LEARNING TO COOPERATE - THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION AND THE EUROPEAN UNION

The authors identify various views of the changed nature of the US-EU relationship after the end of the Cold War and assess them in the light of experience over the first year of the Clinton presidency. They conclude that developments during this period tend to support the arguments in favour of pragmatic and incremental learning rather than new institution-building or treaty relationships, and that the evolution of cooperation based on the recognition of differences rather than the assumption of harmony is central to the development of transatlantic relations in the 1990s.