Between Detachment and Responsiveness: Civil Servants in Europe and North America

The article shows that civil servants who believe that the long-term interest of society is best served by their detached policy advice to policy-makers also hold on to their opinion more than any other actor involved in policy development. However, more civil servants currently emphasise responsiveness, at the expense of detached analysis, owing to increased exposure to international consultancy and forums. As a consequence, the attitude of civil servants in developing public policy is more likely to be indistinguishable from that of actors who have political functions, without significant variation from country to country. Evidence supporting this argument is provided by an analysis of the results of a survey first conducted in 2006 and repeated in 2008. The two waves of the survey drew responses from civil servants, interest group representatives and non-governmental experts who contribute to biotechnology policy development in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and the European Union.     

Europe and America: A reassessment

European‐American relations have undergone numerous changes since the 1960s. At the outset of the period there was relative harmony and the prevailing idea of an inclusive relationship. Increasing American concern with her own interests subsequently changed the pattern, and relations were affected by a low American assessment of the role and significance of the European Community. Although the relationship has become more complex, it has benefited from the positive and patient attitude adopted towards Europe by the United States. However, Europe seems to have become more uncertain, less able to take important initiatives, less sure of its objectives.     

State and society in Western Europe: A model for comparative analysis

This article represents an attempt to analyse the complex historical processes of political change in Western Europe in the context of an explicit frame of enquiry. It is concerned to establish not only that the past illuminates the present but also that conceptual rigour and the purposive use of analysis provided by a framework of general ideas is as much relevant to making sense of the past as of the present. The model is a deliberate simplification and, of course, open to refinement. Its virtue is parsimony; its purpose, to enable indentification of the predominant type of political organisation in a concrete political situation.     

Managing Europe from home in Dublin,Athens and Helsinki: A comparative analysis

The article provides a comparative analysis of core executive adaptation to engagement with the European Union in three states: Ireland, Greece and Finland. To date, the substantive focus of the literature on executive adaptation has been on the question of convergence or continuing divergence of national responses. The dominant conclusion points to the continuing divergence of national responses. The analytical framework that guided the empirical work in this paper was divided into two inter-related institutional components: structures and processes, and the agents who actively engage with the EU's governance structures. The comparative analysis provides evidence of both convergence and continuing diversity. In managing Europe from home, states appear to choose from a menu of possible models, prime ministerial-led or foreign ministry-led systems. Two variables stand out in explaining variation across the three states, the level of institutionalisation and the relationship between formal and informal processes.     

Economic hardship and social capital in Europe: A comparative analysis of 27 democracies

This article evaluates whether economic hardship affects social capital in Europe. Comparing 27 European countries, it evaluates the impact of personal experiences of economic hardship on engagement in voluntary associations as a cornerstone of civic and democratic life. Empirical analyses of the Eurobarometer data indicate that individual economic hardship has indeed a negative effect on associational volunteering in Europe. However, the result is qualified in two respects. First, it is found that the effect of individual economic hardship is contingent upon education. Second, this effect mostly refers to volunteering for associations providing solidarity goods (Putnam groups). These results have broader implications for understanding how economic hardship shapes the social capital within democratic societies.     

Populism in election times: a comparative analysis of 11 countries in Western Europe

Abstract

The article comparatively examines the levels of populism exhibited by parties in Western Europe. It relies on a quantitative content analysis of press releases collected in the context of 11 national elections between 2012 and 2015. In line with the first hypothesis, the results show that parties from both the radical right and the radical left make use of populist appeals more frequently than mainstream parties. With regard to populism on cultural issues, the article establishes that the radical right outclasses the remaining parties, thereby supporting the second hypothesis. On economic issues, both types of radical parties are shown to be particularly populist. This pattern counters the third hypothesis, which suggests that economic populism is most prevalent among the radical left. Finally, there is no evidence for the fourth hypothesis, given that parties from the south do not resort to more populism on economic issues than those from the north.     

Gender and the radical right in Western Europe: a comparative analysis of policy agendas

ABSTRACT

Systematic research comparing the views of populist radical-right parties with respect to gender issues is still scarce. Akkerman’s article aims to fill this gap by comparing the positions of the six most successful populist radical-right parties in Western Europe. Her focus is on gender issues in the policy domain of family relations, on the one hand, and in that of immigration and integration, on the other. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses of external and internal party documents has been used to assess the positions of the main populist radical-right parties with regard to these two policy domains. Akkerman's analysis shows that, in the domain of family relations, the parties are traditionally conservative or adopt a more flexible modern conservative position. Compared to mainstream right-wing parties, which are consistently more liberal than their radical-right counterparts, conservatism on issues relating to the family sets the radical parties clearly apart. Yet, as this particular profile tends to become less salient over time, it is doubtful that gender issues in this traditional policy domain will continue to be a defining characteristic of these parties. Gender issues have gained importance for populist radical-right parties in the domain of immigration and integration policies but, in this context, the parties do not display a conservative profile. They tend to emphasize the principles of gender equality and sometimes also gay rights, although these commitments are mainly rhetorical and instrumental to anti-immigration and anti-Islam agendas. Conservative views of gender remain the defining, albeit less salient, characteristic of these parties.     

Religion and National Identity in America and Europe

America and Europe have had very different religious experiences, and these differences have continuing consequences. In America, the preponderance of Reform Protestantism gave rise to religious and political pluralism, a religious marketplace, and the continuing vitality of the churches. In Europe, the dominance of state churches gave rise to the eventual rejection of these churches and religions when the traditional political and social authorities were rejected, particularly by the Generation of 1968. However, Europe’s extreme secularization has rendered it confused and ineffective in dealing with the new religious challenge posed by Muslim immigrant communities.

Regulating digital broadcasting in Europe: The limits of policy convergence

In 1996–67 France, Germany and Britain overhauled their broadcasting legislation, at least in part in response to the impact of digital technology. The fact that these countries felt it necessary to reform their broadcasting systems at the same time, that they were all facing the common challenge of digital broadcasting, and that they had all recently liberalised their telecommunications industries in the face of technological change and EU policy leadership, led to the expectation that their broadcasting policies might also converge in a similar direction; an expectation supported by much of the literature on policy convergence. This article examines the broadcasting reforms that were undertaken and finds that there was very little evidence of policy convergence and attributes this largely to the strong, national institutional structures and intense politicisation that characterise the broadcasting sector.     

Frontiers of social policy in Europe and America

The cumulative growth of social programs and public income distribution is leading to a grave need for policy harmonization, i.e., efforts to take into account interdependencies across formerly distinct areas of public and private activity. This need is particularly severe with regard to income support programs, labor market relations and taxation systems. While any fundamental backlash against the welfare state is unlikely, so too is any comprehensive solution through negative income taxation or other abstract forms of economic planning. Prospects for coping with problems of policy harmonization differ among nations, but all countries face the challenge of building consensus around noneconomic values lying at the heart of social policy. Without this cushion of legitimacy, increased policy complexity and higher public expectations threaten to overwhelm democratic political systems.     

Regulating the computer: comparing policy instruments in Europe and the United States

Abstract. The introduction of information technology to governmental agencies has raised considerable concern for the erosion of personal privacy in most advanced democratic states. This article compares and tries to explain the choice of policy instrument in four key countries (Sweden, the United States, West Germany and the United Kingdom) to enforce the protection of personal data. Five options were available from the 'international repertoire' of solutions: voluntary control, subject control, licensing, a data commissioner and registration. The Swedes opted for licensing, the Americans rely on subject control, the Germans established a data commissioner and the British chose a registration scheme. In no state, however, were these decisions made from a synoptic analysis of all possible options. Nor did a process of policy diffusion occur. Rather, a combination of domestic constraints seemed to filter out unacceptable options and produce a bias in favour of the resulting policy instrument. In the United States and Sweden, this bias resulted from perceived constitutional imperatives; in West Germany and Britain, the position and power of the respective national bureaucracies produced stiff resistance, a conflictual policy process and resulting policy instruments with few, if any, precedents in their respective systems.     

Corporate political action in China and America: a comparative perspective

• Corporate political action (CPA) is always an interesting topic for management scholars since 1980s. There are a large plenty of literatures from different disciplines focus on this topic. But till now, studies on this topic are almost conducted under the Western culture and taking the Western countries as objective, very few studies are conducted in non‐Western countries, and specifically, the CPA in China is nearly untouched. Due to the differences of culture and political economy between China and the West, CPA in China may be very different from the West's. This article discusses the similarities and differences of CPA in China and America. The result shows that due to the differences in culture and political economical system between China and America, CPA in China is very different from America. This study will help to understand the CPA in China for outsiders, especially for Americans. It also helps multinational enterprises (MNEs) in China to take suitable political actions to support their interests.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modeling unemployment volatility in America,Europe and Asia

Many government policies are being implemented to stabilize the economy. One of the policies necessary to achieve stabilization is full employment. However, the growth rate of unemployment in many countries is evident and seems more volatile in recent years. To counterattack the unemployment problem, the volatility of the growth rate of unemployment has to be known in order to launch appropriate policies correctly. Therefore, conditional volatility models are employed to estimate the volatility with symmetric and asymmetric effects. The monthly data on unemployment is downloaded to calculate the rate of change. The consistency and asymptotic normality of the QMLE are guaranteed by the moment conditions. The GARCH model shows that a shock to the growth rate of unemployment in most cases has long-run persistence, but relatively less for short-run persistence. The G JR model reports the asymmetric effects in 10 of 25 countries. The EGARCH model illustrates asymmetric effects in 12 of 25 countries, while 3 of them show leverage. VaR forecasts and counts of number of violations suggest that the univariate conditional models are practicable in most countries, and the G JR model seems to be preferable in cases with a large difference in the number of violations.     

Foreign trade and investment in Guangxi: A comparative analysis

Guangxi’s geographical location in the Southwest region of mainland China has resulted in its delay of economic modernization until 1992, compared to those coastal provinces in the southeast. In order to stimulate its economic development, Guangxi has to enhance its foreign trade, including border trade, with neighboring countries and to introduce and utilize foreign direct investment from abroad for its infrastructures and manufactures. In analyzing the case of Guangxi, this paper tries to make a comparison between Guangxi on the one hand and Guangdong and Yunnan on the other, and then to find the different patterns in the process of their economic development in terms of their structures of foreign trade and foreign direct investment. This paper also addresses the issue of central-local relations by explaining the disruption of a planned economy in mainland China and the decline of central government in regulating local economic activities. She received her MA degree from The City University of New York. Her major research interest is in provincial and regional economic development in mainland China. Currently she is working on a project of state-owned enterprises in mainland China. Her recent publications include “The Pattern of Guangdong’s Foreign Trade: An Analysis,” Mainland China Studies, Vol.41, no.2 (February 1998) and “Regional Economic Integration and Yunnan’s Foreign Trade,” Mainland China Studies, Vol.41, no. 5 (May 1998).