Europe Today Research Articles

Historicizing diaglossia

Auer (2005, 2011) presents a typology of present‐day dialect/standard constellations in Europe, thereby reintroducing the concept of diaglossia, which refers to a situation with intermediate variants between dialect and standard. Characterizing the sociolinguistic landscape in many languages in Europe today, diaglossia is assumed to be a relatively recent phenomenon dating back to the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, following a previous stage of diglossia. Drawing on a range of case studies of post‐Medieval English, German and Dutch, this article argues that the sociolinguistic situation in the Early and Late Modern period cannot be described in terms of diglossia, and is characterized by a ubiquity of intermediate variants instead, that is, by diaglossia. This means that diaglossia should be extended much farther back in time and is not a recent development following a state of diglossia.

Understanding Bank Risk through Market Measures

Since the financial crisis, there have been major changes in the regulation of large banks directed at reducing their risk. Measures of regulatory capital have substantially increased; leverage ratios have been reduced; and stress-testing has sought to further assure safety by raising levels of capital and reducing risk-taking. Standard financial theories predict that such changes would lead to substantial declines in financial market measures of risk. For major banks in the United States and around the world and for midsized banks in the United States, we test this proposition using information on stock price volatility, option-based estimates of future volatility, beta, credit default swaps, price–earnings ratios, and preferred stock yields. To our surprise, we find that financial market information does not bear out the predictions of financial theory. Measures of volatility and risk premiums today are no lower and perhaps somewhat higher than they were prior to the financial crisis. We examine a number of possible explanations for our findings. While financial markets underestimated risk prior to the crisis and regulatory measures of capital are flawed, we believe that the most important explanation for our findings is the dramatic decline in the franchise value of major banks. We highlight that the ratio of the market value of common equity to assets on both a risk-adjusted and risk-unadjusted basis has declined significantly from the precrisis period to the current period for most major banks. As a consequence, banks are more vulnerable to adverse shocks. We argue for taking a dynamic view of capital that recognizes future profits as a source of capital, and urge approaches to financial regulation supervision that will reliably force rapid capital replenishment in difficult times—something that did not take place in the United States in 2008 and is not taking place in Europe today.

Soybean Demonstration Platforms: The Bond Between Breeding, Technology and Farming in Central and Eastern Europe

Europe's annual soy and soy derivates consumption is rather high – around 40 million tons grain equivalent – and the European soybeans field production is very low – up to 0.5% of worldwide production. In Europe, particularly in the European Union, soybean crop was neglected and forgotten; neglected by the policy makers and forgotten by farmers. Neglected and forgotten from both economic and agronomic perspectives. Over the years, this situation deepened and deepened, today Europe is facing an enormous trade deficit in terms of soy grains, soya-meal and soya oil. In the past three years we may observe the beginning of a changing paradigm for soybean cultivation. The soybean acreage is increasing, the farmers are reassessing more and more the soybeans in the field crops rotation and the governments started to introduce additional incentives to stimulate the development of soybean crop. This trend is noticeable particularly in Central and Eastern Europe/Danube Region, the most favorable area for soybeans in Europe. Under these circumstances, the farmers’ need for information and know-how transfer become a critical factor for success. One of the powerful tools for farmer information is the demonstration platform. The demo platform is the place where farmers can visit and discuss about various soybeans technological plots and different soybeans varieties and where the breeders can display their newly and old but improved genotypes. Definitively, the demo platform is the bond between breeding, technology and farming.

The Transnational and the Transcultural in Medieval German Literature Spatial Identity and Pre-Modern Concepts of Nationhood in the Works of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Straßburg, Rudolf von Ems, and Konrad von Würzburg

This paper will examine the notion of the transnational and transcultural in a selection of premodern German texts, raising the fundamental question what the concept of ‘nation’ might have been in the past and probing how cultural identity was determined in contrast with other people or social groups. Such an investigation might come just at the right time today when traditional categories of the nation and cultural identity are becoming fluid once again and lose much of their usual conceptual rigidity, although there are many forces across Europe today that fight energetically against the loss of national identities. Hence, we are required to raise the ancient-old question once again what constitutes our identity within what cultural context (religion, language, political community, history, ethics, morality, aesthetics, etc.). We will not need to discuss the political concept of ‘nation’ (‘national’) much in the context of the pre-modern world because true politically determined nations in the modern sense emerged only by the sixteenth and seventeenth century, especially in the age of Absolutism. But this does not release us from the need to investigate carefully what ‘transcultural’ would mean within the larger context of political and linguistic entities clearly separating various countries from each other, and this already in the Middle Ages. After all, this takes us directly to the critical issue of identity that needs to be situated within a specific historical and cultural framework that is constantly subject to changes, and yet survives because of deep roots in the regional or local setting.

Keynes and the European economy

We argue in this paper that Keynes was interested primarily in the world economy. We do not seek to diminish the innovative advances Keynes made in The General Theory; we instead want to expand the perceived scope of Keynesian economics. We make this argument by analysing Keynes's contributions at three points during his career: writing The Economic Consequences of the Peace just after the First World War, testifying before the Macmillan Committee at the outset of the Great Depression, and negotiating at Bretton Woods during and after the Second World War. We then show how international Keynesian analysis clarifies the economic problems of Europe today.

Unjust Conduct in the Internal Market

This paper argues that the European Union (EU) can be held morally responsible for ensuring justice in the internal market. In particular, the EU must prevent and sanction unjust market conduct by private parties through appropriate private law rules and ensure at least minimal protection of the private rights of internal market agents. The EU’s moral responsibility for maintaining justice in the internal market requires an EU discourse of civil justice going well beyond (and at times against) the European Commission’s slogan of ‘justice for growth’. The article first discusses and rejects three potential challenges to its main claim, all of which are based on different alleged divisions of labour, as a result of which it would seem to follow that European private law has no role to play in assuring distributive and interpersonal justice in the internal market. It then outlines how we might arrive at a conception of unjust conduct in the internal market that is compatible with the value pluralism that characterizes Europe today. Finally, it explains why the private law acquis, because of the way it is currently constituted, is unlikely already to be in compliance with such standards of civil justice in the internal market.

Roche Shops Capacity

Roche’s recent announcement that it will attempt to sell three pharmaceutical chemical plants in Europe and one in the U.S. came with an explanation that fits nicely with a major trend in drug active ingredients. The company cited the trend toward smaller volume, higher complexity chemistry in drugs coming forward in the pipeline. To that end the Swiss firm is spending about $300 million on a new manufacturing site in Kaiseraugst, Switzerland, that will support novel technologies. But the sale plan also lines up with a long-term move by big drug companies away from manufacturing, a trend that will impact the future of the plants, which are in Ireland, Spain, Italy, and South Carolina. Swiss industry consultants Roger LaForce and Peter Pollak give the plan some historical as well as local perspective. “Selling a fine chemicals plant in Europe today is not an easy task,” LaForce says. “I am aware ...

Languaging the Borders of Europe

Emerging from a discomfort with the blind spots encountered within and across theorizations of language and space in the field of human geography, in this article, we argue for “making space” for conceptualizations that speak from and through the everyday territories of migrants in Europe today. Inspired by a range of writers thinking postcolonially and multi/trans-lingually, the authors draw on their own embodied migrant experience to argue for re-envisioning Europe’s borders through multiple languaging practices. “Languaging”, in this view, takes linguistic practices in a migrant context as an inherently prosthetic activity, whereby any dominant, national host language is inevitably subject to the subterranean rumblings of all the languages a migrant brings with her on her global journeys. Conceived as being saturated with prosthetic “absence(s)”, migrant languaging practices rework cultural geography’s bounded, inward-looking, and security-fixated understanding of the language/territory nexus, the better to open a vital space for re-envisioning language’s everyday territories as sites for translational solidarity and becoming.

Fiscal Multipliers and Time Preference

This paper explores the links between fiscal multipliers and household discount rates. We report evidence of a large and statistically significant relationship between reported rates of time preference across countries and the government expenditure multiplier. This study uses recent cross-country data on reported rates of time preferences gathered by Wang, Rieger and Hens (2011). We find that a higher reported rate of time preference is strongly associated with a larger government expenditure multiplier. Our findings may help to explain some of the differences in view over the optimal path for fiscal consolidation in Europe today, between the Germanic and Northern European countries (whose representatives appear to favour a faster fiscal retrenchment) and those in the South (who would like their required fiscal adjustment to occur less rapidly).

Publishing Trends in Library and Information Sciences Across European Countries and Institutions

Ten bibliometric indicators were used to assess European publishing intensity in journals listed in Scopus under the subject category “Library and Information Science” between 2003 and 2012. The findings were analyzed for the 20 countries and 25 research institutions with the greatest output in that period. The indicators calculated included normalized impact, number and proportion of highly cited papers and the distribution of papers by the quartiles defined in the Scimago Journal Rank (SJR). SJR is a measure of the scientific influence of scholarly journals that accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the importance or prestige of the journals where such citations come from. With SJR, the subject field, quality and reputation of the journal have a direct effect on the value of a citation. The analysis covered 11,931 Western and 939 Eastern European papers published in 149 journals. The highest output growth rates were found for Spain, Poland, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Austria. The highest impact ratings were attained by European institutions whose members are prolific authors of papers on informetrics. On the whole, the articles were written primarily in English, Spanish, German or French, while the publications most widely cited appeared in English language journals. This study presents bibliometric data that shed light on the status of Library and Information Science research in Europe today, in the framework of the European Higher Education Area.

The State of Freedom in Europe

AbstractThe reaction to 11 September damaged the liberty of those living in Europe who found themselves targeted as suspect terrorists while seeming to do little to ensure the security of the wider community. More recently a second emergency, rooted this time in the financial and economic collapse of 2008 onwards, has caused a further unravelling of Europe's constitutional project, even threatening the gains of past generations of European idealists. In today's Europe universal liberty and security have no meaning for many even if their shape is retained in structures that in truth mock rather than deliver democracy and human rights. This article traces the origins of the crises that have afflicted so directly the breadth of liberty and human security in the Union, demonstrating their roots in ‘viruses’ that have been present from the start of the European movement but which have now spiralled out of control. The essay ends by asking what can be done to prevent the full decline of the region into a state of neo‐democratic/post‐democratic unfreedom, one in which capital unbound from democracy thrives at the expense of the people.

Local Government Structure and Capacities in Europe

This article argues that the local government capacities and local government performance in Europe clearly rank this continent to the most developed world areas from the point of local democracy. The background factors explaining this situation have a multidimensional character and one can identify as core positive factors the relative economic wealth, high human development, the long historical tradition of the subsidiarity principle in most parts of Europe, and the regulatory function of the Council of Europe. The strong development of local and regional democracy in Europe is protected and based on the principles of European Charter of Local Self Government. However, this does not mean that everything is perfect in Europe and that there would be no challenges to be addressed. It is difficult to define clear common weaknesses of the local democracy in Europe. We need to mention the core structural challenges here, for instance the continuous discussion about amalgamation versus fragmentation. Most countries also indicate one overarching threat to the local democracy in Europe today, that is, the financial crisis, which significantly decreased the level of available financial resources for self-governments, while the structure of responsibilities remains the same or even increases. Another core threat visible in many European countries is the trend toward re-centralization or limited real will do continue with decentralization in, both in established and emerging democracies. Regional issues differ, and we mention especially the situation of post-communist countries, where local democracy does not have a long tradition and still needs to be revitalized.

A credit-money and structural perspective on the European crisis: why exiting the euro is the answer to the wrong question

Is an exit from the euro possible? Is it desirable? We think that to deal with these questions, which may well not be the right ones just now, what is needed is a preliminary but thorough critique of the views on the European crisis that are most widespread. The heterodox approaches more and more underline a balance-of-payments problem, caused by cumulative differences in relative prices which have led to distinct growth strategies: export-led in the core, and debt-led in the periphery, focused on consumption and real-estate investment. This interpretation overlooks some defining features of current monetary economies, in general, and some specifics of currency areas. In a monetary union it's not possible to have a ‘normal’ balance-of-payments crisis, and a distinction must be made between financing and saving. Moreover, current accounts, based on net flows, exclude underlying changes in gross flows and their contribution to the existing stocks of debt. We also have to deal with the structural divergences in the European economy. To make sense of Europe today and its crisis, we have to take into account the geographical and technological composition of intra-European trade.

A Study of ESP Teaching in European Higher Education After Bologna Process

English as an international language, has gained a privileged position and already become the establish language of science and technology. Teaching and learning of English as a foreign language in the higher education has increasingly specialized to cater to the specific situations or purposes for which the language may be needed. Most of the English taught in universities in Europe today is English for Specific Purposes (ESP). This paper is concerned with the teaching of English for Specific Purposes and attempts to analyze the state and main problems of ESP teaching in European higher education after Bologna Process. The author hopes that this research will give some insights to the ESP teaching in China .

How can we learn leadership? The vision of the Europe-wide University

In the view of many students, business and engineering education in Europe today do not sufficiently take into account complex problems, tendencies of chaos and uncontrollable business behaviour, and the lack of mutual trust in business transactions. Additionally, universities seem to fail in creating leaders, instead focusing on educating future managers. Therefore, the student-run international organisation the European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management (ESTIEM) offers a whole series of educational activities and programmes in parallel to their own university courses. It is based on the concept of experiential learning. Through ESTIEM, we, students of Industrial Engineering Management, learn and practise working in teams with shared and rotating leadership among ourselves. These experiences are to be described in the paper in some more detail, as a model for university education in industrial engineering and management. Furthermore, the following questions will be tackled: What does leadership mean today? How are problems handled by leaders and managers in industry nowadays? How can leadership to solve complex problems be taught in the university? As a consequence, it is suggested to develop out of the ESTIEM programmes, a series of university-equivalent ESTIEM courses. In the long term, the goal might be to realise the vision of a genuine Europe-wide "ESTIEM University" in its own right, similar to normal universities which will help in shaping new leadership generation in Europe.

Football, body and advertising: a case study

Firstly, inspired by Le Goff and Truong (Une histoire du corps au Moyen Âge), Richard Sennett (Flesh and Stone) and Michel Maffesoli (Le Rythme de Vie), we have outlined some considerations for the organization of the history of the body in Brazilian football. In the second topic, we review studies that examine the convergence between football and advertising. This theoretical background will link to the subsequent analysis of 11 advertisements of well-known brands in which Brazilian football athlete, Neymar, appears as the poster boy. It is said that in football, especially in the first half of the twentieth century, there was certain prejudice against blacks and biracial players (until today Europe reports cases of racism); in advertising, these groups were kept from certain positions also. In short, Neymar takes part in a scenario of identity crisis as an icon able to instigate criticism as well as praise. His public image is permeated by the youthful desire to see himself represented.

Recent Policy and Politics of the European Union and the Effect on Welfare - Implications for Research

Abstract In this article, which was originally presented as a speech at the 4th International Conference for Research in Diaconia and Christian Social Practice, held in Stockholm in September 2013, an examination is made of the current political and social context of Europe today and the implications for diaconia in general and more specifically the possibilities for greater research as a result. Starting with the impact of the financial and economic crisis and the resulting social crisis in Europe a reflection is made on the changes that have been seen with regards to the valuing of social protection schemes, the valuing of the person who has recourse to such schemes and the prevailing rhetoric of burden. The impact is widened out to a social impact and the various trends currently seen in Europe such as migration and individualisation. Social engagement is also changing and bringing with it a search for new ways of 'being social' and connectedness between people - summarised as a search for new singers ...

Decolonizing Praxis in Eastern Europe: Toward a South-to-South Dialogue

This article pursues two distinct yet interrelated levels of analysis. Theoretically, the article seeks to destabilize Western narratives of a transition from humanism to anti- and post-humanism in radical scholarship by foregrounding two traditions from Eastern Europe and the Caribbean where the language of the human persisted long after its declared obsolescence in the West. The argument made here is that these divergent narratives (or “bifurcations”) of the human were neither wholly contingent nor just a matter of distinct intellectual traditions, but were deeply interwoven with both the history of the Cold War and the legacies of colonialism. On a praxical-political level, the article also engages in a close reading of arguably the major tradition of Marxist humanism in Eastern Europe, that of the Praxis circle in former Yugoslavia. While examining the specific political and theoretical reasons for the persistence of humanism in the writings of Praxis, the article argues that, in the end, their radical humanism never completely freed itself from its deep colonial dispositions, leading also to a series of controversial political choices in the 1990s. Drawing on Caribbean humanism as a counter-point to the Marxist humanism of Praxis, the article argues that radical intellectuals in Eastern Europe today need to learn from both the insights and severe limitations of their Praxis predecessors.

Recent Developments in the Measurement of Low Particulate Emissions from Mobile Sources: A Review of Particle Number Legislations

The combination of modern engine technologies, efficient aftertreatment, and tighter emission standards resulted in drastically lower particulate emission levels in Europe today. The conventional methods defined to test particulate emissions fail at such low levels as they are aimed at determining the mass of the particles collected on a filter (PM). This led to particle number (PN) measurement having become established as the method of choice to test for low particulate emissions from mobile sources. At present, there are several emission legislations that have added PN as an additional emission parameter, while there are no mandatory regulations for ambient air monitoring anywhere in the world so far. An overview of already enforced as well as an outlook of upcoming emission legislations for mobile sources that will require PN measurement will be given in this review and corresponding test solutions are described. Special emphasis is given to emission testing of construction machinery diesel particle filters in the field. Portable test equipment capable of measuring nonvolatile PN from such combustion sources is explained. Despite the progress, challenges in the measurement of low particle emissions remain, including the fact that solid particles that exist in the sub-23-nm-size range could be of more importance than originally thought.

Book Review: Land and Identity: Theory, Memory, and Practice and Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today

Book Review: Land and Identity: Theory, Memory, and Practice and Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today