Cover
Contents
List of Illustrative Material
Introduction
Why European politics?
Why this book?
Keeping it real – and up to date
Where is it going?
Getting started
Guide to Text Features
1 Europe – a continent in the making
People into empires
Empires into nations
Nations into states
States into blocs
The new Europe
Europe’s economy – rich in variation
Regions
‘Postindustrialism’?
Transition
Globalization and/or Europeanization?
National and patterned variation
Whatever happened to ‘the classless society’?
Women – working but not yet winning?
In theory if not in practice – religion in Europe
Composition and identity: multi-ethnic, multinational – and European?
Learning resources
Discussion questions
2 The end of the nation state?
Stateless nations
Belgium – federal solution or slippery slope?
‘Asymmetrical’ federalism – Spain
The UK – another hybrid
France – no longer quite so indivisible
The EU and the end of sovereignty?
Origins, enlargement and institutions
Integration via economics and law
Tidying-up exercise or step towards a super-state? The Lisbon Treaty
The end of the nation state?
Learning resources
Discussion questions
3 From government to governance – running the state, making policy and policing the constitution
Passing power downwards – decentralization
‘More control over less’ – central government reform
Policymaking – sectors and styles
The booming third branch of government – the judicialization of politics
Learning resources
Discussion questions
4 Governments and parliaments – a long way from equality
The head of state
Prime minister, cabinet and parliamentary government
Permutations of parliamentary government in multiparty systems
Minimal (connected) winning coalitions
Minority governments
Oversized or surplus majority coalitions
Government duration and stability
Dividing the spoils – ‘portfolio allocation’
Governing
Parliaments – one house or two?
Parliaments – hiring and firing
Parliaments – the production of law
Parliaments – scrutiny and oversight
Parliament and government – the European level
Parliament, power and parties
Europe’s unrepresentative representatives?
Learning resources
Discussion questions
5 Parties – how the past affects the present, and an uncertain future
What are parties, and what are they for?
Organization
Party systems and party families
Socialist and social democratic parties
Conservative parties
Christian democratic parties
Liberal parties
Green parties
Far-right parties
Communist and left parties
Regional and ethnic parties
Agrarian and centre parties
The bases of party systems – social and institutional; luck and skill
Party system change?
Are parties in decline?
The Europeanization of parties and party systems?
Parties as doers, not simply done to
Learning resources
Discussion questions
6 Elections, voting and referendums – systems, turnout, preferences and unpredictability
Europe’s myriad electoral systems
Plurality and majority systems
PR systems
PR’s subtleties and sophistications
Electoral systems and party systems
Turnout – decline and variation
Volatile voting
Preferences – what makes people vote the way they do?
Left–right and party ID
The ‘end of class voting’ and the rise of values?
Religion – another death announced prematurely?
Other social characteristics – ethnicity, gender, and geographic location
Issue- voting, retrospective judgements and leadership
EP elections
Direct democracy – useful tool or dangerous panacea?
Learning resources
Discussion questions
7 The media – player and recorder
Variations in usage and style
Structure and regulation
State and public service broadcasting
The connection between media systems and political systems
The changing coverage of politics
From ‘party logic’ to ‘media logic’
‘Disdaining the news’, or at least the parties
Bias and its effects
Pressure groups and populists
A brave new digital world?
‘Overseas’ news – one world; different pictures
The media and ‘Europe’
Women and the media in Europe
Learning resources
Discussion questions
8 Participation and pressure politics – civil society, organized interests and social movements
Participation – the expanding, but not necessarily alternative, repertoire
Pressure groups – different types, different opportunities
Pluralism, corporatism and policy networks
Farming – a real-world example of power under pressure
There is (still) power in a union
Taking care of business
Rebels with a cause? NGOs and (new) social movements
‘Venue shopping’ and the Europeanization of pressure politics
Learning resources
Discussion questions
9 Politics over markets: does politics – and left and right – still matter?
Has politics ever really mattered?
Drifting to the right? The centre left in Europe
Party positions on the welfare state – words and deeds
Privatization
Flexible labour markets?
The EU to the rescue?
Beyond welfare – and left and right
Why it still makes sense to be different
Learning resources
Discussion questions
10 Not wanted, but needed – migrants and minorities
Migration into Europe – then and now
Europe’s immigrants – grim realities and perceptions
Illegal immigration
Asylum seeking
Intra-EU migration since enlargement
The new stereotype – migrants and minorities as terrorists
Political responses – populism, priming and ‘catch-22s’
Integrating and protecting migrants and minorities
Policy responses – towards ‘Fortress Europe’?
The Roma – Europe’s oldest ethnic minority
No use wishing it away
Learning resources
Discussion questions
11 Protecting and promoting – Europe’s international politics
Security and defence – the background
‘Old’ and ‘New’ Europe?
Still ‘the German Question’
Russia – Eurasia’s (ex-?) superpower
Europe’s Mediterranean ‘neighbours’
Towards a European army?
Foreign policy
Europe in the developing world
Europe and the global environment
Europe as a global trader
Lest we forget – the enlargement and domestication of international politics
Learning resources
Discussion questions
References
Index
