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’....

This paper investigates the causes of, and reactions to, the Eurozone crisis, focusing in particular on the institutional foundations of the four Southern European Eurozone countries that have encountered an acute sovereign debt crisis. Applying the basic arguments featured in the Varieties of...

Most accounts of business coordination assume historically given conditions for this to emerge. Business coordination is therefore difficult, perhaps impossible, to construct endogenously. This paper examines a process of ‘endogenous coordination’ through an analysis of reindustrialization...

This paper presents information on labour market mobility in 23 EU countries, using Eurostat’s Labour Force Survey (LFS) data over the period 1998-2008. More specifically, it discusses alternative measures of labour market churning; including the ease with which individuals can move between...

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communist regimes, many Central and East European countries successfully managed a ‘return to Europe’. For many observers, the ‘return to Europe’ signaled the ultimate victory of democracy and rule of law over the legacy of...

In this paper we examine the influence of economic factors on partisan support for European integration over the last three decades. We find that partisan support is larger in ‘poorer’ countries with direct economic benefits from EU membership. On the other hand, parties in countries...

Excessive fiscal spending is commonly cited as a primary cause of the current European sovereign debt crisis. We develop an alternative hypothesis which better accounts for systemic differences towards EMU countries’ exposure to market speculation: the rise of competitiveness imbalances which...

The European Union is a unique blend of harmonised practice and mutual recognition of different regimes. In this paper, we conclude that arguments for continued diversity are more significant than the existing literature recognises. We build on the Varieties of Capitalism argument for trading on...

Political decision-making in the Euro-crisis has relied heavily on executive discretion, exercised at speed and rationalised with reference to the pressing demands of emergency. This paper explores the challenges raised for political opposition, notably challenges of a temporal kind. With its...

The paper explores the determination of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Balkan transition economies – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia. Detailed FDI inflows to Southeast Europe (SEE) are analysed to determine the main...