Differential Europe

Book excerpt: Heritier, Kerwer, Knill, Lehmkuhl (all with the Max Planck Project Group, Common Goods: Law, Politics, and Economics), Teutsch (European Union Department of the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs), and Douillet (Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan) combine efforts in this study to develop a theoretical and conceptual framework for studying the impact of European policies on member states. The authors argue that the influence of EU policies on each member state depends on each state's preexisting policies and institutional capacity to change. The study focuses on transport policy, presenting case studies from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to demonstrate differences in the impacts of EU policies. The text concludes with a comparison of the differences in responses of member states to identical European policy demands and similar external and internal conditions. c. Book News Inc.