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This paper centres the colonial pre-histories of 'the digital' to complicate posthumanist theorisations of subjectivity. Posthumanism helpfully undercuts human exceptionalism by presenting subjectivity as always-already co-constituted by technology. However, this paper argues that it insufficiently engages the human as the historico-political effect of negating the assumed non-technological colonial Other. Focusing on liberal humanism between the 16th and 19th centuries, the paper theorises the modern human as bound up in 'technological onticide'. The presumed absence of technology became a (theo-centric, ratio-centric, bio-centric) measure of the Other's sub-humanity, at the same time as this Other was expected to be humanised through its technologisation. An emphasis on technological onticide complicates universalist theories of subjectivity that take it as always a matter of human-technology co-constitution. The paper argues that, to confront the legacies of ontological murder, conceptual room needs to be made for in human, counter human or un human theories of subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban lab is an experimental governance approach for the co-creation of innovative solutions to urban challenges, such as climate change. However, urban lab scholarship has overlooked lab formation as a distinct process and is almost exclusively based on European cases. Therefore, little is known about the role of context conditions for lab formation in general and beyond Europe in particular. To address these gaps, this paper inductively analyses urban lab formation in five cities in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, develops a framework for the comparative analysis of lab formation challenges, and asks: What do the challenges encountered and the solutions developed during lab formation in these cities tell us about the context dependence of the urban lab approach and what are the implications for its potential beyond Europe? Comparing insights from Europe to the findings from Latin America, the paper answers these questions and identifies future research questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Economic burden studies can provide insights into the drivers leading to increasing healthcare costs. It can also provide a more holistic view of how diseases impact the welfare of patients and their families. Having concrete estimates of the economic burden across multiple diseases can help policymakers determine which diseases are economically more burdensome. This study aimed to review and summarise comprehensively economic burden studies across multiple diseases in the Nordic countries between 2000 and 2020. Methods: According to the 2020 PRISMA statement, a systematic literature review was conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, Academic Search Premier and Global Health databases using key terms related to the economic burden of any disease in Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Grey literature was also reviewed. Results: A total of 10,050 potential titles and abstracts were identified and screened, and 254 full-text papers that met the inclusion criteria were evaluated by two independent reviewers. Of these, 119 articles were included in a qualitative synthesis. Twenty-nine had clearly defined comparison groups, thus able to attribute the costs to the disease. Large variations concerning methodology and cost components were noted. Across diseases, the economic burden ranged from EUR 1668 per patient annually for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to EUR 93,041 for multiple sclerosis. However, estimates varied widely, even within each disease. Conclusions: Our review highlights the need for more comparable economic burden studies. Future studies should focus on applying robust methodology and homogeneous cost-reporting methods to inform policymakers about which diseases are economically more burdensome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many argue populist radical-right parties to be the largest contemporary threat to democracy, much of the evidence either focuses on the rare case of a populist radical-right prime minister, or conflates right-populist prime ministers with right-populist government participation, with some asserting that it would be difficult for these parties to have any real effect without holding the prime ministership. In this paper I conduct a large-scale analysis of European nations to quantify the effect right-populist junior coalition partners have on liberal democracy. I argue that as junior coalition partners, they will indeed affect democratic quality, albeit in ways that differ from that of a right-populist prime minister. While previous literature has demonstrated that populist radical-right parties bring with them decreases in the level of democratic quality pertaining to institutional constraints on power and mass civil liberties, junior coalition partners are only able to effect the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We examine job quality effects of new digital technologies, using the European frame of seven job quality domains: Pay, Working Time Quality, Prospects, Skills and Discretion, Work Intensity, Social Environment, and Physical Environment. Theoretical effects are ambivalent across all domains. The analysis of these effects confirms that digital technologies can both improve and harm job quality depending on how they are used. In light of this analysis and to think through the challenge of regulating digital technologies, we review emerging regulations across several European countries. Drawing on the principles of human-centred design, we argue that worker participation is important for securing good job quality outcomes, at both the innovation and adoption stages. We also consider the application of data protection legislation to the regulation of job quality. Overall, the paper extends debate about the future of work beyond employment and pay, on to a consideration of job quality more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of European social dialogue, little is known about the social policy preferences of EU employers' organizations (EEOs). Building on the literature on industrial relations and the role of business in welfare state development, this article explores the preferences of key EEOs (BusinessEurope, SGI Europe and SMEunited) in vocational education and training (VET), active and passive labour market policies, pensions and work–family reconciliation. Software-based qualitative content analysis of 75 position papers and 19 joint declarations, triangulated with four elite semi-structured interviews, is employed to assess employers' preferences along four national and two European dimensions. Largely in line with the power resources theory, EEOs favour cost containment and social investment, by strengthening labour market flexicurity and reducing skills mismatches through VET. Conflicting logics of membership and influence guide the actions of EEOs: members are wary of legislation impinging on national social policy traditions; yet, greater European assertiveness makes lobbying efforts unavoidable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While transnational research infrastructure projects long preceded the formal integration process that created the European Union, their advancement is an increasingly central part of EU research policy and of European integration in general. This paper analyses the Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure–European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI–ERIC) as a recent example of institutionalized scientific collaboration in Europe that has formally been established as part of EU science policy. BBMRI–ERIC, a network of European biobanks, is expected to contribute to both European science and European integration. Yet its achievements in these domains are interpreted differently by various actors involved. This paper draws on STS conceptualizations of infrastructures as relational, experimental, and promissory assemblages. These support the formulation of a working definition of research infrastructures that in turn helps to explore the heterogeneous meanings attributed to BBMRI–ERIC. The paper describes the creation of this distributed European research infrastructure, and divergent understandings of what it means for BBMRI–ERIC to be distributed, to be European and to be a research infrastructure. This analysis demonstrates how building a research infrastructure is also an effort to define what it means to be European—a process in which what is European about science and what science can do for Europe is continuously (re-)imagined, contested and negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a steady increase in popular music programs at Higher Music Education Institutions (HMEIs) across Europe. However, what students actually are supposed to learn at popular music bachelor/master programs has remained largely understudied. Based on 12 in-depth interviews with leaders in higher popular music education, this paper addresses: (1) how popular music is defined and possibly canonized, (2) what the position of popular music programs is, and (3) how the content of popular music programs is constructed—at HMEIs. First, participants struggle to provide a clear definition of popular music. Therefore, they differ in how they name their program – as popular music, pop music or something else. Because there is little consensus over a canon of popular music, our interviewees work from a mini-canon of British/American popular music, add local music to the curriculum, use jazz as a basis and/or work without a canon. Second, despite their growing popularity, popular music programs still struggle to position themselves, particularly at HMEIs with strong classical music departments. Third, program leaders navigate between different approaches of content construction within the constraints of their institution: (a) craft-centered (top-down, teacher-driven, skill-oriented), (b) arts-centered (bottom-up, student-driven, creativity-oriented), and (c) market-centered (side-to-side, industry-driven, commercially-oriented). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government formation in multiparty systems requires election winners to strike deals to form a coalition government. Do voters respond and how do they respond to coalition government deals? This paper examines the short-term consequences of coalition government formation on voters in European democracies relying on survey panel data and original content analysis of coalition agreements. It tests theoretical expectations that deal with both the actual and perceived ideological shifts parties make when joining coalition deals as well as the effect of a much simpler heuristic cue based on preferences. The findings indicate that coalition deals have consequences on party preferences, but voter perceptions play a much stronger effect than the actual content of coalition deals. These results have important implications for our understanding of public opinion and provide important insights into the current difficulties and challenges of government formation and representative democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends the traditional gravity model to explain the effect of digitalization on international tourism flows to five Southern European countries, where tourism plays an important economic role. The analysis is based on balanced panel data covering the period 2004–2019. Internet-user statistics and Google Trends search data are used as a proxy for digital adoption and virtual proximity, respectively, by source markets. Results lend support to the notion that virtual proximity rather than digital adoption aided international travel, demonstrating that digitalization cannot be interpreted as a fluid and vague concept that exerts a consistent effect. Results also present evidence that Southern European countries should not be treated as a block of homogenous destinations. These findings inform stakeholders regarding the significance of digital platforms as strategic tools to empower consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports show that media freedom is under pressure worldwide. Violence against journalists has a legal facet that takes the form of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) that aim at silencing critical speech. While in some countries there are legal protections against SLAPPs, in Europe a debate is only recently being carried out, mainly fostered by professional journalist associations and civil society. This article explores the role that European journalistic self-regulatory bodies perceive they (could) have in fighting SLAPPs, analysing 16 qualitative answers gathered via a questionnaire. Self-regulation has historically been a way to protect the independence of journalism and uphold its ethical standards. The open-ended responses help to understand how SLAPPs put into question the representations that media councils and professional associations use to construct their 'professional jurisdiction', and therefore, their 'territory' and the way in which they see their role in society. Our results provide food for thought on the handling of legal attacks against journalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue (SI) brings the industrial relations scholarship on the public sector into dialogue with the comparative political economy (CPE) literature on growth models/regimes. While the former has paid great attention to the public sector, in CPE the public sector has been analysed less, and mostly as subaltern to the export-sector's actors, interests and institutions. We posit that the public sector matters for CPE in its own right for three reasons. First, the state remains today the single largest employer in virtually every European economy, providing incomes to a large segment of the middle class. Second, public employers' wage bill – one of the largest items of governments' current expenditures – is funded by the taxpayers. Hence, public sector wage policy is fiscal policy, ultimately pursued by public/political employers. Third, public employers are simultaneously public managers and political sovereigns acting in the shadow of hierarchy. Case-study contributions to the SI detail how these insights matter within different European growth regimes: (1) the Mediterranean demand-led growth regime (France, Italy, Spain and Portugal), (2) the German export-led growth regime, (3) the Nordic balanced growth regime (Denmark and Sweden) and (4) the FDI-led Eastern European growth regime (Czechia and Slovakia). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a high prevalence of mental health disorders on probation staffs' caseloads. Approximately 40% of all clients will have a mental health disorder often compounded by drug or alcohol problems. It is therefore important that a probation officer can recognise mental illness and refer to the appropriate local agency. It is therefore important to know how much probation staff understand about mental illness. The Mental Health Literacy Scale (MHLS) was distributed to probation staff in all countries registered as members of the Confederation of Europe. In this paper, overall average scores for the MHLS for each country are presented. Factors which help to explain the variation in scores are also examined such a caseload size and gender of staff member. The results are discussed within the context of a possible European curriculum for probation training. Probation (CEP) organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The concept of stigma has been widely used to understand patterns of discrimination and negative ideas surrounding people with mental health problems, yet we know little of the specific nuances of how this might operate beyond the 'Global North'. Aim: This paper aims to explore the notion of stigma in an Indian context by considering the lived experience of patients, carers and community members. Methods: A sample of 204 participants, representing mental health patients, informal carers and community members was recruited from urban and rural areas in Kerala, India. Participants took part in interviews where they were encouraged to talk about their experiences of mental ill health, attitudes towards these problems, barriers encountered and sources of support. Results: Experiences akin to the experience of stigma in Europe and the United States were elicited but there were important local dimensions specific to the Indian context. The difficulties faced by people with diagnoses of mental disorders in finding marriage partners was seen as an important problem, leading to marriage proposals being refused in some cases, and secrecy on the part of those with mental health problems. Rather than the 'self-stigma' identified in the US, participants were more likely to see this as a collective problem in that it could reflect badly on the family group as a whole rather than just the sufferer. Conclusions: In the Indian context, the idioms of stigma emphasised impairments in marriage eligibility and the implications for the family group rather than just the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 created dangerous public health conditions which pressured governments and health systems to respond in a rapid and effective manner. However, this type of rapid response required many governments to bypass standing; bureaucratic structures of health sector administration and political governance to quickly take; essential measures against a rapidly evolving public health threat. Each government's particular; configuration of governmental and health system decision-making created specific structural and functional challenges to these necessary centrally developed and coordinated strategies. Most East Asian governments (except Japan) succeeded relatively quickly in centralizing essential disease control and treatment initiatives in a timely manner. In contrast, a number of European countries, especially those with predominantly tax-based financing and politically managed health delivery systems, had greater difficulty in escaping bureaucratic governance and management constraints. Drawing on data about these governments' early stage COVID-19 control experiences, this article suggests that structural changes will be necessary if low-performing governments are to better respond to a pandemic. This paper also summarizes other relatively successful strategies. By adopting such strategies, nations can help overcome structural bureaucratic and administrative obstacles in responding to further waves of COVID-19 or similar future pandemic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have long theorized that characteristics of education systems impact both perceived and experienced corruption in public schools. However, due to insufficient cross-national survey data with measures on corruption in education and unassembled yet publicly available institutional data, there are few empirical tests of this theory. This article provides the rare direct test of the relationship between corruption in European public schools and three education system factors: government expenditure on education, education staff compensation, and teacher workload (pupil–teacher ratio). With a newly constructed harmonized data set for European countries, and controlling for national economic factors and individual characteristics, results of multilevel analyses suggest partial support for the theory that specific institutional characteristics of education systems impact public school corruption. The theorized institutional factors have different effects that depend on whether we examine bribe-giving experience or corruption perception. Results show that bribe-giving experience in public schools of Europe is weakly yet significantly related to education staff compensation. For corruption perception, low levels of government expenditure on education and a lopsided pupil–teacher ratio (too few teachers per student) increase the probability that people view corruption as prevalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Roma are Europe's largest ethnic minority group, and often face discrimination and social exclusion. Social strife and lack of access to healthcare are associated with increased symptoms of psychopathology. We aimed to review evidence on mental health outcomes and on access to mental healthcare among the Roma population in Europe. We systematically searched five databases (PsycINFO, Global Health, Social Policy and Practice, Web of Science and PubMed) and conducted a grey literature search in August 2020. We identified 133 studies, 26 of which were included for final analysis. We present the results using a narrative synthesis. The available literature indicates a relatively high prevalence of anxiety, depression and substance abuse among Roma, and females seem to be more affected than males. Roma children exhibit more externalizing and internalizing disorders when compared with non-Roma children. Mental health and perceived well-being among the Roma population are strongly linked to social determinants of health such as housing or economic income. Access to mental healthcare is limited for Roma people because of several barriers pertaining to language, lack of information regarding available services, and the insurance and economic status of Roma people. Roma people report mainly negative experiences with mental health services, including a lack of understanding from healthcare providers, and instances of racism and discrimination. There is a need for more research on mental health and access to healthcare in Roma people. Future studies should be participatory in order to provide guidelines for mental healthcare that addresses the needs of the Roma population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our knowledge about how voters decide which candidate(s) to vote for under preferential-list proportional representation (PLPR) systems remains limited. In particular, it is debated whether incumbent MPs enjoy an electoral advantage over outsiders also under PLPR. We argue that such an incumbency advantage critically depends on candidate visibility (in the media) and differs across voters with varying levels of political knowledge. Our empirical analysis combines candidate information with rich individual-level voting data collected via "mock ballots" in the 2014 Belgian PartiRep election study. We show that the vote premium linked to incumbency increases with increasing media visibility, and while high-visibility incumbents outperform incumbents among the entire electorate, low-visibility incumbents enjoy an advantage only among knowledgeable voters. The results contribute to a better understanding of candidate voting and the incumbency advantage in PLPR. They also have implications for campaign strategies and the regulation of media access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the diversity of populism has received considerable attention, surprisingly little is known about populist parties that defy clear-cut left-right categorization. We show that valence populist parties are non-positional and substantially different from both left-wing and right-wing populist parties. First, we demonstrate that valence populist parties deliberately take blurry positions on both the economic and socio-cultural dimensions of competition. Second, we show that such an ambiguity is counterbalanced by a disproportionate emphasis on anti-corruption appeals, the most paradigmatic example of a non-positional dimension. Our results have important implications for our understanding of varieties of populism, in particular, and the positional and non-positional competition strategies of political parties, in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forensic DNA Phenotyping (FDP) is a set of techniques that aim to infer externally visible characteristics in humans – such as eye, hair and skin color – and biogeographical ancestry of an unknown person, based on biological material. FDP has been applied in various jurisdictions in a limited number of high-profile cases to provide intelligence for criminal investigations. There are on-going controversies about the reliability and validity of FDP, which come together with debates about the ethical challenges emerging from the use of this technology in the criminal justice system. Our study explores how, in the context of complex politics of legitimation of and contestation over the use of FDP, forensic geneticists in Europe perceive this technology's potential applications, utility and risks. Forensic geneticists perform several forms of discursive boundary work, making distinctions between science and the criminal justice system, experts and non-experts, and good and bad science. Such forms of boundary work reconstruct the complex positioning vis-à-vis legal and scientific realities. In particular, while mobilizing interest in FDP, forensic geneticists simultaneously carve out notions of risk, accountability and scientific conduct that perform distance from FDP' implications in the criminal justice system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent enactment of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) has significantly strengthened the social dimension of the European Union (EU), including the social investment (SI) elements of that social dimension. What is not known, however, to what extent the priorization of SI is supported by the broader public. To address this research gap, we investigate public opinion on 15 different policy areas from the EPSR using Eurobarometer data from 2020 across all EU countries, asking whether the public rather prefers these policies to be delivered at EU or national level. A principal finding is that the public indeed supports more SI than CP policies with respect to EU-level social policy, and more CP than SI policies with respect to national-level social policy. We also investigate whether socioeconomic status (SES) and welfare state effort can explain this phenomenon. We find that higher socio-economic status and more generous welfare states are associated with more support for SI policies on both EU and national levels and vice versa. The findings emphasize the importance of what policies are provided versus who provides them but also pose a puzzle for trade-offs in multilevel governance settings. Hence, the article has important implications for future research on public opinion and Social Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the twentieth century national social policies stabilized the European state systems, favouring domestic concordance and citizens' support to the nation-building process. Welfare institutions have historically served this key political function also in federal systems, where social citizenship has been used as a tool to foster unity. In contrast, even though the EU devotes a consistent part of its (however limited) budget to social cohesion and inclusion programmes, it takes little credit for such efforts. Building on original survey data on public opinion collected in 2019 across ten EU countries, this article shows that, indeed, only a limited number of citizens are aware of the social role played by the EU in their local community. On the other hand, it demonstrates that citizens' awareness of EU programmes strengthens the individual perception of power resources stemming from euro-social initiatives, the feeling of 'being heard' by the EU and, ultimately, the support for the European integration project as a whole. By implication, increasing the relevance and visibility of euro-social programmes could possibly reinforce the very foundations of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Cervical cancer (CC) over-screening has been understudied in Europe, yet is relevant for approaching inequalities in screening uptake. Focusing on countries' screening strategies (opportunistic systems versus organised programmes), we assess in which contexts CC over-screening is more prevalent, and which women are more likely to have engaged in cervical cancer screening (CCS) within the past year. Methods: A two-level (multilevel) design among screening women (N = 80,761) nested in 31 European countries was used to analyse data from the second wave (2013–2015) of the European Health Interview Survey. We focused on over-screening, defined as screening more frequently than the three-yearly screening interval prescribed in the European guidelines – that is, having screened within the past year. Results: Higher levels of over-screening were observed in opportunistic systems compared to systems with organised programmes. In opportunistic systems, women with a higher socioeconomic position had a higher likelihood of being screened within the past year than their socioeconomic counterparts. Moreover, these differences diminished under organised programmes. Conclusions: Contexts with organised CCS programmes are more efficiently reducing over-screening, and enforcing the European guidelines. We suggest that the physician–patient relationship is an essential pathway for explaining socioeconomic differences in CC (over-)screening and for future interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Japan is known as a country with low self-rated health despite high life expectancy. We compared socioeconomic inequalities in self-rated health in Japan with those in 32 European countries and the US using nationally representative samples. Methods: We analysed individual data from the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions (Japan), the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (US) in 2016. We used ordered logistic regression models with four ordinal categories of self-rated health as an outcome, and educational level or occupational class as independent variables, controlling for age. Results: In Japan, about half the population perceived their health as 'fair', which was much higher than in Europe (≈20–40%). The odds ratios of lower self-rated health among less educated men compared with more educated were 1.72 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.61–1.85) in Japan, and ranged from 1.67 to 4.74 in Europe (pooled; 2.10 (95% CI 2.01–2.20)), and 6.65 (95% CI 6.22–7.12) in the US. The odds ratios of lower self-rated health among less educated women were 1.79 (95% CI 1.65–1.95) in Japan, and ranged from 1.89 to 5.30 in Europe (pooled; 2.43 (95% CI 2.33–2.54)), and 8.82 (95% CI 8.29–9.38) in the US. Socioeconomic inequalities were large when self-rated health was low for European countries, but Japan and the US did not follow the pattern. Conclusions: Japan has similar socioeconomic gradient patterns to European countries for self-rated health, and our findings revealed smaller socioeconomic inequalities in self-rated health in Japan compared with those in western countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent public debates in several European countries have shown that public service medias' (PSM) public funding has become a topic of controversial discussion. Based on an online survey in France, Germany, and the UK, this study analyses how the willingness to pay (WTP) versus perceived dispensability of PSM relates to various factors identified in the current literature. Across the three countries, most respondents doubt that PSM are dispensable. However, if they determine the sum of the licence fee themselves, it would clearly be a smaller amount than it is currently. Assessment of the overall information quality of PSM and the assumed state or government influence thereon, have a significant influence on the WTP for PSM versus the perceived dispensability thereof. Understanding the factors driving and hindering WTP versus perceived dispensability is crucial, providing insights relevant to understanding PSM and public funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gendered patterns and experiences in migration and acculturation research have recently started to gain recognition with the developments of intersectional and transnational/diaspora theories. Following advancements in the literature, the aim of the current study is to tackle gendered experiences of acculturation through readapting different social domains of RAEM (Relative Acculturation Extended Model) in making sense of the data from qualitative interviews with 24 Turkish migrant women across different European contexts. Findings suggest alternative lines in conceptualizing culture and thus, acculturation, in the case of Turkish migrant women, in addition to conceptualizing potential gendered peculiarities that may surface at the intersection of different positionalities across different social domains. Different consequences of how social domains intertwine in shaping women's acculturation strategies and the mismatch between their ideal and real strategies are discussed, with potential future leads and implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of Muslims in the European public spheres has raised a hoist of debates concerning issues of neutrality, tolerance, and secularism. All over Europe, Muslims are the target of specific forms of hostility, a phenomenon rising substantial questions about the real inclusivity of European democratic spaces. The category of 'Islamophobia' has emerged as a valid heuristic tool to identify specific processes of racialization of religion. However, its validity has been fiercely questioned, and the use of this term has been defined as a pretext to bar the way to any form of criticism and objection to Islam. This paper will use the case of Islamophobia to reflect on the new set of conflicts between freedom of religion and freedom of speech, in the perspective of constructing post secularist, pluralistic public spheres. This paper adopts gender as a privileged lens to identify the mechanisms of essentialization and reification at work in the case of Islam [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While in the Nordic countries we have well-developed welfare policies and several structural, statutory measures in place aiming to promote public health, studies from these countries are often absent from systematic reviews of research literature assessing the effects of policy measures designed to promote health. Using adolescent health promotion and efforts related to primary prevention of obesity as an example, this short commentary aims to illustrate the paucity of well-designed studies investigating the effects of public health policies affecting adolescents. This paper argues that the Nordic research community is in a good position to help fill this gap, and to contribute more widely to the international literature on evaluation of policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the politics of (dis)assembling borders within Europe. It examines the performance of the Berlin-based artist collective Zentrum für Politische Schönheit (Center for Political Beauty, ZPS) in 2014, in which artist activists temporarily removed white border crosses commemorating death at the former Berlin Wall. With this unauthorized displacement, ZPS sought to problematize ongoing violence and death at European borders. Via a three-part analysis of the performance Erster Europäischer Mauerfall (First European Fall of the Wall), the paper outlines a political framework for understanding art around and against borders – contributing to accounts on border art and the politics of borders. Staged as critique against the official commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall, perceived by ZPS as festivalized and thus apolitical event, the multiple performance acts highlight material and emotional movements. They oscillate between past and present border death, commemorated and forgotten border objects, bodies, places. In particular, ZPS aimed to denounce (implicit) hierarchies regarding how and whose death at European borders is remembered via acts of (dis)assembling. By unsolicitedly (re)moving Berlin's border crosses (Act I), mobilizing over 100 activists to dismantle border fences and temporarily installing replica crosses at Southern EU borders and placing them in the hands of contemporary refugees (Act III), ZPS mobilized public concern about contemporary border politics and commemoration. The paper contributes to border studies that view borders as inherently complex and contingent symbolic, socio-spatial arrangements, which affect and are affected by objects, bodies, and policies that oscillate between contested absence and presence. Accompanied by controversial media coverage, the performance gathered (im)mobile bodies, moving objects, and multiple emotional responses about the what, where and who of Europe. Ultimately, politics of (dis)assembling unfold absence and presence to articulate mo(ve)ments of 'the political' as contestation against complacency and border violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of nativist parties in Europe has been accompanied by an increase in religious rhetoric. There is no reason to suggest that voters for nativist parties are motivated by religion; to the contrary, more Christian voters tend to vote for Christian Democratic parties. This article argues that religious rhetoric allows nativist parties to pursue ethno-centric agendas in an acceptable way and differently from Christian Democratic parties. Through the compilation of an original dataset of religious appeals from Austrian, German, and Swiss nativist and Christian Democratic party platforms between 1990–2021, this article demonstrates that changes in the distribution of the religious demographics of Muslims rather than Christians provide a catalyst for religious rhetoric but not an explanation for type of appeal. Instead, the historical role religious identities played in the development of nationalities explains how nativist parties deploy religious rhetoric in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activation measures have assumed a prominent role within policy perspectives aimed at increasing labour market participation to support welfare sustainability. Most comparative studies on active labour market policies (ALMPs) have been conducted at the national level, although several scholars recently stressed the need to consider more carefully the territorial dimension of social policies. This article addresses this research gap by providing quantitative estimates of the territorial effect of national ALMPs provision on youth employment in European regions. We find that regional contextual traits, which can present a variety of configurations, play a significant role in moderating the effects of ALMPs. Divergent outcomes per type and level of education also highlight the complexity of the landscape for ALMPs' design and implementation. Our analysis helps identify the institutional and contextual conditions that require evaluation when designing and implementing policies targeting young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the determinants of the growing political salience of minimum wages in European party manifestos. By using multilingual quantitative text analysis, I show that the electoral salience of minimum wages has increased in the past decades. Although left-wing parties emphasize minimum wages more than right-wing parties, I find that the electoral salience of this policy follows a U-shaped relationship: right-wing populist parties dedicate greater attention to minimum wages than centre-right parties do. A sentiment analysis finds that compared to other policies designed to supplement the income of low-wage workers, such as strengthening collective bargaining institutions and in-work benefits/wage subsidies, there do not seem to be specific party-political characteristics, which determine the sentiment with which discussions on minimum wages are framed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the scientific literature and debate on social investment, public childcare provision plays a pivotal role. At the same time, critics have argued that social investment is often unable to reduce social inequalities and, to the contrary, tends to reproduce them (the so-called 'Matthew effect'). The article focuses on a specific facet of social investment policies: their capacity to support mothers' employment and its effect on social inequality, by investigating empirically to what extent an expansion of public childcare can help to increase women's labour market participation and how this eventual support is homogenously distributed among different mothers' profiles. To give a convincing answer to such a question requires careful attention to methodology, in order to avoid drawing the wrong conclusions. Whereas existing research has predominately focused on cross-national variation and has often been static in nature, the present study assesses the effects of public childcare expansion on women's labour market participation and employment by examining region-specific within-variation over time of public childcare coverage. The study relies on data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018) that were integrated with an original collection of regional-level information on public childcare. It finds a positive association between increases in public childcare coverage and mothers' labour market participation. Furthermore, it shows that public childcare helps to fight social inequalities among households with young children. Low-educated mothers are the ones who profit most from an increase in public childcare, and positive employment effects are most pronounced at lower levels of childcare coverage. Therefore, this contribution highlights the importance of public childcare policies as an equalizer in society, especially in contexts in which an intervention is most needed, because expanding childcare fosters mothers' labour market participation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although formal childcare is considered a key social investment policy to combat inequality, available research indicates that in most European and other high-income countries parents with lower socio-economic positions are less likely to use formal childcare. As the literature on the underlying causes of this so-called Matthew effect has not yet converged, this article is the first to assess whether educational gradients in formal childcare uptake can be accounted for by micro-level employment potential and work–family attitudes in 14 European countries and Australia. Complementing available research on supply-side factors such as policy design features, this study indicates that a large part of the educational gradients in formal childcare uptake persist after controlling for socio-demographic background variables, employment potential, and work–family attitudes as micro-level predictors. However, this study also shows that a considerable part of the educational differentiation in formal childcare uptake reflects differential employment potential. This finding turns attention to policies other than childcare to enhance labour market outcomes for lower educated groups, which in turn might attenuate the Matthew effect in formal childcare. Furthermore, a positive relation between individual-level work–family attitudes and the uptake of formal childcare is also identified as a partial explanation for educational gradients in formal childcare uptake. Although the explanatory power of work–family attitudes as an underlying determinant of the Matthew effect is more limited compared to employment potential, such variation in the acceptance of maternal employment and formal childcare should also be considered in the design of inclusive work–family policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages represents a watershed initiative adding substance to the EU's social dimension. It contains two ambitious objectives: establishing the minimum level of statutory minimum wages at 60% of the gross median wage, and increasing collective bargaining coverage (CBC) to at least 80% of workers. In this article, we assess how statutory minimum wages and collective bargaining coverage are associated with the likelihood of low pay. Using a time series cross-section of EU-SILC for income years 2004–2019, we identify and assess the absolute and relative size of 'effective wage floors' for full-time employees in 30 countries. We specify multilevel, random effects within-between regression models to assess the individual and joint associations of SMW and collective bargaining coverage with wage floors. Our results indicate that SMWs and CBC both have distinct roles in establishing the effective wage floor. First, higher collective bargaining coverage is on average associated with a lower share of workers earning below 60% gross median wages. Second, higher SMWs are strongly associated with higher effective wage floors. Third, both collective bargaining coverage and union density are strongly associated with higher wage floors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global expansion of the platform economy raised questions about where and by whom different forms of platform work are performed in Europe. This study focuses on microworking – that is, where an anonymous 'crowd' completes piecemeal digital work. Specifically, we address two questions about microworking in the EU-27: Where is microworking performed? Who is performing it? Based on the geolocation of 5,239 workers active on six prominent microworking platforms, we identify variation in the relative prevalence of microworking across the EU. Furthermore, we build on existing research to provide a more granular understanding of different classes of microworkers, in terms of diversity and (income) dependency. Four distinct classes of microworkers emerge through statistical modelling of eight relevant diversity and dependency indicators: age, gender, education, citizenship, experience, hours per week, personal income earned, household income. We label these classes Explorers, Enthusiasts, Supplementers, and Dependents. The identification of these emergent classes and varied prevalence of microworking across the EU, suggest the importance of heterogeneity to both the future study and regulation of microwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrants living in Europe constitute over half of the world's international migrants and are at higher risk of poor mental health than non-migrants, yet also face more barriers in accessing and engaging with services. Furthermore, the quality of care received is shaped by the experiences and attitudes of health professionals. The aim of this review was to identify professionals' attitudes towards migrants receiving mental healthcare and their perceptions of barriers and facilitators to service provision. Four electronic databases were searched, and 23 studies met the inclusion criteria. Using thematic synthesis, we identified three themes: 1) the management of multifaceted and complex challenges associated with the migrant status; 2) professionals' emotional responses to working with migrants; and 3) delivering care in the context of cultural difference. Professionals employed multiple strategies to overcome challenges in providing care yet attitudes towards this patient group were polarized. Professionals described mental health issues as being inseparable from material and social disadvantage, highlighting a need for effective collaboration between health services and voluntary organizations, and partnerships with migrant communities. Specialist supervision, reflective practice, increased training for professionals, and the adoption of a person-centered approach are also needed to overcome the current challenges in meeting migrants' needs. The challenges experienced by health professionals in attempting to meet migrant needs reflect frustrations in being part of a system with insufficient resources and without universal access to care that effectively stigmatizes the migrant status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Aims: Prolonged screen time (ST) is a potential concern for poor wellbeing. This study aimed to examine the associations of different types of ST with life satisfaction among adolescents. Methods: Data were from 380,446 adolescents (aged 11–15 years, 51% girls) across 37 European and North American countries who completed the 2010 and 2014 Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children surveys. Participants reported h/day during free time spent on television, electronic games, and computer/other devices. Life satisfaction was assessed using a 10-point scale (low life satisfaction ⩽5). Results: Generalized additive modelling showed non-linear associations for each ST type, with low life satisfaction increasing monotonically for >1 h/day of electronic gaming or computer/other device and >2 h/day of watching television. Multilevel multivariable modelling showed that >4 h/day of watching television was associated with 26% higher odds for boys (OR 1.26; 95% CI:1.21–1.32) and 52% higher odds for girls (1.52; 1.46–1.59) of low life satisfaction than for ⩽1 h/day of television. Electronic gaming >4 h/day was associated with low life satisfaction with odds 42% higher in boys (1.42, 1.36–1.48) and 69% higher in girls (1.69, 1.61–1.76). A similar association was found for >4 h/day of computer/other device for boys (1.43, 1.37–1.49) and girls (1.71, 1.65–1.77). Conclusions: Low levels of ST may be beneficial; however, prolonged periods are associated with low life satisfaction among adolescents, in particular among girls. Results support ⩽2 h/day restriction of ST and highlight research is needed to understand underlying mechanisms of ST and wellbeing, which may not reflect active versus passive content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welfare chauvinism is largely understood as the view that the benefits of the welfare state should primarily be given to the native population, and not shared with the immigrant populations. Using a multilevel approach, we analyse welfare chauvinism in Europe and test to see how different contextual and macro-economic conditions may influence welfare chauvinistic attitudes in Europe, with a particular focus on different nuances of unemployment. We also test how individuals' subjective perceptions of the economic development in their society may influence welfare chauvinism in Europe. The analysis finds that welfare chauvinistic attitudes have increased in strength in Central-Eastern European welfare states, whereas the most exclusionary form of welfare chauvinism is near non-existent in the Nordic welfare regimes. We further find that it is the subjective perceptions of the macro-economic conditions and the strength of far-right populism, rather than the actual objective reality of a society's economic situation that drives welfare chauvinistic attitudes in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an age-group, young people are most at risk of poverty. Yet significant cross-national variation persists, which seems puzzling: the countries displaying the highest levels of youth poverty are (uncharacteristically) Nordic. How can such diversity be accounted for? Is the welfare state part of the story? First, I argue, unlike most studies, that in order to measure youth poverty it is better to use material deprivation and subjective poverty indicators, rather than income poverty. Second, I hypothesize that the welfare state has two potential routes to the alleviation of youth poverty. On the one hand, via 'individualization' of claims (allowing young people to claim benefits as full adult citizens), access to income support leads to lower levels of youth poverty. On the other, youth poverty levels can also be reduced through investment in young people's human capital, in line with the 'social investment' strategy. These claims are confirmed by multilevel logistic regressions on three waves and across 23 European countries of the Eurofound's European Quality of Life Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the drivers of preferences about tax progressivity and redistribution are well identified, the study of willingness to pay taxes remains underdeveloped. This article uses the 2016 ISSP on the Role of Government and the 2018 OECD Risks that Matter surveys to identify which groups of voters are more likely to be willing to pay taxes. It shows that ideology mediates the correlations between education or income and willingness to pay. Among the left, income and education tend to have a positive association with willingness to pay taxes, whereas both variables are negatively associated with willingness to pay among the right. Thus, the core constituencies of left-wing parties composed of socio-cultural professionals and of production and service workers have different tax policy preferences. Socio-cultural professionals, with their higher education and income, are significantly more willing to pay taxes than production and service workers, who share lower education and income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the different fiscal treatment of married and cohabiting couples across all EU Member States using microsimulation methods. Our article highlights important differences across EU countries' tax–benefit systems, where seven countries show substantial bonuses for married couples and four exhibit marriage penalties. On a micro level, we find that these marriage bonuses/penalties differ substantially across household types and income. From a policy point of view, our results suggest that the abolishment of marriage-related tax–benefit components in countries with marriage bonuses would leave some households financially worse off but would increase governments revenues that could be spent to targeted support of specific groups. From both an equity and efficiency point of view, this abolishment would be desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Epidemic wavefront models predict the spread of medieval pandemics such as the plague well. Our aim was to explore whether they contribute to understanding the spread of COVID-19, the first truly global pandemic of the 21st century with its fast and frequent international travel links. Methods: We analysed the spatial spread of reaching a threshold of very high incidence of new daily infections of the virus across European countries in the autumn of 2021 in which the Delta variant was dominant, as well as an even higher threshold of incidence in the subsequent spread of infections across the same set of countries during the winter of 2021/2022 when the Omicron variant of the virus became dominant. Results: We found patterns that are consistent with wavefront models for both periods of the pandemic in Europe. Conclusions: Modern means of transportation strongly accelerated the spread of the virus and typically generated diffusion patterns along bidirectional constrained mobility networks in addition to stochastic diffusion processes. However, since the majority of mobility, including mobility across international borders, is over short distances, wavefront patterns in the spread of a pandemic are still to be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degree to which party systems are ideologically and programmatically structured is central to democracy. This article analyzes differences in the extent and nature of programmatic structuration in Latin America and Europe, using a new original data source, the Chapel Hill Expert Survey-Latin America (CHES-LA), in combination with the long-standing CHES-Europe. First, we demonstrate the reliability of CHES-LA in relation to CHES-Europe, and substantiate its validity by comparing it to other expert, elite and party manifesto surveys in Latin America. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we then show that while party system structuration in Latin America is somewhat lower than in Europe, it is also of a decisively different nature. In Latin America economic and socio-cultural policy positions are largely captured in a single overlapping dimension; in Europe, by contrast, competition occurs overwhelmingly along two dimensions, each with distinct clusters of policy positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender gap in self-employment is one of the most resilient in labour participation. While for some, this gap is the result of women's lack of opportunities to become self-employed, for others, it reflects women's preference to stay in paid employment. This article investigates the motivations behind women's decision (either from opportunity or necessity) to start a business in 17 European countries. Results from the analysis suggest that individual resources are fundamental in explaining women's motivations to become entrepreneurs. The type of gender regime and the economic situation in their country also play a role in women's decisions to start a business. Women are more likely to be driven due to opportunity in dual-earner gender regimes than elsewhere, and high levels of unemployment produced by the economic crisis have boosted women's self-employment from necessity. These findings are discussed in relation to the gender gap in self-employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of social and educational factors has often been used to explain social differences in consumption and cultural practices. Without denying the value of such an approach, this article examines the impact of religious denomination and its influence in shaping cultural practices. Our article argues the need for a macro-social, longue durée [long-term] perspective to shed light on cultural differences and why these linger notwithstanding the market and political convergence found in Europe today. The diverse cultural consumption patterns found in European Union (EU) Member States as evidenced by Eurobarometer surveys are examined through our logistic regression analysis. The findings show the explanatory power of the religion variables used by classical historical sociology. These variables have been largely overlooked by modern studies—a shortcoming this article seeks to redress. We see a link between a country's historical religion (the religious "factor") and its cultural consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Means-tested transfer schemes in Europe and elsewhere tend to include not only income tests but also asset tests of various sorts. The role of asset tests in minimum income protection provisions has been extensively researched in the Anglo-Saxon context. Far fewer authors have assessed the role of asset tests on social policy in a continental European context. Although asset tests may be useful in singling out the more deserving of the poor, we know relatively little of their actual impact on eligibility and social outcomes in European welfare states. This paper looks at the prevalence and design of asset tests in European minimum income protection schemes. We distinguish between two main types of asset tests: outright disqualification when assets reach a certain value, versus a more gradual tapering at a fictional rate of return. We then analyse in greater detail how asset tests in Belgium and Germany, as representatives of these two types, affect minimum income protection eligibility and poverty outcomes. We use the EUROMOD microsimulation model on the Household Finance and Consumption Survey data in order to assess the effects of asset tests. This survey was explicitly designed to more realistically reflect assets and capital incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although European blood collection organizations are currently obtaining sufficient and safe blood from the majority population, they report having difficulty recruiting first and second-generation immigrants from non-European countries. Most existing studies on these underrepresented groups, who have been coined the " missing minorities " in blood donation, have adopted an instrumental approach that focuses on the development of targeted recruitment strategies to overcome specific barriers to donation faced by members of these minorities. Although this approach does offer several short-term benefits, our central argument is that it is one-sided in its questioning of the non-participation of ethnic minorities. The literature currently lacks research on how the blood procurement system is failing to include minorities. Drawing on recent social theory, we seek a broader sociological understanding of minority under-representation in blood donor populations by shifting the analytic focus toward a critical examination of the main pillars of the procurement system within the European context. This paper advances a novel analytical framework based on two general propositions. First, we apply the literature on "citizenship regimes" to argue that blood donation is part of one specific institutionalization of citizenship and solidarity. We then reconceptualize the "problem" of missing minorities in European blood donation as an application for social change, suggesting avenues related to blood collection as a way of renegotiating minority-majority relations of solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]