This book analyzes the interests, aspirations, motivations, and behavior of elected politicians and middle and upper ranked national bureaucrats in European community countries, and assesses their perceptions of the salience and seriousness of mass public demands relating to community functions.
Domestic work has become highly relevant on a local and global scale. Until a decade ago, domestic workers were rare in European households; today they can be found working for middle-class families and single people, for double or single parents as well as for the elderly. Performing the three C's - cleaning, caring and cooking - domestic workers offer their woman power on a global market which Europe has become part of. This global market is now considered the largest labour market for women world wide and it has triggered the feminization of migration. This volume brings together contributions by European and US based researchers to look at the connection between migration and domestic work on an empirical and theoretical level. The contributors elaborate on the phenomenon of 'domestic work' in late modern societies by discussing different methodological and theoretical approaches in an interdisciplinary setting. The volume also looks at the gendered aspects of domestic work; it asks why the re-introduction of domestic workers in European households has become so popular and will argue that this phenomenon is challenging gender theories. This is a timely book and will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of migration, gender and European studies.
This book examines the transformation of contemporary social democracy through the concept of "third way" reforms. It proposes a set of theories about the possibility for continuing social democratic ideological adaptation, for ideologies to overcome institutional constraints in triggering path-breaking innovations, and for social democracy to bridge the insider-outsider divide. Empirically, the book utilizes these theories to account for social democratic welfare state and labor market reforms in nine OECD countries after the end of the Golden Age. Based on the logic of "public evils," the book proposes that the ideologically contested nature of institutions provides incentives for institutional innovation. Social democratic ideology shapes the fundamental characteristics and content of the third way policy paradigm, and the paradigm's practical implementation continues to be path-dependent on historical institutional settings.
With specific attention to irregular migrant workers - that is to say, those without legal permits to stay in the countries in which they work - this volume focuses on domestic work, presenting studies from ten European countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. Offering a comparative analysis of irregular migrants engaged in all kinds of domestic work, the authors explore questions relating to employment conditions, health issues and the family lives of migrants. The book examines the living and working conditions of irregular migrant domestic workers, their relations with employers, their access to basic rights such as sick leave, sick pay, and holiday pay, as well as access to health services. Close consideration is also given to the challenges for family life presented by workers' status as irregular migrants, with regard to their lives both in their countries of origin and with their employers. Through analyses of the often blurred distinction between legality and illegality, the notion of a ’career’ in domestic work and the policy responses of European nations to the growth of irregular migrant domestic work, this volume offers various conceptual developments in the study of migration and domestic work. As such, it will appeal to sociologists, political scientists, geographers and anthropologists with interests in migration, gender, the family and domestic work.
The 'Precautionary Principle' has sparked the central controversy over European and U.S. risk regulation. The Reality of Precaution is the most comprehensive study to go beyond precaution as an abstract principle and test its reality in practice. This groundbreaking resource combines detailed case studies of a wide array of risks to health, safety, environment and security; a broad quantitative analysis; and cross-cutting chapters on politics, law, and perceptions. The authors rebut the rhetoric of conflicting European and American approaches to risk, and show that the reality has been the selective application of precaution to particular risks on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a constructive exchange of policy ideas toward 'better regulation.' The book offers a new view of precaution, regulatory reform, comparative analysis, and transatlantic relations.
This timely and innovative book delivers a comprehensive analysis of the non-recognition of the right to a family life of migrant live-in domestic and care workers in Argentina, Canada, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Norway, the Philippines, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, and Ukraine.
Rising disinformation has far-reaching consequences in many policy areas ranging from public health to national security. It can cast doubt on factual evidence, jeopardise the implementation of public policies and undermine people's trust in the integrity of democratic institutions. This report explores how to respond to these challenges and reinforce democracy.
The New Maids is a pioneering book, grounded on rich, empirical evidence, which examines the relationship between globalization, transnationalism, gender and the care economy. Expertly addressing the thorny questions that surround the increasing number of migrant domestic workers and cleaners, child-carers and caregivers who maintain modern Western households, the author argues that domestic work plays the defining role in global ethnic and gender hierarchies. Using a central ethnographic study of immigrant domestic workers and their German employees as its starting point, The New Maids uses the voices of such women themselves to provide unique conceptual and evidential support for this vital new approach argument. This exciting book will not only enhance the reader's understanding of the new care-economy, it also sets standards for feminist global methodology.
This book describes and critically addresses the innovations and shifts made in the revision of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) adopted by the European Parliament and Council in 2018. Reflecting on European Union regulation and policy practice in all its Member States, the book’s unique approach places in-depth case study topics against the broader theoretical background. Taking a Europe-wide angle, an international team of authors focuses on key aspects of the AVMSD: the expansion of its scope to include video-sharing-platforms such as YouTube; the update of the rules for commercial communications; the first attempt for harmonized, minimal requirements at EU level regarding transparency of media ownership; new rules to ensure that video-on-demand services offer, invest in, and prioritise European content; the obligation on television distributors and smart TV manufacturers to pass on broadcasters’ signal without any interference, alteration or modification; and, the formalisation and consolidation of new forms of collaboration among national regulatory authorities. This thorough analysis of the cornerstone of European media policy makes this edited collection a crucial reference for scholars and students of media and cultural industries, media law and policy, European and EU media policy, and technology studies.