| Review of: | The European Union and the Third World by Martin Holland |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Jeff Haynes |
| Reviewed in: | Political Studies Review |
| Date accepted online: | 04/03/2004 |
| Published in print: | Volume 1, Issue 2, Pages 196-301 |
Europe
The main premise of this book is that the European Union's relations with the developing world have undergone a significant transformation since the late 1990s. At that time, the Lomé Convention regime, which had run from 1975 to 2000, came to an end, replaced by the Cotonou Partnership. The book examines the 'complexity and fragmented nature of the EU's historical relations' with different developing country regions: Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP), Latin America and MERCOSUR, and Asia through ASEM (Asian-Europe Meeting).
The book is divided into nine chapters. The first chapter sets the scene for the book's analysis. The second chapter looks at forty years of the EU's relations with ACP, and the third at the EU's interaction with Latin America and Asia. Chapter three turns the focus to 'decision-making and reforming institutional structures' within the EU. The fourth chapter examines one of the key issues with which the EU has been involved in recent years: conditionality. This chapter is concerned with the EU's desire to export and encourage, first, 'good governance' ('political conditionality') and, second, economic conditionality: liberalization, structural adjustment and debt. Chapter five covers regimes, trade and trading relations. The final section of the book is concerned with reforms during 1996-2000 to the EU's institutional relations with the developing countries (chapter six), with the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (chapter seven) and with 'future challenges' to the EU-developing countries relationship (chapter eight). The final chapter, chapter nine, examines the development of the EU's relations with the developing countries in terms of various theories of integration. The book succeeds in its aims. It will be invaluable to students of the EU's relations with the developing world. It usefully presents, in one place, a critical history of the development of that relationship and the areas that it covers.