ABSTRACT
The preceding ten chapters (Chapters Fivethrough Fourteen) have analyzed the fivemajor nation-states in the pre-2004 European Union: France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain. This chapter will compare major features of these five nation-states with the other ten members of the pre-2004 European Union: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden. It will focus first on their political development and then examine contemporary governmental institutions and participatory processes. The last part of this chapter will examine their relationships with the European Union. Where appropriate, the chapter will draw upon major theoretical perspectives to assist in explaining the observed patterns. In doing so, it aims to review and place in a broad comparative context the predominant patterns already observed in the major EU member states while at the same time providing explicit comparisons and contrasts with those in the smaller member states. While not the chief focus of this text, the
smaller states often do play significant roles within the European Union. Moreover, they often illustrate unique patterns not found in the major member states but deserving of attention: more egalitarian welfare states in the Nordic countries and more complex ethnic-cooperation patterns in Belgium than in the major EU member states, for example.
