Karim Knio, The European Union’s Mediterranean Policy: Model or Muddle—A New Institutionalist Perspective; Michelle Pace, The Politics of Regional Identity—Meddling with the Mediterranean, The New International Relations Series

Date01 April 2020
Published date01 April 2020
DOI10.1177/0020881720910909
Subject MatterBook Reviews
Book Reviews 191
‘capitalist’ tenets, it leaves many astounded. India is perhaps the most influenced
and affected by China’s actions. By following a foreign policy, rigid and
centrifugal, India needs to evolve a flexibility by allowing states to have the laxity
to determine investments in economic aspects where New Delhi does not have the
only word. When China can do this, what ails India? Decision-making, perhaps.
T. V. Paul’s edited book is a worthwhile contribution to understand, unravel
and interpret the multiple layers in China–India relations that go beyond the
rivalry, since a ‘rivalry’ has to happen between equals. It would have been better
if few factual errors and typos were avoided. India conducted nuclear test in May
1998, not in May 2008 as mentioned on page 11. Similarly, a well-known scholar
Peter J. Katzenstein has been referred as Pater J. Katzenstein on page 24. Overall,
the book is to be recommended to students and researchers studying international
relations, strategic studies, area studies, global governance and political theorists
wanting to go especially beyond neo-realism.
ORCID iD
Raviprasad Narayanan https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5862-8659
Raviprasad Narayanan
Associate Professor
Centre for East Asian Studies
School of International Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi
E-mail: raviprasad.narayanan@gmail.com
Karim Knio, The European Union’s Mediterranean Policy: Model or
Muddle—A New Institutionalist Perspective (UK: Palgrave Macmillan,
2013), 152 pp. £88.39. ISBN 978-1-4039-4655-3 (Hardcover).
Michelle Pace, The Politics of Regional Identity—Meddling with the
Mediterranean, The New International Relations Series (London &
New York: Routledge, 2006), 234 pp. US$40.25. ISBN: 978-0415459983
(Paperback).
DOI: 10.1177/0020881720910909
The Mediterranean region, stretching over 2.5 million square kilometers, and
consisting of parts of southern Europe, the Balkan region, North Africa (Maghreb)
and West Asia, is considered to be the cradle of the European civilization. The
importance of the Mediterranean region to the European Union (EU) has been
succinctly captured by the European Commission itself. In fact, the Mediterranean
Basin is important to the EU for a whole range of reasons, relating not only to
geographical proximity but also to mutual interests and colonial links. Thus, the
Mediterranean is perceived as a politically and strategically important area in the

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