The expansion of the European Union eastwards in 2004, with an ensuing massive increase in East-West migration from the accession countries has been represented as a new migration system of a kind unique in recent migration history, with its specific features of rights of movement and low...

The German social democratic party initiated in 2003 the greatest overhaul of labour market legislation in decades, severely cutting unemployment benefits and slashing employment protection legislation. How can we explain this radical policy shift? This paper will present a counter-intuitive...

The Eurozone’s reaction to the economic crisis beginning in late 2008 involved both efforts to mitigate the arbitrarily destructive effects of markets and vigorous pursuit of policies aimed at austerity and deflation. To explain this paradoxical outcome, this paper builds on Karl Polanyi’s...

The Eastern Enlargement of the EU saw a proliferation of association agreements with countries in the ‘near abroad’ under EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy framework. Although such agreements are considered to be strictly welfare-enhancing, there is very little evidence to show their...

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,...

The paper examines the legal developments associated with new Hungarian Constitution, a text that, by entrenching the normative convictions and institutional solutions favoured by a contingent political majority, gives rise to a distinct institutional setting: the ‘partisan constitution’....

The process of approximation between the EU and its ‘eastern neighbourhood’ has created conditions for deepening economic interactions and market integration, giving to the EU –and to EU businesses– an elevated role in the process of economic modernisation and transition in the...

This paper discusses convergence through the concept of industrial upgrading and its application to the Spanish case. The paper explains the recent rise of Spain’s firms in high value-added service sectors and the fall in capital and skill-intensive manufacturing through the characterisation...

In this paper it is analysed whether the euro-crisis has induced a change in the degree of Europeanization of national public spheres. It is argued that ‘mediatizing politics’ on TV is a prerequisite for the accountability structures of liberal democracies. Examining the degree of...