The European Union (EU)and its Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in particularis often criticized as a predominantly marketoriented project. We analyse to what extent such claims can be substantiated by focusing on one key aspect of the EU's post-crisis framework for economic governance: the country-specific recommendations (CSRs) that the EU has been issuing annually since 2011. Based on an original dataset, we analyse more than 1300 CSRs, which show that the EU does not push uniformly for less state intervention. Rather, the CSRs tend to suggest fiscal restraint and less protection for labour market insiders, while simultaneously promoting measures that benefit vulnerable groups in society. During the second decade of EMU, CSRs have gradually become more permissive of higher public spending and more in favour of worker protection, while the share of recommendations advocating more social protection has stagnated at a high level.

In 2010 the European Semester was created to improve coordination of fiscal and economic policies within Europe's Economic and Monetary Union. The Semester aims to tackle economic imbalances by giving European Union (EU) member states country-specific recommendations (CSRs) regarding their public budgets as well as their wider economic and social policies with a view to enabling better policy coordination among Euro Area member states. In this article, we develop a method to assess the way in which the CSRs have been addressing coordination and offer a systematic analysis of the way they have been formulated. We offer a way to code CSRs as well as one to analyse progress evaluations. Furthermore, we seek to use our results to address one of the reoccurring questions in the literature: whether the EU is pursuing a 'one size fits all' approach to economic policy making in the Euro Area? The findings indicate that recommendations for different types of market economies among the Euro Area members tend to focus on different policy areas.

The European Union (EU)and its Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in particularis often criticized as a predominantly marketoriented project. We analyse to what extent such claims can be substantiated by focusing on one key aspect of the EU's post-crisis framework for economic governance: the country-specific recommendations (CSRs) that the EU has been issuing annually since 2011. Based on an original dataset, we analyse more than 1300 CSRs, which show that the EU does not push uniformly for less state intervention. Rather, the CSRs tend to suggest fiscal restraint and less protection for labour market insiders, while simultaneously promoting measures that benefit vulnerable groups in society. During the second decade of EMU, CSRs have gradually become more permissive of higher public spending and more in favour of worker protection, while the share of recommendations advocating more social protection has stagnated at a high level.

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union (EU) required long-term negotiations between two major polities of the industrialized world. During the negotiations, Canada acquiesced to the EU's demand that Canadian provinces participate directly in discussions, setting an important precedent in the dynamics of Canadian external trade. This paper examines the dynamics of intergovernmentalism in the policy area of external trade within the settings of the Canadian provinces and the EU member states, and uses the findings to suggest that in this realm the EU is a stronger example of federal synthesis of decision-making than is Canada. This is significant because it contradicts many established theories of federalism within political science, and implies that the EU could become a strong source of normative example for federal-style polities in the globalized world. As well, the strength of the EU's single market lends credence to the institutions embedded within the supranational polity, and gives the EU significant normative power as a prototype for other experiments in regional integration.

This paper examines how external third-parties, such as international organizations, can play a role in facilitating the development of security community and international integration within post-conflict societies. The formation of a security community includes the emergence of trust, belongingness, and reconciliation, along with internalizing the notion of resolving conflicts in a peaceful manner. This paper studies the roles of the EU and NATO in potentially fostering a regional security community in the Western Balkans. Both organizations have become heavily involved and invested in the region attempting to extend to the area the well established security community that exists among Europe and its TransAtlantic partners, while all the countries of the Western Balkan region have expressed a desire to join European institutions and become a part of the Euro-Atlantic community. But what are the implications of external encouragement of security community? The socialization of individual countries, rather than the region as a whole, contributes more to each country's self-perception as a member state rather than as a part of a regional community. This study offers unique insight into how and why feelings of trust and a sense of community can be encouraged by external actors-and how and why trust and community can filter down to the most local level within post-conflict societies. Such insight will further interests in enhancing conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction.