Europe's southern periphery, where EU adaptation has been especially intense and sometimes difficult, provides particularly rich material for investigating "Europeanization". The region offers case studies of the EU impact on first and second-generation member states as well as current candidates for EU membership. The European dynamic is also fundamental to understanding contemporary southern Europe. In recent decades EU membership, as reality or aspiration, has provided a central orientation for south European democracies, economies and societies. The EU's Single Market programme has enforced a series of market-liberalizing reforms on southern Europe. The onset of a single European currency has imposed a fiscal and monetary discipline on their economies. At the same time, the commitment to "cohesion" offers these states important sources of funding to upgrade their infrastructure. "Europeanization" is a term increasingly used in the social sciences to describe the impact, convergence or response of politicians (and civil servants) and institutions in relation to the European Union.
Its increasing currency is a symptom of the broadening and deepening of the European integration process at the turn of the century. Its usage implies a common understanding, yet it is applied in a variety of different ways. This volume explores the concept in a variety of different settings in order to clarify its meaning.