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After a long-lasting period of economic growth and catching-up efforts with the US technological leadership, in the 90th major European economies entered a trend of slow growth, and patchy technological progress. Studies by Acemoglu, Aghion, Zilibotti, 2003; Aghion and Howitt, 2005 identify the source of this trend in the failure to shift from an investment-based model of growth to an innovation-based one's, deemed mostly appropriate when economic performance takes place close to the technological frontier. This failure may occur because policies fostering catching-up investment-based strategies bring about market rigidities and relatively less competitive environment, which in turn hinder the transition to innovation-based strategies. The upshot brings to a vicious circle, called the 'trap of the follower'. Against this background, the paper investigates what caused European economies falling 'trapped', and what made them unable to cross the frontier. A major paper's argument argues that the failure occurred not so much because they were unsuccessful to get into an innovation-based growth pattern, as some of them get into. When assessing their innovation regime, the paper shows that the failure lies in the adoption of a pattern of incremental instead of radical innovations, as it shows in the technological leader. The case in point is the biotechnology sector in the US and Germany. The paper finds that the different models of economic organization in the two countries affected deeply their respective innovation regimes. In the final section, the paper analyzes some aspects of the European competitiveness deficit, and points to more risky and dynamic systems of innovation, as the way out of the European low growth potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to show the main four paradigms of analysis on Europe and its identity elaborated in the last two centuries by the social sciences. For the scholars who proposed them Europe is an indistinct entità for its cultural, political, economical and/or religious characters, especially if it is compared to other cultures. However, one of thes eparadigms, the one based on ethicity and nation, the common and primordial characters are found only in the distinct European ethicities, so that an unitarian demos misses. The second paradigm, the constructivistic one, stresses the definition of the European nations by the elites through a process that could be applied also for the European nation or for the post-national constellation following Habermas. The paradigm of the cultural identity, then, proposes to analyse the foundation of Europe through its history, literature or arts, and the paradigm of the cosmopolitism focuses on the process of construction of a "cosmopolitical" citizenship in a world level, based on human rights: the attention in on the role of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regions as the substatal institutions in-between State and iocal governments have developped a leading role in the process of the Europea integration. Empirical evidences of the activism of the regions are also the increase of the regional policies of the European Union, the develop of the regional paradiplomacy, the proliferation of the regional entities with a strong European identity. The phase of the main develop and the more optimistic predictions the Ninenties is that of the Europe of the Regions perspective or that of the Third Level for a possible federalist model. In particolar, the policy of the political, economical and social cohesion of the European institutions for the overcoming of the territorial inequalities could favourite the active role of the Regions. If in the past the scholars frequently used the intergovernative model to the definition of the European network, now the multi-level-governance model is preferred. It stresses the regions position in the relations between the EU power levels, institutional or not. The paper aims to explore the theory that the weakening of the states owes the globalization and it could provoke the strenghtening of the role of the regions as guarantees od the citizen participation in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the rapid spread of urban mega-projects on aban- doned industrial sites of European and American cities. These projects are gen- erally developed within the context of public-private partnerships, are frequendy mixed-use and cater to the needs of office-based businesses and tourism and leisure services. The introduction of new methods of financing, with the increas- ingly integration of real-estate sector into the new networks of global capitalism, is an important distinctive element, as also the incorporation of the designs of world-famous architects. This trend has been the result of changes occurred in the economy of advanced capitalist countries as well as of the imposing of the urban redevelopment as a key issue in the political agenda. The paper argues that the property-led urban regeneration and mega-projects don't necessarily contribute to make the city more affordable, efficient and inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One way for debating about the European cultures is the analysis of the market of the cultural products. Among them, one of the most interesting points of view is that of the film market. Obviously, it is not easy to develop a debate on the "European cinema". More than an half of the European films is an American production. The rest of the films is produced in the national borders. However, there is an interesting number of films produced in Europe that are viewed in other countries. About their stories, the theme of the memory is one of the most frequent in the last years. It is not only the individual memory, but, above all, the collective one. It is not in the sense of an attention for the problems of the disorientation or of the loss of the memory that modernization and de-traditionalization provoke, but in the sense of an attention for the removal process. They present this question in an autocritical point of view. They present stories also about the worrying past. After a recognition of the most famous European films of the last years, the paper stresses some of these films (produced in East and West European countries) and how they promote and present the autocritical memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration has introduced serious conflicts into European urban areas. The nature of these conflicts varies according to many factors: the countries of origin of immigrants, their cultural and religious heritage, the social and economic problems in the hosting countries. But it is also necessary to take into account the political culture of these countries, i.e. the way in which State, people and nation are regarded and the relationships between ethnicity, nationality and citizenship are conceived. It is not by chance that France has adopted a policy of integration through cultural assimilation, the United Kingdom has practised a form of uneven pluralism emphasizing the role of ethnic communities and Germany has preferred a rotatory presence of «guest workers». Yet, all of these policies have failed owing to the important changes that have occurred both in the global context and in immigration itself. This paper analyzes what has happened in recent decades by taking into account the urban riots in England since the late '70s, the xenophobic attacks on immigrants in Germany after its reunification and the recurrent explosions in the French banlieues since the late '70s until the resounding events of November 2005. The last part concerns the case of Italy, which is still virtually unknown abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe is a secularised society as it is seen and thought? In a recent book by Peter Berger, Grace Davie e Effie Fokas (2008) Religious America, Secular Europe? this question returns to another question, much more intriguing: is Europe an exception in respect of the rest of the world and, above all, in respect of United States of America, following the indicators of the religiosity? (Davie, 2002; Hervieu-Léger, 2003) Or is not this assumed exception an unconditioned reflection of a chronic ethnocentrism of the European sociologists? For Berger we are watching more and more the de-secularisation and also Europe seems to be "round the corner" and to return "to faiths". However, half of Europeans, following the more recent data of the European Values Study, affirms that they pray or meditate once a week and three fourth of them affirm to feel religious themselves. Maybe, they fail to attend mass, but they don't renounce to think religiously and they continue to feel the need a sense of their action. At last, the socio-religious geography is rapidly changing: we can linger to make referendum for the opening of a mosque or for the construction of minarets, but the religious diversity is just evident, A well-informed social theory has to confute paradigms, schemes and conceptual matrix of the past. A sociology of religion that studies only the historically prevailing religions lingering to debate if and what the society if secularised risks not to understand how the society changes, its religious diversities and what they express. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the changes in the implementation of migration policies in Europe. The socio-economic structures and geographical placements have attracted immigrants towards Europe. The members of the European Union, in the 1980s, imposed many policies to prevent immigration. The restrictions affected the economic development and international relations of the European countries.