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Literature researching the drivers of highly skilled migration (HSM) often prioritizes labor market returns to education and downscales the importance of public welfare. This paper develops an innovative empirical strategy that allows us to see how a selection of pull factors attracts temporary and long-term educated migrants in Europe. To do so, we built a unique longitudinal contextual dataset merging information from the European Labor Force Survey (2000-2014) with selected Eurostat and OECD country indicators. Country fixed effect time series allow us to concentrate on cross-country effects. Our evidence suggests that returns to education attract temporary HSM and long term stayers equally. However, it is also shown that public welfare and taxation operate differently for these two groups and do not deter long-term residents. Our paper proposes revisiting the assumption that HSMs are mere income maximizers. As we argue, long term HSM may well be attracted by generous welfare setups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Increasing numbers of older adults cross-nationally are without children or partners in later life and therefore likely have greater reliance on non-kin (e.g., friends). This pattern may be particularly pronounced in country contexts that emphasize friendship. This paper hypothesizes that those who lack kin (e.g., children, partners) and/or who live in countries with a stronger emphasis on friendship have more friends in their networks. While these hypothesized patterns are consistent with interdisciplinary literatures, they have not been tested empirically and therefore remain overlooked in current "aging alone" narratives. Method. This study combines individual-level data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, Wave 6) with nation-level data from the European Values Survey (EVS) to estimate multilevel negative binomial models exploring number of friends among those aged 50+ who lack kin across 17 countries. Results. Older adults who lack kin or whose kin are unavailable report more friends in their networks, particularly in countries with a higher percentage of people who believe that friends are "very important" in life. Discussion. This paper challenges dominating assumptions about "aging alone" that rely heavily on lack of family as an indicator of "alone." Future studies of "kinlessness" should consider the extent to which friendship is correlated with lack of kin, particularly in more socioeconomically developed nations. Previous research on "aging alone" may have overestimated risk in more privileged countries that already emphasize friendship, but underestimated risk in familycentered countries where "kinlessness" and alternative sources of support are less common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been much discussion and debate on the relationship between neoliberal globalization and privatization as a strategy of economic development for countries of the Third World and now increasingly Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, as they increasingly become integrated into the world economy and move in the direction of a market-oriented economy and society. This paper provides a new and innovative approach to the issue of privatization, arguing that, contrary to the unilinear approach adopted by neo-classical economic theorists and policy-oriented institutions, a dual impact model of privatization that focuses on the nature and role of the state would be better able to explain the differential impact of state policy on economic development. Contrasting the experience of a post-socialist East European state (Romania) and of the former Soviet Union (Armenia) with that of China and Vietnam regarding privatization policies and their outcome, the paper argues that the crucial issue that accounts for the divergent paths and experiences of these states is who controls the state and sets its policies, because it is the class nature of the state that dictates its role as either a champion of capital and the capitalist system (in which case privatization would enrich the owners of capital through private accumulation), or of labor and the post-capitalist order (in which case privatization would take place within the context of collective goals and collective policies intended to serve the long-term interests of working people). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes up a path not taken in sociology, marked by John Dewey, C. Wright Mills and Jürgen Habermas: the structural transformation of the public sphere as a major dimension of social change and therefore as a core topic of sociology. Since then, neither the dominant ahistorical sociology nor the growing historical sociology have thematized the field of public communication as a social realm, object of study and reference point of social theory. This paper provides a synthetic empirical discussion of the structural transformation of this societal field in Western Europe and the U.S. Because their notion of the field of public communication was ultimately confined to deliberative communication, the classical works perceived the structural transformation of the public sphere as one single process within a framework of decline. This paper argues that the classical works on «The structural transformation of the public sphere», the influential book by Jürgen Habermas and the American thematization of this framework by John Dewey and C. Wright Mills, were largely right on the first structural transformation. However, they did not thematize the distinct second structural transformation, that is, the differentiation of the media from the polity and the de-differentiation from the economy.The paper provides a tentative periodization of the enlightenment public sphere, the first transformation, the era of the party press and particularly the second transformation and the era of the media economy. The uncovering of two historical large-scale structures of the public sphere, the era of the party press and the era of the media economy, results in the discussion of a third model of the structure of the public sphere which is characterized by the equidistance of the media field from both the political field and the economic field. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of regulatory change is paramount in the discussion of work and organisations. In reflection of the problems associated with more ?market? oriented approaches, we have seen shift in the focus of debate, particularly in Europe, towards the discussion of the re-regulation of employment relations and economic systems. Any discussion of regulation must be sensitive to the meaning and function of regulation, on the one hand, and the role of different sites, spheres and actors that populate the regulatory landscape, and the relationship between them, on the other. Such an approach needs to be sensitive to using a more multi-disciplinary approach and socio-political understanding of regulation and de-regulation. The paper will therefore draw attention to the manner in which the literature has begun to discuss the complex articulation of regulation and different levels of development. Specifically, it will discuss the issue of regulatory transfer, the shifts between different regimes of regulation and how this takes place. It will also note that transfer and regulatory change can be varied, that it can have negotiated features but it can also be coercive in nature. The paper will engage with the concept of ?colonisation? (MacKenzie and Martinez 2003) as a way of understanding recent forms of regulatory change and the manner in which employment relations have been altered. The process of colonisation in the projects of de-regulation and re-regulation will be discussed in terms of it various features and understood in terms of a variety of both institutional and cultural practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International relations between the U.S. and Europe and their manner of representation and reinstitution through the media has drawn much attention in the turbulent period following the terrorists attacks of September 11 and the following military attack of Iraq. The American-led military operation in Iraq came into being in a concrete symbolic universe of war and diplomacy, sovereignty and coalition, friend and foe, power and universal values. The current paper asks about how American media, in particular the New York Times, represented international relationship between the U.S. and Europe in the period between the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, leading up to the current war in Iraq, and up until the U.S. official declaration on end of combat operations in Iraq in May 2003. The paper also asks how this representation has changed over time. Data includes 1390 New York Times articles published between September 11, 2001 (attack on the World Trade Center in New York) and May 12, 2003 (End of combat operations in Iraq as announced by the occupying forces). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical analysis of nationalism and ethnonational conflict, focusing on the nature and dynamics of nationalism and national movements in the Third World, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Placing the analysis in a comparative-historical framework, the paper provides a theoretical approach that addresses the class nature of national movements and the class basis of national struggles in the age of globalization. It argues that, historically and today, the social forces behind nationalism and national movements have been various classes that are nationally based and intent on defending narrowly-defined class interests that are lodged in the nation-state. While nationalism, as an ideology, can be used by different segments of society against hostile outside forces, the critical issue in determining the nature and dynamics of national movements and ethnonational conflict is an understanding of the class basis of such movements and the class forces that are leading these movements in their struggle for national autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the role of networks in creation and operation of newly established organizations, private business schools in post-socialist Europe. We argue that organizations not only accrue benefits from their structural positions in networks but that networking is also a cultural conception guiding organizational action. Presenting case studies of the first two business schools created in the region after the collapse of state-socialism, we show that networks between actors in Eastern Europe and their connections in the West as well as political alliances to domestic elites were key for the establishment and functioning of these organizations. Examining our proposition that networking is an organizational logic, we analyze data from an open-ended survey of East European business schools about their patterns of cooperation with other organizations. We find that business schools network for the sake of networking as much as to gain tangible benefits like access to new know-how and financial support. Moreover, schools are not necessarily strategic in forging cooperations and partnerships and are largely unaware of potential downsides to these activities. We conclude that networks are not only efficiency enhancing mechanisms but organizing principles, logics of action, adopted to gain legitimacy in the organizational field. Overall, the paper bridges the literature on networks and organizations with the neoinstitutional theory, highlighting the importance of networks as both structural and cultural features of organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses upon the relation between expanding modes of European integration and the rise of right wing politics. This paper views Europeanization as a special case of globalization and it examines the political consequences of the diffusion of neo-liberalism in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is based on in-depth interview with 36 activists of the extreme right in the Netherlands, while material from approx. 120 activists of the extreme right in Belgium, France, Germany and Italy is used for additional exploration of the paper’subject. The repression focusses on stigmatization and repression as experienced by the interviewees. The data stem from a collaborative study by a team of social psychologists, and political scientists. The paper draws on social psychological theory on movement participation and stigmatization. It sketches different itineraries to activism and demonstrates that the impact of repression and stigmatization on the individual activist depends on the itinerary taken by the interviewee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goode (1962) argues that at the start of modern society the upper classes will have higher divorce rates, but as divorce procedures are gradually made available to all classes this differences will dwindle away. Since family strain towards the lower strata is greater, the proportion of lower strata divorces will increase, and eventually Goode expects an inverse relation between class and divorce rate. The partly contradicting results on this relation between class and divorce risk ask for a more systematic, cross-national and cross-cohort analysis of the relation between education and divorce and separation. This will be the first aim of this paper. We use multi-level analysis to analyze this relation in various countries in Europe and the USA. We analyze this relation for both all unions (whatever their juridical form) and for the married couples only (with or without cohabitation). The second aim of this paper is to explain these cross-national and cross-cohort differences in the relation between education and divorce/separation by (changes in) state regulations of marriage and divorce, social policies, the level of female full time labor market participation and the general acceptance of divorce. We use the files of the Fertility and Family Survey project. These data were collected during the 1990s. They are national representative samples of male and female respondents in Finland, Poland, Estonia, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, West Germany, Sweden, USA and Greece. Final results will be presented at the conference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how new meanings and values are negotiated for recently obsolete, derelict and abandoned structures. In particular, it examines the role of adaptive reuse of buildings and structures in reshaping of the built environment of today?s cities. My focus is on the United States, Europe and elsewhere where adaptation of structures to new uses now plays an increasingly important and varied role in urban change and in the social, economic and cultural revitalization of cities. The paper has two parts. The first part consists of a comprehensive discussion of adaptive reuse from an historical and theoretical perspective. I review its role in earlier historical periods and identify economic, architectural, cultural, and other factors that account for the revival of building recycling today. In particular, I seek to ground adaptive reuse in architectural fundamentals: the relationship between a building?s outer structure and its internal program of spaces; this relationship must be flexible and dynamic if reuse is to occur. The second part describes the principal forms of adaptive reuse now in evidence in the urban landscape. Selected case studies illustrate the principal types and varieties of building reuse identified earlier. Sites selected reveal the general character and patterns of adaptive reuse, demonstrate the challenges of converting specific structures to new uses, describe the range of conversions from large-scale official projects to smaller vernacular examples, or otherwise capture the imaginative, transforming character of adaptive reuse. A considerable literature has appeared in recent years on renewal and revitalization of older industrial cities. Most sociological studies downplay or neglect building conversion and adaptive reuse as significant factors in urban change. Architectural or other guides to adaptive reuse projects typically focus on spectacular and costly conversions which save architecturally significant buildings, serve particular commercial needs, or initiate downtown revivals. In contrast, this paper develops a more theoretically informed and historically grounded approach to contemporary building recycling and reuse. By linking patterns of adaptation and reuse to the dynamics of urban change, structural characteristics of buildings types, and by describing the full range of official and unofficial conversions now in evidence, I develop a suitably analytical and genuinely informative account of change in the contemporary built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to explain the emergence, existence and erosion of disciplinary statism. By disciplinary statism I understand the context in which the modern state by consolidating means of violence and creating a comprehensive apparatus of surveillance of public and private domains transforms behavior and thought of the individuals into patterns, which are malleable, predictable, and otherwise optimal for the purposes of state administration. I analyze the two most extreme cases of the twentieth century disciplinary statism, Nazi Germany (1933-1945) and the communist Soviet Union (1917-1991). The central claim of this paper is that the rise of disciplinary statism was determined by industrialization of warfare, the advent of total mobilization and total war in the early twentieth century continental Europe. The new rules of military engagement required establishing of direct managerial control over the national economy and channeling mass mobilization against internal and external enemies. Those institutionalized forms of disciplinary statism, which searched for their legitimization in ideologies of racial or national superiority and channeled mass mobilization towards aggression against other states, confronted a powerful coalition alliance of industrial nations and were defeated in war. Those institutionalized forms of disciplinary statism, which searched for their legitimization in class ideologies and directed mass mobilization against internal enemies and towards forced-speed economic modernization, existed longer. Emergence of weapons of mass destruction, which defied the very possibility of war, and professionalization of the military forces made sustaining a high-level of disciplinary mobilization unnecessary, and resulted in disciplinary involution and disintegration of state socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benedict Anderson argues that nationalist ideas in Asia and Africa are modeled on the 'modular' forms of nationalism that developed in the Americas and Europe. This paper argues that anti-colonial nationalism is a field of contestation between different ideas and practices. Some of these were indeed based on selective appropriation of Western practices, whereas some of these rejected such ideas and practices and contended that decolonization or emancipation necessarily entailed rejecting the examples set by Western nations. This paper compares the thoughts of Frantz Fanon and M.K. Gandhi, two of the most influential figures in post-colonial thought in the twentieth century as well as active participants in major anti-colonial struggles, and contends that in spite of contextual and ideological differences between them both rejected the Western models of nationalist politics and emphasized a repudiation of colonialism through political and institutional innovations in similar ways. The three major sections of the paper deals with their respective critiques of colonialism and elite nationalism; the prescribed modes of political practice; and the projects of national reconstruction. The unifying thread in each of these three sections is their common concerns regarding negation of colonialism as well as the cultural alienation of the nationalist elite and the necessity of a radical break with Western models of nationalist politics. The concluding section attempts to understand the reasons why their visions of national independence remains unfulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is there the development of a global system of racism in the era of globalization? This paper argues that globalization creates a common context that increases the likelihood of racist and nationalist responses in ‘the West’, but that these tendencies materialize in qualitatively different ways in different national societies. The paper compares data for different European societies and the U.S., and explores the factors that account for the differences in the racial formations of Western societies in the global era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a political and cultural analysis of the right wing populist moment in contemporary Europe. A broad and nuanced analysis that takes politics and culture into account or that situates the right within the changing political, social and cultural context of Europeanization is a lacuna in European . A non-reductionist account of right wing populism requires both historical and analytic re-formulation. This incorporates two tasks. First, we have to use the same types of historically sensitive conceptual frames that we apply to other forms of politics--that is, we have to think about citizenship, nationhood, and democracy. Second, we have to examine how the right emerges at particular moments in the interstices of the modern democratic nation-state and how this re-emergence renders transparent the social mechanisms underlying modern democracy. To provide a non-reductionist account this paper develops normative narrative as both an analytic concept and a methodological approach. Normative narratives are stories that resonate emotionally with a collectivity and emerge when contingent or unexpected events hit a cultural nerve. The appearance of the spontaneous appropriation of the public sphere, in contrast to planned mobilization, signals that a narrative has spoken to popular consciousness. This paper applies this concept to the appropriation of the public sphere that occurred in April 2002 in France when the right came in second for the Presidency of France, and the less observed phenomenon of mass mobilization in Italy on April 26 against the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on how terrorist attacks increase shape in-group and out-group attitudes has consistently focused on native populations. But what about immigrants and their descendants? Are their sociopolitical attitudes and identities also affected by terrorist attacks? And if so, do terrorist attacks (re)activate ethnic ancestry identities that reinforce ethnic boundaries with the majority population, or do attacks draw immigrants closer to the host society, thus facilitating their sociopolitical integration? This paper studies the heterogeneous effects of the Charlie Hebdo attack for native and immigrant populations on social and political trust in Europe. Using the date of the interview to leverage a natural experiment framework, this study finds the attack increased social and political trust for natives -enhancing in-group solidarity- whereas the attack decreased social and political trust for 1st generation immigrants. We conclude the effects of terrorism on social and political trust are strongly interrelated with assimilation processes and ethnic boundary making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The skill level and degree of cultural difference of immigrants likely play an important role in determining support for increasing levels of immigration. However, research focusing on the impact of these characteristics on attitudes toward immigration is scarce. This paper contributes to the existing literature by examining how attitudes toward immigration of respondents from 19 European countries are influenced by the skill level of immigrants (professional versus unskilled), their origins (Europe versus non-Europe), and the interaction between skills and origins. Our analysis exploits the split ballot experimental design built into Round 7 of the European Social Survey, which enables us to isolate the impacts of skills and origins in determining support for increased immigration. We find that Europeans care more about skill than origins in determining support; however, there is wide variation across the 19 countries examined both in the importance of skills versus origins, and in the extent to which skill preferences depend upon origins and origin preferences depend upon skill level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been theorised that economic inequality leads to heightened status inequality which in turn damages mental health through chronic stress. In this paper we capture status inequality more directly by measuring the distribution of self-perceived status in a society. We rely on comparative data from the 2012 European Social Survey (N = 50,000, countries = 29) and multilevel models. We show, firstly, that subjective social status at the individual level is associated with lower depression, though benefits tail off at higher levels. Secondly, we provide descriptive evidence that depression is higher in countries with higher status inequality, indicated by the standard deviation. This holds once GDP and income inequality are controlled; however, results are somewhat susceptible to influential country cases. Third, we offer some tentative evidence that depression is lower in societies in which more people rank their own status at a mid- or moderate level, rather than high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars conceive of trust as a matter of the distance between the actor doing the trusting and the object of trust, distinguishing trust in familiar individuals from trust in unfamiliar others. These two spheres of trust - the particular and the generalized - are conceived together as a radius of trust and an important determinant of social capital. Research has consistently found that members of marginalized groups have lower generalized trust, but has not tracked the effects of marginality across the radius. This paper reassembles the levels of trust into the same model, and tracks the effects of marginality across the trust radius. We find that while belonging to a marginalized ethnicity increases the odds of having no one to trust, it has no effect on generalized trust. The negative effects of belonging to a marginalized ethnicity instead begin at particular trust. Our models therefore offer a more precise understanding of the radius of trust, and of how individuals experience and respond to inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the war-making practices of European and subsequently North American states between 1815 and 1909, both as these states waged war against one another and in their respective colonies, highlighting variation in the extent to which states intentionally and systematically targeted and attacked civilians. The central goal of this paper is to explain the emergence of intentional attack on civilians in war in the period before the World Wars, which have garnered most scholarly attention, but by which time the movement toward lack of restraint was well underway. The authors attempt to explain the erosion of restraint in European and colonial civil and interstate wars by focusing on the role of conventional restraints on war-making—expressed in the prevailing 'laws of war'—in guiding practice, and examining in detail how the interaction of racial othering, taking up arms against one's own state, and taking up arms against another state without authorization of one's own state contributed in different war-making contexts to destabilize pre-existing distinctions between combatants and non-combatants in war, undermining historical protections for civilians. Substantiation of these claims is drawn from analysis of all conflicts during the period in question drawn the Correlates of War dataset, and bolstered by insights drawn from select historical case studies ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the determinants of different forms of political participation, focusing on differences between Western and post-communist European countries. In examining the inequality of participation, the paper focuses on the role of social stratification, trust, and demographic factors in determinining participation rates across Europe. The article finds that stratification variables explain very little of the variance of participation, which lends support to rational choice theories that suggest immeasuable, micro-level factors most likely enter into the calculus of participation. The article uses logistic regressions of 8 different forms of participation on the European Social Survey (ESS) data (2nd round, covering 25 countries). A revised version of this paper to be presented will also incorporate data from the ISSP 2004 survey, which will bring the total number of countries analyzed to over 40, and which will enable the comparison of Western, post-communist and other post-authoritarian countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second half of the 18th century, the modernizing and nationalizing states of Europe laid the administrative and legal ground for the public management of cultural activities and goods. This paper revisits this moment of political transformation, richly documented by historians but neglected by historical sociologists, by the means of a historical sociology of the cultural field. Focusing on the network, practices and claims of collectors and connoisseurs more particularly, the paper offers a third way between state-centric and society-centric explanations of cultural policy formation, showing that "state" and "class" interests, in the culturally capitalizing state, are in fact brokered and mediated by symbolic interests that are genetically distinct from both. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental sociology has overwhelmingly focused its studies on North America and Europe. This has shaped many of the sub-discipline's assumptions on environmental scarcity and conflict resolution. The core industrial economies have been less likely to face massive social upheaval or violent confrontation when faced with a scarcity of a resource. When the peripheral countries experience a scarcity, and if the government is corrupt or highly dysfunctional, social breakdown and violent confrontation are much more likely to occur than in the core countries. In this paper I argue that this provides a fertile new research terrain for environmental sociology. Often these conflicts are described as "ethnic" conflicts by theorists who look solely at social construction processes. I believe it would be beneficial to also look at bio-physical factors. A good way for sociologists to start is to become familiar with the studies and theories of Thomas Homer-Dixon, who has examined the links between scarcity and group conflict. In this paper I argue that Freudenburg's concept of "conjoint constitution" can be used as a framework for sociologists who are interested in studying the relationship between society, the environment and ethnic conflict. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An influential hypothesis in the study of pension politics has been that pensions, once introduced, can never be significantly reduced. A related hypothesis is that reforms are "path-dependent". With regard to pay-as-you-go based pensions, the fact that one generation will have to pay twice (both to finance the pensions of older generations and then to fund their own pensions) was assumed to create a lock-in effect that prevented a shift to funded pensions. Pension reforms during the 1990s and 2000s have weakened both hypotheses. Cost-cutting, path-breaking pension reforms originated in Latin America and have also taken place in Europe. The paper argues that previous theories have a structural bias, and underestimate the impact of political entrepreneurs (conscious agency) in forming and reforming pension systems. Structural factors can make it more or less easy for reformers to gain acceptance, but structural factors only work by influencing how people think and act. How people think and act are psychological and/or sociological questions. The paper identifies factors that facilitated pension reforms in Latin American and European countries, and then use selected examples to show how social psychology and political culture impacted on pension reform processes and outcomes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe is hardly homogenous on any count of labour market regulation or on any measure of labour market performance. This basic point seems to have been missed by most research as the majority of scholars have rather concentrated on the unilateral analysis of the factors accountable for fractures in the old evolutionary logics-globalization, technological change, demographic ageing, post-industrialization and tertiarization- while neglecting the systematic analysis of the different reforms paths that have been taken up in different countries. The objective of this paper is thus to explore the factors that lay behind the different ways in which common reform pressure are refracted differently across national contest according to pre-existent institutional arrangements and strategic interaction between relevant actors. Among the set of alternative explanations for national variation this paper will focus on path dependencies in labour market reforms that stem from the pre-existent welfare regime, firms' main competitive strategy and characteristics of the political process of reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patents, this paper argues, are unsatisfactorily understood unless they are regarded as property proper. That is to say, they should be analyzed holistically rather than partially, by either looking at the dimensions of the patent property, or at the functions of it. Consequently, patent systems rather than individual patents will be subject to scrutiny. Also, the focus will then turn from patentee to patent office - a shift it seems that sociologists are yet to take. The final part of the paper will point to a specific area in modern patent law that is in want of sociological attention: Between the United States and Europe there is a discrepancy in the two regions' patent regimes originating from slight differences in constitutional articulation, but only recently is it showing importance with the expansion of patentable subject matters - especially in the US. In order to understand and predict future developments of international patent law I think it necessary to engage directly with the differences between the European and the American patent systems through a holistic approach to property. If Sociologists continue to show neglect one of the more dynamic and salient area of modern law and economy is lost from their analyses. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On May 29, 2005, the French voted against the treaty for a Constitution of Europe. As a founding member of EU that was directly involved in the drafting of the document, the French state as well as public intellectuals and some segments of the French citizenry were "shocked" at the outcome. A public discourse pre and post referendum emerged around April 21, 2002--the date that Jean Marie Le Pen, French right wing leader had come in second place in the first round of the French presidential elections. This paper explores the public narrative around April 21 that engaged speakers on the left, right and center, the mobilization of fear and the ultimate debate between market liberalism and social welfare. The paper carefully documents the campaign for the constitution and the reaction to its demise. It uses a method of thick description to highlight the public language of evaluation. It combines interpretation and the analysis of temporally sequenced events to make broader claims about issues of French politics and the future of Europe as well as the role of the European right in articulating those claims. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary global economy poses a dilemma for Industrial Relations (IR) as we know it: On the one hand, in its most basic definition, IR is the sum of institutionalized relationships between workers, managers and government agencies which interact primarily - if not exclusively - at the national level. On the other hand, global markets are becoming increasingly influential in determining national and international economic relations, which undeniably shudder the foundations of existing labor-capital-state relationships. The aim of this study is to address the tension between the national character of the existing employment regulation mechanisms on the one hand, and the transnational character of economic activities on the other. By focusing on some of the novel developments in the European Union, the paper attempts to demonstrate various aspects of global challenges against, and adaptations by, the European labor movement in the face of increasingly integrated and transnationalized economic relations. After revisiting some peculiar developments in the EU, such as the establishment of European Social Dialogue, European Work Councils and the supranational activism of European trade unions, the paper concludes with an optimistic anticipation that, by taking the supranational space provided by the EU seriously, trade unions in Europe may be influential in the birth of a European level Industrial relations system which may carry the hope to influence the trajectory of the transformation which the existing corporatist model between state, capital and labor is currently undergoing. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European integration process itself has become more divisive, while transnational social movements have only rarely challenged European Union (EU) institutions themselves. This paper examines the relationship between supra-national institutions and social movements and potentials of transnational mobilization in the EU. Focusing on the hurdles and opportunities that the European integration process has provided women's movements in Europe, the dynamics between institutions and social movements are explored. Although the integration process has not encouraged broad-based transnational, grass-roots mobilization of women, the particular dynamics between EU institutions and women's movements have created professionalized transnational advocacy networks on gender equality. These transnational advocacy networks include professionals, experts, academics, women in unions and political parties, and other women in the political and administrative elite. This case also highlights the challenges and strategies of transnational women's movements across territories, hierarchies and inequalities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper focuses on the study of the individual purposive actions in the conditions of industrialized information societies. A growing role of health information in a person's life makes health self-management possible. I have developed a model concerning the role of education and mobilized personal informational resources in health self-management. This model is built upon three more general sociological theories: the theory of human capital, the theory of social capital, and the buffer theory. It contains some elements of these established theories, such as education and social resources, the mobilization of which have stress-buffering effects on perceived health. Moreover, it adds the dimension of health information obtained through the mobilization of personal informational resources to the social resources literature. Data from the Eurobarometer allowed me to test the model predictions. Various measures of personal informational resources were employed. The analyses of the data provide support for certain model predictions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether reliable cross-national analysis of public opinion polls is possible, given presently available data. To make this assessment, we focus on post-communist Europe and compare international surveys that make explicit claims about providing cross-national data on the post-communist countries in the region. Specifically, we examine the the the World Values Survey (WVS), International Social Survey Program (ISSP), Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), European Social Survey (ESS), and several specific East European surveys with respect to the presence or the absence of particular European states. We demonstrate that some of the European post-communist countries have not been appropriately represented to draw substantive conclusions about the cross-national differences between the old and new Europe. Specifically, we show that the extent of participation in international projects is strongly related to countries' political and economic development, measured by the index of political rights and gross national income, respectively. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that secularization theory was based on a dualistic theory of meaning that reified the distinction between "rational" this-worldly religious action and "moral" otherworldly religious action. I argue that the best way to conceptually address the failure of secularization theory is not by simply reaffirming rationality in religion as sociologists have done in the past quarter century, or by reaffirming the moral as more recent authors have suggested, but by undermining the distinction itself. I do so through by developing a relational, pragmatic theory of religious meaning. I conceive of religious thought and practice as imaginative rationality through which people engage the world. The voluntarism of this portrait is tempered by the idea of relational imagination. Who adopts which practices when is strongly structured by the network location of social actors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was argued that fertility and migration are not independent demographic phenomena (Singley&Landale, 1998). For the context of Eastern Europe, some authors considered that the measures of fertility are biased due to the shrinking populations through migration (Philipov, 2001). In this paper, using data from a community based survey on migration (2002) and various aggregated level statistics on fertility, we tried to see of there is any relationship between migration and fertility decline in Romania, an Eastern European country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of the precautionary principle is a key distinguishing feature of European environmental policy, and European Union policy has consistently adopted relatively stringent environmental policies compared to American and Canadian approaches. This gap in European and North American environmental policy, particularly with regard to food regulation, has been particularly contentious. The European Union has been accused of using the precautionary principle as a way to protect European industries from external competition. This trade protectionist argument, however, does not account for certain social and environmental factors within EU member states that have led to a profound distrust of science-based decision making in environmental policy decisions. This paper argues that support for the precautionary principle in Europe can be partly explained by cultural factors, as well as to the history of transboundary risks to environmental and human health, further exacerbated by economic integration. The trade protectionist argument detracts from problems of scientific uncertainty in the formulation of environmental policy. When limits to science are addressed with a precautionary approach, ideological and cultural preferences, rather than uncertain science, can guide environmental policy decisions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As income mobility over time serves to offset income inequality existing at any point in time, cross-national differences in social stratification are preferably assessed from data on average incomes over an extended period of time. Hence, this paper uses longitudinal income data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the European Community Household Panel to reassess the received empirical evidence. Even discounting the impact of income mobility, however, the U.S. continues to exhibit the highest level of permanent income inequality in this particular sample of industrial countries. In addition, older workers and individuals at the bottom of the income distribution have faced significantly worse income prospects than common in many European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the idea of global ecological crisis receives ever increasing wide circulation, it may be useful to reflect on an earlier episode of ecological crisis and the ways in which it was implicated with fundamental social change. This paper investigates, from the standpoint of environmental history, feudalism's demise and capitalism's ascent over the course of the long 14th (c. 1300-1450), and then the long 16th century (c. 1450-1640). Medieval Europe was riven by profound socio-ecological contradictions. Feudalism?s environmental degradation pivoted on the lord-peasant relation, limiting the possibilities for reinvestment in the land. Consequently, feudalism exhausted the soil and the labor power from which it derived revenues, rendering the population vulnerable to disease. The Black Death decisively altered labor-land ratios in favor of western Europe's peasantry. This new balance of class forces eliminated the possibility of feudal restoration and led the states, landlords, and merchants to favor geographical expansion -- an external rather than internal spatial fix to feudal crisis. This external fix, beginning in the Atlantic world, had commodity production and exchange inscribed within it. Capitalism differed radically from feudalism. Where earlier ecological crises had been local, capitalism globalized them. From this standpoint, the origins of capitalism may shed light on today's ecological crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seminal work in economic sociology suggests that the position a market actor holds is socially constructed in a relational network and is defined by the perceptions of other market participants. This paper builds on these fundamental insights by pointing to the principle medium of market construction: discourse. The analysis of processual data traces the patterns of discursive evaluations in the German newspaper market. It reveals patterned identities of market actors. The findings contribute to work that pushes economic sociology towards the study of social structures through relations and evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalization of the Arab-Israeli conflict during the period of the second intifada against Israel (autumn 2000 through at least 2004) has induced transnational anti-Jewish violence in Europe and throughout the world. With this globalized conflict as a context, for ten European countries this paper explores the effects on counts of anti-Jewish violence of four specific explanatory factors: a country's structural propensity toward anti-Jewish violence, which depends upon the sizes of its Jewish and Muslim populations; the mobilization of the perpetrators by their interpretations of the events in the Middle East; the unresponsiveness of bystanders; and the ambivalence of ordinary Europeans. Poisson hierarchical models of the effects of these structural and attitudinal variables suggest that all four factors contribute to violence. The violence counts include major attacks like shootings, knifings, bombings, and arson; and major violent incidents like physical aggression without the use of a weapon and vandalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The seeming unity of European efforts to combat human trafficking obscure conflicting constructions of this social problem and the different levels at which they operate. Transnational actors understand trafficking as sexual slavery and an affront to women?s human rights. These actors are often allied with organizations that oppose the legalization of prostitution in Europe, which they believe pulls women from the East to satisfy the sexual demands of Western men. These actors push for human rights definitions of trafficking that will shift the praxis of gender relations to a more egalitarian future. Pastoral actors, on the other hand, see ?trafficking? as an issue of women?s migration right to work. They use anti-trafficking funds to provide services that their clients want?host country language training and a safe place to network with other illegal workers, also mostly sex industry insiders. For pastoral actors, trafficking is a discourse that brings attention to the plight of undocumented workers and makes a case for providing legal protections?especially including temporary work visas for sex workers. These conflicting visions of what it means to ?do? anti-trafficking work reflect long-standing feminist divisions. Understanding the ideological context of anti-trafficking helps explain why anti-trafficking protocols that do not address the underlying conflict over the content of human rights law merely paper over existing differences. Data are drawn from over 30 interviews with transnational and pastoral actors in Germany and Finland and analyses of their organizations? materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite over a decade of theory and research on the effects of the post-state socialist transition in East Central Europe on social inequalities, we know relatively little about the gendered effects of market reform. This paper asks to what extent gender affects access to jobs during the transition from state socialism to market capitalism. Are women more or less likely than men to be working, unemployed, or out of the labor force altogether? Specifically I consider changes over time in labor force participation and unemployment rates by gender, family status, and job experience in four countries: Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Russia and at two time points: 1993 and 2000. By analyzing over-time as well as cross-country data, I am able to adjudicate among competing claims regarding access to jobs by gender. While one set of claims predicts that women will have significant advantages in the labor market as a result of market reforms, the other predicts that women will be the losers of reform in terms of reduced employment opportunities. I find that while women enjoy some degree of protection from job loss early in the transition, by 2000 no such protection can be detected and sizeable gender-specific penalties emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the micro- and macro-level determinants of attitudes toward women?s labor force participation. Using data from ISSP (1994), a Hierarchical Linear Model is constructed to evaluate the variation of attitudes toward female labor force participation in 19 European countries and the U.S. The results suggest that female employment has a significant impact on attitudes toward women?s work at the individual level. At the macro level, social structural factors are proved to be influential on general attitudes in a country, such as service sector development, state ideology and country?s overal education level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Europe is a sign constructed by Taiwanese consumer culture and associated with commodities in order to promote their symbolic value. Despite the fact that there are various countries and different lifestyles under the umbrella of Europe, the sign of ?Europe? is a generalized referent in the Taiwanese context referring to royal families and aristocratic lifestyles. These European elements are thus esteemed and romanticized and are ?desirable? signs within the discourses of Taiwanese wedding photographs. This imaginary Europe is symptomatic of ?Taiwanese Occidentalism?, which transforms all European/Western cultures in an essentialist move that reduces the complex variations among them. Wedding photography made by bridal shops constitute a site where the features of cultural hybridity that characterize contemporary Taiwanese consumer culture are revealed; these features draw on international cultural flows and references from other cultural products. The construction of ?imagined Europe? is an essential part of this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years a ?unified theory? has emerged out of labor economics, which argues that a combination of ?macroeconomic shocks? and flexible labor market institutions in the U.S. has produced strong upward trends in wage inequality, while these same shocks have produced high unemployment and low employment growth in Europe as a side effect of the wage stability preserved by that continent?s rigid labor market institutions. This paper argues instead that European institutions in fact have evolved their own form of flexibility, which, in combination with the macroeconomic shocks described in the unified theory, have also led to rising inequality in Europe, but of a different form. Inequality of employment security has risen faster in France than in the U.S. Furthermore, trends in the French labor market have led to increased concentration of low-skill workers in these insecure job statues. These results challenge the view that unemployment is the main mechanisms through which European labor markets absorbed asymmetric shocks to their demand for labor. They also challenge the view that Europeans have intolerance for inequality, but instead suggest that the main difference between the two sides of the Atlantic concerns the nature of the inequalities that each society is willing to tolerate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between religion and national identity. From a social constructionist perspective, the importance of religion to national identity is negotiated within society. Thus, individual responses to the question "for being British, how important is it to be a Christian"- are likely to be affected by characteristics of the individual and their social location, such as their own religious background, and characteristics of the larger environment, such as the size of non Christian populations. I use multi-level data from seventeen East and West European countries to explore the link between religion and national identity. At the individual level, I focus on the effects of religious majority and minority status, the frequency of church attendance, and interactions between these on the importance of religion to national identity. At the country level, I examine the effect of relative group size (i.e., the percent of non Christian populations) on the importance of religion to national identity. I also examine differences between Eastern and Western Europe in levels of religious nationalism. Results suggest that religious majority and minority status as well as the frequency of church attendance influence attitudes on the importance of religion for national identity. In addition to the additive effects of religious background and attendance, there is an interaction between attendance and non Christian minority status. Finally, countries with larger non Christian populations tend to attribute greater importance to religiosity (i.e., being a Christian) for national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on an on-going research project studying the lives and experiences of professional European citizens who have chosen to live and work outside their country of origin within the member states of the EU. These prototypical 'free movers' are at the heart of the EU's ideal conception of economic integration, and carry with them the hopes of a genuine transnational free market in labour. Focusing in on the experiences of such free movers in Brussels, the study reports on the everyday realities of these life choices, reconstructing the everyday barriers and opportunities they face in terms of employment, welfare, housing, education for children, political participation and cultural involvement in the life of the city. The question offers a crucial empirical test of the overblown macro-sociological rhetoric about global cities, globalization and international 'elites', showing how and why, for even these most mobile and privileged of movers, escaping the dominant national organisation of life, family and career in Europe is still a rarity and exception. This may go some way to explaining Europe's remarkably low rates of internal migration, figures that have not risen despite over 40 years of European integration and free movement accords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decade globalization and Europeanization have become key concepts in analyzing economic, political, and cultural processes not only in Europe but worldwide. Are the globalization and Europeanization recent phenomena (1980-2000s)? Or do the concepts and the related debate tend to overshadow that globalization/internationalization and Europeanization always have been central to the development and constitution of one of the small European states? By situating Denmark in a historical context the paper demonstrates how globalization (or more precisely internationalisation) and Europeanisation have been fundamental conditions of existence for the Danish state and society at least for the last two hundred years. However, the nature and character of Europeanisation and internationalisation has changed over this period of time. Europeanisation and internationalisation are variable processes, not constants. A central claim is that the development, consolidation and transformation of the Danish welfare state must be seen in the light of these processes. It is crucial to understand how Denmark has adapted and responded to the international and European environment. Therefore these processes of internationalisation and Europeanisation are also of crucial importance if we want to study the rise and development of the Danish welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe is well known as home to some of the most historically generous and universalistic welfare states (Esping-Andersen 1990, 1996)--the source of and sustenance for a social morality in which welfare protections come by virtue of citizenship. Yet the European Union's initial forays into the world of social policy emphasize education, training, and labor market 'activation' rather than the protection of European citizens through citizenship-based benefits and transfers. The problematic considered here, then, is the European Union's turn to a social policy paradigm featuring the rhetorical (if not substantively identical) trappings of an American-style social investment welfare state, and the consequences of this turn, if any, for national policy and public expenditures. More specifically, the question this paper seeks to address is: Did the European Union's emergence as a stakeholder in education policy in the late 1980s and early 1990s alter the course of ongoing 'social investment'-oriented welfare state reforms in its member states? It offers a preliminary analysis of expenditure patterns to evaluate the hypothesis that though the EU's policy stance on social investment mirrors pre-existing national responses to the welfare state 'crisis' of the 1980s, it is exerting its own pressure to direct member state policies toward a 'social investment' welfare state model. The analysis draws on European Union policy statements as well as nation-level data for education expenditures drawn chiefly from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). It sets up a framework for a follow-up analysis offering more detailed data on categorical social expenditures, which will draw from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Education at a Glance and Social Expenditure databases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of formal institutional change rarely consider the specific theoretical puzzle of why policies towards cultural minorities change, and studies of minority-majority relations rarely tackle broader questions of why institutions change. Not all policy shifts affect minorities, but in some cases changing policies towards minorities is a strategic action that changes the distribution of political influence. This paper places policy towards minorities within this broader political context of political systems and political cultures, taking the historical case of policies towards Jews in late medieval to early modern northern Europe. It examines how political elites balanced the administrative and social pressures of early state-building through adapting their treatment of Jews. Investigating expulsions as political strategies provides more convincing explanations for both expulsions and the lack of expulsions than blaming bigotry or religiosity. I suggest three mechanisms for the non-occurrence of expulsion and three for the occurrence of expulsion and then develop a theoretical model describing expectations for expulsion under different conditions of authority instability, contestation, and bargaining. Formal inclusion or exclusion of minorities is not only the result of attitudes towards minorities. Competition between factions of the politically powerful affects the positions of the politically excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the global housing boom that preceded the 2008 financial crisis, household debt increased substantially in many countries, including many European countries. Theoretical accounts of the impact of financialization on households have linked rising debt burdens to a fundamental transformation of household financial behavior, a trend Davis (2009) calls the emergence of a "portfolio society." This paper assesses the variation in this development across Europe, focusing on six countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) using a new source of household-level data. We distinguish between financial intensification, inclusion and expansion as explanations for variations in household debt levels. Financial intensification implies an increase in risky borrowing behavior consistent with the "portfolio society" concept. Our results show that inclusion and expansion explain only part of the cross-national variation in mortgage debt to income ratios in these countries, implying that a substantial portion of the variation must be explained by household borrowing behavior. Variables capturing concrete forms of financial intensification are more strongly associated with debt levels in "high debt" countries than "low debt" countries; however, though intensification is limited in the Netherlands, underscoring the variation in household borrowing models in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]