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The paper deals with the conflicts associated with the so-called 'Dieselgate' affair. It explains the interaction of civil society, law firms and political actors which reshapes the legal systems in Europe. Once the federal government in Germany had decided that European car owners should not get any kind of financial compensation, a transnational coalition of consumer organizations and law firms successfully initiated a legal mobilization campaign to counteract the political decision. As a consequence, collective litigation rights were strengthened in Germany and at the European level. Theoretically, the paper refers to the literature on adversarial legalism. Whether this judicialized style of conflict resolution is spreading to Europe ('Eurolegalism') has been a hotly debated topic in political science. Our main argument is that the Dieselgate case is a catalyst event to foster the transformation process towards 'Eurolegalism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on historical issues in Europe. Popularity of Americanization in literatures about United States-European relations; Reasons for the migration of Europeans to other countries; Boundaries in the production of historical knowledge of the country.

This paper identifies and seeks to resolve the paradox that British social policy appears to have diverged from its EU partners in the period since membership and to have converged with that of the USA. Existing historical institutionalist approaches stress common regime characteristics of Britain and the USA in explanation of British difference from other member states. The present paper challenges such accounts and argues that the explanation lies in the transformation (and demise) of the post-Imperial/Commonwealth system of political economy in which the British economy (and related social policy) was embedded. This transformation has also produced internal problems within the British state giving rise to its reorganization with devolved Assemblies in Scotland and Wales. The final part of the paper addresses how this latter development has created a 'fault-line' in the British social policy debate with the possibility of reversing the trend toward Americanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most film histories of the twentieth century Hollywood's dominance has been indisputable. Apparently, European filmmakers were always facing one choice: either imitating the American style or finding a niche in the Hollywood system. This dominance is often referred to as evidence for an ‘Americanisation’ of popular culture in Europe. This article shows that this narrative leaves out a central development between 1927 and 1968: the nationalisation of popular European cinema. The paper asks which conditions facilitated and shaped national film cultures and shows how the political regulation of production in European countries, the momentum of the market, technology and the national industries contributed to the nationalisation of European film. Ultimately, however, the productions of these national cinemas resonated with audiences who sustained them for years following the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the thesis that popular music in early twentieth-century Germany was Americanised by shifting the focus from the meaning and reception of music to the way it was produced and disseminated by professionals, from music publishers and composers to bandleaders and critics. Firstly, it stresses a key difference in the way the music business was modernised on both sides of the Atlantic around 1900. While in the US the sheet-music trade became ‘Taylorised’, the music business in Germany, as elsewhere in Continental Europe, was transformed into a rights industry. Secondly, the paper highlights the prominence of Austrian music producers and their repertoire in Germany and suggests that, at least in a business sense, popular music in Germany was Austrianised rather than Americanised. Thirdly, it proposes that ‘Jazz’ after the First World War was hardly a straightforward import of American culture, but a site where incumbents and newcomers to the music profession struggled for position. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Historians have labelled the development of modern mass-consumer societies in Europe as a process of ‘Americanisation’. Until today, the consumption of immaterial goods like vacations has been rather neglected by historiography. The purpose of this article is to verify the hypothesis that the United States served as a role model for European vacationing patterns and the evolution of the European travel industry. The paper demonstrates that a simple model of ‘Americanisation’ does not adequately represent the process of partial imitation, adaptation and alteration of American travel patterns through European societies and, more particular, through European holiday providers. National traditions and cultural differences of vacationing continue to exist until today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]