Martin Bull

Martin Rhodes

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.

Italy - A Contested Polity

Maurizio Ferrera

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, and in-depth studies of changes in the major European countries.

Recasting European Welfare States

Vincent Wright

Yves Meny

Western Europe and the Steel Industry in the Crisis Years (1974-1984)

The Politics of Steel

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.

A New Social Contract?

The Future of European Welfare

Erik Jones

Paul M. Heywood

Ulrich Sedelmeier

Rarely has European politics been so tumultuous or difficult to predict. The global economic crisis and subsequent recession have had a profound effect on Europe's political, economic and social landscape, as governments have been forced to cope with almost unprecedented levels of public debt. A pan-European analysis is essential for those seeking to understand contemporary trends and developments. Developments in European Politics brings together specially commissioned chapters by leading authorities to give an up-to-date and systematic analysis of European political developments – in institutions, processes and policy – at both national and regional levels. It provides wide-ranging and clear analysis of the factors influencing European politics, from the Europeanization of national politics to the broader forces of globalization, immigration, climate change and international terrorism.

Martin Rhodes

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