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Southern European welfare states - in common with their northern counterparts - are under stress. They have become the object of studies exploring the southern "type" or "model" of welfare. This collection provides a series of both comparative and specific country analyses.

Despite the promise of the new "Second Republic" launched in the early 1990s, Italy remains Europe's least well-governed country. Fifteen years ago, politicians on the take and mafiosi on the make were supposedly pushed aside by a new generation of reformers and crusading magistrates. However, in this new book a team of leading experts on Italy uncovers little real progress. Badly needed reforms have foundered on bickering between the parties and their ego-centric leaders. Both left and right-wing coalitions have been guilty of impeding the anti-corruption revolution. Little has been done to improve the quality of public expenditure: infrastructure and education systems remain shambolic, and decades of periodic devaluation and deficit spending have left the economy structurally weakened. Italy's politicians are not just masters of trasformismo (an ability to reinvent and present themselves anew to voters), but of stratificazione, or "layering", the introduction of new policies and institutions without replacing those that preceded them. The result is a damaging mix of obsolete and contradictory legislation, the product of bargaining over reform by chronically weak governments in a veto-ridden polity. The outcome - immobilismo - is a system in which all parties, and democratic government itself, are steadily losing legitimacy. This book was published as a special issue of West European Politics.

This volume presents research on the recasting of European welfare states from the European Forum on Welfare at the European University Institute in Florence. The chapters include both comparative analyses of topical issues (such as reforms of the major social programmes: pensions, health, social security and the changing political cleavages in welfare politics), and in-depth studies of changes in the major European countries.

This volume presents research on the recasting of European welfare states from the European Forum on Welfare at the European University Institute in Florence. The chapters include both comparative analyses of topical issues (such as reforms of the major social programmes: pensions, health, social security and the changing political cleavages in welfare politics), and in-depth studies of changes in the major European countries.
The objectives are: to analyze the impact of retrenchment; reform and add to the ongoing debates about policy convergence; the origins of pressures for reform (domestic and internal); the shifting balance of power between modernizers and vested interests; and the nature of the trade-offs involved in social policy innovation and the outcomes in terms of cost saving, resource redeployment and equality.

Southern European welfare states - in common with their northern counterparts - are under stress. They have become the object of studies exploring the southern "type" or "model" of welfare. This collection provides a series of both comparative and specific country analyses.

The period since 1989 has witnessed changes in Italian politics. These have placed Italy under an intense international spotlight for the first time since the crisis of the 1970s when the country was popularly portrayed as the sick man of Europe.

Despite the promise of the new "Second Republic" launched in the early 1990s, Italy remains Europe s least well-governed country. Fifteen years ago, politicians on the take and mafiosi on the make were supposedly pushed aside by a new generation of reformers and crusading magistrates. However, in this new book a team of leading experts on Italy uncovers little real progress. Badly needed reforms have foundered on bickering between the parties and their ego-centric leaders. Both left and right-wing coalitions have been guilty of impeding the anti-corruption revolution. Little has been done to improve the quality of public expenditure: infrastructure and education systems remain shambolic, and decades of periodic devaluation and deficit spending have left the economy structurally weakened. Italy s politicians are not just masters of trasformismo (an ability to reinvent and present themselves anew to voters), but of stratificazione, or "layering," the introduction of new policies and institutions without replacing those that preceded them. The result is a damaging mix of obsolete and contradictory legislation, the product of bargaining over reform by chronically weak governments in a veto-ridden polity. The outcome immobilismo is a system in which all parties, and democratic government itself, are steadily losing legitimacy.

This book was published as a special issue of West European Politics.

European welfare states are currently under stress and the 'social contracts' that underpin them are being challenged. First, welfare spending has arguably 'grown to limits' in a number of countries while expanding everywhere in the 1990s in line with higher unemployment. Second, demographic change and the emergence of new patterns of family and working life are transforming the nature of 'needs'. Third, the economic context and the policy autonomy of nation states has been transformed by 'globalization'. This book considers the implications of these challenges for European welfare states at the end of the twentieth century with interdisciplinary contributions from first-rate political scientists, economists and sociologists including Paul Ormerod.

Wallace Jernigan has somehow managed to fill the time allotted for one life with a multitude of lives well-lived. His thirst for knowledge made him a civil engineer, a businessman, a beekeeper, and a licensed mortician. His zeal for adventure led him into politics, music, and bear hunting. But that's not even half the story.

In this tale of the first half of his life, Wallace traces a personal journey from 1925 to 1962, from the Great Depression to Desegregation. With his trademark sense of good humor and his genuine love for people, he tells the story of his unique American adventure. From rural southern Georgia and his beloved Okefenokee Swamp to the heights of state political power under the Gold Dome in Atlanta, Wallace Jernigan tells his story. He lifts the veil off the headlines from the Atlanta newspapers to show how life and politics really operated in the middle of the twentieth century.

Come on in and see who's in "Those Smoke-Filled Rooms."

Wallace Jernigan has somehow managed to fill the time allotted for one life with a multitude of lives well-lived. His thirst for knowledge made him a civil engineer, a businessman, a beekeeper, and a licensed mortician. His zeal for adventure led him into politics, music, and bear hunting. But that's not even half the story.

In this tale of the first half of his life, Wallace traces a personal journey from 1925 to 1962, from the Great Depression to Desegregation. With his trademark sense of good humor and his genuine love for people, he tells the story of his unique American adventure. From rural southern Georgia and his beloved Okefenokee Swamp to the heights of state political power under the Gold Dome in Atlanta, Wallace Jernigan tells his story. He lifts the veil off the headlines from the Atlanta newspapers to show how life and politics really operated in the middle of the twentieth century.

Come on in and see who's in "Those Smoke-Filled Rooms."

Since the early 1990s, Europe's economies have been facing several new challenges: the single market programme, the collapse of the Berlin wall and eastward enlargement, and monetary unification. Building on the influential Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) perspective, first elaboarted in detail in the book Varieties of Capitalism (OUP, 2001), this book critically analyzes these developments in the European political economy and their effects on the continental European economies.
Leading political economists from Europe and the US debate how VoC can help understand the political-economic challenges that Europe is facing today and how understanding these new challenges can in turn enrich and enhance the VoC perspective.
Thematically, the contributions to this volume are organized in four sections:
* how the macro-economics of EMU have influenced different European models of capitalism,
* how the Single Market programme was received in the different institutional regimes in European capitalism,
* how welfare and labor market reforms are debated and implemented,
* how European capitalism travelled east after 1989.
Preceding this is a spirited defence of the VoC approach by Peter Hall, and an introduction from the volume editors, considering the approach, and proposing extensions and amendments. This book demonstrates that the VoC approach remains, as the editors put it in their introduction, a rich seam to mine, capable of accommodating new developments, and theoretically flexible enough to produce new and innovative hypotheses and arguments.

Since the early 1990s, Europe's economies have been facing several new challenges: the 1992 single market programme, the collapse of the Berlin wall and eastward enlargement, and monetary unification. Building on the influential Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) perspective, first elaboarted in detail in the book Varieties of Capitalism OUP, 2001), this book critically analyzes these developments in the European political economy and their effects on the continental European economies.
Leading political economists from Europe and the US debate how VoC can help understand the political-economic challenges that Europe is facing today and how understanding these new challenges can in turn enrich and enhance the VoC perspective. Thematically, the contributions to this volume are organised in four sections:
* how the macro-economics of EMU influenced different European models of capitalism,
* how the Single Market programme was received in the different institutional regimes in European capitalism,
* how welfare and labour market reforms are debated and implemented,
* how European capitalism travelled east after 1989.
Preceding this is a spirited defence of the VoC approach by Peter Hall, and an introduction from the volume editors, considering the approach, and proposing extensions and amendments. This book demonstrates that the VoC approach remains, as the editors put it in their introduction, a rich seam to mine, capable of accommodating new developments, and theoretically flexible enough to branch out into new arguments.