Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis C. Spies
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Minority Populations ◽  
Depressing Effect ◽  
Welfare Spending ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Redistributive Policies ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cross National

By briefly summarizing the New Progressive Dilemma (NPD) debate, this introduction presents to the reader the general research question: does immigration necessarily lead to welfare cuts? It outlines the significance of relationships between immigrants and native citizens, showing how these relate to redistributive policies in the US and Western Europe—but with very different results. In the US, states with high minority populations tend to favor lower welfare benefits, whereas in cross-national comparisons no such depressing effect of immigration on welfare spending can easily be identified. The book applies the insights from comparative welfare state and party research to the NPD to explain this difference, analyzing the effect of immigration on welfare state retrenchment. Finally, the introduction presents the book’s overall line of reasoning and the structure of its chapters.

The New Progressive Dilemma through the Lens of Comparative Welfare State and Party Research

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis C. Spies
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Attitudinal Change ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Expenditures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cross National

The chapter summarizes the New Progressive Dilemma (NPD) debate, identifying three arguments from comparative welfare state and party research likely to be relevant to the relationship between immigration and welfare state retrenchment: public opinion, welfare institutions, and political parties. Alignment of anti-immigrant sentiments and welfare support varies considerably between countries, especially between the US and Europe, leading to different party incentives vis-à-vis welfare state retrenchment. The chapter introduces insights from comparative welfare state and party research to the debate, discussing inter alia, political parties in terms of welfare retrenchment, immigrants as a voter group, and cross-national variation of existing welfare institutions. It addresses the complex debates around attitudinal change caused by immigration, levels of welfare support, voting behavior, and social expenditures. Combining these strands of literature, a common theoretical framework is developed that is subsequently applied to both the US and Western European context.

The Effects of Immigration on Welfare Spending in Europe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis C. Spies
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Budget Cuts ◽  
Specific Level ◽  
Welfare Spending ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Extreme Right Parties

In the final step of analysis, the insights from the previous chapters are conflated into one analysis of the effect(s) of immigration on welfare spending in Western Europe. The general finding is that the impact of immigration is highly conditional and is moderated by the insurance area, the program-specific level of middle-class involvement, the government coalition, or a combination of these variables. If the conditions resemble those of the US, immigration does decrease welfare spending. However, for most of Western Europe, these conflict-laden conditions are not fulfilled and, in many cases, immigration does not lead to budget cuts. The only exception to this general rule is unemployment insurance (and probably, social assistance) where immigration does indeed depress spending. With regard to political effects, the models show that Extreme Right Parties (ERPs) are especially unreliable partners in coalitions inclined to welfare state retrenchment.

Covering the US presidential election in Western Europe: A cross-national comparison

Acta Politica ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 444-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rens Vliegenthart ◽  
Hajo G Boomgaarden ◽  
Peter Van Aelst ◽  
Claes H de Vreese
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Us ◽  
National Comparison ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Cross National

scholarly journals Neoliberalism’s prologue: Keynesianism, myths of class compromises and the restoration of class power

2021 ◽  
pp. 146349962198913
Author(s):  
George Baca
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
The State ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Employment Policies ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War

Many anthropologists interpret neoliberalism as a radical break from and dangerous rupture in post-war societies that featured Keynesian economic policies and welfare provision. The allure of a mythic welfare state has boosted John Maynard Keynes’s popularity to many who embrace certain facets of socialism. Many critical social scientists have embraced Keynesianism in ways that overlook how the US used Keynesian policies to reengineer and redeploy state power. Keynes’s liberal synthesis inspired managers in the US Treasury Department to understand depression-era problems of unemployment and poverty in ways that were consonant with the expansion of corporate power. For understanding Keynesianism, as it actually existed during the Cold War, we must analyse how the US Treasury and State Departments used Keynesian principles to rebuild the social reproductive capacities necessary for capitalist accumulation both domestically and in Western Europe. I focus on how the architects of post-war capitalism used full employment policies, labour laws and welfare provision to renovate the nexus of political practices and institutional structures in ways that formed a benevolent and caring image of ‘the state’ and the myth of a class compromise. Through these reforms, governmental planners and administrators used the ‘state idea’ to reorganize capital accumulation as if the post-war economy would represent ordinary people’s best interests. In the process, these sophisticated practices of power became reified as the ‘welfare state’ and the ‘Keynesian compromise’ in ways that endow these institutions and policies with a character divorced from practices of power. The post-war state embodied a dialectic of repression and reform that combined criminalizing dissent with full employment policies and welfare provision. Taking these aspects of power into account, we can see post-war Keynesianism in ways that inspire a robust and far-reaching criticism of the contemporary predicament of economic uncertainty, political instability and environmental degradation.

Immigration and Welfare State Retrenchment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis C. Spies
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
European Context ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of

Is large-scale immigration to Europe incompatible with the continent’s generous and encompassing welfare states? Are Europeans willing to share welfare benefits with ethnically different and often less well-off immigrants? Or do they regard the newcomers as undeserving and their claim for welfare rights as unjustified? These questions are at the heart of what has become known as the “New Progressive Dilemma” (NPD) debate—and the predominant answers given to them are rather pessimistic. Pointing to the experiences of the US, where a multi-racial society in combination with a longstanding history of immigration encounters very limited welfare provision, many Europeans fear that the continent’s new immigrant-based heterogeneity may push it toward more American levels of redistribution. But are the conflictual US experiences really reflected in the European context? Immigration and Welfare State Retrenchment addresses this question by connecting the New Progressive Dilemma debate with comparative welfare state and party research in order to analyze the role ethnic diversity plays in welfare reforms in the US and Europe. Whereas the combination of racial patterns and party politics had and still has serious consequences for the US welfare system, the general message of the book is that these are not echoed in the Western European context. In addition, while many Europeans are very critical of immigration and prepared to ban immigrants from welfare benefits, both the institutional design of European welfare programs and the economically divided anti-immigrant movement prevent immigration concerns from translating into actual retrenchment in the core areas of welfare.

Searching for new Sources of growth. Are the Developing Countries Catching up with the Developed ones?

2015 ◽  
pp. 30-53
Author(s):  
V. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
The West ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Divergence ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Relative Standing

This paper examines the trajectory of growth in the Global South. Before the 1500s all countries were roughly at the same level of development, but from the 1500s Western countries started to grow faster than the rest of the world and PPP GDP per capita by 1950 in the US, the richest Western nation, was nearly 5 times higher than the world average and 2 times higher than in Western Europe. Since 1950 this ratio stabilized - not only Western Europe and Japan improved their relative standing in per capita income versus the US, but also East Asia, South Asia and some developing countries in other regions started to bridge the gap with the West. After nearly half of the millennium of growing economic divergence, the world seems to have entered the era of convergence. The factors behind these trends are analyzed; implications for the future and possible scenarios are considered.

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S APPROACH TO ENERGY SECURITY IN POLAND AND THE BALTIC STATES

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1/2020) ◽  
pp. 33-67
Author(s):  
Olga Stevanovic
Keyword(s):  
Energy Security ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Realist Theory ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Baltic

The subject of this paper encompasses US policy towards Poland and the Baltic States regarding energy security during Donald Trump’s presidency. It is discernible that vast domestic energy resources have created an opportunity for the US to project more power to these countries, and the surrounding region. We argue that Trump and his administration’s perceptions have served as an intervening variable in that opportunity assessment, in accordance with the neoclassical realist theory. The main research question addressed in this paper is whether US has used that opportunity to contribute to energy security in countries it has traditionally deemed as allies. Two aspects of US approach to energy security of the designated countries are taken into consideration: liquified natural gas exports and support for the Three Seas Initiative. The way Trump presented his policy and its results in his public statements has also been considered in this paper. The article will proceed as follows. The first subsection of the paper represents a summary of energy security challenges in Poland and the Baltic States. The second subsection is dedicated to the opportunity for the US to project energy power and to Trump’s perceptions relevant for the opportunity assessment. The third subsection deals with American LNG exports to these countries as a possible way for contributing to energy security in Poland and the Baltic States. The last part of the paper addresses the Three Seas Initiative and US approach to this platform.

Religion and Religiosity in the US

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

Although the countries of Western Europe are very similar to the US in terms of their social, political, and economic conditions, they differ greatly when it comes to religion. Chapter 10 discusses how these differences can be explained. The empirical analysis shows that, besides the considerable differences in the level of religiosity between the US and Western Europe, there are also surprising similarities in the weakening church ties and religious practices. The findings demonstrate that it is in many respects not Europe but America that is the exception. This relates among other things to the level of social inequality, which is unusually high for a modern society, the strong tendencies towards functional dedifferentiation, such as between religion and politics, and the traditionalism of the culturally accepted system of values.

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