In the run up to the 2014 European Parliament elections, the new Spitzenkandidaten process and European-wide party campaigns fueled expectations of strengthening democratic processes in Europe. At the same time, the anticipated surge of support for anti-establishment and Eurosceptic parties...

Many political scientists and economists have addressed the implications of the public sector’s sheltered status on their unions’ wage strategies vis-à-vis the government. Since the public sector is a monopoly provider of necessary and price inelastic services, conventional wisdom suggests...

This paper examines the regional growth process of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe since the start of their transition to market economies. It relates this to three distinctive explanations of regional growth and examines empirically their relevance in explaining the patterns of...

Choice and competition policies in public services are popular reform strategies in the member states of the European Union (EU). The European choice agenda is based on the view in the EU of ‘social policy as a productive factor’ and the need for ‘modernisation’ of the EU welfare states....

Since the early 1990s the European Union has struggled to increase integration in the sovereignty sensitive areas of justice and home affairs and foreign policy. The aim of this paper is to enhance our understanding of what patterns of cooperation have been established between the member states,...

The European Monetary Union (EMU) has removed crucial instruments of macroeconomic management from the control of democratically accountable governments. Worse yet, it has been the systemic cause of destabilizing macroeconomic imbalances that member states found difficult or impossible to...

In a recent decision, the European Court of Justice has ruled that insurers cannot discriminate on grounds of sex in setting premiums or determining benefits. This paper discusses the background to this decision. It asks whether we are seeing a US-style ‘rights revolution’, fuelled by...

Theoretical work on state formation and capacity has focused mostly on early modern Europe and on the experience of western European states during this period. While a number of European states monopolized domestic tax collection and achieved gains in state capacity during the early modern era,...

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First Annual Ralf Dahrendorf Memorial Lecture, London School of Economics, 7 October 2010