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The main aim of this paper is to shed light on the link between 'onward migration' and 'onward precarity' as an experience of continuous precariousness by paying attention to crisis/post-crisis contexts and how these contexts have led to precarity becoming structurally embedded in migrant labour markets in Europe. Onward migration studies have centrally focused on crisis contexts, but very little attention has been paid to post-crisis contexts. Thus, this article contributes to complementing the previous research on onward migration and onward precarity. The paper follows a qualitative and multi-sited approach based on in-depth interviews and discussion groups with Latin American migrants living in Madrid, Lisbon, and London. Our empirical analysis elucidates that labour mobility and onward migration are embedded in intersectional dynamics of exclusion which entail a continuous experience of multifaceted precarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cosmopolitanism, which is often defined as openness to other cultures and individuals, is significant for understanding processes of stratification in contemporary, globalised societies that are home to increasingly diverse populations. In this paper, we broaden the perspective on cosmopolitanism to include cultural, interpersonal, and political dimensions. We test the associations between these types of cosmopolitanism and three types of correlates: socio-demographic characteristics, personal exposure to other cultures, and exposure to other cultures via various media. We analyse data from nine European countries that differ in the characteristics of their population, cultural traditions, and political models. Results indicate that differences between respondents in the nine countries are better explained by individual characteristics than by country characteristics. Furthermore, it is mainly personal and mediated exposure to other cultures, rather than socio-demographic variables, that play a significant role in influencing respondents' cosmopolitan tendencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at assessing whether party organizational profiles and policy issue saliency converged in 7 European democracies (Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK), from the 1970s to the 2010s. Building on the theoretical premises of the cartel party thesis and historical new-institutionalism, the paper argues that general tendencies in party policy issue saliency and organizational evolution driven by contextual factors have been taken for granted by party literature based on ideal-typical models. We maintain that party convergence is mainly associated to higher levels of socialization to government. Our empirical analysis shows that patterns of cross-country convergence among parties actually emerge concerning the saliency of the issues placed on the classical left-right divide, as well as party resources, while higher variance characterizes all the other organizational dimensions and post-materialist/value-based policy issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper follows the perspective of recent political communication studies approaching the online public sphere as a new platform for the political expression of citizens. Based on an explorative, in-depth analysis of user-generated content related to mainstream media coverage of the immigration crisis, with a specific focus on representations of the role of the EU in the crisis, it aims to discover how recent political trends in Europe are reflected in the online political expression of Eurosceptic citizens of a post-socialist Central European country, the Czech Republic. Relating the analysed data to current knowledge of the links between populism, illiberalism and Euroscepticism, and reflecting the post-socialist specifics of this relationship, it suggests that ressentiment may explain the representation of the EU as a traitor to the Europeans in the civic online discourse in times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional Organizations (ROs) have become a central pillar of governance beyond the nation-state. This paper investigates why European states turned into architects of regional regime complexity: they have created and joined numerous different ROs and equipped them with a broad range of different policy competencies. Thereby, European states – some more than others – have increasingly duplicated identical policy competencies in multiple ROs. The phenomenon is puzzling as it is potentially costly and might undermine the effectiveness of regional cooperation especially if incompatible regional rules trigger non-compliance. Therefore, we ask why states differ in the extent to which they cover identical competencies in different ROs. Drawing on a unique dataset and analyzing cross-sectional temporal variation, we show that both indirect factors, such as late accessions and the number of states in Europe, as well as direct factors, such as state power and democracy, drive regional regime complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European crisis is the best case study for examining both the vulnerabilities of Europe's framework for economic governance and the very process of European integration itself. This statement is true for several reasons: first, because the European crisis is the most serious crisis the European Union has faced to date; second, because of the crisis, limits on the process of economic integration in Europe have been put to a real test; and third, because the main causes of the crisis are tied into the framework for economic governance that has been developed over the last few decades and therefore are connected to the very process of European unification itself. The primary aim of this paper is to demonstrate whether and to what extent the new framework for economic governance in Europe is largely a result of interstate bargaining and consequently whether national preferences continue to play an important role in the framework's general transformation. The economic crisis showed that important issues in economic policy concerning the change in economic governance and the role of the nation-state, which were ‘swept under the carpet’ in recent decades, must be resolved to make the European venture viable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite its elusiveness and undefined boundaries, policy-makers and pundits have strived to pin down what ‘Europe’ as a territorial project actually represents and where it might (and should) be going. Two of the most intriguing arguments refer to Europe as either a ‘super-state in the making’ or a ‘neo-medieval empire.’ These models are typically presented as either mutually exclusive or in tension with one another. In this paper, I argue that the European territorial project's current trajectory is actually characterized by a mix of the two models. Such hybrid form of governance can be defined as ‘neoterritorial’ since it is based on the modern principle according to which freedom can only flourish in a clearly demarcated political space. Yet, this enclosed political space does not necessarily require the modern nation state's entire legal and institutional paraphernalia, but can instead be based on a ‘pooling’ of sovereignty and a flexible institutional framework and be spread out over a larger and more heterogeneous area than the traditional nation state. This hybrid model is epitomized by the Schengen regime, the institutional arrangement governing the management of Europe's borders. Despite its ongoing internal tensions and the challenges it has faced over the years, this model has become—and it is likely to remain in the foreseeable future—an established presence in Europe's political landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2011, the European Council proposed a Fiscal Pact for member states which would impose a binding limit on their structural deficits (SDs), as part of the wider set of measures intended to resolve the Eurozone's sovereign debt crisis. The proposal, adopted by 25 states in the course of 2012–2013, requires that this limit be imposed on each annual budget, with strict rules governing any breaches, subject to sanctions imposed by the Eurozone authorities. The paper examines the economic and political foundations of the measure. It is argued that the SD is meaningless as a policy target, since it is impossible to measure objectively, while politically it reinforces the depoliticisation of economic policy, under which technical experts replace elected governments in managing the national economy. The purpose of the Fiscal Pact is primarily to reassure business and financial élites that there will be no return to the state interventionism and excessive public spending that supposedly characterised the Keynesian era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To get a realist picture of the economic crisis in Europe, we need to know the heterogeneity of European capitalism. Differences in terms of competitiveness and institutions are huge. With the crisis as point of departure, I will outline this heterogeneity. First, I describe the comparative (dis-)advantages of selected EU-member states. The differences are big, particularly in terms of economic specialisation and innovation capacity—aspects getting little attention in the standard literature. In the second part, the paper concentrates on institutional development in the past decades. To identify gradual differences and change, I distinguish ideal-typical from empirical capitalisms, which are located in the field between the types. Based on state–economy and capital–labour relationships as criteria, my types are liberal and embedded capitalism of which the latter is split into statist, patrimonial and corporatist types. Data from the Index of Economic Freedom, the OECD and the World Bank are rough indicators to locate the cases, but show that the strongly corporatist capitalisms in the Nordic countries are highly competitive, while competitiveness and the capacity adequately to act declines the more patrimonial capitalism is, as in the Mediterranean countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]