Review: Tereza Novotná, How Germany Unified and the EU Enlarged: Negotiating the Accession through Transplantation and Adaptation, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015
2016
Abstract
This is a critical review of Tereza Novotná's new book. Novotná's book tries to refine the research on the postcommunist integration of East-Central European states into democratic and capitalist Europe after 1989.
The book uses a comparison of two empirical cases - German unification in contrast to the Czech Republic's integration into the EU - to generate a new theoretical framework for comparing political integrations not only in the post-Communist region but the whole world in general. The review finds the book a great contribution to the mainstream literature, but evaluates it as providing a reductionist understanding of politics.