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Begin New Search Political Geography Europe Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University

51. Endogenous OCA Theory: Using the Gravity Model to Test Mundell's Intuition

Author:
Hubert P. Janicki, Thierry Warin, and Phanindra Wunnava
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper presents an empirical assessment of the endogenous optimum currency area theory. This study relies on the original intuition developed by Mundell in 1973. The gravity model is used to empirically assess the effectiveness of the convergence criteria by examining location specific advantages that guide multinational investment within the European Union. A fixed effects model based on a panel data of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows within the EU-15 shows that horizontal investment promotes the diffusion of the production process across the national border. Specifically, the examined Maastricht criteria suggest convergence in interest rate, government fiscal policy, and debt play a significant role in attracting multinational investment.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

52. Fiscal Perspectives in Europe: Convergence and Debt's Burden

Author:
Thierry Warin
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The paper addresses the question of the fiscal perspectives within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). By using a panel data analysis associated with an interpretation in terms of differences instead of levels, the results show a steady convergence of public deficits across the EMU, and that the EMU needs either to comply with the Lisbon agenda, or some kind of a growth strategy, or reduce the interest of the debt in order to regain some fiscal flexibility while abiding by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP).
Topic:
International Relations, Debt, and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe

53. Campaigning in Poetry, Governing in Prose

Author:
David Coates
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
New Labour's performance in office–as an orchestrator of economic and social change–is situated against, and evaluated by reference to, two sets of legacies: legacies inherited from the years of Conservative political dominance after 1979; and legacies brought to power by New Labour. The paper argues that the first se t of legacies was deep and enduring, and threw a long shadow forward. It argues that the second set of legacies were highly coherent and intellectually informed, but cumulatively involved a diminution in the capacity of the state. The result has been a two-term government that is sufficiently superficially successful to win a third term; but which has yet seriously to transform the legacies it inherited: to our misfortune, and ultimately–in electoral terms–also probably to its own. This paper is based on my study of New Labour's domestic policy–Prolonged Labour: The Slow Birth of New Labour Britain; I have also co-authored a study of New Labour's policy towards Iraq–Blair's War–which was published by Polity Press in 2004.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

54. Still Two Models of Capitalism? Economic Adjustment in Spain

Author:
Sebastián Royo
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The proponents of globalization contend that European countries are now converging on an Anglo-American model of capitalism. Contrary to this prediction, this paper will show that in Spain globalization and EMU have promoted rather than undermined coordination among economic actors. Unable to escape from economic interdependence the Spanish economic actors have developed coordinating capacities at the macro and micro levels to address and resolve tensions between economic interdependence and political sovereignty. In this paper I show that there is at least one more variety than the two–LME and CME–that Hall and Soskice cite and also that it is possible to develop coordination capacities in countries that lack a strong tradition of such capacities. In particular, this paper analyzes the resurgence of national-level social bargaining in Spain in the 1990s. This development was the result of the reorientation of the strategies of the social actors. In a new economic and political context, marked by a process of institutional learning, trade unions have supported social bargaining as a defensive strategy to retake the initiative and influence policy outcomes.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

55. The Politics of Institutional Learning and Creation: Bank Crises and Supervision in East Central Europe

Author:
Gerald A. McDermott
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This article examines the political conditions shaping the creation of new institutional capabilities. It analyzes bank sector reforms in the 1990s in three leading postcommunist democracies–Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. It shows how different political approaches to economic transformation can facilitate or hinder the ability of relevant public and private actors to experiment and learn their new roles. With its emphasis on insulating power and rapidly implementing self-enforcing economic incentives, the “depoliticization” approach creates few changes in bank behavior and, indeed, impedes investment in new capabilities at the bank and supervisory levels. The “deliberativ e restructuring” approach fostered innovative, cost-effective monitoring structures for recapitalization, a strong supervisory system, and a stable, expanding bank sector.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, Poland, and Hungary

56. Western Capital vs. the Russian State: Towards an Explanation of Recent Trends in Russia's Corporate Governance

Author:
Stanislav Markus
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The literature on corporate governance in Russia stresses the abuse of shareholder rights in the face of various asset-diversion tactics by the management. Attributing this fiasco to a number of structural obstacles and the privatization legacy, the orthodox account fails to incorporate–let alone explain–the recent data demonstrating a qualitative improvement of corporate governance in crucial segments of the Russian economy. This paper disaggregates “corporate governance” into specific institutions and examines their quality at the firm level as well as by sector. The data supporting the analysis is drawn from recent studies by the OECD, UBS Warburg, CEFIR, and other organizations. The causal inference presented in this paper critically evaluates the impact of foreign capital on the improved corporate governance in Russia's blue-chip firms. The paper presents two alternative state-centered scenarios to explain the implementation of internationally accepted standards of corporate governance by Russia's big business.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

57. EU Accession and a New Populist Center-Periphery Cleavage in Central and Eastern Europe

Author:
Cas Mudde
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The finalized "Return to Europe" of the new EU members states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has created a whole new ballgame for Eurosceptic political actors. In rational choice terms, the costs of Euroscepticism (and even Eurorejection) have gone down dramatically, while the benefits will most probably go even further up. While the effects of EU accession on the party systems of CEE are multifold, this paper develops one possible effect: the transformation of the already present regional divide within CEE countries into a populist, anti-EU center-periphery leavage.
Topic:
Politics and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

58. The International Promotion of Political Norms in Eastern Europe: a Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Author:
Frank Schimmelfennig
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Since the end of the Cold War, European regional organizations have been engaged in promoting the core norms of the emerging pan-European liberal international community in Eastern Europe: democracy and human rights (including minority rights) and the peaceful and integrative settlement of international and interethnic conflicts. When were these efforts effective? Starting from the two most prominent models in the literature on international norm promotion–the social learning model and the external incentives model–the paper uses Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to examine the conditions under which governments in eastern Europe have complied with the political demands of European regional organizations. It shows that a credible perspective of EU and/or NATO accession combined with low political adaptation costs for the target governments was a sufficient condition for compliance; it thus corroborates the external incentives model. However, in the final phase of accession negotiations, a positive identification with the West proved sufficient as well–even when compliance threatened the survival of the government. By contrast, the other conditions of the social learning model (legitimacy and resonance) were irrelevant to the effectiveness of international norm promotion.
Topic:
International Relations, Cold War, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Europe

59. Selling off the "Family Silver": The Politics of Privatization in the OECD 1990-2000

Author:
Reimut Zohlnhöfer and Herbert Obinger
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The 1990s have witnessed unprecedented attempts at privatizing state owned enterprises in virtually all OECD democracies. This contribution analyzes the differences in the privatization proceeds raised by EU and OECD countries between 1990 and 2000. It turns out that privatizations are part of a process of economic liberalization in previously highly regulated economies, as well as a reaction to the fiscal policy challenges imposed by European integration and the globalization of financial markets. In addition, institutional pluralism and union militancy yield significant and negative effects on privatization proceeds. Partisan differences only emerge if economic problems are moderate, while intense economic, particularly fiscal, problems foreclose differing partisan strategies.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

60. The Spread of Neoliberalism: U.S. Economic Power and the Diffusion of Market-Oriented Tax Policy

Author:
Duane Swank
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
I offer an explanation for the widespread diffusion of neoliberal tax policies in the developed democracies. Specifically, I argue that the highly visible 1980s market-conforming tax reform in the United States, the late twentieth century's dominant political economy, creates significant incentives for adoption of neoliberal tax policies by decision makers in other polities. As such, I stress a dominant actor model of the diffusion of neoliberalism that is grounded in asymmetric competition for mobile assets and policy learning. However, while the incentives to follow U.S. tax policy are substantial, the relative weight assigned the costs and benefits of reform and, in turn, the pace and degree of neoliberal policy adoption by other nations is fundamentally contingent on features of domestic political and economic environments. I assess these arguments with empirical models of 1981-to-1998 tax rates on capital in sixteen nations. I find that changes in U.S. tax policy influence subsequent reforms in other polities; in the long-term, all nations move toward the U.S. neoliberal tax structure. Analysis also shows, however, that the responsiveness to US tax reforms is notably greater where linkages with U.S. markets are stronger, where domestic economic stress is deeper, and where uncoordinated market institutions are dominant. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of the present analysis for the volume's central questions: are dominant. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of the present analysis for the volume's central questions: of international policy interdependence and domestic political economic forces in shaping policy change?
Topic:
Economics and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

61. Is Europe Becoming the Most Dynamic Knowledge Economy in the World?

Author:
Daniele Archibugi and Alberto Coco
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The paper discusses the condition and perspective of the European Union in the knowledge economy and the feasibility of the goal given by the European Council at the Summits held in Lisbon (March 2000) and Barcelona (March 2002), that is, to increase European R expenditure up to 3 percent of GDP by 2010. The paper focuses on two aspects: comparative performance with its direct counterparts, in particular the US..; and intra-European distribution of resources and capabilities. A set of technological indicators is presented to show that Europe is still in a consistent delay when compared to Japan and the U.S., especially in R investment and in the generation of innovations. A small convergence occurs in the diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the sector most directly linked to the concept of the "new economy." In the field of knowledge collaboration, Europe reveals opposing paths in the business and in the academic worlds. Within Europe, the level of investment in scientific and technological activities is so different across countries that it does not merge into a single continental innovation system.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe and Lisbon

62. Special Education and the Risk of Becoming Less Educated in Germany and the United States

Author:
Justin J.W. Powell
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Over the twentieth century, a growing group of students has been transferred into considerably expanded special education systems. These programs serve children with diagnosed impairments and disabilities and students with a variety of learning difficulties. Children and youth “with special educational needs” constitute a heterogeneous group with social, ethnic, linguistic, and physical disadvantages. An increasingly large percentage of those students at risk of leaving school without credentials participate in special education, a highly legitimated low status (and stigmatizing) school form. While most countries commit themselves to school integration or inclusive education to replace segregated schools and separate classes, cross-national and regional comparisons of special education's diverse student bodies show considerable disparities in their (1) rates of classification, (2) provided learning opportunities, and (3) educational attainments. Analyzing special education demographics and organizational structures indicates which children and youth are most likely to grow up less educated and how educational systems distribute educational success and failure. Findings from a German-American comparison show that which students bear the greatest risk of becoming less educated depends largely on definitions of “special educational needs” and the institutionalization of special education systems.
Topic:
Development and Education
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Germany

63. The Challenges of EU Accession for Post-Communist Europe

Author:
David R. Cameron
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The accession of ten new member states in May 2004 and the prospective accession of several more in the near future will pose severe budgetary, administrative, and operational challenges for the European Union. But however great, the challenges of enlargement pale in comparison with the challenges of accession that will be faced by the new member states, especially those which until a decade ago were governed by Communist parties that presided over centrally-planned and predominantly-collectivized economies. This paper explores five of the most critical challenges that will face the new member states of post-Communist Europe: 1) administering the acquis; 2) deepening and extending the reform and transformation of the economy; 3) reducing the high levels of unemployment and large government, trade, and current account deficits; 4) financing accession in the face of the EU’s budgetary constraints and financial provisions; and 5) coping with all of those challenges in the face of low levels of support for enlargement in many of the member states and high levels of ambivalence and skepticism about membership in most of the new member states. The chapter concludes by noting the low levels of trust in the national government and satisfaction with the way democracy works that exist in most of the new member states and suggests that those low levels of trust and satisfaction will make it difficult for the governments in the new member states to address these challenges while also maintaining sufficient public support to retain office.
Topic:
Economics and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

64. Post-Communist Competition and State Development

Author:
Anna Grzymala-Busse
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Theories of institutional development have tended to view discretion, or the leeway to act within institutional bounds, as an often unintended consequence of agency design and institutional specification. Yet the post-communist states show that discretion is a fundamental goal of institutional creation among competing elites. In turn, while political competition has been identified as a key constraint on discretion in institutional creation, widely-used indicators of political competition are inadequate. As post-communist democracies show, the number or seat share of political parties matters far less than what parties do in parliament. The key factor is a robust opposition: a clear, credible, and contentious threat to governing parties. Such opposition leads to the rise of formal institutions that both minimize the discretion necessary for rent-seeking, and favor equitable distributional outcomes.
Topic:
Economics and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

65. The Language of Democracy: Vernacular Or Esperanto? A Comparison between the Multiculturalist and Cosmopolitan Perspectives

Author:
Daniele Archibugi
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Will Kymlicka has argued “democratic politics is politics in the vernacular.” Does it imply that democratic politics is impossible in a multilingual community, whether at the local, national, regional or global level? This paper discusses this assumption and maintains that democratic politics should imply the willingness of all players to make an effort to understand each other. Democratic politics imply the willingness to overcome the barriers to mutual understanding, including the linguistic ones. Any time that there is a community of fate, a democrat should search for methods that allow deliberation according to the two key conditions of political equality and participation. If linguistic diversity is an obstacle to equality and participation, some methods should be found to overcome it, as exemplified by the Esperanto metaphor. The paper illustrates the argument with four cases of multi-linguistic political communities: a) a school in California with English-speaking and Spanish-speaking students; b) the city of Byelostok in the second half of the nineteenth century, where four different linguistic communities (Polish, Russian, German and Yiddish) coexisted. This led Markus Zamenhof to invent Esperanto; c) the linguistic problems of the Indian state, and the role played by English – a language unspoken by the majority of the Indian population in 1947 – in developing Indian democracy; and d) the case of the European Parliament, with twenty languages and a wealth of interpreters and translators.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, India, California, and Germany

66. All for All: Equality and Social Trust

Author:
Bo Rothstein and Eric M. Uslaner
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The importance of social trust has become widely accepted in the social sciences. A number of explanations have been put forward for the stark variation in social trust among countries. Among these, participation in voluntary associations received most attention. Yet, there is scant evidence that participation can lead to trust. In this paper, we shall examine a variable that has not gotten the attention we think it deserves in the discussion about the sources of generalized trust, namely equality. We conceptualize equality in two dimensions: one is economic equality and the other is equality of opportunity. The omission of both these dimensions of equality in the social capital literature is peculiar for several reasons. One is that it is obvious that the countries that score highest on social trust also rank highest on economic equality, namely the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, and Canada. Secondly, these are countries that have put a lot of effort in creating equality of opportunity, not least in regard to their policies for public education, labor market opportunities and (more recently) gender equality. The argument for increasing social trust by reducing inequality has largely been ignored in the policy debates about social trust. Social capital research has to a large extent been used by several governments and policy organizations to send a message to people that the bad things in their society are caused by too little volunteering. The policy implication that follows from our research is that the low levels of trust and social capital that plague many countries are caused by too little government action to reduce inequality. However, many countries plagued by low levels of social trust and social capital may be stuck in what is known as a social trap. The logic of such a situation is the following. Social trust will not increase because massive social inequality prevails, but the public policies that could remedy this situation cannot be established precisely because there is a genuine lack of trust. This lack of trust concerns both “other people” and the government institutions that are needed to implement universal policies.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, and Gender Issues
Political Geography:
Europe, Canada, and Netherlands

67. Democratic Contestation, Accountability, and Citizen Satisfaction at the Regional Level

Author:
Endre M. Tvinnereim
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Democratic theory tells us that competition between political parties fosters more responsive government by disciplining elected leaders. Yet party competition may not always attain the levels desirable for holding leaders accountable, notably at the sub-national level. This paper hypothesizes that variations in competition-induced accountability affect regional, or state, government behavior, and that this variation is reflected in citizen satisfaction with regional government performance. The hypothesis is confirmed using survey data from sixty-eight German state election studies. Specifically, a widening of the gap between the two main parties of each state is shown to affect subsequent individual-level satisfaction negatively. This finding presents a conjecture that should be generalizable to other countries with strong sub-national units.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

68. Capital, Labor, and the Prospects of the European Social Model in the East

Author:
Dorothee Bohle and Bela Greskovitz
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
During the past decade of European economic integration vastly worse standards have emerged in work conditions, industrial relations, and social welfare in Eastern Europe than in the West. Area scholars explain this divide by labor weakness caused by the ideological legacy of communism, and do not problematize the impact of transnational capital. In contrast, this essay argues that the reason why the European social model has not traveled to the East is that its socio-economic foundations, the industrial building blocks of the historical compromise between capital and labor, have not traveled either. In the West, the compromise had been rooted in capital-intensive consumer durables industries, such as car-manufacturing, and their suppliers. These sectors brought together organized and vocal labor with businesses willing to accommodate workers' demands, because for them labor had been less a problem as a cost-factor and more important as factor of demand. However, the main driving force of the eastward expansion of European capital has been the relocation of labor-intensive activities where business relies on sweating masses of workers, whose importance as consumers is marginal, and who are weak in the workplace and the marketplace. With this general conceptualization of how the emerging new European division of labor constrains the social aspects of East European market societies as a background, the essay studies the cases of Hungarian electronics and Slovak car industries in order to better understand how particular features of various leading sectors mediate the general pattern.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

69. Lessons for Post-Communist Europe from the Iberian Integration into the EU after Sixteen Years

Author:
Sebastian Royo
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to outline the main consequences for Portugal and Spain of EU integration. It uses the integration of Portugal and Spain into the European Union as an opportunity to draw some lessons that may be applicable to East European countries as they pursue their own processes of integration into the European Union. It examines challenges and opportunities that new member states from central and Eastern Europe will face when trying to integrate in the EU. Finally, the paper analyzes the impact the 2004 enlargement will have on the Iberian countries.
Topic:
Economics and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Spain

70. Explaining Labor Quiescence in Post-Communist Europe: Historical Legacies and Comparative Perspective

Author:
Stephen Crowley
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Studies on the changing labor relations in post-communist countries have flourished in recent years, such that a review and analysis of what has been reported is overdue. Yet, interestingly, these studies have not reached a consensus on what they seek to explain. Indeed, some of the main questions remain under contention. First, is labor in post-communist societies weak, or (in at least some countries) strong? What should the referent be in determining strength or weakness? To the extent labor is weak, what would explain this weakness? If labor's power varies throughout the region, what would explain this variation? There have been a number of answers posed to these questions to date, but not a thorough testing of rival hypotheses. This paper will demonstrate, using a variety of measures, that labor is indeed a weak social and political act or in post-communist societies, especially when compared to labor in western Europe. This general weakness is rather surprising when one examines it against the now considerable economic and political diversity that exists in the post-communist world. The paper will then examine a number of hypotheses that have been proposed to explain labor's weakness, concluding that the institutional legacies of post-communist trade unions, and the ideological legacy of the discourse of class, best explain this overall weakness. However, the concept of legacy is itself found wanting, since it is unable to account for the extent of this weakness or the trends that have occurred in the region over time.
Topic:
Communism and Government
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

71. Why European Citizens Will Reject the EU Constitution

Author:
Claes H. de Vreese
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This study tests competing hypotheses about popular support for European integration. It introduces anti-immigration sentiments as a key variable for understanding reluctance towards integration. Drawing on survey data, it is found that anti-immigration sentiments, economic considerations, and the evaluation of domestic governments are the strongest predictors of both support for integration and individuals' propensity to vote “Yes” in a referendum on the enlargement of the EU. When extrapolating the findings to future referendums on issues of European integration, it may be predicted that such referendums will result in a “No” outcome under the conditions of high levels of anti-immigration sentiments, pessimistic economic outlooks, and/or unpopularity of a government.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

72. The EMU Macroeconomic Policy Regime and the European Social Model

Author:
Andrew Martin
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper will be a chapter in Euros and Europeans: Monetary Integration and the European Social Model, Andrew Martin and George Ross, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2004. Over time, the impact of EMU on the European social model (ESM) is likely to depend most fundamentally on its effects on unemployment. If EMU makes possible a significant reduction in unemployment, it poses no threat to the ESM. However, EMU is likely to keep unemployment at high levels. This expectation hinges on two propositions: 1) in order to bring unemployment back down after an extended period of disinflation has kept growth below its potential and unemployment high, a period of economic growth above its long-run potential – a growth spurt – is necessary, and 2), the EMU macroeconomic policy regime, as interpreted and implemented by the ECB, blocks such a growth spurt. The first part of the paper describes the policy regime, arguing that the ECB's implementation of it so far and the bank's rationale for doing so indicate an unwillingness to permit the growth spurt needed to significantly reduce unemployment. Its rationale invokes the orthodox view that monetary policy has no long run effects on growth and employment. This view is challenged by an alternative view, described in the second part. The alternative rests mainly on an empirical analysis of cases in which disinflation was and was not followed by growth spurts during the 1980s and 1990s. Showing that in the long run unemployment was lower without higher inflation where monetary policy permitted growth spurts than where it did not, this analysis suggests that the ECB's orthodoxy is fundamentally flawed and that adherence to it will perpetuate Europe's high unemployment.
Topic:
Economics, Human Welfare, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

73. What Constitutions Can Do (But Courts Sometimes Don't):Property, Speech, and The Influence of Constitutional Norms on Private Law

Author:
Oliver Gerstenberg
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Against the background of the ECtHR's recent decision in Appleby v UK (a European “counterpart” to the well-known US Supreme Court decision in Marsh v Alabama) the paper addresses, first, the issue of the influence, often perceived as dilemmatic, of human rights norms and constitutional norms on private law. In a second step, then, the paper discusses the promise—and a possible dilemma—of “comparative constitutionalism” as an engine of a more denationalized “constitutional patriotism”: the dilemma that we trade the “closure” of domestic exceptionalism against the new, systemic “closure” of “too much” judicial comity and professionalism, the closure of a new Juristenrecht.
Topic:
Human Rights and International Law
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, and Europe

74. Learning and Change in Twentieth-Century British Economic Policy

Author:
Michael J. Oliver and Hugh Pemberton
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Despite considerable interest in the means by which policy learning occurs, and in how it is that the framework of policy may be subject to radical change, the “black box” of economic policymaking remains surprisingly murky. This article utilizes Peter Hall's concept of “social learning” to develop a more sophisticated model of policy learning; one in which paradigm failure does not necessarily lead to wholesale paradigm replacement, and in which an administrative battle of ideas may be just as important a determinant of paradigm change as a political struggle. It then applies this model in a survey of UK economic policymaking since the 1930s: examining the shift to “Keynesianism” during the 1930s and 1940s; the substantial revision of this framework in the 1960s; the collapse of the “Keynesian-plus” framework in the 1970s; and the major revisions to the new “neo-liberal” policy framework in the 1980s and 1990s.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

75. “Une Messe est Possible”: The Imbroglio of the Catholic Church in Contemporary Latin Europe

Author:
Paul Christopher Manuel and Margaret Mott
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Throughout the contemporary period, the Church-State relationship in the nation-states of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal – which we will refer to as Latin Europe in this paper – has been a lively source of political conflict and societal cleavage, both on epistemological, and ontological grounds. Epistemological, in that the person living in Latin Europe has to decide whether his world view will be religious or secular; ontological, in that his mortality has kept some sense of the Catholic religion close to his heart and soul at the critical moments of his human reality. Secular views tend to define the European during ordinary periods of life, (“métro boulot dodo,”) while religious beliefs surge during the extraordinary times of life (birth, marriage, death,) as well as during the traditional ceremonial times (Christmas, Easter). This paper will approach the question on the role of the Catholic church in contemporary Latin Europe by first proposing three models of church-state relations in the region and their historical development, then looking at the role of the Vatican, followed by an examination of some recent Eurobarometer data on the views of contemporary Catholics in each country, and finishing with an analysis of selected public policy issues in each country. Throughout, it is interested in the dual questions of whether religion still plays an important role in Latin Europe, and whether or not the Catholic church is still able to influence the direction of public policies in the now democratic nation-states of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Topic:
Politics and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe, France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal

76. The European Union: Democratic Legitimacy In A Regional State?

Author:
Vivien A. Schmidt
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Democratic legitimacy for the EU is problematic if it is seen as a future nation-state. If instead the EU were seen as a regional state—with shared sovereignty, variable boundaries, composite identity, compound governance, and a fragmented democracy in which the EU level assures governance for and with the people through effective governing and interest consultation, leaving to the national level government by and of the people through political participation and citizen representation—the problems of the democratic deficit diminish for the EU level. But they become even greater for the national level, where the changes to national democratic practices demand better ideas and discourses of legitimization. A further complicating factor results from problems of “institutional fit,” because the EU has had a more disruptive impact on “simple” polities, where governing activity has traditionally been channeled through a single authority, than on more “compound” polities, where it has been more dispersed through multiple authorities.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, Politics, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Europe

77. The “New World Order”: From Unilateralism to Cosmopolitanism

Author:
Jeffrey Herf and Jürgen Neyer
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
On January 26, 2004, the topic of the CES-Berlin Dialogues was “The 'New World Order': From Unilateralism to Cosmopolitanism.” It was the second in a series of four meetings organized in Berlin under the heading “Redefining Justice.” The session was intended to examine successful and failed arenas of cooperation between the US and Europe; political misunderstandings and conscious manipulation; and models for future transatlantic relations. The presenters were Jeffrey Herf, Professor of History, University of Maryland, and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Neyer, Professor of International Political Economy, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, and Heisenberg Fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the Freie Universität Berlin. Jeffrey Herf was asked to speak on the basic tenets of U.S. foreign policy in the administration of President George W. Bush, and Jürgen Neyer focused on the European view of international relations and conduct in the period since the invasion of Iraq.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Europe, and Berlin

78. European Anti-Americanism (and Anti-Semitism): Ever Present Though Always Denied

Author:
Andrei S. Markovits
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
There can be no doubt that the Bush Administration's policies have massively contributed to a hitherto unprecedented deterioration in European-American relations. However, European antipathies towards many things American date back at least to July 5, 1776, if not before. Following a conceptual discussion of anti-Americanism, the paper then turns to an account of these historical dislikes and anchors them particularly among Europe's elites. A discussion of anti-Semitism in relation to anti- Americanism follows in the subsequent section. A summary of an analysis of newspaper articles collected in the decade of the 1990s highlights the widespread nature of anti-American sentiments in Britain, France, Germany, Italy. Lastly, anti-Americanism's functionality as a useful ingredient in Europe's burgeoning state building process concludes the paper.
Topic:
International Relations and Nationalism
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, France, Germany, and Italy

79. How Can International Organizations Shape National Welfare States? Evidence from Compliance with EU Directives

Author:
Katerina Linos
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
How can international organizations shape national welfare states? The answer depends on why national governments comply with international organization mandates. International relations scholarship offers two competing compliance models. Enforcement theories emphasize states' utilitarian calculus and predict that states' policy preferences determine implementation, while managerial theories attribute non-compliance to states' capability limitations and emphasize institutional variables. This paper examines the implementation of EU social policy directives through a new quantitative dataset and qualitative case studies of implementation in Greece and Spain. Three proxies for national social policy preferences – low labor costs, high unemployment and early national social legislation – predict implementation delays. At the same time, factors unrelated to national preferences on particular directives have at least as large an impact on timely implementation. Thus, a national bureaucracy's capacity and the absence of veto players reduce implementation delays. These findings suggest that capabilities influence compliance at least as much as preferences, but through mechanisms different from the ones emphasized in existing work. Although international organizations may not be especially successful in overcoming past policy legacies in favor of future commitments, they can reorient the axes of contestation from left-right to supra-sub national and thus shape national policies.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

80. Allons enfants de *quelle* patrie: Breton Nationalism and the French Impressionist Aesthetic

Author:
Paul-André Bempéchat
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Since its annexation by France in 1532, preserving Brittany's cultural identity has been dependent upon the fluidity of its political relationship with France. As the French Republic came into existence, laws were enacted to suppress minority languages across the Hexagon in favour of French. After the Revolution of 1789, the only language to be used officially, universally and exclusively in matters of education and civic administration became French, at a time when less than half the territory we recognize as France indeed spoke the language. Repressive, violent retaliatory measures were taken whenever linguistic resurgence arose, and such tactics only fueled the flames of nationalism. It was in 1839, at the height of European Celtomania, that the vibrancy of Brittany's ancient culture gained in both stature and appreciation. This revival had been generated by the publication and enormous international success of La Villemarqué's Barzaz Breiz ("Songs and Ballads of Brittany"), the cornerstone of Brittany's cultural renaissance. When France fell to the Germans in 1870, a wounded Republic felt even more artistically vulnerable to the onslaught of German Romanticism that had beset the nation since Wagner's operatic successes of the 1840s. A "national nationalism" came into the fore as Camille Saint-Saëns founded the Société Nationale de Musique, whose mandate became the "de-Germanization" of French music, and a rediscovery of all that was musically French. France's cultural vulnerability opened a window for Breton literati and musical illuminati towards greater artistic expression. Refusing the wave of nationalism to pass them by, Breton composers began to assert their cultural identity by reviving ancient, modal Church canticles, folk melodies and traditionally Celtic instruments. As the tonal matrices of French post- Romanticism congealed into Impressionism, Breton musical Romanticism and Impressionism also entered the foreground of French musical life. By 1910, l'Association des compositeurs bretons was founded by Les Huit (Louis Aubert, Charles-Augustin Collin, Maurice Duhamel, Paul Ladmirault, Paul Le Flem, Paul Martineau, Joseph-Guy Ropartz, and Louis Vuillemin). Affectionately nicknamed La Cohorte bretonne ("The Invading Breton Troop") by critic René Dumesnil, the Association commissioned and launched Breton and Breton-inspired compositions in the national capital until the outbreak of World War I. After the Great War, Paris' greatest fear for the security of the Republic was the festering autonomist movement in Alsace, just regained after the Armistice. In extenso, Breton autonomist movements also presented a threat, and this led to further, violently repressive measures outlawing the speaking of the Breton language and the holding of Mass in Breton. Fearing that the impetus provided the cultural faction of Le Mouvement breton would wane, and coinciding with Maurice Duhamel's political address to the Bretons at the Congrès breton of 1929, Paul Ladmirault composed his own cultural epistle to Breton artists, L'Exemple des Cinq Russes in 1928. Ladmirault heralded the province's cultural originality and independence and aligned her struggles for recognition with those of the Russian musical nationalists, The Mighty Five (Mili Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modeste Moussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov), a generation earlier. Seeing that this movement had, after a half century, finally earned its rightful place within the musical Pantheon, Breton composers finally found the requisite impetus to develop their own, distinct cultural patrimony.
Topic:
Nationalism and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Paris, France, and Germany

81. Party Competition in Post-Communist Europe: The Great Electoral Lottery

Author:
Abby Innes
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This article suggests that the academic emphasis on rational choice and political-sociological approaches to party development has led to a misleading impression of convergence with Western patterns of programmatic competition and growing partisan identification in the Central European party political scene. As an alternative thesis, the author argues that the very character of 'transition' politics in Eastern Europe and the necessarily self-referential nature of the parliamentary game has structured party systems in those countries, and that the differences between the party systems in this region are critically related to experiences under communism (–a political-historical explanation). The paper argues that, in order to cope with a practical lack of public policy options in major areas such as the economy, parties have had little choice but to compete over operating 'styles,' rather than over substantive (ideologically based) programmatic alternatives. The development of parties incumbent in government since 1989 may be compared to the development of catch-all parties in Western Europe in terms of the competitive logic of weakening/avoiding ideological positions in order to embrace a large constituency. However, successful parties in Eastern Europe lack the 'baggage' of an ideological past and the history of mass membership and a class or denominational clientele – their defining characteristic is that they try to appeal to all of the people all of the time.
Topic:
Education, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

82. Voluntary associations and region building. A post-national perspective on Baltic history

Author:
Jörg Hackmann
Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Voluntary associations are a major topic of historical research on nation building and civil society in Europe. This paper focuses on the associational sphere in the Baltic provinces of Tsarist Russia and tries to outline the impact of associations on modern societies in this region. The first section addresses the legal and social frameworks of voluntary associations, followed by a sketch of developmental trends in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The next sections discuss the role of voluntary associations within the concepts of civil society and cultural nation building. Slightly different from conventional functionalist national discourses, it is argued here that, in the perspective of cultural history, voluntary associations contributed considerably to the emergence of the region of North Eastern Europe, a region shaped by close cultural contacts and inter-ethnic relations within the Baltic Sea region as well as by the strivings of the small nations to integrate with larger European structures.
Topic:
Civil Society and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

83. Executive Leadership and the Role of “Veto Players” in the United States and Germany

Author:
Ludger Helms
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
In recent comparative works on the constitutional structures of contemporary liberal democracies, the United States and Germany have been grouped together as examples of democratic systems with an exceptionally high degree of “institutional pluralism”. In other typologies both countries have even been classified as “semisovereign democracies”. Whereas such classifications are of some use, especially in the field of public policy research, they fail to pay reasonable attention to the fundamental difference between parliamentary and presidential government that dominated the older literature on comparative political systems. As the comparative assessments offered in this paper suggest, the difference between parliamentary government and presidential government does not only constitute very different conditions of executive leadership in the core executive territory and at the level of executive-legislative relations, but has also a strong impact on the role and performance of the various “veto players” that characterize the political systems of the United States and Germany, and which are at the center of this paper.
Topic:
Government and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Germany

84. European Corporate Governance Reform and the German Party Paradox

Author:
Martin Höpner
Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper addresses the current discussion on links between party politics and production regimes. Why do German Social Democrats opt for more corporate governance liberalization than the CDU although, in terms of the distributional outcomes of such reforms, one would expect the situation to be reversed? I divide my analysis into three stages. First, I use the European Parliament's crucial vote on the European takeover directive in July 2001 as a test case to show that the left-right dimension does indeed matter in corporate governance reform, beside cross-class and cross-party nation-based interests. In a second step, by analyzing the party positions in the main German corporate governance reforms in the 1990s, I show that the SPD and the CDU behave “paradoxically” in the sense that the SPD favored more corporate governance liberalization than the CDU, which protected the institutions of “Rhenish,” “organized” capitalism. This constellation occurred in the discussions on company disclosure, management accountability, the power of banks, network dissolution, and takeover regulation. Third, I offer two explanations for this paradoxical party behavior. The first explanation concerns the historical conversion of ideas. I show that trade unions and Social Democrats favored a high degree of capital organization in the Weimar Republic, but this ideological position was driven in new directions at two watersheds: one in the late 1940s, the other in the late 1950s. My second explanation lies in the importance of conflicts over managerial control, in which both employees and minority shareholders oppose managers, and in which increased shareholder power strengthens the position of works councils.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

85. Elements for a Structural Constructivist Theory of Politics and of European Integration

Author:
Niilo Kauppi
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Pierre Bourdieu's structural constructivist theory of politics offers powerful instruments for a critical analysis of political power. In this paper, I explore structural constructivism as a theory of politics and of European integration. By structural constructivism I refer to a mostly French research tradition that develops some of Bourdieu's theoretical tools. In European studies, social constructivism has provided an alternative to traditional approaches such as intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism. Structural constructivism remedies some of the weaknesses of most versions of social constructivism, such as their diffuse conception of power and ideational notion of culture. This paper develops a structural constructivist approach that examines the European Union as a multileveled and polycentric emerging political field.
Topic:
International Organization and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

86. Hard and soft economic policy coordination under EMU: problems, paradoxes and prospects

Author:
Iain Begg
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Although the launch of the euro went better than many expected, sluggish growth, persistent unemployment and growing disenchantment with key elements of the economic governance system have led to demands for change, especially in policy coordination. This paper examines the criticisms of economic policy in the EU and the mechanisms through which it is coordinated, and considers how the EMU policy system might be reformed. It points to problems and paradoxes in the way economic governance operates, notably those surrounding its ability to deliver a coherent policy mix that brings together monetary fiscal and supply-side policies. The paper concludes with a discussion of whether gouvernment économique might offer a way forward.
Topic:
Economics and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

87. Does the process really matter? Some reflections on the "legitimating effect" of the European Convention

Author:
Paul Magnette
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The European Convention, set up by the Heads of state and governments during the Laeken Summit of December 2001, was presented by its initiators as a means of strengthening the legitimacy of the EU. Is this a rhetorical argument of politicians, which could be explained by the intense electoral cycle of 2002- 2004? Or is there something, in the process of the Convention, that could change the nature of the EU constitution?
Topic:
International Organization and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

88. Portugese Ministers, 1851-1999: Social Background and Paths to Power

Author:
Pedro Tavares de Almeida and António Costa Pinto
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of regime changes in the composition and patterns of recruitment of the Portuguese ministerial elite throughout the last 150 years. The 'out-of-type', violent nature of most regime transformations accounts for the purges in and the extensive replacements of the political personnel, namely of the uppermost officeholders. In the case of Cabinet members, such discontinuities did not imply, however, radical changes in their social profile. Although there were some significant variations, a series of salient characteristics have persisted over time. The typical Portuguese minister is a male in his midforties, of middle-class origin and predominantly urban-born, highly educated and with a state servant background. The two main occupational contingents have been university professors - except for the First Republic (1910-26) - and the military, the latter having only recently been eclipsed with the consolidation of contemporary democracy. As regards career pathways, the most striking feature is the secular trend for the declining role of parliamentary experience, which the democratic regime did not clearly reverse. In this period, a technocratic background rather than political experience has been indeed the privileged credential for a significant proportion of ministers.
Topic:
Government and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

89. Ministerial Elites in Greece, 1843-2001: A Synthesis of Old Sources and New Data

Author:
Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos and Dimitris Bourikos
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The study of Greek political elites used to be concentrated on parliamentary deputies. Ministerial elites were rarely studied. In this paper, we take a long-term view of the Greek ministerial elites, studying their socio-political profile from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. We find that this profile does not change so much with regime change, but instead follows political developments at certain time points within specific regime periods. At these points, new political leaders were ushered into power. Examples were Eleftherios Venizelos in 1911 and Andreas Papandreou in 1981. Changes in personnel were not accompanied by changes in geographical origin or professional outlook, which took much longer to effect. In the nineteenth century mainly landowners and state officials dominated cabinets. After the beginning of the twentieth century, however, liberal professions, particularly lawyers, were overrepresented among ministers. This pattern continued throughout the twentieth century. Both the predominance of lawyers and the changes in the profile of ministers over time are attributed to the type of state built in modern Greece, a clientelist, overcentralized and legalistic state which only recently has started its transformation, requiring a different, more modern type of politician.
Topic:
Government, Nationalism, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Greece

90. Labor Market Institutions and Unemployment: A Critical Assessment of the Cross-Country Evidence

Author:
Dean Baker, John Schmitt, and Andrew Glyn
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
In the last twenty five years, there has been a sharp divergence in trends in the unemployment rate among OECD countries, with some seeing much larger increases in unemployment than others. This divergence is usually explained by institutions that lead to labor market inflexibility – generous unemployment benefits, employment protections, and strong unions – in countries with high unemployment rates. This paper examines the evidence for this view. It shows that there is no simple bivariate relationship between standard measures of labor market institutions and unemployment rates across countries. It then critically examines several of the most often cited studies that support the labor market inflexibility view. It finds that these studies present relatively weak and to some extent contradictory support for the labor market inflexibility view. Finally, the paper presents the results of a set of tests designed to replicate some of the earlier multivariate analyses with more current data. These tests consistently fail to find robust evidence to support the labor market inflexibility view.
Topic:
Economics and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

91. Europeanization and the Retreat of the State

Author:
Volker Schneider and Frank M. Häge
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Is the state on the retreat? We examine this question through an analysis of changing patterns of government involvement in infrastructure provision, which is generally considered to be one of the primary functions of the modern state. Based on an analysis of the extent of privatization of infrastructure companies between 1970 and 2000 across twenty-six OECD countries, we find that there is indeed a general trend towards less public infrastructure provision visible in all of the countries and that the main factors associated with the extent of privatizations are EU membership and government ideology. We argue that the trend of privatizing infrastructure companies was triggered by a change of the prominent economic discourse in the 1970s and that a rightist party ideology and EU membership fostered the adoption and implementation of these ideas in domestic settings.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

92. Disentangling the Reform Gridlock: Higher Education in Germany

Author:
Helga A. Welsh
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
For more than a decade, bemoaning the many roadblocks to reforming important aspect of German politics has become commonplace. Explanations emphasize formal and informal veto points, such as the role of political institutions and the lack of elite and societal support for reform initiatives. Against this background, I was interested in factors that place policy issues on the political agenda and follow up with concrete courses of action; i.e., in factors that lead to a disentangling of the reform gridlock. I emphasize the importance of agenda setting in the emergence of higher education reform in Germany. Globalization, European integration and domestic pressures combined to create new pressures for change. In response, an advocacy coalition of old and new political actors has introduced a drawn-out and ongoing process of value reorientation in the direction of competition, including international competition, and greater autonomy. The result has been a burst of activities, some moderate, some more far-reaching in their potential to restructure German higher education.
Topic:
Education, Globalization, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

93. National Interests, State Power, and EU Enlargement

Author:
Milada Anna Vachudova and Andrew Moravcsik
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The EU enlargement process and its consequences are decisively influenced by material national interests and state power. Current EU leaders promote accession primarily because they believe it to be in their longterm economic and geopolitical interest, and applicant states embark on the laborious accession process because EU membership brings tremendous economic and geopolitical benefits, particularly as compared exclusion as others move forward. As in previous rounds of EU enlargement, patterns of asymmetrical interdependence dictate that the applicants compromise more on the margin—thereby contributing to a subjective sense of loss among those countries (the applicants) that benefit most. Domestic distributional conflict is exacerbated everywhere, but the losses are in most cases limited, inevitable and, in the longer term, even beneficial. Once in, we should expect applicant states, like their predecessors, to deploy their voting and veto power in an effort to transfer resources to themselves. While overrepresentation of smaller states gives the applicants an impressive number of votes, the lack of new “grand projects” essential to existing members, the diversity of the new members, and above all, the increasingly flexible decision-making structure of the EU, will make it difficult for the new members to prevail.
Topic:
International Political Economy and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

94. Spain in the EU: fifteen years may not be enough

Author:
Miguel Sebastian
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Europe has been the driving force of economic policy in Spain over the last four decades and the key factor behind the modernization and globalisation of the Spanish Economy. The accession to the EEC in 1986 was a crucial step in the process of economic and political integration.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

95. Reconsidering Economic Relations and Political Citizenship in the New Iberia of the New Europe: Some Lessons from the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Accession of Portugal and Spain to the European Union

Author:
Paul Christoper Manual and Sebastián Royo
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to use the fifteenth anniversary of the accession of Portugal and Spain to the European Union as an opportunity to reflect on what has happened to both countries since 1986. It examines the integration process and how it has affected political, economic and social developments in Portugal and in Spain over the last fifteen years. In our view, and on balance, Spain and Portugal have benefited from accession. Since the last century, the obsession of Spanish and Portuguese reformists has been to make up the lost ground with modernized Europe. EU membership has been a critical step in this direction. The record of the past fifteen years is that this dream is becoming an economic reality. Despite impressive achievements, however, namely, since 1986, Portugal's average per capita income has grown from 56 percent of the EU average to about 74 percent, whereas Spain's has grown to 83 percent—both Iberian countries still have a long way to go to reach the EU average wealth. In addition, the question of Iberian and/or European citizenship, and its impact on the Portuguese and Spanish, remains open.
Topic:
Government, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe and Spain

96. Does the European Union Strengthen the State? Democracy, Executive Power and International Cooperation

Author:
William Phelan
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Many observers have suggested that the strengthening of executives vis-à-vis other political actors, in particular national parliaments, has been one of the principal effects of European integration (and perhaps international cooperation more generally) on national democracies, with democracy being “perverted” and parliaments becoming “rubber stamps” Moravcsik (1994) has argued that there were four theoretical ways in which international cooperation could “strengthen the state,” by redistributing institutional power, initiative (agenda-setting), information and ideas in favor of the executive in Europe. However, consideration of domestic politics in Europe shows that elites are already – for exogenous reasons – dominant in institutions, initiative and information. In Europe, therefore, the “strong” executive is not a product of European integration, and the reverse may even be true: that the dominance of the executive in national political systems has been a prerequisite for the success of European integration – that European openness has been built on national political closure. More generally, assessments of the impact of international cooperation on democracy should measure the effect of international cooperation at the margin on the existing characteristics of particular national democratic systems.
Topic:
Government and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

97. Temporary work agencies and equilibrium unemployment

Author:
Michael Neugart and Donald Storrie
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
A striking feature of OECD labor markets in the 1990s has been the very rapid increase of temporary agency work. We augment the equilibrium unemployment model as developed by Pissarides and Mortensen with temporary work agencies in order to focus on their role as matching intermediaries and to examine the aggregate impact on employment. Our model implies that the improvement in the matching efficiency of agencies led to the emergence and growth of temporary agency work. We also show that temporary agency work does not necessarily crowd out other jobs.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

98. Ties That Bind? The Parapublic Underpinnings of Franco-German Relations as Construction of International Value

Author:
Ulrich Krotz
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Beneath the relations among states, and distinct from the exchanges of an autonomous regional or global civil society, there is another set of international practices which is neither public nor private but parapublic. The Franco-German parapublic underpinnings consist of publicly funded youth and educational exchanges, some two thousand city and regional partnerships, a host of institutes and associations concerned with Franco-German matters, and various other parapublic elements. This institutional reality provides resources, socializes the participants of its programs, and generates social meaning. Simultaneously, parapublic activity faces severe limits. In this paper I clarify the concept of “parapublic underpinnings” of international relations and flesh out their characteristics for the relationship between France and Germany. I then evaluate the effects and limits of this type of activity, and relate this paper's findings and arguments to recent research on transnationalism, Europeanization, and denationalization.
Topic:
International Relations, Civil Society, and Education
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

99. Structure as Process:The Regularized Intergovernmentalism of Franco-German Bilateralism

Author:
Ulrich Krotz
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
This article systematically scrutinizes the intergovernmental and administrative aspects of Franco-German relations with the 1963 Elysée Treaty at their core. This treaty, together with its various additions and extensions, has defined the basic processes of bilateral interaction between the French and German states. Recurrent tension in Franco-German relations notwithstanding, many observers and participants have viewed France and Germany to be connected particularly closely since the 1960s. This article explores key elements of what it is that links France and Germany. Thereby it clarifies the concept of regularized inter governmentalism, suggests viewing this specific set of international practices from a social-structural perspective, and evaluates the effects and limits of such regularized procedures. Its findings suggest that bilateral structures have complemented and undergirded a broadly multilateral post-World War II world and are likely to continue to do so.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

100. Germany, Multilateralism,and the Eastern Enlargement of the EU

Author:
Claus Hofhansel
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Since World War II, the most distinctive characteristic of German foreign policy has been its commitment to multilateralism. This commitment has served German material interests, but it has a normative basis as well. This paper analyzes German domestic support for multilateralist policies, defined in terms of the principles of indivisibility, generalized principles of conduct, and diffuse reciprocity, in the context of negotiations on the EU's eastern enlargement. Empirically, the paper focuses on the policy areas of freedom of movement for workers and agriculture. The main theoretical argument is that domestic support for multilateralist policies depends on the distributional consequences of such policies and the ability of political institutions to manage distributional conflicts. Distributional conflict undermines support for multilateralist policies. In the case of Germany, distributional conflicts among different sectors and regions of the German economy have become more severe partly, but not exclusively, due to German unification. Furthermore, German political institutions are less able to resolve such conflicts than in the past. The evidence presented here shows more intense domestic distributional conflicts on the free movement of labor issue than over agriculture, and, as expected, we see more explicitly bilateral and less multilateralist demands by unions and employers.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Government
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Germany