Alasdair Young
Professor and Neal Family Chair
- School of International Affairs
- Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy
Overview
Alasdair Young is Professor and Neal Family Chair. He co-directs the Center for European and Transatlantic Studies, a Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, and the Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy. He held a Jean Monnet Chair (2012-15) and received the Ivan Allen College’s Distinguished Researcher Award in 2015. Beyond Georgia Tech, he was co-editor of JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies (2017-22) and was chair of the European Union Studies Association (USA) (2015-17). Before joining Georgia Tech in 2011 he taught at the University of Glasgow in the UK for 10 years. Prior to that he held research posts at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and the University of Sussex, outside Brighton in the UK.
Alasdair has written five books, including Supplying Compliance with Trade Rules: Explaining the EU’s Responses to Adverse WTO Rulings (Oxford University Press, 2021). He has edited 15 other volumes, including the eighth edition of Policy-Making in the European Union with Mark Pollack, Christilla Roederer-Rynning, and Helen Wallace (Oxford University Press, 2020). He has published almost a score of refereed journal articles -- including in Global Environmental Politics, the Journal of Common Market Studies, the Journal of European Public Policy, the Review of International Political Economy, and World Politics -- and written more than 40 book chapters. He has performed consultancy work for the US and UK governments and for the European Commission.
- DPhil, University of Sussex
- MIA, Columbia University
- BA, University of Pennsylvania
Interests
- International Trade
Focuses:
- Europe
- Europe - United Kingdom
- United States
- Environment
- Globalization and Localization
- International Trade and Investment
- Regulation
Courses
- INTA-2001: Careers In Intl Affairs
- INTA-2221: Politics of the EU
- INTA-3044: Global Politics of Tech
- INTA-3223: Transatlantic Relations
- INTA-3301: Int'l Political Econ
- INTA-4500: INTA Pro-Seminar
- INTA-4740: Sem-Political Economy
- INTA-6302: Intl Political Economy
- INTA-6306: Globalization
Selected Publications
Books
- Policy-Making in the European Union, 8th edition
Date: November 2020
Policy-Making in the European Union explores the link between the modes and mechanisms of EU policy-making and its implementation at the national level. From defining the processes, institutions, and modes through which policy-making operates, the text moves on to situate individual policies within these modes, detail their content, and analyse how they are implemented, navigating policy in all its complexities. The first part of the text examines processes, institutions, and the theoretical and analytical underpinnings of policy-making, while the second part considers a wide range of policy areas, from economics to the environment, and security to the single market. Throughout the text, theoretical approaches sit side by side with the reality of key events in the EU, including Brexit and the politicization of EU policy-making, focusing on what determines how policies are made and implemented. This includes major developments such as UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the creation of the Next Generation EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, and agreement of the Multiannual Financial Framework (2021-27). The concluding chapter considers trends in EU policy-making and the challenges facing the EU.
- The New Politics of Trade: Lessons from TTIP
Date: 2017
- Parochial Global Europe: 21st Century Trade Politics
Date: 2014
Journal Articles
- Two Wrongs Make a Right? The Politicization of Trade Policy and European Trade Strategy
In: Journal of European Public Policy, 26/12 [Peer Reviewed]
Date: December 2019
- Where’s the demand? Explaining the EU’s surprisingly constructive response to adverse WTO rulings
In: Journal of European Integration, 41/1 [Peer Reviewed]
Date: January 2019
- Not your parents’ trade politics: The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations
In: Review of International Political Economy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2016
- Europe's Influence on Foreign Rules: Conditions, Context and Comparison
In: Journal of European Public Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2015
- Liberalizing trade, not exporting rules: the limits to regulatory co-ordination in the EU's ‘new generation’ preferential trade agreements
In: Journal of European Public Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2015
© 2015 Taylor & Francis.The European Union (EU) is considered both an influential global regulator and a trade power. There is thus a common, if rather casual, assumption that the EU exports its regulations through preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Based on a close textual analysis of four early ‘new generation’ PTAs – those with Canada, Central America, Singapore and South Korea – and the Commission's opening position in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations, this contribution challenges that assumption. Across a broad spectrum of regulatory issues there has been very limited regulatory co-ordination. Moreover, where it has occurred, it has focused on establishing the equivalence of different rules or on convergence based on international, not European, standards. This contribution thus demonstrates that the EU has not exported its regulations through ‘new generation’ PTAs. Moreover, it contends that the EU has not really tried to. It speculates that the EU has not sought to export aggressively its rules through new generation PTAs because of concern that opposition to regulatory change in its partners would jeopardize agreements that would benefit European firms.