the laws from an administration based on the consent of the governed to an administration based on coercion or the threat of force; second, they believed that the national government would create a large army while neglecting the state militia, so that as a consequence, the national government would become independent of the people and be able to establish tyrannical rule; and third, the critics of the Constitution believed that Congress had been granted too much power to interfere in the private lives of the citizens through its command over the militia. In the debate over ratification, the Federalists answered these objections, and in doing so, they argued that it was possible to create a strong state without abandoning traditional Anglo‐American ideals about free government; their answers are the subject of this chapter.

Chapter 7 and the corresponding Ch. 12 in Part Three of the book present the Antifederalist objections to a stronger national government in the “fiscal‐military” sphere, with this chapter looking closely at Antifederalist objections to the military clauses of the US Constitution. The opponents of the Constitution never accepted the Federalist claim that the independence, liberty, and prosperity of the American republic depended on the creation and maintenance of a peace establishment consisting of regular troops, and did not believe that the union faced as serious threats as the Federalists claimed, keeping to the view that standing armies in time of peace were a threat to liberty. Both ancient and modern history had taught that “almost all” nations in Europe and Asia had lost their liberty because of the establishment of a standing army, so it hardly made sense for Americans to imitate them. To Antifederalists, it seemed that if the military clauses of the Constitution were adopted and the Federalists realized their plan to raise a standing army, the people of America would soon find that the Constitution's supporters would make use of it on the domestic rather than the international scene. The Antifederalist criticism of the army clauses therefore said little about commercial treaties and the importance of military strength in international relations; instead, they approached the issue from the traditional British Country perspective, claiming that standing armies in time of peace posed a threat to liberty, that transfer of military power from the states to Congress threatened both the state militia and the state assemblies, and that a standing army would make it possible for the national government to deprive people of their property without their consent by levying and collecting arbitrary taxes – in other words, a standing army in a time of peace was to the Antifederalists an objection to the centralization of power at the expense of the people's ability to withhold consent through their control of strong local institutions.

Provides the layout of the Federalist argument that Congress had to possess an unlimited power to raise men and money from American society without any intervention from the states. While the following chapter looks in greater depth at Antifederalist objections to the federal fiscal powers of the US Constitution, here the concern is solely with the restrictions to this power that they suggested in the form of amendments. The reasons are discussed as to why the Federalists refused to accept these Antifederalist amendments (and indeed any restrictions on the fiscal power of Congress other than those already written into the Constitution), repeatedly and forcefully making it clear why it was crucial that no restrictions be placed on the right of Congress to extract money from society by means of taxation. The different sections of the chapter argue that the need for an unbridled federal right to raise tax revenue arose from the conviction that Congress had to have full command over all the resources of the nation in times of crisis. Primarily, this was needed so that the government could borrow money abroad and at home, which suggests that the Federalists designed the Constitution as much for future challenges as for present problems, and that for this reason, they refused to let the powers of the national government be defined by the demands on the union existing in the late 1780s, but instead strove to create a government with powers sufficiently extensive to safeguard the union's future existence, in peace as well as in war.

Chapter 6 and the corresponding Ch. 11 in Part Three of the book provide the layout of the Federalist argument that Congress had to possess an unlimited power to raise men and money from American society without any intervention from the states. While the following chapter looks more closely at Antifederalist objections to the military clauses of the U S Constitution, here the concern is only with the proposals for amendments to the Constitution that Antifederalists suggested, or that Federalists suggested as concessions to Antifederalist objections; the purpose of the chapter is to address the question of why the Federalists refused to accept limits to the army clauses of the Constitution. When the first Congress presented the states with the proposal for what would become the Bill of Rights, this contained a guarantee against the disarmament of the people, as well as a specification of what was involved in Congress's power to govern state militias; it also contained a restriction on the right of the national government to quarter troops in private houses. The first ten amendments, however, made no attempt to restrict the right of the national government to raise an army, and not because of oversight, since neither James Madison, nor anyone else present at the first Congress, could have been unaware of the strong reservations that Antifederalists had expressed against the unlimited power to raise and maintain armies that the Constitution vested in Congress. This power was central to the national state that the Federalists attempted to form, and in the debate over ratification they made clear why no limits could be placed on Congress's power of military mobilization.

Provides background accounts of political development in the USA from the American War of Independence to the Philadelphia Convention, and establish that, by 1787, Congress was marked by military weakness and financial insolvency. Here, an account is given of the efforts of Congress to implement the fiscal clauses of the US Constitution, which shows that the national government created by the Articles of Confederation experienced serious difficulties in its ability to raise money, and in the end failed to raise sufficient money to meet its expenses. The focus of the chapter is on the means by which Congress raised money from the outbreak of the War of Independence up to the Philadelphia Convention, and also on how, one by one, these means were lost, so that by 1787 the insolvency of the national government was total. The first two parts of the chapter describe the attempts of Congress to raise money through fiat (printed) money, loans, and taxes, with the author contending that the Federalists accepted existing restrictions to taxation and formed a tax system that would be able to generate sufficient income for the national government without putting undue pressure on the American people. The last section of the chapter looks at the problem of the public debts run up by Congress and the states during the War of Independence, and at the reasons for the federal assumption of state debts – whether they were democratic or economic – and the reasons given by the Federalists as to why Congress had to resume payment of the public domestic and foreign debt.

This chapter discusses developments in the global securities market between the two world wars. Topics covered include the securities markets during the First World War, the impact of the First World War on global securities markets, the 1920s, the Wall Street Crash, and securities markets and national governments during the 1930s.

Chapter 9 and the corresponding Ch. 14 in Part Three of the book offer brief sketches of the institutionalization of the military and fiscal powers granted by the US Constitution, and of the uses made of them by the Federalists in the 1790s. Gives a historical account of the uses made by the national government during that period of the military powers that it was granted by the Constitution. Aims to make a judgment on the political achievement of the Federalists that hinges on the extent to which they managed to translate their principles into action when they transformed the articles of the Constitution into the policies and institutions of the new national government. Part of the discussion also addresses the fact that during the quarter century following the First US Congress, the USA had to respond repeatedly to events originating in Europe far beyond the federal government's control, and overall, drew advantage from the warfare that engulfed Britain, France, and Spain. It is noted that is not easy to answer the question of whether the federal government had any part in making this possible, but a cautious answer based on works of diplomatic history is that the reform of the federal government did make a difference to the actions of European governments.

Political science studies of European policy usually stress two characteristics: First, they are monographic and empirical, and second, they go beyond a state‐centric approach to European integration. Among the new research tracks, there has been a revisiting of the European Commission, which is no longer viewed as an institutional monolith, but rather as a complex multi‐organization. This chapter adopts an institutional approach and looks at the Commission from the inside without developing any particular case study. It first shows how EU Commission agents can mobilize specific resources to behave as ‘policy entrepreneurs’ in the EU polity with a certain degree of autonomy from the national governments. Second, it defends the autonomy argument by arguing that this policy entrepreneurship is also constrained by endogenous and exogenous factors that make the Commission dependent on the national governments in the EU polity. This balancing act between autonomy and dependence is considered to be the main characteristic of the European Commission. It is also an invitation to look at supranational institutions by linking two analytical perspectives. On the one hand, supranational institutions are the creation of national governments in order to facilitate their interests and bargaining. On the other hand, supranational institutions are also the products of their organizational dynamics.

The conclusion addresses certain major features of the overall course of European integration in light of the book's priorities and findings, indicating that the book has pursued two main objectives: the first, to demonstrate that the course of European integration has been profoundly shaped by a system of adjudication managed by the European Court of Justice (ECJ); the second, to test a range of propositions about how the legal system operates, and to trace the effects of the ECJ's case law on policy outcomes, and on the policy‐relevant behaviour of nonjudicial actors. In some areas, including free movement of goods and sex equality, judges – not governments or legislatures or the Member States – have broadly determined the paths along which institutions evolved. Judicial supremacy partly inheres in the ECJ's status as trustee, partly in the dynamics of the constitutionalization process provoked by the ECJ in the mid‐1960s, and partly by the propagation and diffusion of specific techniques of judicial governance, such as those associated with precedent‐based balancing standards. Every chapter of the book presents evidence refuting claims that the ECJ and the national courts operate as relatively perfect ‘agents’ of the Member States or national governments, and shows that the activities of supranational organizations such as the ECJ routinely produce ‘unintended consequences, from the perspective of those who have designed and redesigned the EC. The author concludes that he does not see how theories that make predictions about how integration has proceeded from institutional design can be rescued.

This chapter presents a typology of various models of governance forms that impinge, or are assumed to impinge, on the Internet. Five such models are analysed. One model is based on a view of the Internet as a self-governing realm of individual liberty beyond the reach of government control. Another model takes as its point of departure the inherently cross-border nature of the Internet and sees transnational, quasi-private cooperatives or international organizations based on treaty arrangements as the most relevant institutions for Internet governance. A third model is based on the notion that many regulatory decisions are made by the code and architecture of the Internet. A fourth model is premised on the idea that as the Internet grows in importance fundamental regulatory decisions will be made by national governments through legal regulation. Finally, there is the model of market regulation and economics which assumes that market forces drive the fundamental decisions about the nature of the Internet. The chapter argues that no single one of these models captures all of the facets of Internet governance or offers the solution to all of the problems raised by Internet governance. It concludes with a discussion of the issue of network neutrality and attempts thereby to cast light on the future utility of the models concerned.

This chapter considers Angell's efforts as a Labour politician. At first an enthusiastic leftist, he moderated his views from the autumn of 1920, and became somewhat detached from party work after buying Northey Island in 1923 and failing the following year to sell his increasingly pro-League-of-Nations foreign policy either to the first Labour government or to its backbench critics. Yet he aspired to be a Foreign Office minister, and, having secured election to parliament in 1929, was disappointed not to be included in the second Labour government. A compensation was that as the public turned against the First World War it regarded his ‘illusion’ thesis as having been vindicated. Though thus partially rehabilitated as a pundit, he remained intellectually too eclectic to offer a single, clear message: for example, he began claiming that he personally believed in the efficacy of non-resistance and so supported the League of Nations only as a second-best policy. And he failed in his attempts to understand why the public was prone to foreign-policy illusions and to devise an educational antidote. Unhappy on the back benches, and unable either to condemn Ramsay MacDonald for agreeing to a National Government during the financial crisis of August 1931 or to support him, he retired from parliament.

This chapter describes the main organizations that are concerned directly with Internet governance. It outlines the relevant responsibilities and agendas of the respective organizations, together with their sources of funding and their relationships with each other. Attention is directed mainly at transnational bodies. These include the Internet Society, Internet Architecture Board, Internet Engineering Task Force, World Wide Web Consortium, and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The remainder of the chapter describes the various roles played by national governments, alone and in concert, in Internet governance. Using the self-governance ideals of ‘digital libertarianism’ as foil, it delineates the growing influence of governments in the field.

This chapter explores the 1930s fitness movement which showcased fit, disciplined citizens whose tempered patriotism stood in contrast with the uniformity invoked by fascist youth organizations. The National Government's National Fitness Campaign provided a response to Britain's poor performance at the 1936 Olympic games. It further aimed to counter allegations by the left that there was extensive malnutrition during the 1930s. The celebration of the body beautiful in physical culture displays served as a counterpoint to the spectacle of the hunger march or images of malnourished women and children. The campaign bolstered the National Government's progressive credentials and it provided a focus of popular patriotism, represented by King George VI, who was involved in several voluntary organizations promoting outdoor recreation. Activities such as sunbathing, swimming, camping, and hiking, which had been advocated by life reformers for decades, became mainstream as part of a flourishing outdoor leisure culture during the 1930s.

This chapter looks at the first decade of the twenty-first century in Afghanistan. As the twentieth century ended, ever-larger numbers of Afghans had become caught up in political and military struggles from which they had been previously isolated. Whether as fighters, refugees, or just victims of war and disorder, few escaped the turmoil that roiled the country. Ethnic and regional groups in Afghanistan had become politically and militarily empowered, reversing the process of centralization that had been imposed by Amir Abdur Rahman. Yet when the international community set about creating the new Afghan constitution, it did not start afresh but attempted to restore the institutions of old. This brought to the surface long-simmering disputes about the relationship of the national government to local communities, the legitimacy of governments and rulers, and the relationship that Afghanistan should have with the outside world.