This paper offers a first assessment of the contribution of international production to the dynamics of regional integration in Europe. After very high expectations, there is increasing scepticism concerning the role of foreign direct investment as an engine of growth in the region. On the basis...

This paper deals with the situation in the European car industry since the crisis of the early 1990s. After a short review of the structural problems of the industry and the main responses by car manufacturers, the discussion shifts to a detailed analysis of labour union responses. The paper...

An objective and a subjective approach to study well-being is introduced. The objective approach is particularly useful to compare the quality of life of given societies across time and space. Using the objective approach, we can identify strong differences of quality of life between European...

Turkey's 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...

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...

In sociology, the appropriateness of national approaches for understanding social inequality in today's societies is being increasingly questioned, and EU-wide approaches are advocated instead. In this paper, we link the growing debate about national or EU-wide approaches to reference group...

Although analyses of democracy and governance may be complementary rather than in conflict, they are not identical. This article compares the EU criteria for evaluating applicants for membership with those of democracy indexes. It uses data from the 13- country New Europe Barometer surveys of...

Empirical studies of the 'old EU' countries suggest that poverty brings limited social relations and a lack of social support in its wake. At the same time, it is thought that in the transition countries, especially, individual supply crises are compensated for by a composite and stable network...

European countries are becoming increasingly politically integrated and the process of integration has accelerated in recent years. But how much social integration is there within the Community? This article supplies a definition of European social integration, and thereby lays down the...

Life satisfaction is quite heterogeneously distributed across countries of the enlarged European Union. Previous research has shown how living conditions within individual countries, such as access to material and emotional resources, are important for personal well-being, but it has neglected...