The immigrant presence in collaborative structures of urban politics

Participation and representation of disadvantaged groups are important, but partly still understudied aspects of democratic politics. The present article looks at the inclusion of migrant representatives in urban governance networks making use of original survey data from 40 large cities in France and Germany. We find that about half of policy-relevant urban actors in both countries and across cities cooperate with migrant associations regularly. This indicates that urban governance networks are furthering the civic and political presence of migrants. Cooperation with migrant associations is more likely when specific representative local institutions (foreigner/integration councils) exist, and is also boosted by the overall density of governance networks in a city. Politicians and local administrators remain central actors in such networks, while social welfare organizations emerge as important interlocutors with migrant associations. The article identifies and discusses differences between the two countries.     

The politics of mortgage credit expansion in the small coordinated market economies

Abstract

Recent contributions to the comparative political economy literature claim that liberal market economies are vulnerable to asset booms and busts because of financial deregulation, shrinking welfare states and a political ideology emphasising financial self-sufficiency. This article examines the rapid expansion of mortgage lending in three coordinated market economies (CMEs): Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. This expansion is puzzling given that all three countries are CMEs with generous welfare states. Yet the pattern of mortgage lending resembles the Anglo-Saxon or liberal market economies (LMEs) more than other CMEs. The article argues that mortgage bubbles in the small CMEs emerged as the unintended outcome of pairing neoliberal programmes to expand home ownership with collectivist housing institutions. This resulted in supply restrictions and rising property values which saddled households with extraordinarily high mortgage debts. In short, mortgage credit bubbles are not unique to Anglo-liberal welfare states and may have different origins.     

Change and Stasis: The Institutionalisation of Developing Country Mitigation in the International Climate Regime

Diplomacy is an institution that has undergone tremendous change over the last century—not least in relation to the new, supranational institutions of the European Community/European Union. Nonetheless, it is only very recently that political scientists and historians have taken an interest in the changes brought about by European integration processes for diplomatic norms, roles, and practices. This article investigates the background for this late and limited interest. It does so by comparing and contrasting dominant theoretical trends that have shaped research on European diplomacy in the two disciplines since the Second World War. Against this background it briefly evaluates the recent surge in research on diplomacy and the European Union within political science, and it points to possible avenues for further, joint, research combining the transnational and sociological approaches adopted by political scientists with the attention to temporality and national specificities characteristic of historians' dealings with European diplomacy.     

The public spheres of unprotected workers

This article examines emergent forms of political subjectivity amongst subordinate social forces, focusing on how ‘unprotected’ workers in household relations of production can become political subjects antagonistic to world order. For unprotected workers the very lack of institutional protection makes articulating political demands risky. At the same time, the need to conceptualise the manner in which the workers in the households and in proximate forms of social relations of production become political subjects is increasingly urgent. The article begins by articulating a conception of the public sphere relevant to the forms of political subjectivity examined. The argument then proceeds to situate the family in the global political economy. Next, the article examines the circulation of women between the household and proximate forms of social relations of production. It is in this circulation that unprotected workers produce potential and emergent counter-public spheres needed for the forms of political subjectivity that challenge the dominant forces in world order.