Product Description

Systematically revised and rewritten throughout and updated to cover the impact of EU enlargement, text analyzes the EU as a political system using the methods of comparative political science.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #158603 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Andrew Moravcsik, Harvard University
'...likely to become the leading text on how the European Union's everyday political process actually works.'

Gary Marks, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
'...provides a convincing and fascinating overview of the European Union as a living political system.'

George Tsebelis, UCLA
'The best textbook on the European Union to date. Period.'

Customer Reviews

The American Political System of the European Union
From an American perspective this text book is really interesting. Using political science theories specifically developed for the study of the US political system , Hix applies a selection of them to analyze various parts of the European Union. What is nice to see is the way in which the author is drawn to the parts of the EU 'system' which can easily be measured. Anything with some sort of numbers attached allows Hix to selectively analyse public opinion, voting weights in the Council, and voting records in the Parliament.

But as we American political scientists are discovering, the easy availability of numbers is not a very good basis for analyzing anything, particularly a political system. Additionally, most of Hix's 'theories' are outdated and inappropriate for the study of the EU polity. Finally, Hix appears to disregard the fact that the EU is not a sealed political system - there is very little room for political science outside the black box (globalization, anti-globalization, non-European politics, terrorism, etc, etc).

Setting a new standard for the study of the European Union
This book will set the standard for the study and teaching of the political system of the EU for many years. Despite the overwhelming amount of existing literature and surveys of the EU, this book stands out in numerous respects. First, it provides up-to-date material including the Treaty of Amsterdam. Second, and more importantly, here at last is a textbook which combines analytical approaches from the political science discipline with the standard information on the EU. Third, while it is open to many different approaches, it finally introduces a 'soft' rational choice element into the standard canon of books on the EU - following the increasing attention paid to this approach in academic journals. This combination will allow this text to remain essential reading beyond the next few IGCs. In short, this book is an absolute joy, it is stimulating, it is informative. It is ideal as a teaching aid. It wil set the standard for any other text book on the EU and will also set a benchmark for any research on the EU.

Excellent resource for students
Extremely well written, very good layout. I study European Union Politics and this book is amazing as a mine of useful information.