West European Politics articles from July 1994

West European Politics archives from July 1994

Reshaping the state in Western Europe: the limits to retreat.
July 1, 1994... Since the mid-1960s there has been a debate in European political science about the problems confronting the nation state. In the early days, the debate was triggered by the inability of West European states to ensure their own defence, by the...

Public perceptions of the proper role of the state.
July 1, 1994... Any discussion of the retreat and the return of the state, of de-regulation and re-regulation across Western Europe, can be enhanced by the question: how, if at all, has the general public, the popular sovereign of contemporary democracies,...

Political traditions and the role of the state.
July 1, 1994... In the 1960s and much of the 1970s many observers tended to view the political traditions which had structured the era of mass politics and had provided the basis for bitter fights as exhausted. Daniel Bell has provided the most prominent...

The role of the state within social policy.
July 1, 1994... Meanwhile structural problems of the welfare state have become visible alongside changed economic conditions. Thus, in the field of social security, problems of financing as well as problems of exclusion and risks of poverty have appeared. With...

The rise of the regulatory state in Europe.
July 1, 1994... Privatization and deregulation have created the conditions for the rise of the regulatory state to replace the dirigiste state of the past. Reliance on regulation -- rather than public ownership, planning or centralised administration --...

Reshaping the state: the implications for public administration.
July 1, 1994... The process of reshaping the state, described in the Introduction, has had inevitable consequences for public enterprises, for intergovernmental relations and for central public administrations. The latter are the principal focus for this study...

The new role of the state in telecommunications: an international comparison.
July 1, 1994... For most of the time since its beginnings in the nineteenth century, telecommunications has been considered a part of the public infrastructure that should be provided or at least guaranteed by the state. In historical and international...

The state and the financial services revolution: a comparative analysis.
July 1, 1994... THE EUROPEAN REVOLUTION IN FINANCIAL SERVICES The creation of a single market in financial services is central to the attempt to create a single market in the European Union (EU). In financial services the achievement is already impressive. In...

Doing less by doing more: British government 1979-1993.
July 1, 1994... GOVERNMENT, THE STATE, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST In trying to analyse the so-called retreat of the state in Britain the first problem is that Britain has no clear conception of the state. Usually, we refer to 'the government' rather than to the...

Party Policy and Government Coalitions.
July 1, 1994... The politics of coalition government is a topic to which many political science books and articles have now been devoted. Ever since the early 1960s the process of coalition formation has been analysed on the basis of various approaches: rational...

Party Organizations: A Data Handbook on Party Organizations in Western Democracies, 1960-90.
July 1, 1994... 'Parties still matter'. With this opening (and understated) assertion Katz and Mair introduce the first of a series of three collective volumes which focus on the organisational dimension of parties. This dimension is now one of the very few...

Crisis and Choice in European Social Democracy.
July 1, 1994... Scholars from different disciplines have attempted to identify the economic causes and consequences underlying the worldwide recession in the 1970s. Fritz Scharpf instead sets out to explain how those consequences could have been avoided or...

Electoral Strategies and Political Marketing.
July 1, 1994... The decline of party loyalties has meant that many more voters now engage in a process of decision-making. Whilst a wide range of variables which influence their choice have been examined in some detail, one, as the editors of this volume point...

Developments in German Politics.
July 1, 1994... This book landed on the reviewer's desk no less than four times. The fourth copy arrived via the German Embassy in London and was accompanied by a letter stating: 'We think this is an excellent book about recent developments in unified Germany....

Parteien in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
July 1, 1994... The basic law of the Federal Republic of Germany assigned political parties a central role in the process of decision making and in the expression of the general will. The reunification of the two German states has done nothing to alter this...

Eliten, Macht und Konflikt.
July 1, 1994... An important part of the answer to the question, how democratic is Germany?, can be found in the results of studies on German elites. Still, there is surprisingly little public and scientific debate on the role elites should play in a democratic...

Political Mobilization and Social Change: The Dutch Case in Comparative Perspective.
July 1, 1994... In the early 1980s several hundred thousand Dutch crowded the streets of Amsterdam and The Hague to protest against the deployment of cruise missiles. Others had been involved in the anti-nuclear, ecological, women's and solidaristic movements....

Policy Networks: Empirical Evidence and Theoretical Considerations.
July 1, 1994... In recent years there has been increasing recognition of policy analysts and political scientists (among others) that policy-making in contemporary Western societies has become more complex in many ways. Moving beyond the truistic nature of such...

Local Government in Liberal Democracies: An Introductory Survey.
July 1, 1994... This book has been written for an audience of undergraduate and 'A' level students who 'require an easily accessible analysis of local government' (p.i.). It presents an overview of local government and of its position within the national...

Politics, Society, and Democracy: The Case of Spain.
July 1, 1994... This is the first of a promising four-volume series of essays in honour of Juan Linz. It is divided into two parts: the first embraces three chapters (Amando de Miguel's 'The Lynx and the Stork', 'Spain: A Recurrent Theme for Juan Linz' by Gomez...

Contemporary Political Ideologies.
July 1, 1994... These books make a strong case for continuing to view political thought through the prism of 'ideology'. The extent of their agreement on this case is remarkable. Both Vincent and Eatwell, in introductory chapters, differentiate their usage of...

British Aid and International Trade, Aid Policy Making: 1979-89. (1)
July 1, 1994... In recent months the Pergau dam affair has given rise to wide public debate over the extent to which commercial and political considerations should drive the British aid programme. This concise and well-researched study tackles the question head...