Since the advent of the European Union, politicians have increasingly emphasized the notion of a European social model as an alternative to the American form of market capitalism, which is seen as promoting economic growth without regard for solidarity and social progress. As this political...

The notion of a European social model assumes that European societies have certain features in common that distinguish them from the United States. Analysing longitudinal data on the dimensions of state, economy and society three findings stand out: (1) for most indicators the range of variation...

The German Hartz reforms, introduced by the Red-Green coalition government in the years 2003 to 2005, form part of a broader pattern of European activation policies which have become known as new labour policies. The idea of these reforms was to reduce welfare dependency and to boost activity...

The notion of a European social model assumes that European societies have certain features in common which distinguish them positively from the United States, among them most notably the social partnership in labour relations, redistributive welfare state schemes, and cohesive societies with a...

This paper examines to what extent the classification of the American welfare state as "residual" squares with the empirical facts. Section I describes key features of American social policy developments. The U.S. system is clearly dominated by public provisions for welfare among which social...

Electoral turnout is shown to be higher and less socially skewed in member states of the enlarged European Union than in the United States. The differences in the levels of turnout can partly be related to differences in election procedures, but since the procedural rules provide similar...

Turkeys position relative to Europe is analyzed from three different perspectives, i.e (i) the semi-official perspective of the Copenhagen criteria, the Maastricht criteria and the Lisbon strategy, (ii) the perspective of comparative surveys, and (iii) the perspective of key European worries...

Der Beitrag fasst zentrale Ergebnisse eines von der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung finanzierten Pilotprojekts über die Auszeichnung sozialwissenschaftlicher deutschsprachiger Zeitschriftenartikel mit dem Fritz Thyssen Preis im Zeitraum 1981 bis 2006 zusammen. Vorrangig geht es um die Klärung von vier...