Revisiting Shapiro: Welfare Magnets and State Residency Requirements in the 1990s

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity ReconciliationAct of 1996 (PRWORA) generated renewed interest in welfare racesto the bottom as states received greater discretion over eligibilitystandards for new residents. Despite U.S. Supreme Court decisionsfinding welfare-residency requirements unconstitutional andmounting empirical evidence that welfare benefits do not attractpoor migrants, state policymakers have enacted welfare-reformplans that treat newcomers differently as authorized in PRWORA.This article reviews the existing research on welfare migration,current state-residency requirements, and central constitutionalissues surrounding such requirements. With the likelihood thatcourts will have the final word on the current round of statewelfare-residency requirements, it is essential that empiricalresearch on welfare magnets examine the issues central to thecases currently moving through the judicial system.     

The Structuring of Political Cleavages in Post-Communist Societies: the Case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Although sharing institutions for over seventy years, and transition pathways from communism, the two successor states of the former Czechoslovakia have faced distinct challenges in state-building and divergent economic fortunes. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which these differing social economic problems have influenced the ideological bases of party politics and mass electoral behaviour in the two societies. Using data from national samples of the population of each country conducted in the spring of 1994, our analysis points to the existence of distinct issue cleavages dominating party competition in the two states: in the Czech Republic, partisanship relates mainly to issues of distribution and attitudes towards the West; in Slovakia, by contrast, these issues are only secondarily important in shaping voters' choice of party, while the main focus concerns the ethnic rights of Hungarians. The distinctive nature of the issue bases to politics in the two countries suggests one reason for the greater degree of political conflict evident in Slovak politics since the split and, more generally, provides evidence of the role of social conditions in shaping new political systems.     

Reading the Ongoing Changes: European Identity

Europeans constituted their post‐Second World War political identities in terms shaped by the Cold War but matters took an unexpected turn when the events of 1989/91 required acknowledgement of the hitherto largely unremarked existence of the project of the European Union. The question of the identity of Europe/Europeans moved into mainstream debate: how can the variety of 'national pasts' be reconciled, how might ideas of Europe/Europeans fit within the range of identities affirmed by Europeans, and can the project present a clear image within the international community? The European Union is the only game in town for Europeans but it is also deficient; reform is made more difficult by the struggle to define the post bloc world: reform for what becomes the issue ‐ upgraded US ally, loose free trade area or federal polity? These are awkward questions but the continent is recovering from the catastrophe of its twentieth century and one can feel optimistic for the future.     

Informelle transgouvernementale Koordinationsnetzwerke der Ministerialbürokratie der EU-Mitgliedstaaten bei einer Regierungskonferenz

We investigate the informal bilateral transgovernmental relations between equivalent ministries of EU member states during the preparation of the Intergovernmental Conference 1996. Starting point of this analysis is the hypothesis of a growing importance of transnational and transgovernmental relations as a cause and a result of European integration. Whereas these proclaimed tendencies have been extensively researched with regard to economic interdependencies and transnational relations of societal actors, networks of the administrative and bureaucratic elites have been rather neglected. Applying diverse concepts of network analysis, we identify the hitherto latent informal network structures of the governments. The overall configuration can be described as a mixture of a centre-periphery structure and cohesive blocks. The gradual center-periphery structure consists of a “triumvirate” of the powerful member states (Germany — France — Great Britain) and smaller states, and is characterized by a clear north-south dimension. The costs of informal coordination are mainly borne by the large member states as well as by “brokers” (Austria, BeNeLux, Finland, Sweden).