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The Swiss Labyrinth
This volume focuses upon the political and social outcomes of Switzerland's peculiar set of political institutions, for example decentralized federalism, active referendum democracy, and La formule magique (grand coalition)in the 1990s.
Constructing Europe's Identity
The authors assess not only the benefits, but also the costs of attempts to assert a European identity. Referring to debates about the respective merits of deepening and widening, they address the equally important associated tradeoffs between exclusion and dilution: they point to the risks on the one hand of a Europe that excludes foreign goods, immigrants and entire countries, and on the other of an unfocused definition of Europe that may dilute the very values that a "European identity" is intended to protect.
The European Social Model under Pressure
The European Social Model is at a crossroad. Although from the 1990s onwards, the threat of an imminent crisis shaped much of the rhetoric surrounding the future of the welfare state, disagreement within the academic community remains. What is however increasingly clear is that with the global financial crisis and the Euro crisis that followed it, the challenges the European Social Model faces have become more acute and demand action. This volume launches a multifaceted inquiry into these challenges. Each contribution, written by renowned scholars in their fields, represents an in-depth exploration of issues that cut to the core of current political, economic and social processes. They are an invitation to the seasoned scholars as well as to the beginning students of social sciences, public administration or journalism to engage with, by now, a large body of scholarship, to accompany the authors in their endeavours to seek an explanation to burning questions and start their own inquiries.
Switzerland’s Differentiated European Integration
This book analyses Switzerland’s European policies using the concept of differentiated European integration, providing a new and original perspective on the country. This analytical approach focuses on the similarities between Switzerland's EU policies and the integration of EU member states. The latter have often been the focus of research as Switzerland is the last Western European country not to have become a member of the European Union (EU) or the European Economic Area (EEA). The book claims that Switzerland’s position on the European integration map is different in terms of degree from many EU member states, but not different in kind. The cornerstone of the book is new empirical data quantitatively measuring Switzerland’s differentiated integration during the period 1990 – 2010. The data rely on the sectoral agreements Switzerland concluded with the EU and the voluntary incorporation of EU law into domestic legislation. The book shows, among other findings, that over time Swiss European policies have begun to resemble integration policies and that the more they did so, the more dynamically they evolved.
Achieving Democracy
Democracy is the ability to participate freely and equally in the political and economic affairs of the country. Americans have relied on philosophical pragmatism and on the impulse of political progressivism to express those creedal democratic values. Achieving Democracy argues that, in the last 30 years, however, by focusing on free markets and small government, America has since lost its grasp on these crucial democratic values. Economically, the vast majority of Americans have been made worse off due to a historically unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the top one percent. Politically, partisan gridlock has hampered efforts to seek fairer taxes, r...
Opposition Parties in European Legislatures
Democratic theory considers it fundamental for parties in government to be both responsive to their electorate and responsible to internal and international constraints. But recently these two roles have become more and more incompatible with Mair’s growing divide in European party systems between parties which claim to represent, but don’t deliver, and those which deliver, but are no longer seen to represent truer than ever. This book contains a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the behaviour of the opposition parties in eleven European democracies across Western and East Central Europe. Specifically, it investigates the parliamentary behaviour of the opposition parties, and show...
Modern Switzerland
Part of a series offers material on the societies of various countries. This volume covers Switzerland, and is designed to be used alongside an introductory sociology text or as supplementary material in courses on comparative societies, politics or economics, or social stratification.
Value Change in Switzerland
This book offers a uniquely detailed study of how citizens of a small open economy are affected in their value orientations over a twenty year period. Its contributions offer new ideas on how value change and its consequences may be studied on the basis of the wealth of information provided by the World Values Survey.
