Volume 2, No 2/ Volume 3, No 1

Dramatic events in Central Europe in Autumn 1989—particularly demonstrations on the streets of Leipzig and East Berlin—often overshadow the accounts of the high- stakes diplomacy that ended the Cold War division of Germany and Europe. This account by a member of the West German team that negotiated the ‘Two-plus-Four’ Treaty between the two Germanies, France, the UK, Soviet Union and United States puts the spotlight on the monumental issues resolved in a frenetic period of diplomacy between February and July 1990. The treaty leading to German unification managed issues central to modern Europe’s bloodiest conflicts—state sovereignty and national self-determination—by preserving and extending Western Europe’s multilateral institutions. Negotiators trod a narrow path between sceptics in East and West, unifying Germany without undermining Europe’s multilateral political and security order founded on NATO and the European Community. Rather than raising the German Question anew, the ‘Two-plus-Four’ Treaty unified Germany by extending eastward the Federal Republic’s postwar commitments to the West. Ambassador Luy provides a first-hand account of how this fortuitous chain of events unfolded.

T.H. Rigby’s concept of goal rationality, building on Max Weber’s ideas of substantive and formal- legal rationality in the functioning of bureaucracies, provided important insights into the relevance of ideology for understanding how the Soviet system worked at both the domestic and foreign policy levels. This ideological dimension has tended to be neglected in much of the Western literature on Soviet communism. Since the end of the Soviet system, Russian leaders have tended to avoid ideology as a negative example to be avoided. Nevertheless, in their search for doctrines and principles to guide foreign and domestic aspects of the pursuit of national interests, these leaders have willy-nilly fallen back on ideological ways of thinking, which Rigby’s goal rationality helps to elucidate.

This research paper examines the capacity of the EU to exercise its influence in relation to environmental matters beyond its Member States. More specifically, this paper identifies that EU law and policy has the potential to influence environmental laws and business practices in New Zealand. Two hypotheses are put forward: first, that the EU can use its market force in such a way as to influence laws in third countries such as New Zealand – that is, relatively small countries seeking economies of scale and for whom the EU represents a valuable market. It is suggested that such influence can be observed in New Zealand through a spill-over effect in product standards for those goods exported to the EU and sold within New Zealand. Secondly, it is argued that the EU overcomes legal jurisdictional limits by relentlessly pursuing the adoption of its environmental policies and practices outside the EU through international consensus.

The increasing number of residents and citizens with non-Western cultural backgrounds in the European Union (EU) has prompted the question of whether EU Member States (and other Western democracies) can accommodate the newcomers and maintain their free polities (‘liberal democracies’). The answer depends on how important – if at all – cultural groundings are to democratic polities. The analysis of a fascinating Habermas-Ratzinger debate on the ‘pre-political moral foundations of the free- state’ suggests that while legitimacy originates on the will of the citizens that conform the political community, liberal democracies might not be completely free from moral principles implicit in their political culture. This possibility has normative implications for the political future of the EU—and of the West in general—particularly regarding immigration, integration and citizenship policies.

This article examines the European Union’s (EU) current negotiations of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Thailand. It asks why the EU has entered into the negotiation process with this remote developing economy and provides theoretical explanations for the EU’s motivations. It will give an overview of the process and discuss the issues that have emerged in the course of the negotiations and are currently pending. The article will assess the pre-negotiation phase and the obstacles during the negotiation phase that have delayed the conclusion of the process. The findings will allude to historical institutionalism and a self-devised content-context approach synthesised with William I. Zartman’s insights on negotiation theory. The article argues that despite the importance of the economic dimension of the negotiations and the general prevalence of international political economy in explaining the EU’s relations with Asia, this case reveals a complexity of variables that contest a purely economic lens and allow a theoretically eclectic and reflectivist understanding of the impediments, stimuli and of the process itself.

Every second issue, the Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies will publish the winners from the previous year’s Contemporary European Studies Association of Australia (CESAA) Essay Competition.

The winners of the 2010 CESAA Essay Competition were: Postgraduate: Vanessa McGlynn, University of New South Wales Honours: Benjamin Power, Australian National University Undergraduate: Isabel Grelak, University of New South Wales

The CESAA Essay Competition facilitates greater awareness of developments in European affairs, thereby promoting a closer cooperation between Australia and the European Union. Considering the always present ‘tyranny of distance,’ the Essay Competition is a wonderful way for students to maintain contact with the ‘European Community’ in Australia. There are also more tangible benefits: the competition presents an excellent opportunity for students to have their ideas peer reviewed and of course, there are prizes awarded