Sick Man Of Europe Research Articles

Od chorego człowieka Europy do ekonomicznej megagwiazdy: odradzająca się gospodarka Niemiec

Od chorego człowieka Europy do ekonomicznej megagwiazdy: odradzająca się gospodarka Niemiec

"It's the population, stupid": why changing the policy frame should help Scotland tackle its problem with cheap alcohol.

"It's the population, stupid": why changing the policy frame should help Scotland tackle its problem with cheap alcohol.

Why has the German Job Market Done Astonishingly Well Despite the 2008–2009 ‘Great Recession’? New Economic Miracle, Institutional Transformation or Beggar-thy-Neighbour Policies?

Since the early 2000s, the German labour market has undergone a sweeping institutional transformation. While during the 1990s and early 2000s, Germany was usually regarded as the ‘sick man of Europe’, the country's economy has recently been described in many respects as an international role model. Around a decade ago, a reform package was introduced that resulted in the unemployment rate being almost cut in half, in spite of the difficult economic climate due to the financial crisis and the succeeding and still ongoing problems in the Eurozone. However, the success has also been challenged due to its alleged internal and external unpleasant side-effects by critics. After having explained the essence of the German social market economy and its development prior to the deep downswing of 2008/2009 which was coined the ‘Great Recession’ by leading US economists, the paper summarises the key aspects of the rather unexpected German labour market successes since 2009 and addresses claims of related distributional injustice of these reforms within the country as well as assertions that the German success of ongoing high exports and current account surpluses is based on beggar-thy-neighbour policies. Finally, the paper briefly asks whether Germany has faced up to its responsibilities during the crisis in the Eurozone since the end of 2009.

Holding the shop together: German industrial relations in the postwar era

Excerpt] Since the onset of the global financial crisis in late 2008 there has been a boom in positive assessments of the German economy. Little wonder. Remarkably, has managed to bring down unemployment to more than one percentage point below the precrisis level and to maintain a current account surplus equivalent to 5 percent of its gross domestic product. This is not the first time that Germany's stock has ridden high. German institutions received praise for the economic miracle of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the model Germany economy that weathered the oil shocks comparatively well during the 1970s, and the export world champion economy of the mid-1980s. At other times, however, academics and journalists have been bearish on Germany. High unemployment dogged the German economy for a quarter century, starting in the early 1980s. From the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, was generally dismissed as the sick man of Europe. These oscillating appraisals of the German economy raise two questions: Does the current positive assessment of German institutions reflect something real, or is it just another speculative bubble? And, what is it about German institutions that has drawn the attention of so many over the years? In this book I address these questions by examining a key pillar of the postwar German economy, namely, the industrial relations system.

Sport and Nationalism in the Republic of Turkey

After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (1299–1923) as a huge multi-ethnic and multi-religious conglomerate spread across three continents, its successor, the modern Republic of Turkey, was confined in its current borders to mainly Asia Minor. Through the lens of physical culture, this article looks at the impact of the all-encompassing project of nation building as enacted by Ataturk. It traces the efforts for modernity and reform that already started in the nineteenth century but were later turned into a means to purge the newborn nation of Ottoman ‘backwardness'. Catching up with the West, including the introduction of new athletic disciplines, became imperative. In view of some selected physical activities, the article discusses how the ‘Sick Man of Europe', as the empire was called because its Balkan possessions were dwindling, was designed to turn into a proud and powerful, yet disciplined Turkish entity. Nevertheless, traditional sports in particular have somewhat retained and appropriated religion within a now officially secular society, providing an important cultural reservoir that could bridge some of the country's existing frictions.

From Sick Man of Europe to Economic Superstar: Germany's Resurgent Economy

In the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, Germany was often called “the sick man of Europe.” Indeed, Germany's economic growth averaged only about 1.2 percent per year from 1998 to 2005, including a recession in 2003, and unemployment rates rose from 9.2 percent in 1998 to 11.1 percent in 2005. Today, after the Great Recession, Germany is described as an “economic superstar.” In contrast to most of its European neighbors and the United States, Germany experienced almost no increase in unemployment during the Great Recession, despite a sharp decline in GDP in 2008 and 2009. Germany's exports reached an all-time record of $1.738 trillion in 2011, which is roughly equal to half of Germany's GDP, or 7.7 percent of world exports. Even the euro crisis seems not to have been able to stop Germany's strengthening economy and employment. How did Germany, with the fourth-largest GDP in the world transform itself from “the sick man of Europe” to an “economic superstar” in less than a decade? We present evidence that the specific governance structure of the German labor market institutions allowed them to react flexibly in a time of extraordinary economic circumstances, and that this distinctive characteristic of its labor market institutions has been the main reason for Germany's economic success over the last decade.

Russian-Ottoman Borderlands: The Eastern Question Reconsidered ed. by Lucien J. Frary and Mara Kozelsky (review)

Reviewed by: Russian-Ottoman Borderlands: The Eastern Question Reconsidered ed. by Lucien J. Frary and Mara Kozelsky Sean Gillen (bio) Lucien J. Frary and Mara Kozelsky (Eds.), Russian-Ottoman Borderlands: The Eastern Question Reconsidered (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014). ix + 363 pp. Index. ISBN: 978-0-299-29804-3. The book under review is unexpectedly timely. As the book was going to press, the protests on Kyiv’s Independence Square culminated in a series of dramatic and still poorly understood events: Ukraine’s security services fired on and killed dozens of protesters under unknown orders; the Supreme Council impeached the sitting president, Viktor Yanukovych; and the Russian Federation invaded and annexed Crimea. In the months since, the varied aspirations and experiences of the vast majority of the population go underreported. The annexation of Crimea and the subsequent outbreak of violence in Eastern Ukraine understandably shocked the world. But the welter of sanctimonious government and media cant from Washington to Moscow – with precious few exceptions – is crude, uninformed, and baldly politicized. As the editors of Russian-Ottoman Borderlands, Lucien Frary and Mara Kozelsky, muse, “it is hard not to see the imprint of nineteenth-century diplomatic behaviors” on them (P. 341). Presentist considerations aside, this collection represents an impressive contribution to the literature on the imperial dimension of Russian history since Andreas Kappeler’s landmark 1992 synthesis, Russland als Vielvölkerreich. But the editors and contributors do not explicitly engage this work. Nor do they engage the literature of what Alfred Rieber calls “complex frontiers.” Complementing them, however, this volume shifts that literature’s geopolitical center of gravity from the metropole’s administration of ethnic and confessional minorities to the experience of peoples in the borderlands between the Ottoman and Russian empires themselves. Providing a coherent narrative to the history of this region presents the editors with an important historiographical problem laden with organizational, political, and moral concerns: how does one arrange a narrative of a region whose boundaries and peoples were often in flux and apparently dependent on great power whims. Answering this problem, the editors chose to organize their volume’s contributions around the so-called Eastern Question in order to demonstrate that it was “a much more complex phenomenon” than the old-fashioned diplomatic history would have it (P. 6). The primary historiographical target of the volume’s contributors is M. S. Anderson’s admirable 1966 synthesis on the Eastern [End Page 400] Question. That comprehensive but traditional diplomatic history of the Eastern Question related the story of great power negotiations over how to divide up the Ottoman “sick man of Europe” as codified in the treaties signed from Küçük Kainarca in 1774 to the treaty of Lausanne in 1923. In Anderson’s account – which V. A. Georgiev echoed in the standard Soviet version – the Ottoman Empire’s failure to enact effective social and political reforms justly provoked the great powers to intervene in Ottoman affairs to restore order and protect various ethnic and confessional groups. The volume’s contribution to the neglected field of diplomatic history is to be welcomed and complements Oleg Airapetov’s recent synthesis.1 Their principal aim is to complicate Anderson’s diplomatic history of the Eastern Question by looking at the social and cultural history of this fluid region. To do that, the contributors draw on a linguistically and geographically rich vein of government, voluntary association, and private materials from Russian, French, Turkish, Bulgarian, Crimean, Armenian, Austrian, Georgian, British, and Greek archival funds. These revelations alone are an impressive feat. To make sense of this wealth of material, the editors and contributors also draw inspiration from the Ottoman revisionist school of Kemal Karpat and Bernard Lewis, who recovered the vitality of Ottoman government and society. The thrust of that scholarship was directed against the standard assumption of diplomatic history that the Ottoman Empire was the main problem in great power relations because it was perceived to be decadent and degenerate by Soviet and non-Soviet historians alike. Their analytical decision is conceptually justified as an organizing principle in such a historiographically undefined region; organizing principles for collected volumes are also notoriously difficult to find. But the editors overstate the historiographical...

Relaciones laborales, sindicalismo y conflictos sociales en el capitalismo alemán

Ten years ago the German economy was regarded as the “sick man of Europe”. It was during the current financial crises that this view has changed dramatically, since Germany has seemingly performed better than most other European countries since 2008; this is why the German economy is nowadays presented as a role model for reforms. The article analyses the transformations in the system of Industrial Relations in German capitalism since the reunification in 1990. It focuses on the changing structure of employment and the rise of precarious work which is regarded as a result of institutional deregulations by significant labour market reforms in 2003. Precarity is rising since and the German model of capitalism is slowly disintegrating. Trade unions’ actions and their specific integration into German capitalism are now following modified patterns – while the unions are still searching for matching strategic adaptations to the new circumstances.

MİDİLLİ NİN SONUNU HAZIRLAYAN İMROZ HAREKÂTI

At the end of regression term, The Ottoman Empire qualified as The Sick Man of Europe had not been able to prevent large land loss with “ Trablusgarp and Balkan Wars” in spite of Reform Orders, First and Second Constitution. Before First World War which had started with the result of the Imperialist States’ interest conflicts, The Ottoman Empire was tired for the view of political, in trouble economically, and in this difficult situation it was weak and uneasy socially. The Ottoman Government jammed among England, France and Russia thought that going into the war alliance with Germany was the best solution and declared to the world that The Empire had bought the warships named Goeben and Breslav. These warships that had great effects on Otoman Empire’s going into First World War alliance with Germany, changed the course of First World War. Yavuz and Midilli which were the insurance of Ottoman Empire to Russia’s domination goals on Bosporus and operating under the order of German Officers during the war resulted the first operation in Aegean with rout at the end of the downfall of Czar Dom Russia, Midilli sank, Yavuz was wounded with three mines. Due to these wounds of mine, it didn’t get the status in the Republic Navy that it had deserved for a long time ago. The Imros operation starting with the aim of gaining a great war for Ottoman and the last sea operation caused Midilli Cruiser’s sinking and Yavuz’s not getting the status in the Republic Navy that it had deserved for a long time

Book Review: Europe: Italy Today: The Sick Man of Europe

Book Review: Europe: Italy Today: The Sick Man of Europe

Has Scotland always been the ‘sick man’ of Europe? An observational study from 1855 to 2006

Background: Scotland has been dubbed ‘the sick man of Europe’ on account of its higher mortality rates compared with other western European countries. It is not clear the length of time for which Scotland has had higher mortality rates. The root causes of the higher mortality in Scotland remain elusive. Methods: Life expectancy data from the Human Mortality Database were tabulated and graphed for a selection of wealthy, mainly European countries from around 1850 onwards. Results: Scotland had a life expectancy in the mid-range of countries included in the Human Mortality Database from the mid-19th century until around 1950. After 1950, Scottish life expectancy improved at a slower rate than in comparably wealthy nations before further faltering during the last 30 years. Scottish life expectancy now lies between that of western European and eastern European nations. The USA also displays a marked faltering in its life expectancy trend after 1981. There is an inverse association between life expectancy and the Index of Economic Freedom such that greater neoliberalism is associated with a smaller increase, or a decrease, in life expectancy. Conclusion: Life expectancy in Scotland has only been relatively low since around 1950. From 1980, life expectancy in Scotland, the USA and, to a greater extent, the former USSR displays a further relative faltering. It has been suggested that Scotland suffered disproportionately from the adoption of neoliberalism across the nations of the UK, and the evidence here both supports this suggestion and highlights other countries which may have suffered similarly.

The European Sovereign Debt Crisis: Is Germany to Blame?

Only a decade ago, slow growth and high unemployment plagued Germany, but the "sick man of Europe" has now moved to outperform the Eurozone average growth since the second quarter of 2010. This confirms Germany's recovery and its status as the growth engine of the continent. This surely is a success story. While Germany (also Austria and the Netherlands) is prospering, the peripheral countries in the Eurozone are confronted with a severe sovereign debt crisis. Starting in Greece, it soon spread to countries such as Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. In the course of the debate, Germany was blamed for the imbalances in Europe. In short, German export performance and the sustained pressure for moderate wage increases have provided German exporters with the competitive advantage to dominate trade and capital flows within the Eurozone. Thus, Germany is seen as the main beneficiary of the EURO. This argument, however, is vehemently disputed within Germany. Many economists and political leaders reject this argument and point to the flagrant lack of fiscal discipline in many of the peripheral countries. Some prominent economists, such as Hans-Werner Sinn, even disputes that Germany was the main beneficiary of the Eurozone. The paper analyzes the two sides of the controversy, and asks whether we are witnessing a more inwardlooking and Euroskeptic Germany. These issues will be analyzed by first focusing on the role of Germany in resolving the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, and the European Union negotiations for a permanent rescue mechanism. We conclude by discussing some possible explanations for Germany's more assertive and more Euroskeptic position during these negotiations.

Turkish Delight: The Ottoman Mysteries of Jenny White

Turkish Delight: The Ottoman Mysteries of Jenny White

Is Germany experiencing a new economic miracle? Observations based on post-Keynesian market constellation research

During the past two decades, Germany has experienced a phase of economic stagnation that provoked the metaphor of 'the sick man of Europe'. After the recent economic upturn, commentators and politicians argued that Germany has finally regained former strength and it has even been drawn on the metaphor of a new 'economic miracle'. In the article, this claim will be critically tested against the theoretical background of a novel post-Keynesian market constellation approach.

The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War (review)

Reviewed by: The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War Alexander M. Shelby The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War. By Mustafa Aksakal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-52188060-2. List of abbreviations. Glossary. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xv, 216. $99.00. In this short, well researched volume, Mustafa Aksakal, assistant professor at the American University, explores why the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War in 1914. Aksakal asserts that literature dealing with the Ottoman participation in the Great War exclusively blames the Ottoman war minister, Ismail Enver Pasha, depicting him as the hawkish omnipotent leader who single-hand-edly [End Page 1355] guided the empire into the war. Other historians claim that the Young Turk leadership was seduced by German overtures to join the war. Aksakal, however, takes a new perspective by attributing the misfortune of the Ottoman commitment towards belligerence to the political and military environment surrounding the Ottoman Empire. Aksakal’s book is divided into six chapters with an introduction and conclusion. Each chapter focuses on the period between 1913 and 1914 and the events that led the Ottoman leadership to seek to revive the “Sick Man of Europe.” Aksakal explains that this was a period when the Ottomans found themselves politically isolated and increasingly under European financial and economic domination. This pressure persuaded the Ottoman leadership under the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) that the only way to save the empire was to align it with one of the Great Powers. The general consensus among the Turkish elite also focused on the notion that war was the only option to forge a new global order in which the empire would achieve economic and political independence (p. 191). Aksakal challenges the notion that Enver sought a Great Power alliance in order to expand the empire to include the Turks of Central Asia. He argues that Enver and the other leaders of the CUP viewed war not as a way to build a new empire, but as a “war of independence” from European domination (p. 17). This attitude among the CUP leadership stemmed from a series of incidents that plagued the empire from 1878 to 1914. Aksakal’s narrative of the Ottoman crisis begins in 1913 after the First Balkan War when the empire found itself succumbing to British, French, and Russian demands. Aksakal contends that the emotional drain of the Balkan Wars on the Ottomans and the fear of losing territory in eastern Anatolia to the Russians forced the CUP leadership to seek German aid in 1914 in order to save the empire. Aksakal observes that when Germany, in anticipation of the Ottomans joining the war effort, agreed to give them aid, the CUP leadership, guided by Enver, hesitated and attempted to delay the Ottoman pledge towards war by citing a Bulgarian-Ottoman alliance as a condition to war. It was not until Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II refused to allow any more assistance to reach Istanbul and the “alliance became strained to the point of rupture” that the CUP leadership, facing the prospect of being politically isolated once again, reluctantly agreed to German demands (p. 154). This well organized and well written volume is extensively researched with a wide variety of primary sources that include those of the Turkish General Staff, the Ottoman Archives of the Prime Minister, and the German Foreign Office as well as the German Federal Military Archives. The book’s strongest asset is the scope of the second half of the volume, which deals with the Ottoman attempts to avoid war. Aksakal’s argument that Enver Pasha was not the all-powerful tyrant who drove the empire to its demise is solidly based in primary sources. [End Page 1356] Alexander M. Shelby Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida Copyright © 2009 The Society for Military History

Unveiling the Checkered Fortunes of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire has been predominantly viewed as the 'Sick Man of Europe.' The question arises, however, how this perceived inefficiency can be reconciled with the long existence and prosperity of the Empire. I argue that the Ottoman system could have been efficient subject to constraints. More specifically, I explore the role of the technology of predation and the adherence to the law in determining relative changes in the social order and the power of the Sultan, which in turn led to the relative decline of the Empire.

An educational prescription for the Sultan: Hüseyin hilmi paşa's advice for the maladies of empire

Depicted in word and in caricature as the 'sick man of Europe' throughout much of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, the Ottoman Empire was commonly portrayed in the West as beitig about to expire. Although the dynamics of imperial decline (e.g., political, fiscal, institutional, technological, martial, and territorial) still constitute matters of scholarly debate and variously inform current attempts at a periodization of Ottoman history,1 there can be little disagreement that the empire was under considerable pressure both internal and external in these final decades. Among the better histories written on this period of the empire are those that have gone beyond linear narratives of decline and that have instead examined dynamics within Ottoman politics and society that were geared toward inhibiting and sometimes even toward accelerating the eventual dissolution of the empire.2 Just as the Ottoman state was not passive amid processes promoting its demise, however, neither were local populations devoid of agency or voice as the state sought to implement policies aimed at creating a cohesive citizenry and a stronger imperial state.3 This study critically examines a vital example in Ottoman histories of education with respect to state policy formulation and implementation on the one hand, and local communities responding and finding voice on the other. In 1903, Hiiseyin Hilmi Pa~a4 was appointed as Inspector General for the Imperial Vildyets (or provinces) of Rumelia (Rumeli Vilayat-1 5ahane MtfettiAi)5 for the Hamidian state (a term used frequently by scholars to refer to the reign of Sultan Abduilhamid II, 1876 to 1909). This former Ottoman governor of Yemen and a future grand vizier in the Young Turk/CUP era6 was sent to the Balkan region in order to conduct investigations and provide informed advice to the newly created Rumeli Provinces Reform Commission concerning his findings. His fact-finding mission and recommendations were intended to help promote peace and justice in the region. When violence escalated in the Balkans in the early 1900s, the Ottoman Empire attempted to restore order and protect its people. The brutal nature of the events taking place in the region at the turn of the century were vividly described in the Western press, albeit with a bias that emphasized the suffering of Christians while disregarding similar conditions experienced by the region's Muslims. Assuming the position of 'protector' for their coreligionists in the Balkans, Russia and Austria-Hungary, among other signatory powers at the 1878 Berlin Treaty,

Who's the Sick Man of Europe? A Wavering EU Should Let Turkey In

Fatos Tarifa is a former Albanian ambassador to the United States. He is the author of The Quest for Legitimacy and the Withering Away of Utopia (2001) and The Balkans: A Mission neither Accomplished nor Impossible (2002). He teaches political sociology and international relations at Eastern Michigan University. Benjamin Adams is a senior student at Eastern Michigan University.

The Rising Sun and the Turkish Crescent: New Perspectives on the History of Japanese Turkish Relations (review)

Reviewed by: The Rising Sun and the Turkish Crescent: New Perspectives on the History of Japanese Turkish Relations Michael Laffan (bio) The Rising Sun and the Turkish Crescent: New Perspectives on the History of Japanese Turkish Relations. Edited by Selçuk Esenbel and Inaba Chiharu. Boğ aziçi University Press, Istanbul, 2003. ix, 320 pages. $15.00. At the diametric extremes of Asia, two states—one ultimately rising and the other falling—took stock of each other from almost exactly the moment it first became possible to sail through the Suez Canal in 1869. Between the two lay vast space and little history, but there was the commonality of a Western other manifested at almost every port en route and in the great interstitial mass of Tsarist Russia. Such a milieu is frequently encapsulated in the most famous stories linking the two. One is the tragedy of the Ertugrul, an Ottoman warship that sank off the Japanese coast in 1890 after its crew had presented a medal to the emperor and been feted in Yokohama. The other is the pan-Asian peregrinations of Abdürreşid İbrahim (1857-1944), who tried to gain Ottoman support for his Tatar peoples against the Russians before throwing in his lot with Japanese Pan-Asianism in the 1930s. The field has seen occasional articles on brief contacts between Japan and Turkey, and then comparative studies on economic development in the two nations. Thus, the editors of The Rising Sun and the Turkish Crescent are probably justified in claiming that they present the pioneer volume on the subject of how each nation may have viewed the other in the century that followed the Meiji Restoration. Selçuk Esenbel and Inaba Chiharu also express their desire to get beyond the sinking of the Ertugrul, claiming that the essays gathered here "offer the opportunity of tracing the history of political currents of nationalism, especially Japanese Asianism, and policies of empire-building in Japan" and show how such themes "interconnect with... the history of Pan Turkist, or Pan Islamist currents of the late Ottoman period, as well as the new secular Kemalist Republican agenda of the Turkish Republic" (p.3). Central to the very comparability of Japan and Turkey in the period under study is the notion of two states that sought broader claims of legitimacy in pan-ethnic rubrics, whether colored by cultural (Asian) or religious (Muslim) overtones, or elided in the vague coverall of the Orient. In the first of the essays, Esenbel presents an overview of the Turco-Japanese relationship spanning the period between 1868 and the stalled treaty negotiations of the 1920s. While Esenbel catalogues the sources with which she is so familiar, her footnotes alert us to a wide range of archival and published works that touch on the issues gathered together in this volume. She might have better [End Page 192] explained the "Eastern Question approach" (p.11), which resonates with late nineteenth-century views of what to do with the Ottoman Empire as the so-called "sick man of Europe," or how Sultan Abdülhamid (reigned 1876-1909) could have claimed to be the head of orthodox Islam (p.22), a claim that was by no means universally accepted at his inauguration but that had gained great currency by the time of his death. In the second essay, Selim Deringil focuses on Ottoman views of a rising Japan in the late nineteenth century when the Turkish Empire was hard pressed by Russia and the forces of fragmentation on its southern borders. Japan thus appeared in the dossiers as an unknown category as much to be exploited as deflected or added to the bottom of a list of imperial worries. Deringil also suggests that the Ertugrul was dispatched to Japan primarily with the aim of flying the Ottoman banner in Asian waters. This ties in with the rising interest in Abdülhamid II found on the Indian Ocean littoral in the 1890s. This interest was especially strong in the East Indies, given that the Dutch were engaged in a protracted conflict, begun in 1873, with the Acehnese, who had sought the protection of the Ottomans by claiming that Aceh was indeed a...

Review: From the 'Terror of the World' to the 'Sick Man of Europe': European Images of Ottoman Empire and Society from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth.

Review: From the 'Terror of the World' to the 'Sick Man of Europe': European Images of Ottoman Empire and Society from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth.