This book provides a detailed analysis of the transnational web sphere that emerged at the height of the Eurozone crisis between 2011 and 2013. During these turbulent years, a diverse spectrum of professional communicators from the media and political sectors as well as from opinionated individuals on blogs and social media discussed, and thus framed, the crisis in the digital public sphere. The analysis focuses on the various fields of contestation of the crisis that became detectable in the transnational online discourse and shows how conflict and fragmentation shaped political communication in this context. Nguyen concludes that there was not a single crisis but a chain of intersecting and profound political and cultural conflicts triggered by the economic upheavals, which led to the emergence of an extremely dynamic and unstable transnational digital public sphere, where different political and cultural viewpoints collided.
The European Union of today cannot be studied as it once was. This original new textbook provides a much-needed update on how the EU's policies and institutions have changed in light of the multiple crises and transformations since 2010. An international team of leading scholars offer systematic accounts on the EU's institutional regime, policies, and its community of people and states. Each chapter is structured to explain the relevant historical developments and institutional framework, presenting the key actors, the current controversies and discussing a paradigmatic case study. Each chapter also provides ideas for group discussions and individual research topics. Moving away from the typical, neutral account of the functioning of the EU, this textbook will stimulate readers' critical thinking towards the EU as it is today. It will serve as a core text for undergraduate and graduate students of politics and European studies taking courses on the politics of the EU, and those taking courses in comparative politics and international organizations including the EU.
The current crisis in Europe is being labelled, in mainstream media and politics, as a ‘public debt crisis’. The present book draws a markedly different picture. What is happening now is rooted, in a variety of different ways, in the destabilisation of national models of capitalism due to the predominance of neoliberalism since the demise of the post-war ‘golden age’. Ten country analyses provide insights into national ways of coping – or failing to cope – with the ongoing crisis. They reveal the extent to which the respective socio-economic development models are unsustainable, either for the country in question, or for other countries. The bottom-line of the book is twofold. First, there will be no European reform agenda at all unless each country does its own homework. Second, and equally urgent, is a new European reform agenda without which alternative approaches in individual countries will inevitably be suffocated. This message, delivered by the country chapters, is underscored by more general chapters on the prospects of trade union policy in Europe and on current austerity policies and how they interact with the new approaches to economic governance at the EU level. These insights are aimed at providing a better understanding across borders at a time when European rhetoric is being used as a smokescreen for national egoism.
Economic shocks pose a threat to health and health system performance by increasing people's need for health care and making access to care more difficult - a situation compounded by cuts in public spending on health and other social services. But these negative effects can be avoided by timely public policy action. While important public policy levers lie outside the health sector, in the hands of those responsible for fiscal policy and social protection, the health system response is critical. This book looks at how health systems in Europe reacted to pressure created by the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008. Drawing on the experience of over 45 countries, the authors:' analyse health system responses to the crisis in three policy areas: public funding for the health system; health coverage; and health service planning, purchasing and delivery 'assess the impact of these responses on health systems and population health' identify policies most likely to sustain the performance of health systems facing financial pressure' explore the political economy of implementing reforms in a crisisThe book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the choices available to policy-makers - and the implications of failing to protect health and health-system performance - in the face of economic and other forms of shock.--
The latest book by journalist and author Paul Blustein to go behind the scenes at the highest levels of global economic policy making, Laid Low chronicles the International Monetary Fund’s role in the euro-zone crisis. Based on interviews with a wide range of participants and scrutiny of thousands of documents, the book tells how the IMF joined in bailouts that all too often piled debt atop debt and imposed excessively harsh conditions on crisis-stricken countries. As the author shows, IMF officials had grave misgivings about a number of these rescues, but went along at the insistence of powerful European policy makers — to the detriment of the Fund’s credibility, with disheartening implications for the management of future crises. The narrative ends with a tale of the clash between Greece’s radical Syriza government and the country’s creditor institutions that reached a dramatic climax in the summer of 2015.
This comprehensive study of the Great Recession and its consequences provides comparative analyses of the extent to which social concertation between government, unions, and employers varied over time and across European countries. This edited volume – a collaboration of international country experts – includes eight in-depth country case studies and analysis of European-level social dialogue. Further comparisons explore whether social concertation followed economic necessity, was dependent on political factors, or rather resulted from labour’s power resources. The importance of social partners’ involvement is again evident during the Covid-19 pandemic. Examining contemporary crises, the book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students of public and social policies, comparative political economy, and industrial relations – and more broadly to those following European and EU politics.
Media have played an important role in framing the public debate on the “refugee crisis” that peaked in autumn of 2015. This report examines the narratives developed by print media in eight European countries and how they contributed to the public perception of the “crisis”, shifting from careful tolerance over the summer, to an outpouring of solidarity and humanitarianism in September 2015, and to a securitisation of the debate and a narrative of fear in November 2015. Overall, there has been limited opportunity in mainstream media coverage for refugees and migrants to give their views on events, and little attention paid to the individuals’ plight or the global and historical context of their displacement. Refugees and migrants are often portrayed as an undistinguishable group of anonymous and unskilled outsiders who are either vulnerable or dangerous. The dissemination of biased or ill-founded information contributes to perpetuating stereotypes and creating an unfavourable environment not only for the reception of refugees but also for the longer-term perspectives of societal integration.
This report presents findings of a workshop featuring representatives of Internet Service Providers and others with access to data and insights about how the Internet performed on and immediately after the September 11 attacks. People who design and operate networks were asked to share data and their own preliminary analyses among participants in a closed workshop. They and networking researchers evaluated these inputs to synthesize lessons learned and derive suggestions for improvements in technology, procedures, and, as appropriate, policy.
A provocative study of the critical problems that are crippling Europe and causing an increasing anti-Americanism looks at the return of the ethnic hatred, class divisions, and war that previously wreaked havoc on Europe, as well as the rise of such new issues as declining birthrates, growing Islamic fundamentalism, and an unsustainable economic model. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.
A Financial Times Best Political Book of 2017 An urgent examination of how the political and social volatility in Europe impacts the United States and the rest of the world. The dream of a United States of Europe is unraveling in the wake of several crises now afflicting the continent. The single Euro currency threatens to break apart amid bitter arguments between rich northern creditors and poor southern debtors. Russia is back as an aggressive power, annexing Crimea, supporting rebels in eastern Ukraine, and waging media and cyber warfare against the West. Marine Le Pen’s National Front won a record 34 percent of the French presidential vote despite the election of Emmanuel Macron. Europe struggles to cope with nearly two million refugees who fled conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa. Britain has voted to leave the European Union after forty-three years, the first time a member state has opted to quit the world’s leading commercial bloc. At the same time, President Trump has vowed to pursue America First policies that may curtail U.S. security guarantees and provoke trade conflicts with its allies abroad. These developments and a growing backlash against globalization have contributed to a loss of faith in mainstream ruling parties throughout the West. Voters in the United States and Europe are abandoning traditional ways of governing in favor of authoritarian, populist, and nationalist alternatives, raising a profound threat to the future of our democracies. In Fractured Continent, William Drozdiak, the former foreign editor of The Washington Post, persuasively argues that these events have dramatic consequences for Americans as well as Europeans, changing the nature of our relationships with longtime allies and even threatening global security. By speaking with world leaders from Brussels to Berlin, Rome to Riga, Drozdiak describes the crises. the proposed solutions, and considers where Europe and America go from here. The result is a timely character- and narrative-driven book about this tumultuous phase of contemporary European history.
