By Baimbridge, Mark; Whyman, Philip B.; Burkitt, Brian, Imprint Academic, 2010,
ISBN 9781845401917
Reviewer: Oana Elena Branda (University of Bucharest)
This work, a collection of essays, deals with the future of the UK-EU relationship, a relationship which has, in recent years, been tarnished as mutual recriminations and the ever-present “blame-game” unfolds within a Europe defined by internal tremors. With solutions in mind, the editors and authors delve deep into the origin of crises and are resolved to provide suggestions and recommenda-tions on how this relarecommenda-tionship should be conducted in the future.
The objectives of the book are usefully presented in the in-troductory section, written by Baimbridge, Whyman and Burkitt, along with summaries of the subsequent chapters and as the editors note ‘this book seeks to provide an analysis of the economic and political relationship between Britain and the EU and thereby fa-cilitate discussion of the future direction in which this relationship might develop’ (p. 21). The main topic has been stated above, but the book is divided in several subtopics such as: British trade outside the EU, British foreign policy, the potential of trade relations with third countries, such as Canada, the impact of EU policies on British sensitive areas such as tax policy or sovereignty, (etc).
All chapters follow the same pattern: an introduction, a main corpus and a conclusion. They are all meant to demonstrate some-thing and this is specified clearly. They are also interlinked: one complements the other; one launches a debate, the other ends it and/or provides solutions; even if the book is comprised of several different essays, it can still be read as a unitary work.
The fundamental arguments that can be summed up from all es-says converge on the same topic: the United Kingdom would be bet-ter off if it adopted the model of enbet-tering inbet-terlocking networks of agreements. The current situation the UK experiences – as a
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ber of the EU – is damaging its potential for enhanced economic prosperity. Consequently, a strategic “step back”, as a member of the EU would highly benefit British economic and political policies – according to the authors.
From the point of view of the argumentation, all essays are well documented and referenced. It is common for the authors to pro-vide data and statistics, followed by detailed analyses. However, due to the excessive amount of data, some essays are slightly difficult to read and even more difficult to grasp. Nevertheless, the editors managed to strike a balance in this regard; so that more technical essays are followed by ones less difficult to understand.
All chapters are all well-written, without exception. They are clear in their purpose and all of them achieve their goals. The writ-ing is fluent and the inner construction of the essays is transparent.
Even if the aim of the book is to push a rather radical solution – di-minishing the influence of the EU in the UK, by orienting the UK towards a more independent policy in aspects such as economics and politics – the tone the authors adopt is a balanced one, offering recommendations rather than urging to rash actions. Their tactic is to convince the reader by the sheer data provided, rather than propaganda against the EU. Based on this, the target readers are clearly specialists.
The added-value of this book stems from the approach used both by the authors as well as the editors. In an European landscape very much troubled by the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty, with the Eurosceptics pointing the finger at the lacks and faults that occurred due to its implementation, the editors chose to put to-gether a volume signalling the fact that the United Kingdom should explore more of its relationships to other countries, apart from the EU. The attempt is salutary, but the approach is extraordinary. The editors chose to put forward their argumentation and hope to con-vince their readers.
All things considered, this work comes highly recommended to all those interested in EU affairs and policies, students and ad-vanced researchers. It is well-documented, has a good command of the topic and does not refrain from putting things into perspective.
Thus, in the current context of EU policy research, this work is a must.
Book Reviews
PeACeBuilding
By Dennis J. D. Sandole, Polity Press, 2011 ISBN 9780745641652
Reviewer: Gökhan Güneysu (Anadolu University)
One can think of only a few works more timely than the book by Sandole entitled: Peacebuilding.
Currently, we bear witness to an upheaval of international and national structures; structures which have been taken for granted.
Informal violence is ubiquitous and state structures, which – be they strictly in a Hobbesian mind-set or not- we suppose would have saved individuals from the ravages of conflicts and “new” wars, are either dysfunctional or simply non-existent.
Peacebuilding itself is not a completely recent issue. Interna-tional community has already been trying hard to tackle this emer-gent trend of chaos and mayhem for years. However, as Sandole succinctly puts it, we have failed thus far and, barring a revolution-ary change in the way we perceive and handle these issues, we will continue to fail.
Persuasively, Sandole underlines the limited troubleshooting capacity of the reactive and narrow peacebuilding practices, which merely aim or only manage to establish the so-called “negative”
peace (i.e. “absence of hostilities”) and calls for a more comprehen-sive approach (“maximalist peacebuilding”). This he does diligently, yet in a manner that would allow even laymen to penetrate these very complicated issues surrounding the peacebuilding phenome-non.
Sandole tackles the problematique of the peace-building in the first chapter of his book. As already noted, the efforts to establish peace have hitherto been and will in the future be doomed to fail, as long as a more holistic and proactive approach is not adhered to. He stresses the fact that a national-interest oriented (dubbed by Sandole as “old” realism) policy is not capable of determining and addressing the causes of conflicts, which are now of a global charac-ter. Global is now national and national is global.
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In chapter three, the author presents the reader a solid example of an “ideal praxis” on the field, namely UNPREDEP. UNPREDEP experience was proactive in nature and tried to address the roots and underlying causes of the conflict. It tried to establish good re-lationships with the locals, which increased the success of the mis-sion. In this, Sandole has brought to the fore a very convincing proof that what he recommends is do-able and has been already achieved on the field. UNPREDEP embodied important aspects of what Sandole endeavors to establish in his book; a proactive, flexi-ble peace-building, aiming to address the root causes of conflicts in close cooperation with the locals.
In the fourth chapter, Sandole highlights the need to address global problems with a view to preventing terrorism. According to him ‘it is essential to deal effectively with the deep-rooted origins of political violence, of which terrorism is a manifestation or a symbol’, i.e. terrorism is an ‘epiphenomenon of deep-rooted conflict’ Given the real nature of terrorism, Sandole adds, the traditional count-er-terrorism measures will only be counter-productive and will end up creating more disillusioned and radicalized individuals, i.e. new recruits for the terrorist groups. He advises direct or indirect nego-tiations with terrorists. According to the author, this is nothing but a logical step needed if global governance is to be strengthened to address the inter-connected global problems, which cause the radi-calization of individuals and groups. Professor Sandole has been re-searching and publishing on this issue for a long time and one can-not help feeling the immense theoretical and practical experience the author brings to the table. His masterful references to the cases on the field and extensive use of the relevant academic sources are, mildly put, remarkable. The reader feels that this book represents only the iceberg tip of what Sandole can actually offer about these topics. Even in this sense, the way he distills all these years’ expe-rience and comes up with a not-too-inflated book is praiseworthy.
This makes the piece even more valuable. Vast references and cre-ative usage of other academic works, as well as the eloquent elabo-ration of the most recent peace-building-relevant events make this book suitable for classroom instruction on the bachelor as well as graduate level studies.
This book is a must read for the students of the IR and CR areas as well as the practitioners on the field. Still for those merely
wish-Book Reviews ing to take a glimpse on the international problems, this book has
much to offer, due to its clear and simple language.
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