This new edition offers a clear and accessible comparative introduction to the political institutions of Western Europe's four largest countries: Britain, France, Italy, and Germany. It has been thoroughly revised to cover not only developments at a national level, but also the growing integration of national politics with the politics of the European Union.

European welfare states are currently under stress and the 'social contracts' that underpin them are being challenged. First, welfare spending has arguably 'grown to limits' in a number of countries while expanding everywhere in the 1990s in line with higher unemployment. Second, demographic change and the emergence of new patterns of family and working life are transforming the nature of 'needs'. Third, the economic context and the policy autonomy of nation states has been transformed by 'globalization'. This book considers the implications of these challenges for European welfare states at...

Populism has become a favourite catchword for mass media and politicians faced with the challenge of protest parties or movements. It has often been equated with radical right leaders or parties. This volume offers a different perspective and underlines that populism is an ambiguous but constitutive component of democratic systems torn between their ideology (government of the people, by the people, for the people) and their actual functioning, characterised by the role of the elites and the limits put on the popular will by liberal constitutionalism.

The European Union is paradoxical: it is not a state, yet it performs many traditional functions of the state. Its regulatory powers are immense but its redistributive functions are negligible; its decisions penetrate all aspects of economic and social life, yet Brussels has no local administration or tribunals, no controllers capable of guaranteeing the correct and faithful implementation of the regulations or objectives which frame European policies. Ths book explores the means through which this paradox is confronted. It examines the nature and modalities of policy-making at Community...

The European Union is paradoxical: it is not a state, yet it performs many traditional functions of the state. Its regulatory powers are immense but its redistributive functions are negligible; its decisions penetrate all aspects of economic and social life, yet Brussels has no local administration or tribunals, no controllers capable of guaranteeing the correct and faithful implementation of the regulations or objectives which frame European policies. Ths book explores the means through which this paradox is confronted. It examines the nature and modalities of policy-making at Community...