Western European Nations Research Articles

Party, Ideology, and Deficits: Provincial Fiscal Policy and the Cameron Thesis, 1966–2009

AbstractIn a 1985 publication David Cameron reported that historically leftist governments had governed with smaller deficits than rightist governments. The party ideology variable was incorporated into a large body of subsequent research, mainly by economists, to study the growth of public spending and indebtedness. Most agreed with Cameron; some did not. Virtually all studies focused on western European nations (but not subnational governments). This study analyzes provincial deficits or surpluses over the period 1966 to 2009 and determines that rightist parties, despite controls for economic and other political variables, have lower budgetary deficits, a finding which contradicts Cameron but is consistent with five previous studies of provincial spending in Canada.

Liberalism According to Štefan Launer or on an Ethno-Emancipation Theory

Abstract Liberalism According to Štefan Launer, or on an Ethno-Emancipation Theory. (This paper has been prepared under the VEGA project No. 1/1116/12). Liberally-oriented Štefan Launer intervened in the complicated Slovak nationalidentification process of the 1840s, who defined himself in relation to the Štúr´s group by his radical rejection of their language reform. He considered that reform a gross distortion of the State (Historic-Hungarian) and national (Czechoslovak) integration. Launer made use of the difficult situation of looking for the most suitable solution of language issues of Slovaks in Historic Hungary to expose his own expertise, his intellectual gifts, and his conflicting nature. He developed his own ethno-emancipation theory, through which he not only wanted to attract the representatives of the Lutheran Church in Historic Hungary, but mainly the historic Hungarian political suzerain. The essence of his concept was that he defined the streamlining of cultural and political modernity in Europe from its western part to its eastern part, while having ”entrusted” the global history-forming initiative to four of the Western European nations (the Italian, the French, the English, and the German ones), which by virtue of their scholarship and spirit were to revive the Slavic world. Through the above concept, he intended to contribute to resolving the ethno-cultural processes ongoing within the context of modernizing multilingual Historic Hungary

‘Must our cities remain ugly?’ – America's urban crisis and the European city: transatlantic perspectives on urban development, 1945–1970

This article explores the changing modes and mechanisms of the transatlantic dialogue between urban planners from the perspective of US urbanists. During the early post-war period, this dialogue intensified quickly. US planners were involved in their country's broad efforts to provide assistance to and build strong political ties with Western European nations. Accordingly, they assumed the role of tutors vis-à-vis their European peers. Due to urban America's apparent flaws and the success of European planning projects, however, their interest in Europe broadened considerably during the 1950s. Initially, the initiative of individuals remained crucial for the flow of planning information from Europe to the USA, and European immigrants and émigrés helped facilitate transatlantic transfers. Looking at Europe, American planners sought to address the shortcomings of the domestic practice of planning as they perceived them. Europe served as an argumentative tool for US experts who were eager to change the socio-political framework that limited their impact on urban development in their home country. Information about European planning was transmitted through a diverse set of channels and the biographies of many of the experts involved with transatlantic exchange remind us of the complex international planning networks that existed throughout the twentieth century. American planners' interest in Europe remained biased towards specific regions and topics. Nevertheless, US planners negotiated the way in which they brought their limited influence to bear on American urban environments in a transnational context. The framework that supported their integration into international planning discussions became increasingly institutionalized towards the end of the research period.

Violence Risk Assessment in Lithuania

Evaluating the risk of violence and re-offending with recognized and validated instruments is a new practice in Baltic countries such as Lithuania. Actuarial assessment and structured professional judgment methods were developed in North American and Western European nations and have recently been adjusted to local settings for research and practice. The present manuscript reviews research, contemporary practice, and relevant policies regarding violence risk assessment in the Baltic region. Specifically, the focus will be on the implementation and patterns of use for risk assessment instruments in Lithuania. The correctional and forensic mental health systems of the country will be described, followed by an overview of government-supported risk assessment tools. The manuscript reviews Lithuanian research on these tools and offers directions for future research and practice.

Towards a New Phase in Relations with the European Union

Some analysts are sceptical about the success of the resumed negotiations between the European Union (EU) and Cuba, as neither of the parties has waived their starting positions. Indeed, Europe has reiterated that 'this is not a change in the previous policy. As we support reform and modernization in Cuba, we have consistently raised our concerns about human rights, which will remain at the centre of this relationship'.2 As stated, 'Cuba will consider the invitation from the European side, in a respectful, constructive manner and remain bound to its sovereignty and national interests'.3However, the mere fact that these negotiations had commenced shows that both Brussels and Havana are prioritising pragmatism and a willingness to create meaningful economic and trade relations facilitated and channelled through a legal instrument.Of these diplomatic steps several questions arise: What are the interests of Cuba in its relations with the EU and which policy has been followed to bring them about? What are the interests of the EU and how it has sought to achieve them? How important is it for Cuba to advance negotiations at this time when the Common Position adopted by the EU in 1996 remains in force? What are the prospects?Interests and Politics between Cuba and the EUWhen Washington imposed the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, American leaders had hoped that their allies would add to these measures. However, one after another, from Canada to Japan and Western Europe, they refused and cooperated with revolutionary Cuba in different ways and forms.4Given its composition, uniqueness and constant widening and deepening, negotiations with the EU have always been complex. The EU is not a state but a group that initially comprised 6 Western European nations that today is a motley collection of 28 members including the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe. If it is a commonplace in international relations to not consider states as rational actors, it is much less the case with the EU, which has been described by one of its most respected historical leaders, Frenchman Jacques Delors, as an 'unidentified political object'. To this should be added the confusing institutional framework in which competing intergovernmental bodies (such as the European Council and its subsidiary bodies) and the supranational (such as the Commission, Parliament or the Supreme Court) do not always operate in perfect harmony.Goran Therborn has speculated that in the contemporary EU three, not necessarily antagonistic, trends are emerging: a global trading power, unconditional ally of the US5 and 'global Scandinavia'. According to him, the EU is these three things at once and behaves interchangeably depending on the topic in question.6It is no wonder the path of the process of finding an agreement between Cuba and the EU has been long and thorny. It is a simplification (which some Cuban colleagues incur) to attribute the difficulties and obstacles to a single factor - in particular the close relations between the EU and the US. The situation is much more complex. In this at least the following four key variables play a part:1. The perception of the Cuban authorities of their own economic, political and social situation and the importance the relationship with the EU may have, within the system of international relations, in terms of cost/benefit. In other words, to assess whether the economic and political benefits of relating to this powerful bloc outweigh the cost that could be generated by an asymmetrical contractual relationship submitted to the pressures of 'democratic conditionality and human rights' - an EU double standard of which there is sufficient evidence.In this position two trends may be seen: one that believes that the EU can maintain an independent policy towards Cuba, despite its alliance with the US and another which judges its policy as inevitably subordinated to Cuba's northern neighbour in a negative role. …

Disciplining the ‘Muslim Subject’: The Role of Security Agencies in Establishing Islamic Theology within the State's Academia

The following article discusses the establishment of centers of Islamic Studies (Islamische Theologie) in Germany. While many authors have discussed different theories which shape the accommodation of Islam in Western European nation states, I suggest that the security dispositif (Foucault) has a strong impact on the way the state and religious communities interact with each other. I argue that against the backdrop of a hegemonic Islamophobic discourse and a securitization of Islam, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz) as the main actor in charge of domestic security issues within the Ministry of Interior, shapes the construction of the German ‘Muslim subject’ to discipline and govern Germany's Muslims. The Verfassungsschutz becomes a defining power in the attempt to locate Islam in the German religio-political landscape by influencing the politics of several state agencies. This is due to broadening the notion of security which affects the ‘integration policy’ of several state agencies and makes the integration issue a priority in other policy areas. A hegemonic Islamophobic discourse, in which Islam has become a security threat, seems to foster such a policy. I will elaborate the securitization of Islam through the Verfassungsschutz by tracing its role in the institutionalization of Islamic Studies at state universities.

Subverting the German Volk: Racial and Musical Impurity in Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues

Considering that the Nazis relied upon narrowly defined categories of race and art in an effort to cleanse German genetic stock and artistic culture, it is notable that the title of Esi Edugyan’s second novel, set largely in Germany and France at the outbreak of WWII, signals a violation of both racial and musical categories. The title, Half-Blood Blues, suggests the racial mixture of several of the characters (which contravenes dichotomous racial categories) as well as the blending of musical genres in the namesake song, “Half-Blood Blues.” The characters acknowledge that the song is not “true blues” because it lacks “the right chord structure,” but they are unconcerned since “blues wasn’t never bout the chords” (275). Thus the book title alerts the reader that the novel will challenge authoritative classifications by undermining prescriptive definitions of purity. In particular, the novel explores the implications of mixture for the original “pure” categories being violated—specifically, those categories that were understood to define German people and culture. The song “Half-Blood Blues” is the musicians’ subversive interpretation of the Nazis’ own “Horst Wessel” and it therefore constitutes a kind of dialogue between the German (“Horst Wessel”) and that which corrupts the German (jazz) according to National Socialist leadership. Ultimately, the novel’s exploration of racial and musical designations is a simultaneous examination of the customary formulation of Germanness (taken to an extreme under the Nazis). Half-Blood Blues challenges the foundational claims to purity that characterize the long-established conception of Germanness by depicting impure Germanness. By portraying blackness and jazz as unquestionably German and thus demonstrating the Germanness of non-Aryan race and culture, Edugyan’s novel subverts the conventional—and still prominent—understanding of Germanness and gestures toward the growing conundrum of Western European nations: how to reconcile black citizenry with a white cultural, national, and racial “heritage.” Since the novel challenges German notions of purity, it is essential to understand how the concepts of “pure” racial, national, and cultural identity were constructed in Germany. The concepts of volkisch and Volk that the novel challenges are not simply a matter of what North Americans might consider racial or phenotypical whiteness. Translated as “folk” and signifying a people, a nation, and a race or tribe, the terms refer to the nationalist ethnic German identity that existed well before and after National Socialism. That this conception of Germanness has persisted for so long demonstrates its deep roots in German culture and consequently explains, in some small part, how Nazi ideology could arise. As Clarence Lusane explains in Hitler’s Black Victims,

Nationalism and Shakespeare's History Plays

Political scientists recently insist that nationalism is an invented concept which precedes nation. Benedict Anderson, for example, termed a nation “an imagined community,” that is not an entity but a product of imagination. Based on this political theory this essay examines Richard II and Henry V in the main as a case study. Bolingbroke offers himself as a true-born Englishman making his national identity inalienable and shifts the sovereign power from king the person to the nation itself, espousing the idea of the commonwealth whose members share duties and rights in reciprocal terms. In the imagined communities, Anderson argues, people are viewed equal regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation. This notion is employed by Henry V in his famous speech preceding the battle of Agincourt, which serves as a rhetorical device to make his soldiers united as a nation. A modern nation is further established through self-sacrificing love among the community members. Ignited by their erotic longing for a form of completeness human beings are willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of greater purpose. As a king Henry V successfully inspires this human emotion in such a way that his people dedicate their lives to the cause of the war, one of the most important national projects. As for the community membership a modern nation presupposes individuals who are free in their relationship and also share duties and rights for the community in reciprocal terms. The nation does, however, exclude people who are considered detrimental to security and order of the community. They are represented by Eastcheap people, such as Falstaff, Nim, Bardolph and Madam Quickly. Nationalism is one of the most controversial issues in globalization today. Prevailing individualism, the emerging notion of transnationalism, and influences of Postmodernism have weakened the ground of the nationalism. Against this trend, however, Western European nations, including England, have recently declared the return of nationalism announcing the failure of multi-cultural policy they had adopted so far. In this respect, a historical study of nationalism and Shakespeare’s history plays provides a space to re-examine today’s issues of nationalism in the diachronic perspective, from the birth of the first modern nation until the present day.

Economic Policy Voting and Incumbency: Unemployment in Western Europe

The economic voting literature has been dominated by the incumbency-oriented hypothesis, in which voters reward or punish governments at the ballot box according to the nation's economic performance. The alternative (policy-oriented) hypothesis, in which voters favor parties that are closest to their issue position(s), has been neglected in this literature. This article explores policy voting with respect to an archetypal economic policy issue—unemployment. Voters who favor lower unemployment should tend to vote for left parties, since they “own” the issue. Examining a large time-series cross-sectional pool of Western European nations, this study finds some evidence for economic policy voting. However, it is conditioned by incumbency. According to varied tests, left incumbents experience a net electoral cost if the unemployment rate climbs. Incumbency, then, serves to break any natural economic policy advantage that might accrue to the left due to the issue of unemployment.

Implicaciones de la nueva ley de financiación de la agrupación Radio Televisión Española (RTVE)

The new Financing Law of the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation has proved controversial since its announcement by Vice President Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega. The new law is a response to years of criticism from private television operators and requires the matching of European directives in the sector. The new legislation represents a watershed in the history of RTVE, with a transformation of a mixed system of an institutional and advertising financing, to one without any advertising, in line with other Western European nations, which has been well received by their public.

Reinhold Niebuhr's Quest for Balance in the Public Oversight of Market Economies

Three basic themes played indispensable roles in Reinhold Niebuhr’s engagements with economic issues: (1) the foundational importance of a theological anthropology for his critical assessment of complex social, economic, and political issues; (2) his focus on two clashing theories of economic order: Adam’s Smith’s doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism and Karl Marx’s revolutionary vision for the collective ownership of property within a centralized state system; and (3) his endorsement of a realistic yet viable alternative to these two classic theories, one that involved pragmatic and incremental steps toward fostering economic justice through the public regulation and oversight of a free-market economy. These pragmatic measures included allocating government resources for vitally important public goods and services at federal, state, and local levels. Though Niebuhr was initially drawn to some form of democratic socialism, he embraced this incremental strategy within the context of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s implementation of his New Deal agenda. My analysis of Niebuhr’s contributions concludes with attention to new challenges confronting contemporary quests for economic justice in a post–New Deal era, one marked Soundings, Vol. 95, No. 4, 2012 Copyright © 2012 The Pennsylvania state University, University Park, Pa di sc us sio n diussion

Economics and Elections Revisited

The economics and elections connection has been heavily investigated, although mostly through single-country studies. The first comparative, survey-based research on economic voting, by Lewis–Beck, found serious effects. Subsequently, other comparative scholars have explored this terrain. The most recent, and most ambitious, examinations are by Duch and Stevenson and by van der Brug et al. These impressive efforts arrive at opposing conclusions about the importance of economic voting. We carry out another major examination, with an eye to reconciling these differences. A carefully specified model of vote choice is estimated on a balanced survey pool ( N > 40,000) from 10 Western European nations. Special pains are taken with issues of economic measurement, estimation, and endogeneity. The finding is that economic perceptions are formed from economic reality, and importantly influence vote choice. Besides enhancing our understanding of comparative political behavior, the strong result speaks to the functioning of government accountability in advanced democracies.

Intercontinental differences in overweight of adopted Koreans in the United States and Europe

A greater proportion of the United States (US) population is overweight or obese (with BMI over 25kg/m2) relative to all Western European populations, and it might be expected that migrants to either the US or Western Europe would develop patterns of overweight and obesity that reflect this difference. This paper examines the effects of obesogenic environments on Asians by reporting differences in rates of overweight (which is taken to include obesity in this analysis) among 261 adult South Koreans, which had been adopted in early-life into white middle class families living in the US and in Western European Nations. Data collected during an international adoption survey carried out for the Korean government in 2008 were analyzed. The prevalence of overweight of adopted Koreans raised in the US significantly exceeds the level among adopted Koreans in Europe by 11.3%. These intercontinental differences are statistically significant after controlling for sex, current age, age of adoption, and education. This paper supports the view that life-style factors are more detrimental for the weight status of people in the US than in Western Europe.

Tendencias de la mortalidad por infarto de miocardio en España y Estados Unidos: ¿una carrera cuesta abajo o cuesta arriba en el siglo xxi?

Tendencias de la mortalidad por infarto de miocardio en España y Estados Unidos: ¿una carrera cuesta abajo o cuesta arriba en el siglo xxi?

Evaluating the Participation of the Unemployed in Undeclared Work

ABSTRACTThis paper evaluates critically the major competing perspectives regarding the participation of the unemployed in undeclared work. These are firstly, the ‘marginalisation’ perspective which holds that the unemployed disproportionately participate in and gain from undeclared work, and secondly, the ‘reinforcement’ perspective which holds that the unemployed benefit less from undeclared work than those in declared employment, meaning that undeclared work reinforces, rather than reduces, the inequalities produced by the declared realm. Reporting the results of a 2007 Eurobarometer survey on undeclared work comprising 26,659 face-to-face interviews conducted in the 27 member states of the European Union, the finding is that the marginalisation perspective is applicable to Southern Europe and the reinforcement perspective to Nordic nations. However, in East-Central Europe and Western European nations, as well as the EU-27 as a whole, the marginalisation and reinforcement perspectives are not mutually exclusive but co-exist; the unemployed are more likely to participate in undeclared work but receive significantly lower earnings and gain less from undeclared work than those working undeclared who are in declared jobs. The outcome is a call for a new ‘reinforced marginalisation’ perspective which holds that the unemployed disproportionately engage in undeclared work but their participation reinforces their marginalised position relative to the employed. The paper then seeks tentative explanations for these findings.

The German Contribution to the Military History of South Africa and South-West Africa

The Republic of South Africa is the spiritual. Cullural, econolll;c and military extension of the Occident on the Southern extremity of Africa.Situated where it is it does not only form an invaluable link between the East and the West, but at the same time it is one of the most important approaches to the Southern part of the African continent. The foundation of the white society at the Cape was laid by representatives from various Western European nations. In the course of time each one of them contributed towards the development of a young, vigorous nation in this vast land under the Southern Cross - a nation which since its birth, has always recognised the guidance of the Almighty God.

EU新規加盟国における多国籍銀行の現地化と為替相場政策

In the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers’ fall, not only the leading countries of the EU but also the new member states (NMS) were facing challenges from economic recession. During the crisis, because of the strong financial inter-linkage relationships among the European Countries, there was concern whether the western European nations would be infected by the financial crisis occurring in some of the NMS. However, even the Baltic countries, which were the most severely affected by the crisis, did not plunge into the situation as did some of the East Asian countries which had experienced a similar crisis in 1997. The aim of this paper is to examine that why the policies implemented by the NMS succeeded in overcoming the crisis. The author particularly verifies the characteristics of the banking sectors in the NMS and the policy responses of euro-pegged countries both before and during the crisis. The data that are referenced in this paper are from the BIS, multinational bank statistics, Eurostat, and national central banks. On the aspect of the banking sectors, it should be the noted that the liquidity of local subsidiaries was preserved. Since the 1990s, some multinational banks which are called “common lenders” had expanded into the NMS and became those countries’ major banks. At the same time, on the background of the EU’s integration, these banks had also provided retail banking services over a long term. Furthermore, on the basis of the Vienna Initiative, the foreign parent banks, the authorities of home-host countries, and the international financial institutions had participated in multiple lending during the crisis. On the aspect of policy responses, what is important is that the fixed exchange rate system was maintained. Depending on the implementation of internal economic adjustments, such as reduction in wages and fiscal restraint, the international competitiveness of exports was restored external debt was also kept at a steady level. In the near future, it is necessary to examine whether the dominant oligopoly of multinational banks will maintain the stability and robustness of the banking sectors and the within the area of NMS. At least, from the case of the current crisis, it is obvious that the dominant oligopoly of multinational banks can avoid rapid and massive capital outflows, and the contagion of crisis.

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.

Implications of Occupational Locus and Focus for Public Service Motivation: Attitudes Toward Work Motives across Nations

Is occupational locus or focus important for public service motivation? Does national context influence public service motivation? To answer both questions, the author examines attitudes toward work motives from national samples in 11 North American and Western European nations using multilevel binary logistic regression analysis. The findings demonstrate that the locus of an occupation in government and its focus on a public service activity both are important in shaping preferences for work motives related to public service motivation. Also, the preference for work motives held by citizens is correlated with the type of welfare regime in a nation. Although it is less pronounced, some evidence suggests that the type of welfare regime influences preferences toward work motives among government employees.

A Call for an Integrated Biopsychosocial Model to Address Fundamental Disconnects in an Emergent Field: An Introduction to the Special Issue on “Sexuality and Aging”

This special issue of Ageing International is designed to highlight the clinicians, researchers, and public policy makers who focus upon the intersection of sexuality and aging. A theoretical, biopsychosocial model is introduced in response to a variety of apparent paradoxes in the field (e.g., although nearly 1 in 5 new AIDS cases are among adults over the age of 65, no federally funded programs exist for HIV prevention among this age group, and although virtually all findings in the literature are based upon men and women from North American and Western European nations, China boasts the largest population of older adults worldwide). Consistent with this integrated approach, contributors to the special issue provide emergent information in relation to HIV and AIDS among older men and women, cross-cultural perspectives on sexuality and aging within Chinese and Ugandan culture, sexuality within the context of long-term care, and clinical approaches to erectile dysfunction. Directions for future research also are offered.