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This chapter examines the European Union’s (EU’s) policy on agriculture. The importance that the EU has given to the agricultural sector can be attributed in large part to food shortages at the end of the Second World War. Governments agreed that it was important to ensure adequate supplies of food at reasonable prices. To achieve this, it was necessary to provide an adequate income to farmers, while taking measures to increase their productivity. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was the first redistributive policy of the European Community, and for many years the only one. The chapter reviews the history of the CAP and explains the main drivers for reform, which include costs, EU enlargement, environmental pressures, and the growing powers of the European Parliament. Another key driver for change has stemmed from external pressure from world trade talks. The chapter concludes by reviewing the prospects for the next iteration of the CAP from 2021–27.

This chapter examines the decline of the Cold War during the period 1985–9. It begins with a discussion of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘new diplomacy’, a more flexible, less ideological foreign policy based on his belief that ‘a less confrontational stance towards the outside world would provide greater security than endless rearming’. It then considers Gorbachev’s reforms, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty signed in December 1987 by Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, and US–Soviet relations under George H. W. Bush and Gorbachev. It also analyses the end of the Cold War in less developed countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, and Cambodia, before concluding with an assessment of the demise of Soviet communism in Eastern Europe.

Between the period of the end of the Cold War and now, the European Union (EU) has enlarged four times. In 2016, on the eve of the Brexit referendum in the UK, it had a total membership of 28 countries, almost half of which (11 member states) are in Central and South-Eastern Europe. By enlarging, the EU wanted to consolidate the democratic and economic reforms in post-communist countries, and spread security and prosperity eastwards. Its enlargement policy involved an obvious carrot-and-stick policy, to encourage reforms, mainly through the application of membership conditionality. However, 30 or so years on from the end of the Cold War, the potential of EU enlargement to reshape European order is clearly currently in jeopardy: the fragile consensus favouring the enlargement project has become more brittle, and rather than generating a secure and prosperous European order, the EU has found itself surrounded by an ‘arc of crisis’, with wars and atrocities in its ‘backyard’. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is proving to be the most serious threat to European order since the end of the Cold War. The EU will have to adjust to a much more insecure and threatening environment. The EU’s influence in its neighbourhood is tempered not just by Russia, but also by China and Turkey.

This chapter discusses the contrasting philosophies of Catharine Macaulay and Edmund Burke regarding the fundamental nature of political society and the approaches to take on reform. Macaulay’s philosophy revolves around the core ideal of freedom as independence from arbitrary control. Additionally, Macaulay’s work recognized that people’s beliefs are shaped by the social environment but could be manipulated by elites. On the other hand, Burke’s philosophical beliefs are organic, contextual, and pragmatic while addressing the complexity and range of social considerations and human motivations that contribute to a viable and productive state. However, Burke’s philosophy could be challenged as to whether he provides protection against possible abuse of power or not. The chapter also covers the weakness in their philosophical works while considering equal citizenship rights for women and minority social groups.

This chapter examines the common agricultural policy (CAP) in the context of political rather than economic terms. It first provides an overview of the development of the European agricultural welfare state, explaining why and how agriculture was able to claim and uphold a special position in Europe. It then considers CAP's achievements and unintended consequences and cites financial pressure as a strong incentive for CAP reform in the early 1990s, as was the pernicious international impact of the policy. It shows how concerns about the environment and food safety, and about the possible impact of European Union enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe, maintained the momentum for reform. Given the broad political commitment to supporting farm incomes, and sustaining a viable countryside in the EU, however, the chapter suggests that CAP is likely to endure in some form or other.

This chapter examines one of the first European policies, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It does so by focusing on the policy’s objectives, instruments, actors, and debates. It looks at the way in which the CAP has evolved since the 1960s, and attempts to explain this evolution by asking and answering a number of important questions: why has the CAP been so problematic for European policy-makers? Why has it proven so resistant to change? Given the constraints identified, how has reform come about? This chapter also looks at some of the challenges facing agricultural policy, as new debates emerge among citizens on the place and the functions performed by agriculture. The chapter grants particular attention to the way the CAP tackles issues such as rural development, relations between agriculture, food and the environment, transparency, and social equity.