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Lateinamerika gilt als der ungleichste Kontinent der Welt. Paradoxerweise hat die Entwicklung ressourcenintensiver Sozialsysteme wenig dazu beigetragen, das soziale Ungleichgewicht zu verändern. Der Autor zeichnet dieses Paradox am Beispiel Argentiniens nach, deckt die zugrundeliegenden Macht- und Interessenskonflikte auf und stellt erfolgreiche Strategien zur Umsetzung einer integrativen Politik vor. Als erste Studie dieser Art untersucht sie systematisch die langfristige Entwicklung der sozialen Absicherung von Geringverdienern in Argentinien und analysiert die entscheidenden politischen, sozialen und ökonomischen Einflussfaktoren.

Rhetoric and Settler Inertia: Strategies of Canadian Decolonization explores how communication might accelerate decolonial actions in Canada. Tracing a middle path between essential Indigenous-focused calls for resurgence, and idealistic appeals to settler conscience, Patrick Belanger identifies communication forms that can generate settler support for decolonization. Accenting the importance of both Indigenous and settler audiences, this book suggests the promise of decolonial rhetoric framed in the language of mutual benefit.

First published in 1999, this volume why Europe's arguably most successful political party, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, become so divided over European integration. Why were its grass-roots so reluctant to embrace EU membership and why did a Social Democratic government decide to stand aside from the launch of the single European currency? What connection is there between Europe and the Swedish model of political economy? While much has been written in English on Swedish Social Democracy, little of this literature has dealt with its difficulties during the 1990s and especially with its acute problems over Europe. This book fills that gap. Using original, primary data, Nicholas Aylott addresses the topic from macro and micro-political perspectives, taking account of historical, cultural, geopolitical and economic constraints, but also the interests and calculations of key individuals at critical junctures. It places the experience of Swedish Social Democracy into a broad comparative framework, drawing especially from the experiences of its Scandinavian sister parties. Up-to-date analysis of the party's debate on EMU is included.

How successful have the Nordic Agrarian-Centre Parties been in transforming themselves from class parties to catchall parties drawing significant support from voters engaged in the non-primary sectors of the economy? Using case studies from five comparable countries, David Arter provides an insightful account of an historic group of parties who still wield distinctive strength in the Nordic region. This detailed profile, the first ever in English, makes a unique contribution to the topical issues of party adaptation and institutional modernization.

This popular textbook offers a thorough and accessible approach to Canadian Studies through comparative analyses of Canada and the United States, their histories, geographies, political systems, economies, and cultures. Students and professors alike acknowledge it as an ideal tool for understanding the close relationship between the two countries, their shared experiences, and their differing views on a range of issues.Fully revised and updated, the second edition of Canadian Studies in the New Millennium includes new chapters on Demography and Immigration Policy, the Environment, and Civil Society and Social Policy, all written by leading scholars and educators in the field. At a time in which there is a growing mutual dependence between the US and Canada for security, trade, and investment, Canadian Studies in the New Millennium will continue to be a valuable resource for students, educators, and practitioners on both sides of the border.

This book explores the post-national defense and its gender implications. Specifically, it explores how the United Nations Security Council resolution to increase the participation of women in peace negotiations, humanitarian planning, peacekeeping operations, post-conflict peacebuilding and governance has influenced the organization and policy practices of the post-national defense.

'The Madisonian Turn is an outstanding assessment of the functioning of democratic institutions in the Nordic countries. If democracy is in trouble in Scandinavia, then it is surely facing problems everywhere, so the book will be read carefully by those concerned about contemporary governance in all modern democracies.'---Michael Gallagher, Trinity College, Dublin'This welcome and timely re-evaluation of Nordic politics constitutes a major contribution to comparative government, and is likely to stand as the definitive treatment of politics in the region for many years to come.'---Peter Mair, European University Institute'This book is unique in its comparative scope and the wealth of information on the state of parliamentary democracy in the Nordic countries. It is particularly useful for the comparativists who do not come from these countries, because the original literature which it covers in detail is often not accessible for the English-speaking audience.'---Hanspeter Kriesi, University of Zurich'The strength of The Madisonian Turn is to interface detailed empirical evidence on the dynamics of democratic politics in Scandinavia with an elaboration and test of rival theories of change in the politics of postindustrial democracies. This book is an inspiration for students of Northern Europe, but also for scholars of comparative legislatures and political parties more generally.'---Herbert Kitschelt, Duke University Parliamentary democracy is the most common regime type in the contemporary political world, but the quality of governance depends on effective parliamentary oversight and strong political parties. Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden have traditionally been strongholds of parliamentary democracy. In recent years, however, critics have suggested that new challenges such as weakened popular attachment, the advent of cartel parties, the judicialization of politics, and European integration have threatened the institutions of parliamentary democracy in the Nordic region. This volume examines these claims and their implications. The authors find that the Nordic states have moved away from their previous resemblance to a Westminster model toward a form of parliamentary democracy with more separation-of-powers features---a Madisonian model. These features are evident both in vertical power relations (e.g., relations with the European Union) and horizontal ones (e.g., increasingly independent courts and central banks). Yet these developments are far from uniform and demonstrate that there may be different responses to the political challenges faced by contemporary Western democracies. Torbjörn Bergman is Professor of Political Science at Umeå University, Sweden. Kaare Strøm is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. Jacket Credit: Heidi Hobde Dailey

Institutions are central to economic life. They have a major impact on consumer preferences, the actions and processes of firms, levels of wealth and poverty in countries, the growth of international trade, and much more. Indeed, none of the preconditions for economic activity - such as the existence of buyers and sellers, recognizable goods and services, and the information we need to make choices - would be in place without institutions. Institutions, then, do more than support economic life: they enable and shape it. These insights challenge some of the most basic postulates on modern economic theory and are at the heart of many of the most exciting works in economic sociology. This book examines the role of institutions - defined as the formal and informal rules and practices that surround us as we go about our daily lives - in the economy. Illuminating complex ideas with carefully selected, vivid examples, the investigation focuses on economic activity as it unfolds at the individual, organizational, national, and international levels. This accessible and engaging book will be essential reading for students of economic sociology, and all those interested in the intimate relationship between institutions and the economy.

Portugal is a small Western European nation with a large, distinctive past replete with both triumph and tragedy. One of the continent's oldest nation-states, Portugal has frontiers that are essentially unchanged since the late 14th century. The country's unique character and 850-year history as an independent state present several curious paradoxes. As of 1974, when much of the remainder of the Portuguese overseas empire was decolonized, Portuguese society appeared to be the most ethnically homogeneous of the two Iberian states and of much of Europe. This, in spite of the fact that Portuguese society had received during 2,000 years of infusions of other ethnic groups in invasions and immigration: Phoenicians, Greeks, Celts, Romans, Suevi, Visigoths, Muslims (Arab and Berber), Jews, Italians, Flemings, Burgundian French, black Africans, and Asians. Indeed, Portugal has been a crossroads, despite its relative isolation in the western corner of the Iberian Peninsula, between the West and North Africa, Tropical Africa, and Asia and America. Since 1974, Portugal's society has become less homogeneous as there has been significant immigration of former subjects from her erstwhile overseas empire.The third edition of Historical Dictionary of Portugal greatly expands on the second edition through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, events, and institutions, as well as on significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects.

What kind of Europe do social democratic parties prefer? What is the origin of their preferences? Are they shaped by interests, institutions or ideas? If so, how? Why do social democratic political parties respond differently to the crucial question of the future of the European Union? While many social democratic parties initially opposed European integration either in principle or because of the form it took, gradually they came to lend their full, though often critical, support to it. Despite this evolution, important differences between them have remained. This book examines the preferences of social democratic parties in Germany, France, the UK, Sweden and Greece towards European integration, in comparative perspective. Using a variety of sources, including interviews with key party officials, the contributors explore what kind of Europe these parties want, and seek to explain the formation and evolution of these preferences over time. They examine the interplay of national peculiarities and cross-national factors and their impact on preferences on European integration. In addition to highlighting the role of party leaders, they reveal that, far from being united on European integration, these parties disagree with each other in part because they have retreated – to varying degrees – from key social democratic principles. Making an important contribution to the scholarship on preference formation and the research that links the European Union with the nation state, it will be of interest to students and scholars of the EU, comparative politics and political parties.

The project of European integration now spans Europe, but in becoming bigger and broader the European Union has brought on itself significant criticism. As the EU becomes deeper, wider, and more ambitious, so opposition and scepticism become more prominent for citizens and more problematic for elites. Concerns about a'democratic deficit'and the distance between European elites and publics have come to be a common feature of European politics. As a consequence Euroscepticism has become a part of the terrain of conflict between political parties across Europe. Opposing Europe? provides the first comprehensive review of party-based Euroscepticism across the breadth of contemporary Europe, and the first in-depth comparative academic study of Euroscepticism. This, the first of two volumes, is made up of chapters that map, describe, and analyse Euroscepticism in the party systems of a range of countries and the European Parliament. Each is written to a common frame of reference that differentiates'hard'and'soft'Euroscepticism. The volume looks across Europe and includes EU member states and candidate and non-member states in order to draw out comparative lessons that relate to the nature of political parties, party systems, and the domestic politics of European integration. Opposing Europe? is a groundbreaking,'state of the art'book that provides a definitive review of a key issue in European politics. It is also one of the few attempts to integrate the fields of EU studies with both West European and East European studies in order to draw lessons about the way in which the EU interacts with domestic politics in both member and non-member states. Examining the way that parties position themselves and compete on the European issue provides powerful lessons for the trajectory of the European integration project more generally and on the prospects for the emergence of a European political system and polity.

This is a detailed exploration of how national political parties have responded to the increasing relevance of European governance.The Europeanization of National Political Parties is the first empirical study to examine the effects of the European Union on the internal organizational dynamics of national political parties. It draws on the results of a major, cross-national project and is based on documentary analysis and some 150 interviews with senior party actors in six EU member states: Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden.Situated in the context of the debate on Europeanization, the contributors illustrate that national political parties have been surprisingly well equipped to handle the challenges of the increasing importance of multi-level governance in Europe. Following a rigorous analytical framework, the country studies examine thirty relevant political parties and systematically address a clearly defined set of empirical questions. The volume ends with two comparative chapters that analyze the findings from a cross-national perspective and that offer theoretical insights into the problems of party government amid increasing European integration.This text will appeal to all those researching in the fields of European studies, political science and comparative politics.

A penetrating new examination of the triangular political and cultural relationship between America, Britain, and continental Europe.This relationship is both fraught and dynamic. Post-war reconstruction of Europe brought integration. Creating a ‘United States of Europe'was a goal shared by many Americans. Yet the contemporary'War on Terror', has redefined relationships between America, Britain,'old'and'new'Europe. For Britain, the Channel seems wider than the Atlantic, although geopolitically it is part of Europe. This book brings together experts from Britain, Europe and America to explore the complexities of contemporary cultural and political relationships, considering the challenges that have been met and those that have to be faced.

With contributions from leading thinkers such as J. Bhagwati and Robert Solow, this edited collection examines some hotly debated issues in today's world. The significance of globalization and its effects on welfare states is discussed and analyzed. A special chapter is devoted to terrorism, and it is explained why some people are willing to sacrifice their lives to gain'heavenly goods'. The role of multinationals in the globalization process is examined as is the importance of changing and evolving social norms regarding work and leisure for the survival of today's welfare states.

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