Jonas Pontusson
Biographic Data
| ID | 265203 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonas Pontusson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonas |
| FAMILY NAME | Pontusson |
| SIGNATURE | PONTUSSON J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Geneva |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 54 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1569 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 16 |
Unevenly Unequal Responsiveness: Public Opinion and Redistributive Policy Shifts in Western Europe Since 2008
Recent studies puzzle over why it is that democratically elected governments have not responded to rising inequality by engaging in more redistribution. While some scholars argue that low- and middle-income citizens have not responded to rising inequality in the way we would expect, others argue that policymakers are not responsive to the demands of these citizens. We argue that both solutions to the “lack-of-redistribution puzzle” leave somethin…
Falling behind whom? Economic geographies of right-wing populism in Europe
Existing studies suggest that right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) appeal to people in communities that have fallen behind in material terms. However, it remains open which benchmark communities apply as they become politically discontented. We argue that the structure of territorial inequalities influences the benchmarks used by people in regions falling behind. Panel data regressions using subnational election results in EU states from 1990 to 2…
The Comparative Politics of Inequality and Redistribution in Liberal Democracies
Reviewing the debate on why governments have failed to compensate low- and middle-income citizens for rising income inequality, this essay argues for a perspective that integrates demand-side and supply-side considerations and treats income bias in policy responsiveness as variable across countries and over time
Unequal Democracies: Public Policy, Responsiveness, and Redistribution in an Era of Rising Economic Inequality
While economic inequality has risen in every affluent democracy in North America and Western Europe, the last three decades have also been characterized by falling or stagnating levels of state-led economic redistribution. Why have democratically accountable governments not done more to distribute top-income shares to citizens with low- and middle-income? Unequal Democracies offers answers to this question, bringing together contributions that fo…
The Political Puzzle of Rising Inequality
Since the 1990s, economic inequality has risen in just about every affluent democracy in North America and Western Europe. But the last three decades have also been characterized by falling or stagnating levels of state-led economic redistribution. These two contemporaneous trends pose a puzzle for students of political economy. Why have democratically accountable governments not done more to compensate the large majority of citizens with low and…
Unequal Democracies: Public Policy, Responsiveness, and Redistribution in an Era of Rising Economic Inequality
Introduction: Rethinking Comparative Capitalism
This introductory essay flashes out the “growth model” perspective and provides a framework for the chapters in the volume. It makes five interrelated arguments. First, existing theoretical frameworks are ill equipped to tackle the politics of growth and stagnation because of their almost exclusive focus on “supply side institutionalism.” Second, political economists need to take macroeconomics more seriously but also be more critical of mainstre…
Diminishing Returns: The New Politics of Growth and Stagnation
Over fifty years ago Andrew Shonfeld wrote a book, Modern Capitalism, which initiated a new field of inquiry about ‘comparative capitalism.’ His focus was the politics of the mixed economy and its national variants. At the basis of that politics was not just a concern with ‘who gets what’ in a static sense, but also how the various hybrid forms of capitalism were able to address problems of accumulation and growth more effectively than in previou…
How should we think about modern capitalism? A growth models approach
Voter preferences as a source of descriptive (mis)representation by social class
This paper presents the results of a conjoint survey experiment in which Swiss citizens were asked to choose among parliamentary candidates with different class profiles determined by occupation, education and income. Existing survey‐experimental literature on this topic suggests that respondents are indifferent to the class profiles of candidates or biased against candidates with high‐status occupations and high incomes. We find that respondents…
Understanding unequal representation
Income and class biases in political representation have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention in recent years. The reasons are understandable: since the 1980s, very few democratically elected governments in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) undertook new initiatives to compensate low- and middle-income citizens for the unequal rise of top-income shares and concentration of wealth. Instead, redistribution ac…
The Limits of Social Democracy: Investment Politics in Sweden
'Pontusson's book does an excellent job in taking a critical look at Swedish investment politics.... On the whole, this book is the best overall explanation of Swedish investment politics. It gives the reader a clear basis for understanding the rise of Swedish social democracy and provides a detailed examination of the developments of industrial policy, codetermination, and wage-earner funds.'—Contemporary Sociology
New approaches to political economy
The discussion on 'New Approaches to Political Economy (PE)' gives us a state-of-the-art overview of the main theoretical and conceptual developments within the concept of political economy. Thereby, it invites us to broaden our knowledge regarding manifold novel approaches, which make use of more complex methods to study the less stable, less predictable, but faster changing realities of smaller or bigger geographical regions. In this discussion…
Macroeconomic conditions, inequality shocks and the politics of redistribution, 1990–2013
This paper explores common trends in inequality and redistribution across OECD countries from the late 1980s to 2013. Low-end inequality rises during economic downturns while rising top-end inequality is associated with economic growth. Most countries retreated from redistribution from the mid-1990s until the onset of the Great Recession and compensatory redistribution in response to rising unemployment was weaker in 2008-13 than in the first hal…
Working-Class Strength by Institutional Design? Unionization, Partisan Politics, and Unemployment Insurance Systems, 1870 to 2010
Many studies have found that countries with union-administered unemployment insurance have higher rates of unionization than countries with state-administered unemployment insurance. With data going further back in history, this article demonstrates that the introduction of so-called “Ghent systems” had no effect on unionization rates. We argue that the Ghent effect identified by the existing literature came about as a result of increasing state …
Solidaristic Unionism and Support for Redistribution in Contemporary Europe
Using data from the European Social Survey (2002–14), this article explores the effect of union membership on support for redistribution. The authors hypothesize that the wage-bargaining practices of unions promote egalitarian distributive norms, which lead union members to support redistribution, and that this effect is strongest among high-wage workers. Consistent with the authors’ expectations, the empirical analysis shows that the solidarity …
Rethinking Comparative Political Economy: The Growth Model Perspective
This paper develops an analytical approach to comparative political economy that focuses on the relative importance of different components of aggregate demand-in the first instance, exports and household consumption-and dynamic relations among the 'demand drivers' of growth. We illustrate this approach by comparing patterns of economic growth in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom over the period 1994-2007. Our discussion emphasizes t…
The politics of fiscal policy during economic downturns, 1981–2010
This article investigates fiscal policy responses to the Great Recession in historical perspective. It explores general trends in the frequency, size and composition of fiscal stimulus as well as the impact of government partisanship on fiscal policy outputs during the four international recessions of 1980–1981, 1990–1991, 2001–2002 and 2008–2009. Encompassing 17–23 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, the analy…
Introduction to the Debate: Does Descriptive Misrepresentation by Income and Class Matter
This debate section features new research suggesting that class bias in the make-up of legislative bodies is a topic that deserves more attention by political scientists.1 Suppose that we drew, at random, an individual from the pool of adult citizens and another individual from the pool of elected representatives. Regardless of the country in which we carried out this experiment, the draws would likely yield two quite different individuals. Men a…
Unionization, Inequality and Redistribution
This article explores the implications of the OECD‐wide decline of union density for earnings inequality and income redistribution by looking at aggregate (country‐level) data. Over the period 1975–95, countries that experienced relatively large declines in union density also experienced relatively large increases in earnings inequality. In addition, governments apparently became less willing to engage in ‘compensatory redistribution’ in these co…
How (and Why) Is This Time Different? The Politics of Economic Crisis in Western Europe and the United States
This article compares government responses to the Great Recession of 2008–2009 with government responses to recessions and other economic challenges in the period 1974–1982. We focus on five countries: France, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Across these countries, we observe two broad shifts in crisis responses. First, governments have in the recent period eschewed heterodox crisis policies and relied more exclusively…
The Politics of Economic Crisis in Historical‐Comparative Perspective
What pundits commonly call the “Great Recession” of 2008-09 was the most severe economic downturn experienced by the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe and North America since the 1930s. According to the OECD, American GDP declined by 3.9% from the end of 2007 to the end of 2009. The UK fared worse than the US (-5.5%), France better (-2.8%) and Germany just about the same (-4.0%). Economic growth recovered in 2010, but the recovery h…
Once Again a Model: Nordic Social Democracy in a Globalized World
Whose Interests do Unions Represent? Unionization by Income in Western Europe
Purpose – The goal of this chapter is to explore whether variation in the distribution of union members across the income distribution affects the role of unions in redistributive politics.Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual part of the study provides a theoretical motivation for disaggregating organized labor by income. The empirical part uses European Social Survey data for 15 West European countries 2006–2008 to describe the compositi…
The Political Economy of Inequality and Redistribution
The literature on the politics of inequality and redistribution in advanced democracies has become very large in recent years. This article focuses on several areas where important new arguments are being put forward. It reviews recent work on the interaction of unions and employers, the role of political parties and electoral institutions, and the effects of racial and religious diversity. It also discusses the implications of recent work in beh…
Rethinking Comparative Political Economy: The Growth Model Perspective
This paper develops an analytical approach to comparative political economy that focuses on the relative importance of different components of aggregate demand-in the first instance, exports and household consumption-and dynamic relations among the 'demand drivers' of growth. We illustrate this approach by comparing patterns of economic growth in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom over the period 1994-2007. Our discussion emphasizes t…
The Structure of Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution
Against the current consensus among comparative political economists, we argue that inequality matters for redistributive politics in advanced capitalist societies, but it is the structure of inequality, not the level of inequality, that matters. Our theory posits that middle-income voters will be inclined to ally with low-income voters and support redistributive policies when the distance between the middle and the poor is small relative to the …
Welfare-State Retrenchment Revisited: Entitlement Cuts, Public Sector Restructuring, and Inegalitarian Trends in Advanced Capitalist Societies
In recent years it has become commonplace for comparativists to emphasize the resilience of welfare states in advanced capitalist societies and the failure of neoliberal efforts to dismantle the welfare state. Challenging some tenets of the resilience thesis, this article seeks to broaden the discussion of welfare-state retrenchment. The authors argue that a sharp deceleration of social spending has occurred in most OECD countries since 1980, tha…
Wage Inequality and Varieties of Capitalism
This article draws on a new data set that enables the authors to compare the distribution of income from employment across OECD countries. Specifically, the article conducts a pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis of the determinants of wage inequality in sixteen countries from 1973 to 1995. The analysis shows that varieties of capitalism matter. The authors find that the qualities that distinguish social market economies from liberal marke…
Workers, worries and welfare states: Social protection and job insecurity in 15 OECD countries
This article examines a model of the domestic political economy of subjective employment insecurity in advanced industrial societies. Based on data on people's attitudes toward their job as well as levels of and kinds of social protection collected in 15 OECD countries, it shows that there are distinct manifestations of job insecurity that are affected differently by distinct aspects of social protection programs. While the analysis shows that so…
Comparative Political Economy of Wage Distribution: The Role of Partisanship and Labour Market Institutions
Through a pooled cross-section time-series analysis of the determinants of wage inequality in sixteen OECD countries from 1973 to 1995, we explore how political-institutional variables affect the upper and lower halves of the wage distribution. Our regression results indicate that unionization, centralization of wage bargaining and public-sector employment primarily affect the distribution of wages by boosting the relative position of unskilled w…
The Politics of Inequality: Voter Mobilization and Left Parties in Advanced Industrial States
Why is it that some countries have witnessed significant increases in inequality since the 1960s while at the same time experiencing very little change in the way politics is conducted? And why is it that in other countries, where inequality has increased much less, the Left has become substantially more redistributive? The answer, the authors argue, has to do with the interaction between inequality and political mobilization of low-income voters…
Labor Markets, Production Strategies, and Wage Bargaining Institutions: The Swedish Employer Offensive in Comparative Perspective
Transformed patterns of labor market governance occupy a central place in the study of contemporary West European political economies. Here, detailed analysis of the dramatic decentralization of wage bargaining in Sweden identifies organized employers, especially engineering employers, as the decisive agents of institutional change. We argue that the employer offensive should be understood as a response to a shift in power within old wage-bargain…
From Comparative Public Policy to Political Economy: Putting Political Institutions in their Place and Taking Interests Seriously
The historical institutionalist tradition in comparative politics commonly assigns analytical primacy to political institutions. Whereas this polity-centeredness may be quite justifiable for purposes of comparative public policy, students of comparative political economy should pay systematic attention not only to economic institutions but also to a range of economic-structural variables that lie beyond the conventional confines of institutional …
How (and Why) Is This Time Different? The Politics of Economic Crisis in Western Europe and the United States
This article compares government responses to the Great Recession of 2008–2009 with government responses to recessions and other economic challenges in the period 1974–1982. We focus on five countries: France, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Across these countries, we observe two broad shifts in crisis responses. First, governments have in the recent period eschewed heterodox crisis policies and relied more exclusively…
Solidaristic Unionism and Support for Redistribution in Contemporary Europe
Using data from the European Social Survey (2002–14), this article explores the effect of union membership on support for redistribution. The authors hypothesize that the wage-bargaining practices of unions promote egalitarian distributive norms, which lead union members to support redistribution, and that this effect is strongest among high-wage workers. Consistent with the authors’ expectations, the empirical analysis shows that the solidarity …
New approaches to political economy
The discussion on 'New Approaches to Political Economy (PE)' gives us a state-of-the-art overview of the main theoretical and conceptual developments within the concept of political economy. Thereby, it invites us to broaden our knowledge regarding manifold novel approaches, which make use of more complex methods to study the less stable, less predictable, but faster changing realities of smaller or bigger geographical regions. In this discussion…
Explaining the Decline of European Social Democracy: The Role of Structural Economic Change
Using a number of different quantitative measures, this article demonstrates that variations in the degree of social democratic decline in nine European countries can be viewed in large measure as a product of two structural economic changes: (1) the shift to smaller units of production; and (2) the growth of private nonindustrial employment. The article explores several causal arguments linking these variables to social democratic decline, and i…
At the End of the Third Road: Swedish Social Democracy in Crisis
Falling behind whom? Economic geographies of right-wing populism in Europe
Existing studies suggest that right-wing populist parties (RWPPs) appeal to people in communities that have fallen behind in material terms. However, it remains open which benchmark communities apply as they become politically discontented. We argue that the structure of territorial inequalities influences the benchmarks used by people in regions falling behind. Panel data regressions using subnational election results in EU states from 1990 to 2…
Macroeconomic conditions, inequality shocks and the politics of redistribution, 1990–2013
This paper explores common trends in inequality and redistribution across OECD countries from the late 1980s to 2013. Low-end inequality rises during economic downturns while rising top-end inequality is associated with economic growth. Most countries retreated from redistribution from the mid-1990s until the onset of the Great Recession and compensatory redistribution in response to rising unemployment was weaker in 2008-13 than in the first hal…
The politics of fiscal policy during economic downturns, 1981–2010
This article investigates fiscal policy responses to the Great Recession in historical perspective. It explores general trends in the frequency, size and composition of fiscal stimulus as well as the impact of government partisanship on fiscal policy outputs during the four international recessions of 1980–1981, 1990–1991, 2001–2002 and 2008–2009. Encompassing 17–23 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, the analy…
Voter preferences as a source of descriptive (mis)representation by social class
This paper presents the results of a conjoint survey experiment in which Swiss citizens were asked to choose among parliamentary candidates with different class profiles determined by occupation, education and income. Existing survey‐experimental literature on this topic suggests that respondents are indifferent to the class profiles of candidates or biased against candidates with high‐status occupations and high incomes. We find that respondents…
Understanding unequal representation
Income and class biases in political representation have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention in recent years. The reasons are understandable: since the 1980s, very few democratically elected governments in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) undertook new initiatives to compensate low- and middle-income citizens for the unequal rise of top-income shares and concentration of wealth. Instead, redistribution ac…
Working-Class Strength by Institutional Design? Unionization, Partisan Politics, and Unemployment Insurance Systems, 1870 to 2010
Many studies have found that countries with union-administered unemployment insurance have higher rates of unionization than countries with state-administered unemployment insurance. With data going further back in history, this article demonstrates that the introduction of so-called “Ghent systems” had no effect on unionization rates. We argue that the Ghent effect identified by the existing literature came about as a result of increasing state …
Labor, Corporatism, and Industrial Policy: The Swedish Case in Comparative Perspective
Introduction to the Debate: Does Descriptive Misrepresentation by Income and Class Matter
This debate section features new research suggesting that class bias in the make-up of legislative bodies is a topic that deserves more attention by political scientists.1 Suppose that we drew, at random, an individual from the pool of adult citizens and another individual from the pool of elected representatives. Regardless of the country in which we carried out this experiment, the draws would likely yield two quite different individuals. Men a…
Corporatism versus social democracy: Divergent fortunes of the Austrian and Swedish labour movements
In Austria, the social democrats suffered major electoral losses in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, and these losses translated primarily into gains for right‐wing populism. In Sweden, by contrast, the social democrats have pretty much held their own in recent elections (except for 1991) and protest voting has assumed leftist as well as rightist forms. Commonly regarded as prototypical instances of 'corporatism', the two countries have…
The Comparative Politics of Labor-Initiated Reforms: Swedish Cases of Success and Failure
This article explores the reasons why some reform initiatives launched by the Swedish labor movement have succeeded and others have failed. It presents four case studies: two success stories (the pension reform of 1959 and the industrial democracy reforms of the 1970s), and two failures (inheritance taxation in the 1920s and 1940s, and wage-earner funds in the 1970s). The article casts these case studies in an analytical framework that emphasizes…
Swedish Wage-Earner Funds: An Experiment in Economic Democracy
This article analyzes the performance of the "wage-earner funds" established in Sweden in 1983-collective share-holding funds financed by special payroll and profits taxes. The authors' analysis indicates that although the wage-earner funds generally met the financial objectives set by the 1983 legislation, their significance in promoting "wage solidarity" (wage determination based on the work performed rather than on firm or industry profitabili…
Behind and Beyond Social Democracy in Sweden
As the tide of Eurocommunism has subsided, the evolution of labour movements hegemonized by social democracy has come to assume a more pivotal role for the debate on strategies of transition in the advanced capitalist countries. With good reason, the Swedish case is frequently cited in this context
Radicalization and Retreat in Swedish Social Democracy
The policies of Sweden’s Social Democratic Government are often invoked to demonstrate that there exists a viable alternative to Thatcherite neo-liberalism, while for many currents within Europe’s dwindling group of ruling Socialist parties Sweden has come to represent the light beckoning at the end of a long tunnel
Labor, Corporatism, and Industrial Policy: The Swedish Case in Comparative Perspective
Swedish Wage-Earner Funds: An Experiment in Economic Democracy
This article analyzes the performance of the "wage-earner funds" established in Sweden in 1983-collective share-holding funds financed by special payroll and profits taxes. The authors' analysis indicates that although the wage-earner funds generally met the financial objectives set by the 1983 legislation, their significance in promoting "wage solidarity" (wage determination based on the work performed rather than on firm or industry profitabili…
At the End of the Third Road: Swedish Social Democracy in Crisis
The Comparative Politics of Labor-Initiated Reforms: Swedish Cases of Success and Failure
This article explores the reasons why some reform initiatives launched by the Swedish labor movement have succeeded and others have failed. It presents four case studies: two success stories (the pension reform of 1959 and the industrial democracy reforms of the 1970s), and two failures (inheritance taxation in the 1920s and 1940s, and wage-earner funds in the 1970s). The article casts these case studies in an analytical framework that emphasizes…
Bargaining for Change: Union Politics in North America and Europe
The Limits of Social Democracy: Investment Politics in Sweden
Labor Parties in Postindustrial Societies
Labor and an Integrated Europe
As the European Community moves towards full integration of its members' economies, one of the most far-reaching changes will be in the European labour market. The increased mobility of labour - as well as capital, goods, and services - will have profound consequences for workers, employers and unions. The authors address such questions as: will European unions become more decentralized and increase their infuence?; will the German system of indu…
Explaining the Decline of European Social Democracy: The Role of Structural Economic Change
Using a number of different quantitative measures, this article demonstrates that variations in the degree of social democratic decline in nine European countries can be viewed in large measure as a product of two structural economic changes: (1) the shift to smaller units of production; and (2) the growth of private nonindustrial employment. The article explores several causal arguments linking these variables to social democratic decline, and i…
From Comparative Public Policy to Political Economy: Putting Political Institutions in their Place and Taking Interests Seriously
The historical institutionalist tradition in comparative politics commonly assigns analytical primacy to political institutions. Whereas this polity-centeredness may be quite justifiable for purposes of comparative public policy, students of comparative political economy should pay systematic attention not only to economic institutions but also to a range of economic-structural variables that lie beyond the conventional confines of institutional …
Labor Markets, Production Strategies, and Wage Bargaining Institutions: The Swedish Employer Offensive in Comparative Perspective
Transformed patterns of labor market governance occupy a central place in the study of contemporary West European political economies. Here, detailed analysis of the dramatic decentralization of wage bargaining in Sweden identifies organized employers, especially engineering employers, as the decisive agents of institutional change. We argue that the employer offensive should be understood as a response to a shift in power within old wage-bargain…
Between Neo-Liberalism and the German Model: Swedish Capitalism in Transition
Works Councils: Consultation, Representation, and Cooperation in Industrial Relations
Organized Industrial Relations in Europe: What Future
Introduction - farewell to Labour Market Associations? Organized versus disorganized decentralization as a map for industrial relations, Franz Traxler. Part I The logic and structure of associational action. Part II The neo-liberal challenge to organized industrial relations - four country studies. Part III The challenge from industrial change - the case of the financial sector. Part IV Associations and public policy. Conclusion - reconstructing …
Welfare-State Retrenchment Revisited: Entitlement Cuts, Public Sector Restructuring, and Inegalitarian Trends in Advanced Capitalist Societies
In recent years it has become commonplace for comparativists to emphasize the resilience of welfare states in advanced capitalist societies and the failure of neoliberal efforts to dismantle the welfare state. Challenging some tenets of the resilience thesis, this article seeks to broaden the discussion of welfare-state retrenchment. The authors argue that a sharp deceleration of social spending has occurred in most OECD countries since 1980, tha…
Corporatism versus social democracy: Divergent fortunes of the Austrian and Swedish labour movements
In Austria, the social democrats suffered major electoral losses in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, and these losses translated primarily into gains for right‐wing populism. In Sweden, by contrast, the social democrats have pretty much held their own in recent elections (except for 1991) and protest voting has assumed leftist as well as rightist forms. Commonly regarded as prototypical instances of 'corporatism', the two countries have…
Wage Inequality and Varieties of Capitalism
This article draws on a new data set that enables the authors to compare the distribution of income from employment across OECD countries. Specifically, the article conducts a pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis of the determinants of wage inequality in sixteen countries from 1973 to 1995. The analysis shows that varieties of capitalism matter. The authors find that the qualities that distinguish social market economies from liberal marke…
Comparative Political Economy of Wage Distribution: The Role of Partisanship and Labour Market Institutions
Through a pooled cross-section time-series analysis of the determinants of wage inequality in sixteen OECD countries from 1973 to 1995, we explore how political-institutional variables affect the upper and lower halves of the wage distribution. Our regression results indicate that unionization, centralization of wage bargaining and public-sector employment primarily affect the distribution of wages by boosting the relative position of unskilled w…
Varieties and Commonalities of Capitalism
This chapter critically examines the analytical foundations and some of the empirical claims of the Varieties-of-Capitalism (VoC) School of comparative political economy. Virtually, the entire field of comparative economy subscribes to the idea that capitalism takes on different institutional forms and, furthermore, that the institutional arrangements of real-existing capitalist political economies vary according to some kind of systematic logic,…
Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America
What are the relative merits of the American and European socioeconomic systems? Long-standing debates have heated up in recent years with the expansion of the European Union and increasingly sharp political and cultural differences between the United States and Europe. In Inequality and Prosperity, Jonas Pontusson provides a comparative overview of the two major models of labor markets and welfare systems in the advanced industrial world: the "l…
Great Controversies: Whither Social Europe?
Can egalitarianism itself contribute to growth? This political scientist looks at the recent success of the Nordic states and answers "yes." He also cites other characteristics that have made the Nordic economies work, not least their investment in education and policies to promote female employment.
Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America
Making the EMU: The Politics of Budgetary Surveillance and the Enforcement of Maastricht
Making the EMU: The Politics of Budgetary Surveillance and the Enforcement of Maastricht. By James D. Savage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. 239p. $85.00. As all students of contemporary European politics know, the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 specified a series of criteria that member states of the European Union had to fulfill in order to join the single currency that would be launched in 1998–99. Most importantly, public debt had to be le…
Political science (49 works) · Economics (45 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (41 works) · Politics (40 works) · Law (34 works) · Political economy (25 works) · Law (20 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (16 works) · Democracy (14 works) · Labour economics (14 works)