Nationality and the European union competing identities in the visual design of four European cities 1

In this study, we integrate visual and linguistic research to analyze the relationship between a city's regional, national, transnational, and European identities as the face of four cities depicts it. We explore the cultural identity of Brussels, Luxembourg, Munich, and Dortmund through the study of public signs found in these cities. We examine how the choice of language, layout, typography, accompanying images, and positioning of city signs reflect the tensions involving the change from a national or regional identity to a Pan‐European identity. Our methodology combines an ethnographic approach and neutral observations with interviews of city inhabitants. By combining interpretive analysis with a meta‐discursive approach to how signs are read and perceived, we consider both the production and reception ends of the signs.     

Endogenous socio-economic development in the European union — issues of evaluation

The public sector, in its policy statements and in the design of programmes of intervention, appears to be subscribing to a rhetoric of “grassroots participation”. At the same time, however, pressures are increasing for bureaucracies to adopt a managerialist modus operandi. This article considers the tensions that arise when participative service provision and programmes are subjected to evaluation scrutiny by managerialist bodies. The discussion takes place in the context of an EU-sponsored endogenous socio-economic development initiative. This prepares the ground for an exploration of participative evaluation.     

Agricultural liberalization in the European union: an analysis of the implications for nature conservation

The liberalization of agricultural policy is a more realistic prospect today than ever before. Following the Uruguay Round Agriculture Agreement of 1993, European policymakers are committed, at least at the level of rhetoric, to the further progressive decoupling of agricultural support in order to increase the exposure of Europe's farmers to world markets. There are compelling reasons to believe that, by the turn of the century, policymakers will come under mounting pressure to further liberalize the CAP. The environmental implications of this policy shift are profound. According to some commentators, the rural environment stands to benefit from a double dividend: once when the reduction in prices brings about an extensification of production, and again when resources previously committed to price support are reinvested in agri-environmental schemes. This paper considers the validity of this important idea. It examines the assumptions behind the extensification effect and discusses the willingness and ability of policymakers to plough substantial sums of public money into fully decoupled agrienvironmental programmes. The paper suggests that the first round effects of a withdrawal of support may not be unambiguously good for the European countryside, while the ‘green recoupling’ of support could prove more complicated politically than is often assumed.     

European Youth Gang Policy in Comparative Context

The past decade has seen increased reports of street gangs across a range of contexts. In Europe, anxieties over street‐based youth has led to the development of gang‐specific policies across a range of jurisdictions, most notably the UK. Following a similar pattern of policy mobility in criminal justice, many of these policies have origins in the US system. In this review of international gang policy developments, we critically examine a number of these policies in a comparative context ‐ including gang policing units and intelligence databases ‐ and interrogate their efficacy. Drawing on cogent examples from the UK, we argue for caution in adopting US gang intervention tactics due to the lack of empirical evidence relating to their applicability or efficacy, and the corresponding potential for discrimination toward the most marginalised and socially excluded children and young people in society.     

Family Policy and Fertility Intentions in 21 European Countries

European countries show substantial variation in family policy and in the extent to which policies support more traditional male‐breadwinner or more gender egalitarian earner–carer family arrangements. Using data from the European Social Survey, the authors implemented multilevel models to analyze variation in fertility intentions of 16,000 men and women according to individual‐level characteristics and family policy across 21 European countries. Both traditional and earner–carer family support generosity were positively related to first‐birth intentions for men and women. In contrast, only earner–carer support maintains its positive relationship with second birth intentions. Family policy is not in general related to third and higher order parity intentions.     

Inequality and deprivation within and between groups: An illustration of European union countries

This paper broadens the approach of Hey and Lambert (Q. J. Econ. 95,567–573 1980) regarding relative deprivation to the case in which individuals compare themselves with individuals belonging not only to their own group, but also to other groups. In this way, we obtain the average deprivation of a population in relation to another. This allows us to establish a correspondence between the decomposition of the Gini coefficient based on a partition of the population, and the decomposition of deprivation into two components. One quantifies deprivation within the subpopulation and the other deprivation between populations. An empirical illustration is given, based on the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Government–MCYT, (SEC2001-1668) and would like to thank Jacques Silber and two anonymous referees for their suggestions.     

Outsiders in the union: organizing,consent, and union recognition campaigns

Although outsiders have played an important role in social protest in the U.S., outsiders’ role in the U.S. labor movement has been the focus of spirited debate. Debate about outsider organizers, in particular, reached a fevered pitch in the late 1990s, and continues today. This paper scrutinizes two of the core assumptions of this debate: that insider and outsider organizers operate differently on union recognition campaigns, and that workers respond to them differently in these settings. We analyzed 153 in-depth interviews with workers and organizers conducted at the height of the debate, in order to answer two questions: What is the role of outsider organizers during private sector union recognition campaigns, and how do outsider organizers secure workers’ consent in these settings? All of the organizers in our data-set were graduates of the AFL-CIO’s Organizing Institute, and 64 of them were outsiders. The outsider organizers in our data-set confronted barriers that insider organizers did not, including workers’ concerns about their youth, inexperience and lack of professionalism, and their own inability to relate to workers. While many critics of outsider organizers claim that these barriers are insurmountable, we found the opposite to be true. The vast majority of outsider organizers in our data-set successfully secured workers’ consent by demonstrating commitment, building relationships, and being honest and forthright. After proposing changes in organizer training and leadership development in response to these findings, we conclude with a brief discussion of the enduring debate about outsiders’ role in social protest in the U.S.     

欧洲发达国家的青年就业政策及启示

青年就业问题已经成为一个世界性的难题。进入后工业社会的欧洲发达国家,也不得不面对为数众多且日渐增长的青年失业群体的困扰。为解决这一难题,欧洲各发达国家在各自国内以及在欧盟框架下,从调控青年劳动力的需求、供给和就业信息传导等方面采取了多种措施,在一定范围内缓解了各国青年就业的压力,在实践中总体效果良好。这些措施对我们解决国内青年就业问题有着有益的启示。     

欧盟对中东北非政策调整之我见

法、德两国领导人更替后，欧洲同美国的关系恢复到伊拉克战争之前的状态，但是欧盟主要大国及欧盟本身对中东北非地区的政策仍不同于美国。2003年以来，该地区一系列事件发生后，欧盟及欧洲各大国决策者和学者对以往的政策做出评估或修改：比以往更强调坚持长期的经济发展政策；由下而上改变政权结构；推动中东北非国家进入国际体系；提高治理能力及保障人身安全等，从而达到“以发展促安全、以安全促发展”之目的。     

欧盟对中东北非政策调整之我见

法、德两国领导人更替后,欧洲同美国的关系恢复到伊拉克战争之前的状态,但是欧盟主要大国及欧盟本身对中东北非地区的政策仍不同于美国.2003年以来,该地区一系列事件发生后,欧盟及欧洲各大国决策者和学者对以往的政策做出评估或修改:比以往更强调坚持长期的经济发展政策;由下而上改变政权结构;推动中东北非国家进入国际体系;提高治理能力及保障人身安全等,从而达到"以发展促安全,以安全促发展"之目的.     

Uncovering European Union Immigration Legislation: Policy Dynamics and Outcomes

The member states of the European Union (EU) have recently experimented with constructing a common immigration policy. This gives rise to an important and fascinating question: what happens to immigration policy once it is no longer made in national capitals? Have national governments been able to retain ultimate control over the field of EU immigration policy? Or do we see slippage towards supranational power, with the Commission, Parliament, and Court of Justice expanding their influence? If EU institutions have gained power, do they use this power to defend the rights and freedoms of immigrants against restrictionist national governments? Using participant interviews (listed in Appendix I ) and documentary analysis, I analyse negotiations over three EU immigration laws: the directives on family reunification, long‐term residence, and economic migration. I assess whether national preferences are implemented in these directives, or whether supranational institutions have moved policy away from national preferences, potentially expanding immigrant rights and freedoms.     

Recent trends in the union wage premium

Estimates of union-nonunion wage differentials are updated by examining a wide variety of subgroups in the general population. Variations in union wage premiums are tracked over a 15-year period, allowing inter-temporal comparisons that are not usually available. One important finding is that union wage premiums have been generally rising since 1972–1973. It also appears that females and nonwhites no longer gain the huge payoffs from unionism that evidence has suggested. The impact of race and education on union wage premiums is weighed, and there is an examination of how levels of education, association with blue-collar or white-collar occupations, and employment in specific industries affect union premiums. The author thanks Professor Jack Skeels for invaluable comments and Northern Illinois University for financial support.     

Entrepreneurial human capital accumulation and the growth of rural businesses: a four-country survey in mountainous and lagging areas of the European union

The paper presents the processes of entrepreneurial human capital accumulation and its impact on rural business growth. Data are derived from four surveys on rural businesses in mountainous and less favoured areas in Southern Europe. Formal pathways of entrepreneurial human capital accumulation refer to education and training, while informal pathways include the cognitive processes of work and managerial experience acquisition and the non-cognitive processes of being raised within an entrepreneurial family environment and/or being raised in the area within which the business is later set-up. The studies reveal that there is a variety of processes of entrepreneurial human capital and knowledge accumulation that are case study specific. Human capital accumulation processes related to education and training or to work and managerial experience still plays the prime role in predicting successful businesses. Results indicate the need for decentralised, flexible and selective entrepreneurial human capital accumulation support programmes that take into account local idiosyncrasies and needs.     

European Union Policy on Older Adult Learning: A Critical Commentary

Recently, some researchers have argued that high state rates of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Online Survey, Certification and Reporting (OSCAR) nursing facility deficiencies indicate stringent enforcement, leaving the impression of better-quality care soon to follow; others maintain that the rank ordering of states' quality of nursing facility care remains fairly constant, resting on deep-seated state characteristics that change slowly, so that short-term improvement in poor-quality care is unlikely. The authors examine change in the process and outcome quality of states' Medicare nursing facility long-term care programs across 1999 to 2005, using linear and two-stage least squares regression. They find that (1) nationally, process quality generally falls across this period while outcome quality generally increases; (2) neither a prominent enforcement stringency index nor state culture, a relatively stable state characteristic, exerts much influence on state process and outcome quality scores over time, but (3) the relative costs and benefits for CMS compliance appear to contribute to explaining change in states' quality of resident outcomes over time; and (4) states' process quality is much less stable than outcome quality, and outcome indices distinct from OSCAR deficiency data provide more reliable and possibly more valid measures of care quality.