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Since 2008, the European Union has been affected by one of the most severe crises in the history of Europe. This book builds on the work of Jürgen Habermas to answer the key question: is Europe strong enough to overcome the recent crisis? Arguing that recovery can only take place if the citizens of Europe regard themselves as members of a socially integrated European society, this volume sets out three conditions for successful European social integration: European citizens mutually respect each other as equals, accepting that all EU citizens should have equal economic, political and social rights. Those citizens objecting to the idea of European equality should not constitute a minority wi...
Uniquely authoritative and comprehensive, this text provides expert insight into EU policy, exploring the modes, mechanisms, substance, and implementation of EU policy-making .
The contributors to this study address the question of how political theory is relevant to the construction of new Europe and the tie-in issues of citizenship, social justice and political legitimacy. By using techniques of contemporary political theory, the book argues that the emergence of new Europe poses fundamental questions of value and principle and challenges more established political theories in the process.
How can we best analyse contemporary welfare state change? And how can we explain and understand the politics of it? This book contributes to these questions both empirically and theoretically by concentrating on one of the least likely cases for welfare state transformation in Europe. It analyzes in detail how and why institutional change has taken Germany’s welfare state from a conservative towards a new work-first regime. Christof Schiller introduces a novel analytical framework to make sense of the politics of welfare state transformation by providing the missing link: the capacity of the core executive over time. Examining the policy making process in labour market policy in the perio...
Beyond the Market: The European Union and National Social Policy considers the extent to which the European Union has impacted on the formation and content of social and environmental policy in the member states, focusing on the four larger members: Germany, France, the UK and Italy. The contributors use theory and empirical evidence to highlight the factors that influence the formation and content of social policy and why some states have been able to resist EU social policy initiatives successfully and maintain their autonomy.
Fritz W. Scharpf's renowned model of the 'joint-decision trap' suggestes that the requirements of (nearly) unanimous decisions in the EU's Council of Ministers, combined with conflicting preferences among member governments, will systematically limit the problem-solving effectiveness of European policies. However, certain conditions have significantly changed in the 25 years since the theory was first posited. In particular, the unanimity rule has been replaced by qualified-majority voting in most issue areas, and successive rounds of enlargement have augmented the diversity of member state interests and preferences. This volume examines the continued relevance of the model. It presents a co...
While social welfare programs, often inspired by international organizations, are spreading throughout the world, the more far-reaching notion of governmental responsibility for the basic well-being of all members of a political society is not, although it remains a feature of Europe and the former British Commonwealth. The welfare state in the European sense is not simply an administrative arrangement of various measures of social protection but a political project embedded in distinct cultural traditions. Offering the first accessible account in English of the historical development of the European idea of the welfare state, this book reviews the intellectual foundations which underpinned the road towards the European welfare state, formulates some basic concepts for its understanding, and highlights the differences in the underlying structural and philosophical conditions between continental Europe and the English-speaking world.
The EU claims that solidarity is a fundamental value underlying the European social model, yet often stands accused of undermining solidarity by advancing market freedoms. This book provides the first extended study of the idea of solidarity in the EU context from interdisciplinary perspectives--analyzing its impact on law and policy.
This book examines the relationship of belonging and social policy in a historical-comparative perspective reconstructing individual arguments in favour of or opposed to the expansion of solidarities.
Die Bände dieser von Rainer Schützeichel (Universität Bielefeld) herausgegebenen Reihe befassen sich interdisziplinär mit aktuellen gesellschaftlichen und wissenschaftlichen Problemlagen. Aufgrund ihres modularen Aufbaus eignen sie sich nicht nur als grundlegende und umfassende wissenschaftliche Einführungen, sondern auch als Lehrbücher in der universitären Lehre.