An ambitious volume that sets out to analyse the nature, contradictions and limits of neoliberal governance in the EU. The analysis covers the changing geopolitical and geo-economic context, the Lisbon agenda and the contestation and mobilization against the European project, such as manifested in the national resistance against the constitution.

ANDREAS BIELER is Professor of Political Economy and Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ) in the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, UK. HANS-JÜRGEN BIELING is Junior Professor for European integration at the Department of Political Science at Philipps University Marburg, Germany. DOROTHEE BOHLE is Associate Professor of Political Science at Central European University, Budapest. ALAN W. CAFRUNY is Henry Platt Bristol Professor of International Affairs at Hamilton College, USA. JAN DRAHOKOUPIL is a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany. SANDY BRIAN HAGER is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. LAURA HORN is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. JOHANNES JÄGER is Head of the Economics Department at the University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna, Austria. HENK OVERBEEK is Professor of International Relations at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. MAGNUS RYNER is Professor of International Relations at Oxford Brookes University, UK. ARJAN VLIEGENTHART studied political science and history at the Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam) and the Freie Universität (Berlin), Germany.

Introduction: Towards a Critical Political Economy of European Governance PART I: THE NATURE AND LIMITS OF THE EUROPEAN NEOLIBERAL PROJECT The Contradictions of 'Embedded Neoliberalism' and Europe's Multi-level Legitimacy Crisis: the European Project and its Limits; B.van Apeldoorn Neoliberal European Governance and the Politics of Welfare State Retrenchment: A Critique of the New Malthusians; M.Ryner Geopolitics and Neoliberalism: U.S. Power and the Limits of European Autonomy; A.Cafruny PART II: CASE STUDIES OF EUROPEAN SOCIO-ECONOMIC REGULATION Global Finance and the European Economy: The Struggle over Banking Regulation; H.-J.Bieling& J.Jäger 'New Europeans' for the 'New European Economy': Citizenship and the Lisbon Agenda; S.Hager Organic Intellectuals at Work? The High Level Group of Company Law Experts in European Corporate Governance Regulation; L.Horn PART III: THE WIDENING OF NEOLIBERAL GOVERNANCE: TRANSNATIONAL CAPITALISM IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE Corporate Tax Reform in Neoliberal Europe: East Central Europe as a Template for Deepening the Neoliberal European Integration Project? A.Vliegenthart& H.Overbeek Race to the Bottom? Transnational Companies and Reinforced Competition in the Enlarged European Union; D.Bohle The Rise of the Competition State in the Visegrád Four: Internationalization of the State as a Local Project; J.Drahokoupil PART IV: CONTESTING NEOLIBERAL GOVERNANCE: RESISTING RESTRUCTURING IN NATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL ARENAS A National Case-study of Embedded Neoliberalism and its Limits: The Dutch Political Economy and the 'No' to the European Constitution; B.van Apeldoorn Globalization and Regional Integration: The possibilities and Problems for Trade Unions to Resist Neo-liberal Restructuring in Europe; A.Bieler