JOSÉ M. MAGONE is a Lecturer in European Politics at the Department of Politics and International Studies University of Hull since 1993. He has completed his D.Phil. at the University of Vienna. In the past decade he was a visiting scholar in different European institutions including as Karl W. Deutsch Guest Professor at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin in 1999. His main research interests are in the fields of democratization, political corruption, party politics and European integration. His most recent publications include: The New World Architecture. The Role of the European Union in the Making of Global Governance (New Brunswick: Transaction 2006); Iberian Trade Unionism. Democratization Under the Impact of the European Union. (New Brunswick: Transactions Publishers, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey Press 2001); The Politics of Southern Europe. Integration into the European Union. (Westport, CO.: Praeger 2003); (editor) Regional Institutions and Governance in the European Union(Westport, CT: Praeger 2003); The Developing Place of Portugal in the European Union.(New Brunswick: Transaction 2004); Contemporary Spanish Politics(London: Routledge 2004).