West European Politics articles from April 1997

West European Politics archives from April 1997

Escaping the joint-decision trap: repetition and sectoral politics in the European Union.
April 1, 1997... Decision-making in the European Union (EU) has been argued to present a 'joint-decision trap', in which national actors possess the ability to block decisions unilaterally. That potential blockage according to Fritz Scharpf, produces decision...

Right-wing populist parties in Austria and Switzerland: a comparative analysis of electoral support and conditions of success.
April 1, 1997... There is hardly a more established sample of western European countries within the field of 'paired case-studies' than that including the two Alpine republics of Austria and Switzerland. Compared with the great attention political science has...

Between Europe and unity: the case of the Swedish Social Democrats. (Sweden's approval of EU membership)
April 1, 1997... In most member states, the mainstream left now generally favours further 'deepening' the European Union's(1) competencies and institutions. In the Nordic countries, however, social democratic parties contain deep disagreements over European...

In the absence of charisma: the Greek elections of September 1996.
April 1, 1997... In 1996 party politics in Greece reached a turning point, the full potential of which has yet to be realised. Much of modern Greek political history has been dominated by strong charismatic leaders.(1) The 1996 elections were held, however, in...

The 1996 Maltese election: swing of the pendulum. (victory of Malta Labour Party in 1996 elections reverses landslide victory of the Nationalist Party in 1992)
April 1, 1997... The Maltese electorate voted the Malta Labour Party (MLP) into office in the general election held on 26 October 1996, following nine and a half years of Nationalist Party rule. The result, which gave Labour an absolute majority of 51 per cent of...

Nationalism in Europe: 1815 to the Present: A Reader.
April 1, 1997... Nationalism sells. Why? No one is likely to claim that this is because great intellectual advances have been made by its students, despite all of the time and money that has been spent on its study. Every one is likely to accept that an adequate...

The Federal Republic of Germany at Forty-Five.
April 1, 1997... Each of these books offers an updated assessment of aspects of the political situation in Germany after reunification, by experts based, for the most part, in the USA (though British- and German-based authors are also represented in the two...

Neue oder deutsche Linke? Nation und Nationalismus im Denken von Linken und Grunen.
April 1, 1997... This timely study investigates the relationship between the German 'new left' - which, for Ludwig, essentially means the Socialist German Students' Association (SDS); various sectarian Communist groups; the Greens - and the discourses of...

Irish Voters Decide: Voting Behaviour in Elections and Referendums Since 1918.
April 1, 1997... These two books attest to the healthy state of political studies in Ireland. Both are to be welcomed and each has much to commend it. Both are concerned with the origins of the Irish party system during the early 1920s, with the weakness of the...

Les reseaux de politique publique. Debat autour des policy networks.
April 1, 1997... By the beginning of the 1980s, the policy-network approach, especially in Britain, was increasingly Considered as an alternative model to other models of interest group intermediation, such as the corporatist, elitist or pluralist models. The...

Immigration, 'Race' and Ethnicity in Contemporary France.
April 1, 1997... Since the early 1980s immigration has become a key issue in France both in terms of the importance attached to it by public opinion and in the central role it has come to occupy in party politics. The aim of this book is to explain how and why...

British Politics Since 1945.
April 1, 1997... In his introduction Peter Dorey tells us that he has undertaken his review of post-war British political history because political scientists have tended to duck the task of providing an overview of political events post 1945. Any expectations of...

Policy-making in Britain.
April 1, 1997... This edited volume is divided into two parts, the first looks at the context - economic, ideological, political and European - in which policymaking is conducted, and the second examines specific policy areas and issues by way of empirical...

Looking to Europe. The EC Policies of the British Labour Party and the Danish Social Democrats.
April 1, 1997... This book attempts a comparison between developments in the EC policies of two parties (the British Labour Party and the Danish Social Democrats) traditionally categorised as being critical or at least sceptical of the process of European...

Appetites and Identities. An Introduction to the Social Anthropology of Western Europe.
April 1, 1997... Not many academic texts deserve to be described as 'unputdownable'. This one comes fairly close. With a wealth of illustrative material covering matters as diverse as the advice on wedding meals dispensed by women's magazines through Sardinian...