Working Papers
Academic Year 2002-2003
European Integration and National Social Citizenship:
Changing Boundaries, New Structuring? (134kb
.pdf file)
Maurizio Ferrera, Professor, Department of Political and Social Studies,
University of Pavia, Italy
June 1, 2003
With the creation of EMU, European Welfare States have entered
a new phase of development. The margins for manoeuvring public budgets
have substantially decreased, while the unfolding of the four freedoms
of movement within the EU have seriously weakened the traditional coercive
monopoly of the state on actors and resources that are crucial for
the stability of redistributive institutions. The article explores
these issues adopting a Rokkanian perspective, i.e. building on Rokkan’s
pioneering insights on the nexus between boundary building and internal
structuring.
The first part of the paper briefly presents the theoretical
perspective. The second part sketches the development of national welfare
institutions
from their origin up to the early 1970s, discussing their implications
in terms of boundary building and internal structuring. The third
part describes the challenges that have emerged in the last couple
of decades to the “social sovereignty” of the nation
state: challenges that are largely linked to the process of European
integration, but that are partly reinforced by endogenous developments
as well. The final part offers some more speculative remarks of the
potential de-structuring of the traditional architecture of social
protection, with some hints at cross-national variations and possible
developments at the EU level.
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Institutions
for Fiscal Stability (Prepared for the Munich Economic Summit, 2-3
May 2003) (333kb .pdf file)
Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor
of Economics and Political Science; Director, Institute of European Studies,
University of California, Berkeley
May 3, 2003
This paper reviews the controversy over Europe’s Stability and Growth Pact
and offers a proposal for its reform. It argues that Europe would be best served
by focusing on the fundamental problems for fiscal policy — public enterprises
that are too big to fail, unfunded public pension schemes that are too big to
ignore, inefficient and costly labor market and social welfare problems, and
budget making institutions that create common pool and free-rider problems — rather
than on arbitrary numerical indicators like whether the budget deficit is above
or below 3 per cent of GDP. It proposes defining an index of institutional reform
with, say, a point for pension reform, a point for labor market reform, and a
point for revenue sharing reform. Countries receiving three points would be exempt
from the Pact’s numerical guidelines, since there is no reason to think
that they will be prone to chronic deficits. The others, whose weak institutions
render them susceptible to chronic deficits, would in contrast still be subject
to its warnings, sanctions and fines.
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Whither
Europe? (210kb .pdf file)
Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N.
Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science; Director, Institute
of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley
May 2003
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Fundamentalist
Terrorism -- The Assault on the Symbols of Secular Power (48kb
.pdf file)
Jost Halfmann, Professor of Sociology, Institute
of Sociology, University of Dresden. Visiting Professor, Dept. of
International and Area Studies, UC Berkeley
April 17, 2003
Jost Halfmann argues that fundamentalist terrorism is an extreme expression of
protest against the separation of state and religion; this form of protest is
motivated by a utopian vision of society as a community of the faithful. The
protest against secular states arises in states with forced modernization politics
(such as Iran or Egypt), but also in states which base national identity on religion
(such as Israel) and in states with high popular religiosity (such as the US).
The terrorist form of protest exhibits an extreme form of self-ascribed marginality.
Terrorism seems to be the only expression of protest when the enemy is considered
overwhelmingly powerful, the struggle must, however, not be lost. Fundamentalist
terrorists view themselves as being engaged in a cosmic war enforced on them
by the enemy. Terrorist assaults are, therefore, symbolic acts of violence against
symbols of the enemy's power to demonstrate emporarily the enemy's weakness.
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The
Euro-Med Partnership and Sub Regionalism: A Case of Region Building? (325kb
.pdf file)
Stephen C. Calleya, Deputy Director and Senior Lecturer
of International Relations at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic
Studies, University of Malta
February 4, 2003
In emphasising the significance of international regions as an intermediate level
of analysis between the nation-state and the global international system, this
research paper seeks to assist in identifying the changes taking place in Euro-Mediterranean
international relations at the start of the twenty-first century and the potential
for future cooperation in the Mediterranean basin. Are the obstacles blocking
regionalism across the Mediterranean insurmountable? What can be done to trigger
sub regional cooperation? What time-frames should be adopted to carry out the
necessary political changes to cope with regional demands? Should there be a
more concerted effort to institutionalise regional relations? This is probably
an essential measure if regional working programmes are to be implemented in
the foreseeable future. Since the end of the Cold War, regionalism has been carried
forward by the most powerful states as a means of promoting their own interests.
Governments have recognised that regionalism is an effective political tool that
can assist in the management of domestic and external pressures.
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Why
Has There Been Less Financial Integration
in Asia Than in Europe? (318kb
.pdf
file)
Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor
of Economics and Political Science; Director, Institute of European Studies,
University of California, Berkeley; and
Yung Chul Park, Korea
University
January 2003
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Tax
Reforms and "Modell Deutschland": Lessons from Four Years of Red-Green
Tax-Policy (345kb .pdf file)
Achim Truger and
Wade Jacoby
December 9, 2002
When the red-green (SPD-Bündnis90/DieGrünen) coalition took over the
federal government from the Christian-Democrat/Free-Democrat (CDU/CSU/FDP) coalition
in 1998, tax reforms had a very high political priority. And, in fact, the government
pushed through an astonishing number of far-reaching tax reforms/tax changes
within a period of little more than two years. This paper follows two aims. First,
it gives a short description of the measures taken and evaluates them with respect
to tax theory and the German tax reform debate of the 1990s. Second, it explicitly
addresses the question whether the tax changes were influenced by the wish to
reform the Modell Deutschland, i.e. whether something substantial was done to
change Germany´s status as a perceived high tax country and if so, whether
the attempt was successful. It will be shown that even though the problem of
high taxes might have been many observers´ and, indeed, also the government´s
dominant concern, there was much more to the German debate. The chapter will
also ask whether generously cutting taxes was the right thing to do. It demonstrates
that under Germany´s peculiar economic and institutional circumstances
at the end of the 1990s, the attempt to cut taxes led to serious problems for
fiscal policy, growth, and employment.
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Back
to
the Nest? Europe’s Relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group
of Countries (358kb .pdf file)
John Ravenhill, Chair of Politics, University of Edinburgh
December 1, 2002
Europe’s association with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries
was the first of its interregional relationships. In the nearly half century
since the signature of the Treaty of Rome, it developed into Europe’s most
institutionalized and multidimensional interregional relationship. It embraces
not only trade and investment issues but also a development “partnership” that
includes what has traditionally been the EU’s largest single aid program,
a joint parliamentary assembly, meetings of organizations representing civil
society, and a dialogue on human rights. This chapter examines the factors that
have shaped this relationship over the last four decades. The principal focus
is on the trade regime, not just for consistency with the other contributions
to this volume but also because it is in its trade dimension that the relationship
has changed most dramatically over time.
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The
Development of Europe’s Linkages
with East Asia: Hybrid Trans-Regionalism? (354kb .pdf file)
Julie Gilson, Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University
of Birmingham Deputy Director of Asian Studies, University of Birmingham
December 1, 2002
This chapter argues that the EU-Asia trans-regional relationship is still very
hard to measure but that there is developing both a notion of economic Asia,
a desire to collectivise responses in the face of differentiated resource allocation
and a growing dominance of the form of regionalism demonstrated by the EU.
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Lessons
of the Euro for the Rest of the
World (221kb .pdf file)
Barry Eichengreen, George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor
of Economics and Political Science; Director, Institute of European Studies,
University of California, Berkeley
December 1, 2002
Europe’s single currency is widely invoked as a potential solution to the
monetary and exchange rate problems of other regions, including Asia, Latin America,
North America and even Africa. This lecture asks whether the Europe’s experience
in creating the euro is exportable. It argues that the single currency is the
result of a larger integrationist project that has political as well as economic
dimensions. The appetite for political integration being less in other parts
of the world, the euro will not be easily emulated. Other regions will have to
find different means of addressing the tension between domestic monetary autonomy
and regional integration. Harmonized inflation targeting may be the best available
solution.
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The
Worried Friend, or: Hegemony vs. Globalization (164kb .pdf file)
Claus Leggewie, Professor of Political Science,
Giessen University
November 8, 2002
How real is American hegemony, given that only a few years ago talk about the
decline of American power dominated discussion? How do allied states deal with
a superpower that is no longer so benign? Does the United States still provide
security for Western Europe and the rest of the world at all? And is a transnational
world in need of Pax Americana, or what should, from a European and transatlantic
perspective, take its place?
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The
European Union’s
Trade Policy towards
MERCOSUR (241kb .pdf file)
Jörg Faust, Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Johannes
Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
November 2, 2002
Interregional relations between the European Union and MERCOSUR reflect a general
trend of governments and firms to institutionalise their relations not only within
but also across regions. As the global liberalization process within the WTO
has been stagnating in recent years, transregional strategies have become attractive
as next-best strategies. Against this background, the following analysis focuses
on the institutional development of EU-MERCOSUR relations and the driving forces
behind this development from a European perspective. This, because shedding some
light on the political economy of relations between two of the most ambitious
integration mechanisms of the 1990s should deepen our understanding of the forces
shaping the growing importance of transregional and interregional trade relations.
Rather than trying to explain the course of EU-MERCOSUR relations by one dominant
hypothesis, I make an appeal for a multi-causal framework, highlighting three
aspects of particular importance from a bottom up perspective. Firstly, one can
observe that the interplay of economic interest groups has strongly influenced
the course of interregional institutionalisation between the EU and MERCOSUR.
) Secondly, political actors have not acted as mere agents of private interest
but also have followed their own political agendas. Thirdly, the European Union’s
interregional trade strategy towards MERCOSUR has not been independent of the
international context.
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What
Ever Happened to Portuguese Euroscepticism? The Depolicitization of Europe and
its Consequences (376kb .pdf file)
Pedro C. Magalhães, Instituto de Ciências
Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa
November 2, 2002
In the following sections, I will argue that although opinions about Portuguese
membership in the EU have ceased to play a crucial role both in party appeals
and electoral behavior, that is not the case in what concerns their impact on
other forms of political behavior and attitudes. More specifically, I will suggest
that the decline in electoral turnout currently experienced in Portugal, particularly
since 1995, cannot be fully understood with exploring the combination between
resilient Euroscepticism among a minority of the population and the depoliticization
of Europe at the level of political élites. Furthermore, I will also suggest
that, under the present conditions, anti-Europeanism may have developed into
a more permanent and disturbing set of political attitudes of mistrust in, and
disengagement from, domestic political institutions.
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Where
is Portuguese Agriculture Headed? An Analysis of the Common Agricultural Policy (290kb
.pdf file)
Dulce Freire, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Centro
de Estudos de Etnologia Portuguesa
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas; and
Shawn Parkhurst,
University of Louisville, Humanities Division
November 2, 2002
In the first part of this paper we analyze the conditions in of a shifting emphasis
from the politics of prices to a social-structural policy. We also ask how well
the CAP has adjusted to the ecological and social characteristics of the countries
of southern Europe and whether it has actually supported the agriculture and
rural citizens of these countries. In the second part of the paper, we present
some of the results of the application of the CAP in Portugal, and discuss what
role agriculture might have in developing the rural sections of the country.
Broadly, our goal is to determine to what extent attempts to shift the CAP’s
focus from agriculture to the rural world and from productivity to quality can
benefit Portugal and the other countries of southern Europe. Different countries
and interest groups received the intercalary revision with a varying mixture
of fear, caution and hope, and have opened a serious debate. Our paper is a contribution
to this debate.
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The
Uneasy
Triangle (212kb
.pdf file)
Lloyd Ulman, Professor of Economics and Industrial Relations,
Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; and
Knut Gerlach,
Professor of Labor Economics, Institute of Quantitative Economic Research, Faculty
of Economics, University of Hannover
November 1, 2002
"…It is impossible for any community to have very full employment
and completely free collective bargaining and stable prices. Either one of the
three will be completely sacrificed, or else all three will have to be modified.
"…In the last resort the answer will be given not by economists or
by administrators but by the public opinion. At each corner of the triangle,
the limiting factor is what public opinion will stand, and the degree of comprehension
that public opinion will show for an economic policy that tries to preserve balance
between competing objectives."
--
The Economist, August-October, 1952: 376, 435
Can Germany in the 1990s provide a contemporary example of the “uneasy
triangle” posited by The Economist in the early 1950s? As the millennium
approached, Germany’s inflation rate was very low; its unemployment rate
unacceptably high; and its system of collective bargaining arguably the strongest
to be found in any major industrial country. Public opinion appears to have played
a more limiting role in the first of these corners of Germany’s triangles
than in the other two.
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The
European Union and North America (303kb
.pdf file)
Edward A. Fogarty, Department of Political Science, University
of California, Berkeley
October 19, 2002
This paper assesses the past, present, and future of transatlantic commercial
relations in terms of EU trade strategies. After surveying the medium-term trajectories
of the relationships with the United States, Mexico, and Canada -- both separately
and as a group -- it will consider several possible sources of European Union
trade preferences vis-à-vis NAFTA, including interest groups’ incentives
to seek to capture national and European governing institutions, the balance
between the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, European leaders’ desire
to balance against overweening American power, and possible attempts to construct
either a common Western identity or, alternatively, a European identity in contradistinction
what the United States seems to represent. The hope is that these different approaches
provide a contrasting set of interpretations whose comparison side-by-side allows
new insights into the dynamics governing EU-North American trade relations.
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