Sick Man Of Europe Research Articles

Die Innovationsfähigkeit Deutschlands

Abstract Current assessments of the German economy and its innovation potential are reminiscent of the early 2000s when Germany was considered the sick man of Europe. Germany is facing enormous challenges of overlapping crises in connection with demographic change and the green transformation that will require a wide range of innovations to overcome. The responsibility must first and foremost be borne by the companies themselves. However, public (infrastructure) investment is often followed by private investment. Streamlining the bureaucracy for targeted immigration is a high priority in order to counteract the shortage of skilled labour.

The Law of Fratricide Eradicated the Ottoman Dynasty but the Last Sick Man of Europe is Still Alive

The Law of Fratricide Eradicated the Ottoman Dynasty but the Last Sick Man of Europe is Still Alive

Italy's Decline: A Political Economy Perspective

International observers have not been kind to Italy during the past two decades. The International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2016) wrote about the country's two lost decades, the Economist (19 May 2005) described it as the real sick man of Europe and eminent economists, such as Bruno Pellegrino and Luigi Zingales (Pellegrino and Zingales, 2017), tried to diagnose the Italian disease. Italy's GDP has barely grown since the mid-1990s and the past decade was the worst in the history of its economy, world wars included.

Italy, the Sick Man of Europe: Policy Response, Experts and Public Opinion in the First Phase of Covid-19

ABSTRACT Italy was the first Western country to be dramatically overwhelmed by Covid-19, the first country outside of China to implement lockdown measures and, until mid-April 2020, the country in the world most affected in terms of number of victims. This article aims to sketch the evolution of the first phase of the Covid-19 crisis in Italy and demonstrates that the health crisis moved forward hand in hand with some typical shortcomings characterising the Italian political, administrative and institutional system. The incremental reaction by the unprecedented M5S-PD coalition government showed the huge difficulties in facing the most serious challenge since the end of WWII, with the institutional system already afflicted by its scarce capacity and the economy still recovering from the 2012 crisis.

Caring for the sick man? Russian and Greek reactions to the Ottoman reforms (1856–1908)

Greece and Russia had had a long and complicated relationship to the Ottoman Empire and especially to its sizable Orthodox Christian minority. The Sick Man of Europe was trying to cure himself quite vigorously from 1856 to 1908 but most contemporary Western and Balkan observers as well as modern historians did not rate Ottoman modernization efforts very high. Unlike their Russian counterparts implemented in the same time period, they are never labeled as ‘Great Reforms’. This article will demonstrate that during Tanzimat and its sequels, even Turkey’s archrival yet similarly dynastic empire supported Ottoman secularization and religious equality short of removing residual Christian Orthodox autonomy. Surprisingly, a very different polity, the ethnocentric Greek nation-state had similar reactions hoping to enable Ottoman Greeks to dominate the Sultan’s realm politically and economically. Russia’s motive was also to extend its influence through the traditional Ottoman institution - the Patriarchate of Constantinople - without destroying the Ottoman Empire or even engaging in conspicuous unilateralism and thereby provoking another war with the other Great Powers. While St Petersburg attempted to steer Ottoman reforms along federative lines advocating broad autonomy for Christian majority provinces, Athens backed Sultan’s direct rule except in ethnically Greek areas like Crete.

Illness Writing and Revolution, Converging Narratives: The Year in Lebanon

Illness Writing and Revolution, Converging NarrativesThe Year in Lebanon Sleiman El Hajj (bio) Revolution: The Roots and Routes of Illness For over four centuries, Lebanon was shackled to the Ottoman Empire, whose later decline was described by nineteenth-century commentators as the "Sick Man of Europe." This epithet is one of many disease metaphors that may serve to gauge the social, even somatic damages inflicted by repressive political systems. A longstanding acquiescence in a corrupt, factional status quo, rooted in sectarian leaders' promises of protection—from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire to present-day Lebanon (Hamzeh)—festered into the unprecedented nationwide revolution that swept the country in October 2019. The year 2019–2020 therefore brimmed with new and established voices—Lebanese journalists, activists, essayists, writers, and translators calling for a paradigm shift from subservience to subversion. Overall, their ethnographic texts, cultural essays, memoirs, feature stories, and poetry write, rather than write about, the recent experiences of oppression, uprising, and defiance in a country on the tenterhooks of change. By assembling and apprising narratives that range from a gendered revolution to the crippling pandemic, this intersectional medical/cultural approach may enhance the understanding and development of lifewriting studies as a vehicle for addressing and redressing the ills that surround us. Cultural-Medical Ills Spur Activist Texts: Converging Pathologies Coming on the heels of a tanking economy, unprecedented inflation, and currency devaluation, the 2019–2020 taxes proposed by the Lebanese government created a seismic ripple in the Lebanese social fabric. Starting on October 17, 2019, irrespective of sect, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators were taking to the streets daily, asking for an eradication of sectarian patronage, and for systemic [End Page 98] accountability over the long-standing mismanagement of public services (Salloukh). Grievances included electricity, internet, gas and oil, reconstruction and development, and environmental issues, which "have been persistently hijacked by sectarian interests" (Fakhoury 2). These contentious issues constitute the daily challenges to be negotiated in Beirut, an overall disruptive situation Ghassan Moussawi describes as al-wad' in a seminal work of ethnography-as-biography that came out in June 2020: Disruptive Situations: Fractal Orientalism and Queer Situations in Beirut. Moussawi's al-wad' is a fluid term he theorizes to read the lived stories and oral histories of queer men and women in their fights against oppression and obscurantism in Lebanon. Later in the year, Moussawi and fellow sociologist Salvador Vidal-Ortiz called for repurposing the term queer to denote opposition, activism, or struggle, "as a verb, as a practice of unsettling, or spoiling […] and reshaping of social forces, and not [strictly] as a sexual identity marker" (1272). This combined intervention—the oppositional reframing of "queer" to both transcend the sexual and resist the structural debacles subsumed by the Lebanese al-wad'—allows for a nuanced reading of not only the revolution but also the life narratives it spawned. Indeed, according to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), "women in Lebanon are not just agitating for their rights, but for the rights of everyone." Lebanese women traumatized by the Civil War (1975–1990) have insisted this time around on national unity as people's driving force. Even as there are both Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, "within those two groups, a great amount of diversity exists in women, but their commonalities are what makes the women of this region such fierce samples of a strong culture" (Thomas 183). This subversive potentiality, actuated by Lebanon's gendered and inclusive revolution, has brought together women, migrant workers, refugees, and the LGBTQ+ community, coalescing around principles of secularism, liberalism, and human rights. The Lebanese historian Joelle Abi-Rached writes in an autoethnographic essay that the call to implement these principles, for which she joined the throngs in downtown Beirut, also threaded the lived experiences of those present into one concerted macronarrative of illness, of which cancer takes center stage. Through recourse to various statistics, Abi-Rached shows how epidemiologically evidenced cancer is an inevitable byproduct of a more pervasive and aggressive cancer: the postwar state-level corruption that has precipitated nationwide environmental degradation—air and water pollution and toxic waste disposal, as well as garbage and sewage mismanagement...

From the poster boy of Europeanization to the sick man of Europe: thirty years (1990–2019) of Poland’s European policy

ABSTRACT The Eurosceptic turnabout which has taken place in the CEE constitutes one of the most significant factors weakening the cohesion of the EU. In this group, Poland is the key element in view of its size and the status of the ‘poster boy’ of Europeanization acquired in the previous years. This paper analyses the major trends in the European policy of the Polish governments in the long-term period of 1990–2018 on the basis of standardized data (addresses by the Polish ministers of foreign affairs) and a quantitative analysis. These data also shed light on the essence of changes taking place in Poland’s EU policy. What appeared to be important was both the change in the country’s status after joining the EU, which limits the pressure of the EU (conditionality), and the arrival in power of populist, Eurosceptic parties.

British Society of Lifestyle Medicine: Founding Principles and Current Achievements.

The British Society of Lifestyle Medicine in the United Kingdom was first established in 2016 partly in response to the 'sick man of Europe' tag applied to our nations due to the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases. Today it is contributing to the growing momentum and growing realisation that a new approach is vital for our Nations' health.

The Habsburg Monarchy and World War I: Integration, Disintegration, and Demise

The Habsburg Monarchy and World War I:Integration, Disintegration, and Demise Peter Thaler Forging a Multinational Empire: State Making in Imperial Austria from the Enlightenment to the First World War. By John Deak. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015. Pp. 376. Cloth $70.00. ISBN 978-0804795579. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. By Pieter M. Judson. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. 592. Paper $21.95. ISBN 978-0674986763. Military Culture and Popular Patriotism in Late Imperial Austria. By Laurence Cole. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. 320. Cloth $120.00. ISBN 978-0199672042. Stehen oder Fallen. Österreichische Politik im Ersten Weltkrieg. By Lothar Höbelt. Vienna: Böhlau, 2015. Pp. 323. Cloth €45.00. ISBN 978-3205796503. Der Erste Weltkrieg und das Ende der Habsburgermonarchie 1914–1918. By Manfried Rauchensteiner. Vienna: Böhlau, 2013. Pp. 1222. Cloth €45.00. ISBN 978-3205782834. A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire. By Geoffrey Wawro. New York: Basic Books, 2014. Pp. 472. Paper $14.99. ISBN 978-0465080816. There was a time when many portrayed the Habsburg Monarchy of the early twentieth century as yet another sick man of Europe. A remnant of the dynastic conglomerate states of earlier epochs, it no longer fit into the new world of middle-class societies and their core tenets of liberalism and nationalism. Its dissolution was just a matter of time. This perspective was widely propagated by the activists who promoted the monarchy's replacement by nation-states, but it also reverberated in interwar scholarship. Oscar Jászi set the tone with his influential 1929 tome The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy.1 In this work, the émigré Habsburg scholar ascribed the demise of the Dual Monarchy to its failure to adjust to the new realities of domestic and international politics. The monarchy did not merely fall because of external events such as World War I but owed its collapse to a much longer history of disintegration. It was not a [End Page 149] mechanical but an organic process and largely caused by flawed governance. Habsburg leaders relied on dynastic patriotism to combat cultural nationalism and failed to install an overarching state identity. Over the decades, interpretations have changed. Newer studies have taken a more positive view of the monarchy. Much of this reorientation has been connected with the increasing diversification of Western societies and the corresponding challenges to the concept of nation-states. The rise of a supranational association such as the European Union renewed interest in the Habsburg experience, which seemed to offer visible parallels. The historical debate merged into contemporary politics. As a consequence, the demise of the Habsburg Monarchy continues to evoke strong feelings and conflicting interpretations. This article reviews six recent studies that have reenergized the scholarly debate. They encompass a variety of approaches, ranging from synthesizing interpretations of the Habsburg idea via monographic studies of state- and identity-building in the late monarchy to narrowly subscribed analyses of the monarchy's response to the challenges of a world war. These monographs differ not only in subject matter and approach, however, but also in assessment and evaluation. In what follows I search for commonalities among these different accounts while at the same time doing justice to the breadth of interpretation they offer. Like the Habsburg Monarchy itself, its historians need to navigate the promises and challenges of diversity. State-Building and Identity Formation In Forging a Multinational Empire, John Deak examines the Habsburg Monarchy through the prism of state-building. The American historian argues that the Habsburg Monarchy fully partook in the modernization process that transformed European societies in the 1800s. He rejects conventional assumptions that the Habsburg polity was little more than a medieval holdover and an obstacle to European development. Such simplifications are not only factually incorrect, Deak argues, but restrict the course of Western civilization to the budding nation-states of the European West. The eastern half of the continent, including the Habsburg Monarchy, is thereby largely written out of this narrative. Deak proposes an alternative way of looking at European history, divorced from narratives that privilege the rise of nation-states. Citing...

The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East

The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East

From Sick Man of Europe to the German Economic Power House. Two Narratives: Ordoliberalism versus Euro-Currency Regime

The intent of the paper is to analyze two narratives about the remarkable turn-around of Germany in the 1990s as sick man of Europe to today’s most successful economy in the EU. Ordoliberalism is used by German policy makers and elites to account for the economic success story without taking into account the Euro currency regime which has overwhelmingly favoured Germany’s export-orientation. Ordoliberalism as an ideational concept has limited value as an explanatory force. As a result, German ordoliberal ideas have little current value to uphold it as a panacea for indebted peripheral countries to become more competitive. Nor are stories about the ordoliberalization of Europe justified. The recourse to ordoliberal positions is a highly superficial adaptation of ordoliberalism by German policy makers lacking greater theoretical potency. Thus neither in law nor in economics are authors to be found who represent a genuinely ordoliberal approach to explain the German success story or for that matter the Eurozone crisis management.

From associations to action: mental health and the patient politics of subsidiarity in Scotland

In times of economic hardship public mental healthcare suffers a double disservice. On the one hand, it faces a diminution of existing resource, and on the other, it is met with vastly increased demand. The damage done to already hard-pressed public services during economic crises is often most keenly felt by those at the receiving end of statutory health and welfare provisions. When public services are deemed by its principal recipients to be no longer fit for purpose, it is unsurprising that they, along with others, look to agencies other than the state to meet their needs. In the final year of the 1970s, a decade in which Great Britain became the ‘sick man of Europe’, while Margaret Thatcher moved into 10 Downing Street, a new mental health organisation came into being in Scotland. Glasgow Association for Mental Health (GAMH) and a group of patients’ social clubs called LINK clubs joined to form LINK/GAMH. In a climate of great social and economic upheaval during the 1980s, LINK/GAMH received substantial Urban Aid funding to support those suffering from mental illness. Motivated by principles of voluntary association, self-help and mutual aid, LINK/GAMH sought to ‘cater for needs, and encourage aspirations, which are not and perhaps should not be met, or promoted by Statutory Welfare Agencies’. This article examines how the relationship between socioeconomic factors and mental health was understood by LINK/GAMH and how this informed the development of a resource centre, a rehabilitation programme and political campaigning by psychiatric patients. By focusing upon the activities of LINK/GAMH in the 1970s and 1980s, drawing on archival evidence and oral testimony, it will be argued that the concepts of solidarity and subsidiarity were embedded in the practices of patient associations. This study will show that through the development of relationships of solidarity and subsidiarity, across local, national and international boundaries, patient associations such as LINK/GAMH and their allies redefined a normative conception of the ‘sick role’, reclaiming civic selfhood and political agency for psychiatric patients.

What makes young people tick? A qualitative analysis of the beliefs and perceptions of school aged children towards PE and healthy living in "the sickest area of Europe".

Scottish children are reported to be among the least active in the world, additionally Scotland has previously been labelled "the sick man of Europe" on account of its poor health record. In response, the Scottish Government has implemented a range of policies with a strong focus on increasing physical activity (PA), Physical Education (PE) and the integration of health and wellbeing (HWB) with the aim of promoting and sustaining PA throughout life. To date, limited qualitative research exploring pupil perspective of PE lessons and HWB exists. To address this deficit, within this study, focus groups were conducted with 39 secondary school pupils (S1-S2). The findings indicated that delivery of traditional PE lessons, prioritising sporting ability, can act as a participation barrier to pupils who consider themselves "non-sporty". Accordingly, a shift towards pedagogical models, rather than simply blocks of sports-related activities should be the priority of educators.

‘There is worse to come’: The biopolitics of traumatism in antimicrobial resistance (AMR)

This paper reflects on the different futures and imaginaries constructed through the politics and policy of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). We examine the role of catastrophism, trauma and notions of ‘resistance’ expressed at different moments in the development of the AMR debate. The paper focuses on a number of imaginaries in the politics of AMR, particularly a characterisation of Britain as the ‘sick man of Europe’ or the ‘British disease’ and, more recently, the catastrophist prospect of a ‘return to the dark ages of medicine’. We draw upon recent writing in biopolitical philosophy on immunity and autoimmunity, particularly in the work of Derrida and Sloterdijk, to interrogate immunitary politics of AMR at the intersections of the human and the microbial.

Industrial policy in Italy and Germany: yet another look

Italy, like most European countries, has experienced stagnant GDP growth in the past years. In a recent paper, Lucchese and Nascia (Industrial Policy and technology in Italy, 2016) argue that the decline in the Italian industry could be traced back to the financial and the Euro crises in 2007/08, and is mainly caused by a fall of domestic demand, which itself is rooted in an austerity policy. The authors argue for a paradigm shift in innovation and industry policy away from the horizontal European approach to a more vertically oriented approach led at the national level. In this paper we try to contribute to this discussion by providing another look at the data which reveals a different cause of the loss of competitiveness. In contrast to Lucchese et al., we argue for a more disaggregated level of industrial and innovation policies to foster and improve sunrise sectors and regions. We underpin our arguments with examples from Germany, which recovered from the “Sick man of Europe” a decade ago and has emerged as one of the most competitive countries.

The seven secrets of Germany: economic resilience in an era of global turbulence

German economic performance has astonished the world. At the turn of the century, Germany had been written off as the sick man of Europe. No more. Even as most of its European neighbors and OECD trading partners have struggled in the face of a turbulent global economy, the German economy has thrived. How does Germany do it? What is the secret? In The Seven Secrets of Germany, authors David Audretsch and Erik Lehmann answer these very questions. This book reveals, explains, and analyzes seven key aspects of Germany, its economy, and its society that have provided the nation with considerable buoyance in an era of global turbulence. These seven features range from the key and strategic role played by small firms to world leadership in its skilled and trained labor force, an ability to harness global opportunities through leveraging local resources, public infrastructure, the capacity to deal with change and confront challenges in a flexible manner, and the emergence of a remarkably positive identity and image. The Seven Secrets of Germany have insulated the country from long-term economic deterioration and enabled it to take advantage of the opportunities afforded from globalization rather than succumbing as a victim to globalization. This insights can be instructive to other countries and refute the defeatist view that globalization leads to an inevitable deterioration of the standard of living, quality of life, and degree of economic prosperity. Available in OSO:

When “us” doesn’t have to be versus “them”

Purpose – This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach – This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings – In the UK, in the 1970s and 1980s, labor relations were at the apex of political discourse like no other time in the country’s modern history. A slow economy and Labor Government in the late 1970s had seen the “sick man of Europe” suffer massive strike action and low productivity. The 1980s saw a huge response by the following Tory government, with radical trade union legislation taking the fight to employee bodies with debilitating effect. The war seemed to have been won, even if some battles ensued in the following decades. Originality/value – The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Etiopathology of Europe's Sick Man: Worker Flows in Germany, 1959-2016

We provide new estimates on worker flow rates in and out of unemployment for Germany covering the last six decades. In the 1980s, Germany emerged as the sick man of Europe with a labor market characterized by persistently high unemployment rates. We attribute a substantial fraction of the rise in unemployment to a dramatic increase in inflow rates compared to the 1960s. Germany's recovery started in the mid-2000s after the Hartz reforms, when inflow rates persistently decreased. Comparing the German and U.S. labor market during recessions uncovers a striking similarity between the recent financial crisis in the U.S. and the German recession in the 1980s. We relate these findings to existing theories on labor market differences between the U.S. and Germany.

Un bilan des dispositifs d’incitation au travail des chômeurs en Allemagne depuis le début des années 2000

En dix ans, l’Allemagne est passée du statut de « malade » à celui de « modèle ». Depuis le milieu des années 2000, ce pays est en effet cité en exemple pour ses remarquables performances en matière de croissance économique et d’emploi. La très forte diminution du chômage est en partie due aux réformes Hartz (2002-2005) qui ont notamment conduit à mettre davantage l’accent sur l’activation des chômeurs. Celle-ci s’est traduite, entre autres, par un recours plus substantiel aux incitations financières à la reprise d’un emploi et à la création d’entreprise. Certes, la formation professionnelle demeure la principale catégorie de dépense active, mais les dispositifs incitatifs ont progressé durant la décennie 2000, dans le prolongement de la tendance déjà amorcée à la fin des années 1990. Nous dressons un bilan de ces dispositifs à partir d’une revue de la littérature et de l’analyse des données statistiques fournies par Eurostat sur l’économie allemande, son marché du travail et les conditions de vie de sa population. Nous indiquons les impacts des mesures d’incitation au travail sur l’emploi et leurs conséquences sur la pauvreté et les inégalités.

‘Berlusconi's Italy’: the media between structure and agency

In this article, I explore the conditions of the media in Italy by taking into consideration a variety of elements: the context of media legislation and media concentration that have favoured the interests of Silvio Berlusconi, and the role of progressive agency (media professionals, citizens' groups) as they worked within those constraints to keep alive the flames of democracy during the ‘Berlusconi era’. This perspective is intended to provide an alternative interpretation to what has become the prevailing view of contemporary Italy: an ‘abnormal’ country; the ‘Sick Man of Europe’; worse yet: a country of ‘servants’. The framework of analysis includes the influence of the media-magnate-turned-politician on media legislation and the television sector, but also evaluates the important roles that media professionals and citizens have played to improve pluralism. The article argues that despite extreme levels of media concentration and an unprecedented conflict of interests, a commitment to engage in political discourse has continued to characterise Italy's political culture. This commitment has been expressed by a multiplicity of actors, from journalists and media professionals to citizens' organisations and media activists.