West European Politics articles from July 1996

West European Politics archives from July 1996

Parties, states and patronage.
July 1, 1996... Political patronage occupies a grey area between amorality and immorality. In a sense, it is the 'pornography of politics'.(1) Although it may, as Gellner puts it, 'despise the official morality as hypocritical, fraudulent, or effeminate, it...

The European Court's political power. (European Court of Justice)
July 1, 1996... International law and international courts have always been weak. While many aspects of international law may be respected, when controversy emerges, national governments often interpret international agreements as they see fit, prioritise...

Nationalism and party competition in the Basque Country and Catalonia. (Spain)
July 1, 1996... In historical terms Basque and Catalan nationalism share several features, most obviously their development within the same state.(1) However, they also differ widely. In Catalonia nationalism had strong cultural foundations and was adopted by...

Parliamentary elites in times of political transition: the case of Eastern Germany.
July 1, 1996... The most recent wave of democratisation(1) which started in the 1970s, has resulted in renewed scholarly attention to issues of political regime transitions. While many facets of transition are being addressed - including the importance of the...

The left-wing opposition in Denmark, Norway and Sweden: cases of Euro-phobia?
July 1, 1996... Left-wingers differ in their visions of European integration.(1) Three different types of policies towards Europe, and especially the European Union (EU), can be singled out. The first one being the 'Euro-optimistic' camp, represented by Southern...

Private muddling through as a political programme? The role of the European Commission in the telecommunications sector in the 1980s.
July 1, 1996... Since the beginning of the 1980s, a remarkable process of restructuring and transnationalisation has taken place in the nationally segregated telecommunication sectors of western European countries. According to pertinent political science...

Integration in small steps: the European Commission and member-state aid to industry.
July 1, 1996... Scholars still straggle to understand what drives European integration. Neo-functionalists assert that the process has developed a dynamic of its own. Intergovernmentalists, or realists, insist that the integration process is closely controlled...

Beyond clientelism: agricultural networks in Ireland and the EU.
July 1, 1996... This article examines the nature of interest/government relations in the Irish agricultural sector. The agricultural sector is a good choice for study in two respects: first because it is an important national policy area and, secondly, since it...

On the administrative condition of politics: administrative transformation in the Netherlands.
July 1, 1996... Administrative transformation, administrative reform and administrative modernisation are clearly back as topics on international political and academic research agendas.(1) The international and comparative developments in these areas are...

The 1995 Austrian election: winter of discontent.
July 1, 1996... The 'Christmas election' of 17 December 1995 came as an unwelcome and surprise present to an electorate which had only a year before given its verdict in parliamentary elections. In October 1994, the ruling coalition parties (the Social...

The Swiss elections of 1995: real victors and real losers at last?
July 1, 1996... Expectations of real political change in Switzerland were higher than normal at the start of 1995. By the time of the elections these had evaporated. So the actual results from the Lower House caught many observers by surprise. They produced a...

Le Pen. Biographie.
July 1, 1996... The French National Front (FN) is rapidly approaching its 25th birthday in 1997, while it is also 13 years since the party first began to make an impact in French politics and society. Undoubtedly, it has now become an established part of the...

A Small City in France: A Socialist Mayor Confronts Neofascism.
July 1, 1996... The French National Front (FN) is rapidly approaching its 25th birthday in 1997, while it is also 13 years since the party first began to make an impact in French politics and society. Undoubtedly, it has now become an established part of the...

The National Front and French Politics: The Resistible Rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
July 1, 1996... The French National Front (FN) is rapidly approaching its 25th birthday in 1997, while it is also 13 years since the party first began to make an impact in French politics and society. Undoubtedly, it has now become an established part of the...

Le Front National en Region Centre: 1984-1992.
July 1, 1996... The French National Front (FN) is rapidly approaching its 25th birthday in 1997, while it is also 13 years since the party first began to make an impact in French politics and society. Undoubtedly, it has now become an established part of the...

Histoire de l'Extreme Droite en France.
July 1, 1996... The French National Front (FN) is rapidly approaching its 25th birthday in 1997, while it is also 13 years since the party first began to make an impact in French politics and society. Undoubtedly, it has now become an established part of the...

Referendums Around the World: The Growing Use of Direct Democracy.
July 1, 1996... This volume is the sequel to a first book which has for years been the reference point for all comparative work on referendums and a stimulus for new studies, as well as a more diffuse interest in the subject (Referendums. A Comparative Study of...

Migration and the New Europe.
July 1, 1996... The publisher of this volume, the CSIS, is a public policy research institute based in Washington DC. Its mission is 'to advance the understanding of emerging world issues in the areas of international economics, politics, security and business....

Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective.
July 1, 1996... Undoubtedly an invaluable contribution to the study of immigration policy and politics, this volume is a comparative and systematic study of immigration policy and policy outcomes in nine industrialised democracies: the USA, Canada, Great...

Value Change in Global Perspective.
July 1, 1996... In their latest collaborative effort, Abramson and Inglehart review and update the evidence for the post-materialism thesis in the advanced western democracies of Europe and North America, as well as test its applicability in much of the rest of...

States and Anti-Nuclear Movements.
July 1, 1996... States and Anti-Nuclear Movements reports on an ambitious attempt to assess the interactions between anti-nuclear movements and pro-nuclear states in Europe and to demonstrate how these interactions contribute to the mobilisation and...

Constitutional Policy and Change in Europe.
July 1, 1996... Constitutional Policy and Change in Europe contains a series of conference papers whose purpose is to compare the process of constitutional adaptation in Western Europe with the transformation in the new democracies of central and eastern Europe....

Inheritance in Public Policy.
July 1, 1996... Those who expect little by way of substantive policy changes after the election of a Blair government will expect even less after reading Inheritance in Public Policy. In this convincingly argued text, Richard Rose, in conjunction with Philip L....

Health Care Reforms Through Internal Markets.
July 1, 1996... Heath-care reform is affecting many countries. A key theme in the developed world is the use of competition as an instrument of reform. This book, which is based on a conference organised in 1994 by the Canadian Institute for Research on Public...

Negotiating for Entry: The Accession of Greece to the European Community.
July 1, 1996... Two decades ago, in a European Community which had barely digested its first enlargement, the Greek application for entry aroused mixed feelings. Support for a new democracy occupying a sensitive position on NATO's south-eastern flank was...

Industrial Enterprise and European Integration: From National to International Champions in Western Europe.
July 1, 1996... In his introduction to this eminently useful little book Jack Hayward concedes that few concepts in the literature of comparative political economy have been as susceptible as industrial policy to the vagaries of fashion. He might have added...

Governing Capitalist Economies: Performance and Control of Economic Sectors.
July 1, 1996... Governing Capitalist Economies constitutes the culmination of a serious comparative research project. If it is at times rather self-consciously serious, it is no less useful for that. The book is refreshingly free of unevenness in quality that...

Social Capitalism: A Study of Christian Democracy and the Welfare State.
July 1, 1996... This is a welcome analysis of a neglected area of comparative politics. Christian democracy has been one been one of the most successful political phenomena since 1945, yet relatively little is available in English. Among the important studies...

The Anthropology of Europe: Identities and Boundaries in Conflict.
July 1, 1996... The academic discipline of anthropology is almost synonymous with the particular research methodology of ethnography. So anthropologists have tended to be - by definition - students of the small-scale social unit who use forms of participation...

Chasing Progress in the Irish Republic, Ideology, Democracy and Dependent Development.
July 1, 1996... Jacobsen's book is a welcome addition to a growing corpus of work which attempts to place the analysis of the development of the Irish economy and society into a comparative and theoretical perspective. Although based on a PhD thesis which was...

Le passe d'illusion: essai sur l'idee communiste au XXe siecle.
July 1, 1996... How should this book be read? If it is about the past of an illusion, then whose illusion was it? If its subject it the communist idea in the twentieth century why does the account effectively end with the events of 1956? Francois Furet is...

Italy and East Central Europe: Dimensions of the Regional Relationship.
July 1, 1996... This work dwells on peripheral subjects, and ignores some central points. The editor's contribution, 'The Legacy of History', recounts with doubtful relevance, occasional contacts between Italy and East-Central Europe (ECE) beginning in the...