politics, economy and employment & labour
Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher. We use the values of freedom, sustainability and equality as the foundation on which we examine society’s most pressing challenges. We are committed to publishing cutting-edge thinking and new ideas from the most thought-provoking people. This archive page brings together Social Europe articles on political issues.
It is hardly news that the rich have more political power than the poor, even in democratic countries where everyone gets a single vote in elections. But two political scientists, Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, have recently produced some stark findings for the United States that have dramatic implications for the […]
While Mario Draghi has stolen the show with his speech at Jackson Hole, another speech by Haruhiko Kuroda, governor of the Bank of Japan, is actually even more interesting. Kuroda’s introductory remarks are short and simple and they concern the 15 years of deflation Japan has experienced since the mid-nineties. The key lesson is that a […]
There is a real and present danger of overt hostility of majority populations towards the minorities established in the EU. An important factor fuelling rising hostility is the sense that immigration is out of control, most visibly manifested in the rapid increase in illegal and dangerous forms of entry. Migration policies are in evident need […]
The deteriorating relationship between the United Kingdom (UK) and the rest of the EU, including the prospect of a referendum on EU membership, would have dominated the Union’s agenda had it not been for the economic/financial crisis, followed by the external crisis which we are now facing in the East. Precisely because of these crises, […]
First it was the 2007 financial crisis. Then it became the 2008 financial crisis. Next it was the downturn of 2008-2009. Finally, in mid-2009, it was dubbed the “Great Recession.” And, with the business cycle’s shift onto an upward trajectory in late 2009, the world breathed a collective a sigh of relief. We would not, […]
The reception in the United States, and in other advanced economies, of Thomas Piketty’s recent book Capital in the Twenty-First Century attests to growing concern about rising inequality. His book lends further weight to the already overwhelming body of evidence concerning the soaring share of income and wealth at the very top. Piketty’s book, moreover, provides a […]
One of the political/economic soap operas over the last year has been the UK Labour Party’s agonising over the perception of its economic competence. The story always starts with current polling data: either Miliband’s personal ratings or Labour’s rating for economic competence. It then often seeks to find the answer to these problems in the […]
Central bankers are often proud to be boring. Not Mario Draghi. Two years ago, in July 2012, Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, took everyone by surprise by announcing that he would do “whatever it takes” to save the euro. The effect was dramatic. This August, he used the annual gathering of top central bankers […]
The Initiative on Global Markets, based at the University of Chicago, periodically surveys a group of leading academic economists, of varying political persuasions, on the issues of the day. Its latest roundup asked whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan helped to reduce unemployment in the United States. Officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of […]
Should we conceive of Europe as a collection of individual states or as a group of distinct cities and regions which are part of a larger whole? Dimitris Ballas, Danny Dorling and Benjamin Hennig present figures from their new ‘Social Atlas of Europe’, which provides a new way of illustrating the key social and geographic features across European countries. They […]
Are we witnessing a transition toward a post-democratic society? In an interview with EUROPP’s editor Stuart Brown, Colin Crouch discusses democracy within the EU, the use of direct democracy in states like the UK, and the role of non-political actors in strengthening pluralism and civil society through avenues such as social media. You’ve previously written on the […]
Europeans, and particularly the European elite, find popular attitudes to science among many across the Atlantic both amusing and distressing. In Europe we do not have regular attempts to replace evolution with ‘intelligent design’ on school curriculums. Climate change denial is not mainstream politics in Europe as it is in the US (with the possible […]
I’ll begin with a story. One that dominates the philosopher Jonathan Lear’s brilliant book, ‘Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation’. It is about the Crow Indians. A story about what happens when the economy of a society is destroyed and a people’s way of life comes to an end. It was told by their great chief […]
The social challenges in Europe are clear and will not easily be overcome over the next half decade: 25 million Europeans are unemployed, with unemployment rates at surreal levels in several Mediterranean countries and youth unemployment robbing a generation of their chance to determine their own fate. At the same time several countries see stagnating […]
The triumph of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey’s first direct presidential election is no surprise. Erdoğan is popular, and, as Prime Minister since 2003, he has been riding a wave of economic success. But he is also a populist, who has steadily tightened his grip on the state and the media, demonizing all critics (including […]
What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society. Does anyone seriously believe hedge-fund mogul Steven A. Cohen is worth the $2.3 billion he raked in last year, despite being slapped with a $1.8 billion fine after his firm pleaded guilty to insider trading? On the other hand, what’s the […]
There is no more urgent social task in rich countries than to tackle vital inequality, the inequality of life, health, and death. European welfare states have handled many social issues posed by industrial capitalism. They have been most successful in dealing with old age poverty, much less so with child poverty. Inequalities of child development, of […]
Since Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 the UK has led the world in privatisation. The Conservative government sold off state-owned enterprises throughout the 1980s and the 1990s – electricity, oil, gas, rail, airline, airports, telecommunications, water, steel, coal, you name it. In the worldwide fever for selling off state assets that gripped those […]
I was in a gathering of academics the other day, and we were discussing minimum wages. The debate moved on to increasing inequality, and the difficulty of doing anything about it. I said why not have a maximum wage? To say that the idea was greeted with incredulity would be an understatement. So you want […]
The European Commission has once again issued a legislative proposal which jeopardises workers’ rights. The proposal for a “single-member private limited liability company” (SUP in European jargon) would create a 29th regime in company law. It goes down the same road as those previous company law proposals (like the European Private Company) which bypass rules […]
Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century has captured the world’s attention, putting the relationship between capital accumulation and inequality at the center of economic debate. What makes Piketty’s argument so special is his insistence on a fundamental trend stemming from the very nature of capitalist growth. It is an argument much in the tradition of […]
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