Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Europe

4611. Europeanization and the Retreat of the State

Author:
Volker Schneider and Frank M. Häge
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Is the state on the retreat? We examine this question through an analysis of changing patterns of government involvement in infrastructure provision, which is generally considered to be one of the primary functions of the modern state. Based on an analysis of the extent of privatization of infrastructure companies between 1970 and 2000 across twenty-six OECD countries, we find that there is indeed a general trend towards less public infrastructure provision visible in all of the countries and that the main factors associated with the extent of privatizations are EU membership and government ideology. We argue that the trend of privatizing infrastructure companies was triggered by a change of the prominent economic discourse in the 1970s and that a rightist party ideology and EU membership fostered the adoption and implementation of these ideas in domestic settings.
Topic:
Government and Privatization
Political Geography:
Europe

4612. Changing Views of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Democratic Spain (1978-2006)

Author:
Carmen López Alonso
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This article examines the changing views of Israel in democratic Spain and its historical background. History plays an important part in the Spanish relationship to Israel: not only have Jewish people been for centuries an "absent presence" but, during the long period of the Franco dictatorship, Israel, as a model, has played an important role in the Spanish path to democracy. That democracy has been and still is the key point in Spain's relationship to Israel explains why democratic Spain is not essentially different from the rest of Europe in what relates to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even if manifestations of antisemitism are present in Spanish public opinion, many of the criticisms of Israel are not about antisemitism but of specific Israeli policies.
Political Geography:
Europe, Israel, Palestine, and Spain

4613. Uneven Power and the Pursuit of Peace: How Regional Power Transitions Motivate Integration

Author:
Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper addresses two related puzzles confronting students of regional and international integration: Why do states willingly pool and delegate sovereignty within international institutions? What accounts for the timing and content of regional integration agreements? Most theories of integration suggest that states integrate in order to solve problems of incomplete information and reduce transaction costs and other barriers to economic growth. In contrast I argue that integration can serve to establish a credible commitment that rules out the risk of future conflict among states of unequal power. Specifically, I suggest that integration presents an alternative to preventive war as a means to preclude a rising revisionist power from establishing a regional hegemony. The implication is that it is not countries enjoying stable and peaceful relations that are most likely to pursue integration, but rather countries that find themselves caught in a regional security dilemma, which they hope to break out of by means of institutionalized cooperation. I evaluate this proposition against evidence from two historical cases of regional integration: the German Zollverein and the European Communities.
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

4614. Recalcitrance, Inefficiency, and Support for European Integration: Why Member States Do (Not) Comply with European Law

Author:
Tanja A. Börzel, Meike Dudziak, Tobias Hofmann, Carina Sprungk, and Diana Panke
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper seeks to explain inter-state variation in non-compliance with European law. While non-compliance has not significantly increased over time, some member states violate European law more frequently than others. In order to account for the variance observed, we draw on three prominent approaches in the compliance literature–enforcement, management, and legitimacy. In the first place, we develop a set of hypotheses for each of the three theories. We then discuss how they can be combined in theoretically consistent ways and develop three integrated models. Finally, we empirically test these models drawing on a unique and comprehensive dataset, which comprises more than 6,300 instances of member-state non-compliance with European law between 1978 and 1999. The empirical findings show that the combined model of the enforcement and the management approach turns out to have the highest explanatory power. Politically powerful member states are most likely to violate European law while the best compliers are small countries with highly efficient bureaucracies. Yet, administrative capacity also matters for powerful member states. The UK and Germany are much more compliant than France and Italy, which command similar political power but whose administrations are ridden by bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption.
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, France, and Italy

4615. Non-Working Time, Income Inequality and Quality of Life Comparisons: The Case of the U.S. vs. the Netherlands

Author:
Ellen Verbake and Thomas A. DiPrete
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The distribution of well-being in society and comparisons of well-being across societies depend both on the amount of inequality at the national level and also on the national average level of well-being. Comparisons between the U.S. and western Europe show that inequality is greater in the U.S. but that average GDP/capita is also greater in the U.S., and most Americans have higher standards of living than do Western Europeans at comparable locations in their national income distributions. What is less well-known is that (depending on the country) much or all of this gap arises from differences in the level of working hours in the U.S. and in Western Europe. Crossnational comparisons of well-being have typically relied on the methodology of generalized Lorenz curves (GLC), but this approach privileges disposable income and cash transfers while ignoring other aspects of welfare state and labor market structure that potentially affect the distribution of well-being in a society. We take an alternative approach that focuses on the value of time use and the different distributions of work and family time that are generated by each country's labor market and social welfare institutions. We show that reasonable estimates of the greater contribution to well-being from non-market activities such as the raising of children or longer vacations overturn claims in the literature that the U.S. offers greater well-being to more of its citizens than do Western European countries.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States, America, Europe, and Netherlands

4616. Bridging Boundaries: The Equalization Strategies of Stigmatized Ethno-racial Groups Compared

Author:
Michèle Lamont and Christopher Bail
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This article offers a framework for analyzing variations in how members of stigmatized ethnoracial groups establish equivalence with dominant groups through the comparative study of “equalization strategies.” Whereas extant scholarship on anti-racism has focused on the struggle of social movements against institutional and political exclusion and social justice, we are concerned with the “everyday” anti-racist strategies deployed by members of stigmatized groups. We seek to compare how these strategies vary according to the permeability of inter-group boundaries. The first section defines our research problem and the second section locates our agenda within the current literature. The third section sketches an empirical context for the comparative analysis of equalization strategies across four cases: Palestinian citizens of Israel, Catholics in Northern Ireland, blacks in Brazil, and Québécois in Canada. Whereas the first two cases are examples of ethnic conflict where group boundaries are tightly policed, the second cases exemplify more permeable boundaries. We conclude by offering tentative hypotheses about the relationship between the permeability of inter-group boundaries and the salience and range of equalization strategies used by members of stigmatized ethno-racial groups to establish equivalence with their counterparts in dominant majority groups.
Topic:
Civil Society
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, Canada, Israel, Brazil, South America, and North Ireland

4617. The 1998 and 2007 Referenda on Abortion in Portugal: Roman Catholicism, Secularization and the Recovery of Traditional Communal Values

Author:
Paul Christopher Manuel and Maurya N. Tollefsen
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
In the thirty-three years since the April 25, 1974, Carnation Revolution, there have been sporadic efforts by progressive forces to legalize abortion in Portugal. This activity has intensified over the past nine years, culminating with two national referenda on the subject, one in 1998 which narrowly affirmed the ban on abortion, and the second in 2007 which allowed for the procedure during the first ten weeks of pregnancy. One reason that the abortion debate in Portugal attracted much interest in the world press was what it would potentially teach about the Roman Catholic Church's contemporary role in Portuguese society. That is, would the Church maintain its traditional influential role over public policy formation in a secularizing Portugal, especially related to its moral teaching? There is some controversy about the type of secularization which is taking place (i.e., Portuguese-style secularization may be of a different sort than that of Northern European countries), but there is little doubt that the Church's ability to define morality for its members has been reduced in recent years. The Church now competes with many secular voices to frame issues such as sexuality, marriage, divorce and abortion. The recent vote to legalize abortion—a move bitterly opposed by the Church—is but one of many examples symbolizing a drift in Portuguese society toward secularization. There was another dimension to the national debate over abortion as well: the pro-choice side successfully harmonized its rhetoric to certain traditional communal values found in Portuguese society—namely compassion, solidarity and support—and, in so doing, forged a recovery of those values.
Topic:
Civil Society and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe and Portugal

4618. Defending the Gains? Transatlantic Responses When Democracy is Under Threat

Author:
Esther Brimmer(ed.)
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Transatlantic Relations
Abstract:
This book will examine whether leading liberal democracies have a responsibility to respond when democracy is under threat. The United States, the European Union and its Member States pride themselves on their commitment to liberal democracy. They cherish it at home and claim to support it internationally. Americans tend to accept the Kantian notion that the internal conditions of a country help shape its foreign policy. Immanuel Kant presented the idea that democracies do not go to war against each other. Americans have embedded the democratic peace theory in their foreign policy outlook. The fact that the United States and the United Kingdom made a historic shift into strategic alignment across the twentieth century reinforced the notion of a commonality of interests among liberal democracies. A basic premise of American foreign policy in the twentieth century is the notion that as a liberal democracy based on values, the United States should advance certain values in its international affairs. Having always cared about freedom of the seas and freer access for American exports, the republic began to care about freedom itself. Even before the U.S. was committed to international human rights, it supported democracy, albeit imperfectly and inconsistently. America's emergence to the top table of international affairs after the First World War was complemented by President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. The United States cloaked its military might in the finery of democracy. Yet, this was not mere rhetoric: the U.S. did advance a conception of democracy in the form of self-determination as part of the peace settlement. President Wilson, and his successors in both political parties, understood that grand strategic engagement needed to be underpinned by a philosophical objective.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, International Cooperation, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Europe

4619. The New Eastern Europe: Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova

Author:
Daniel Hamilton and Gerhard Mangott
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Transatlantic Relations
Abstract:
The nations of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova are the new Eastern Europe—sandwiched between a larger European Union and a resurgent Russia. Historically the object of fluid and volatile geopolitical shifts, none has ever existed as a state within its current borders, and none enjoys consensus on its respective national identity. All are located along key military, transportation and energy corridors linking Europe to Eurasia. Their problems—infectious diseases, organized crime, drug and human trafficking, pollution and illegal migration—directly spill over into the EU. Their success could have a beneficial impact on the development of democracy, pluralism and the rule of law throughout the post-Soviet space. Their future will help shape Russia's own destiny and ultimately determine where Europe ends.
Topic:
Democratization, Migration, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

4620. Non-Working Time, Income Inequality, and Quality of Life Comparisons: The Case of the U.S. vs. the Netherlands

Author:
Ellen Verbakel and Thomas DiPrete
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
The distribution of well-being in society and comparisons of well-being across societies depend both on the amount of inequality at the national level and also on the national average level of well-being. Comparisons between the U.S. and western Europe show that inequality is greater in the U.S. but that average GDP/capita is also greater in the U.S., and most Americans have higher standards of living than do Western Europeans at comparable locations in their national income distributions. What is less well-known is that (depending on the country) much or all of this gap arises from differences in the level of working hours in the U.S. and in Western Europe. Cross-national comparisons of well-being have typically relied on the methodology of generalized Lorenz curves (GLC), but this approach privileges disposable income and cash transfers while ignoring other aspects of welfare state and labor market structure that potentially affect the distribution of well-being in a society. We take an alternative approach that focuses on the value of time use and the different distributions of work and family time that are generated by each country's labor market and social welfare institutions. We show that reasonable estimates of the greater contribution to well-being from non-market activities such as the raising of children or longer vacations overturn claims in the literature that the U.S. offers greater well-being to more of its citizens than do Western European countries.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Netherlands