This book considers some recent and spectacular failures in policy-making and asks what is meant by policy 'disaster', the different forms that they can take and why they have occured. These issues are explored in nine contrasting cases drawn from both the European Union and its member states. These include: the devastating crisis in the Belgium political system following the exposure of a paedophile ring; the crisis in the Dutch fight against drugs; 'Mad Cows', the 'Arms to Iraq' affair in the UK; monetary union between West and East Germany; the Swedish monetary crisis of 1992; and the EU's common fisheries policy and policies towards civil war in Yugoslavia. This book is an excellent study of how and why policies can go wrong and highlights the limits of what governments can achieve in Western Europe.

Part 1 Introduction; Chapter 1 Policy Disasters in Europe, Pat Gray; Part 2 The Core Functions of the State; Chapter 2 The Disastrous Justice System in Belgium, Lode Van Outrive; Chapter 3 The Mass Media and Policy Disasters, Mark Bovens, Paul't Hart, Sander Dekker, Gerdien Verheuvel, Eline de Vries; Part 3 The 'Welfare' State; Chapter 4 The BSE Crisis, Rob Baggott; Chapter 5 Italian Public Policy and the Southern Question, Robert Sykes; Chapter 6 An Unavoidable Disaster? The German Currency Union of 1990, Wolfgang Seibel; Part 4 The State in its International Context; Chapter 7 'errors of an Administrative Nature'?, Pat Gray; Chapter 8 In Defence of the Swedish Crown, Eric Stern, Bengt Sundelius; Part 5 The European Union Level; Chapter 9 The Common Fisheries Policy, Ella Ritchie, Anthony Zito; Chapter 10 The Change of a Lifetime?, Joanne van Selm-Thorburn, Bertjan Verbeek; Part 6 Conclusions; Chapter 11 Explaining Policy Disasters in Europe, Mark Bovens, Paul't Hart, B.Guy Peters;