debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
New book edited by STANISLAWA GOLINOWSKA, PETER HENGSTENBERG and MACIEJ ZUKOWSKI The full book can be downloaded here: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/warschau/06223.pdf This collaborative study has the ambitious goal of providing a new interpretation and analysis of European social policy since the »Eastern« enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and 2007. It covers six countries, three of [...]
To understand how economies work and how we can manage them and prosper, we must pay attention to the thought patterns that animate people’s ideas and feelings, their animal spirits. We will never really understand important economic events unless we confront the fact that their causes are largely mental in nature. It is unfortunate that [...]
Just as President Barack Obama has shaken up the status quo in his first 100 days in office, his campaign overturned old formulas about how to win the presidency. The Obama campaign did not focus only on battleground states, but instead charged into states that previously had been solidly Republican turf. With a historic economic [...]
Sun Tzu wrote that, ‘strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.’ Obama and his campaign internalised this maxim. They combined a political strategy that focussed on a singular narrative and open organisational structure with modern tools to maximise fundraising and voter mobilisation. The critical difference [...]
Political parties perform important roles in European societies. Parties are institutions in which citizens with similar political views organise, develop political programmes and actively participate in the political process. They are vital for democracy because parties offer the most clear-cut political choices that are put to the electorate. Parties are also recruitment organisations, through which [...]
Europe has been a fascinating idea of peace, stability and social justice. After decades of unstable balance of power systems, disastrous conflicts and two World Wars, a new era in Europe’s history began when the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was established. The idea ‘to create peace through integration’ became a reality. Following decades [...]
The European Commission’s ‘Renewed Social Agenda’, published at the beginning of July 2008, bears the auspicious subtitle ‘Opportunities, Access and Solidarity in 21st Century Europe’. The Agenda outlines a framework for European social policy in the areas of employment and social affairs, education and youth, health care and the information society. However, since social policy [...]
Malta is quite unique. Although we have our fair share of problems as anywhere else in Europe, few would doubt that, particularly in view of our small size, Malta offers experiences not easily replicated in other larger countries. At the same time, however, we must not allow this trait to stand in our way of [...]
The all new Social Europe website is now live with more functionality for our readers. We have merged the Social Europe website and Social Europe Blog to have all our content in one accessible place and still offer as much interactivity as possible. In addition to our traditional PDF version of each journal issue, our [...]
A new era is dawning. The financial crisis of 2008 is not the end of capitalism. Capitalism dates back to the Medici revolution, which invented modern banking, but since then it has gone through many different regimes and articulations. The 2008 crisis marks the end of the Reagan-Thatcher counter-revolution. Neoliberalism and monetarism are dead. Even [...]
In recent judgements undermining the right to strike and compliance with collective agreements, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has dealt a fresh blow to hopes for a ‘Social Europe’. Political scientist Fritz Scharpf explains the reasoning behind rulings from Europe’s highest court – and explores what can be done to oppose them. Herr Scharpf, [...]
In a recent interview with Mitbestimmung, Professor Fritz Scharpf, one of Europe’s most prominent social scientists, spoke about the radicalising effects of the recent ECJ rulings in the Viking, Laval, Rüffert and Commission vs Luxembourg cases: ‘the basic treaty freedoms are now deemed not just to prevent protectionist discrimination against foreign suppliers but more broadly [...]
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