Books in the Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology series

This edited collection addresses a paradox at the heart of the European Union: if it is a constantly enlarging empire of governance, how can almost thirty member states design policies as an administrative whole, whilst narrowly approaching all political issues from one economic point of view? The contributors to this collection approach this by studying knowledge production, policy formation and policy implementation in the union. The topics covered include the history of the union, its nature as an empire in the making compared to historical successors as well as current USA and China, formation of union level statistical data and policy documents, paradoxes of fiscal governance, social innovation policy, youth and education policy, energy policy and foreign policy with particular regard to Russia. The concluding chapter outlines five alternative future scenarios for the union extending from collapse and marginalization to the emergence of a federal empire. The book is essential reading for anybody interested in the EU, including students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, political science, international relations, economics, management studies, public and social policy, science and technology studies, and environmental policy.

Right-wing populist parties are thriving throughout Europe. With few exceptions, political systems have seen such parties make significant electoral gains and shape the national political discourse across the continent. In recent years, many populist parties have undergone leadership changes and other evolutionary challenges to which they adapted well, often contrary to expectations. This timely collection is devoted to understanding how Western European right-wing populist parties organize themselves. Without understanding the role of the organizational dynamics, we fail to understand how populist parties adapt over time and thus endure. Providing a systematic and comprehensive analysis of organizational issues of populist parties over time, Understanding Populist Party Organisation explores a range of political parties in Western Europe, examining their internal dynamics and questioning whether it is possible to discern or construct a general "populist" party typology of organization and representation. The book includes chapters on the Austrian Freedom Party, the Vlaams Belang, the Swiss People's Party, the Lega Nord, the Front National, the Norwegian Progress Party, and the Sweden Democrats.

This open access volume provides evidence-based knowledge on European solidarity and citizen responses in times of crisis.

This edited collection introduces conceptual innovations that critically engage with understanding refugee movements as part of the broader category of ¿poor people¿s movements¿. The empirical focus of the work lies on the protest events related to the so-called ¿long summer of migration¿ of 2015. It traces the route followed by the migrants from the places of first arrival to the places of passage and on to the places of destination. Through qualitative and quantitative data, the authors map, within a cross-national comparative perspective, the wide set of actions and initiatives that are being created in solidarity with refugees who have made their journey seeking asylum to the European Union, either travelling across the Mediterranean Sea or through South Eastern Europe. It explores these cases from the perspective of social movement studies alongside critical studies on migration and citizenship.

This edited collection considers how transformations in contemporary societies have raised questions surrounding our sense of community and belonging, alongside our management of increased diversity.Diversity and Contestations over Nationalism in Europe and Canada includes contributions that consider the rise in regional nationalism and a greater willingness to recognise that many states are multinational. It critically explores the effects of altered patterns of immigration and emigration, including whether they give rise to (or re-invigorate) transnational or border-crossing forms of nationalism.The book also identifies the patterns of national transformation, especially in Europe, which we see coupled with significant nationalist reactions by populists as well as extreme right-wing movements and parties. This multidisciplinary collection of works will be a useful resource forresearchers and students of political sociology in Europe and Canada, particularly within the contexts of immigration, multiculturalism and globalization.

How are the experiences of crisis and political responses socially differentiated? This volume is of particular relevance for scholars, students, and practitioners interested in political sociology, comparative politics and European politics.

Seeking to extend the debate on the diversity of democracy, this book provides the reader with a comprehensive account of how two different global actors, the European Union and the World Social Forum respond to the challenges of globalization with various models of democracy and modes of cooperation at the transnational level.Analysing EU democracy assistance in the EU¿s neighbourhood, Fiedlschuster sheds light on the complex relationship between the EU and civil society. Although the EU perceives a vital civil society as crucial for democracy, its mix of a governance approach with deliberative and participatory democracy will unlikely result in a citizen-centred democracy. The book also provides a compelling account of the World Social Forum and its participants interviewed for this work attempt to answer one of the challenges of contemporary globalization: How can civil society pursue democratically global social change? Fiedlschuster skilfully deploys various sociological approaches not only to analyse concepts and practices of democracy by transnational activists but also to throw light on the tensions between democratic idealism and anti-democratic tendencies in the Forum. This book will be of wide interest to students and academics, including those working within political sociology, European Union politics, and globalization.

Cultural factors shape the symbolic environment in which contentious politics take place. Among these factors, collective memories are particularly relevant: they can help collective action by providing symbolic material from the past, but at the same time they can constrain people's ability to mobilise by imposing proscriptions and prescriptions. This book analyses the relationship between social movements and collective memories: how do social movements participate in the building of public memory? And how does public memory, and in particular the mediäs representation of a contentious past, influence strategic choices in contemporary movements? To answer these questions the book draws its focus on the evolution of the representation of specific events in the Italian and Spanish student movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, through qualitative interviews to contemporary student activists in both countries, it investigates the role of past waves of contention in shaping the present through the publicly discussed image of the past.

This book focuses on popular struggles in Denmark, Norway and Sweden from 1700-2015, and how popular struggle in the form of hunger riots, tax rebellions, petition drives, strikes, demonstrations, public meetings and social movements paved the way for the introduction and development of civil liberties and political rights.

Euroscepticism, Democracy and the Media will be of interest to students and scholars with an interest in European politics, political parties, interest groups, social movements and political sociology.

This book explores the European welfare model, arguing that the rollout of European policies for welfare services has led to increased marketization.

Processes of neoliberalisation have caused deeply segregated urban landscapes defined by deepening social inequality, rising unemployment, racism, securitization of urban spaces and welfare state withdrawal, particularly from poor peripheral areas, where tensions between marginalized youth and police often manifest in public spaces.

Right-wing populist parties are thriving throughout Europe. With few exceptions, political systems have seen such parties make significant electoral gains and shape the national political discourse across the continent. In recent years, many populist parties have undergone leadership changes and other evolutionary challenges to which they adapted well, often contrary to expectations. This timely collection is devoted to understanding how Western European right-wing populist parties organize themselves. Without understanding the role of the organizational dynamics, we fail to understand how populist parties adapt over time and thus endure. Providing a systematic and comprehensive analysis of organizational issues of populist parties over time, Understanding Populist Party Organisation explores a range of political parties in Western Europe, examining their internal dynamics and questioning whether it is possible to discern or construct a general ¿populist¿ party typology of organization and representation. The book includes chapters on the Austrian Freedom Party, the Vlaams Belang, the Swiss People¿s Party, the Lega Nord, the Front National, the Norwegian Progress Party, and the Sweden Democrats.

This volume provides a novel and relational sociological approach to the study of EU civil society. It focuses on the interactions and interrelations between civil society actors and the forms of capital that structure the fields and sub-fields of EU civil society, through new and important empirical studies on organized EU civil society.

This collection presents a political sociology of crisis in Europe. Focusing on state and society transformations in the context of the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath in Europe, it observes a return of redistributive conflicts that correlates with a 'new politics of identity', nationalism, regionalism and expressions of Euroscepticism.

In this book, Ibrahim employs Bourdieu's key concepts in order to explain the complex dynamics of social movements by detailing the key stages of development of, and ideological conflict between, 21st century British anti-capitalist organizations, and their interactions with wider social and political forces.

This volume addresses issues of precariousness in a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, looking at socio-economic transformations as well as the identity formation and political organizing of precarious people. The collection bridges empirical research with social theory to problematize and analyse the precariat.

In order to better understand processes of European integration, this book offers a new perspective that compares past experiences of change to current transitional moments at the European level. It addresses key questions about European society, EU integration and social change to reveal the social construction of emergent polities and societies.

This volume explores the variety of forms, strategies and practices of Islamic organizations in Europe and the United States. It focuses on the reactions of organized Muslims at local, national, and transnational levels to the on-going debates on their integration into society and the structures of state-church relations.

Contributors to this book show how the long EU accession process disseminates discursive tools employed in LGBT activist struggles for human rights and equality.

This international collection studies how the financial crisis of 2007 and the ensuing economicand political crises in Europe and North America have triggered a process ofchange in the field of economics, law andpolitics. Contributors to this book argue that both elites and citizens havehad to rethink the nature of the market, the role of the state as a marketregulator and as a provider of welfare, the role of political parties inrepresenting societyΓÇÖs main political and social cleavages, the role of civilsociety in voicing the concerns of citizens, and the role of the citizen as theultimate source of power in a democracy but also as a fundamentally powerlesssubject in a global economy.The book studies the actors, the areas and the processesthat have carried forward the change and proposes the notion of ΓÇÿincompleteparadigm shiftΓÇÖ to analyse this change. Its authors explore the multipledimensions of paradigm shifts and their differentiated evolution, arguing thattoday we witness an incomplete paradigm shift of financial regulations,economic models and welfare systems, but a stillbirth of a new political andeconomic paradigm.

This book assesses how much influence social movements have on EU policy and the means through which influence is secured. Using wide-ranging case studies of campaigns from GMOs to water rights and Internet freedom, it elucidates the important differences between technical and political campaigns.

This volume introduces and compares different concepts of culture in social movement research. It assesses their advantages and shortcomings, drawing links to anthropology, discourse analysis, sociology of emotions, narration, spatial theory, and others. Each contribution's approach is illustrated with recent cases of mobilization.

In order to better understand processes of European integration, this book offers a new perspective that compares past experiences of change to current transitional moments at the European level. It addresses key questions about European society, EU integration and social change to reveal the social construction of emergent polities and societies.

This volume introduces and compares different concepts of culture in social movement research. It assesses their advantages and shortcomings, drawing links to anthropology, discourse analysis, sociology of emotions, narration, spatial theory, and others. Each contribution's approach is illustrated with recent cases of mobilization.

This book discusses the extent to which the theoretical relevance and analytical rigor of the concept of the public sphere is affected by current processes of transnationalization. The contributions address fundamental questions concerning the viability of a socially and politically effective public sphere in a post-Westphalian world.

This volume explores the variety of forms, strategies and practices of Islamic organizations in Europe and the United States. It focuses on the reactions of organized Muslims at local, national, and transnational levels to the on-going debates on their integration into society and the structures of state-church relations.

This book discusses the extent to which the theoretical relevance and analytical rigor of the concept of the public sphere is affected by current processes of transnationalization. The contributions address fundamental questions concerning the viability of a socially and politically effective public sphere in a post-Westphalian world.

Examining the interplay between distrust, trust and corruption, this book maps out the social mechanisms that make actors and organizations in the public sphere perform their activities in a civilized manner.