In the run up to the 2014 European Parliament elections, the new Spitzenkandidaten process and European-wide party campaigns fuelled expectations of strengthening democratic processes in Europe. At the same time, the anticipated surge of support for anti-establishment and Eurosceptic parties...

In the run up to the 2014 European Parliament elections, the new Spitzenkandidaten process and European-wide party campaigns fueled expectations of strengthening democratic processes in Europe. At the same time, the anticipated surge of support for anti-establishment and Eurosceptic parties...

In a recent decision, the European Court of Justice has ruled that insurers cannot discriminate on grounds of sex in setting premiums or determining benefits. This paper discusses the background to this decision. It asks whether we are seeing a US-style ‘rights revolution’, fuelled by...

Theoretical work on state formation and capacity has focused mostly on early modern Europe and on the experience of western European states during this period. While a number of European states monopolized domestic tax collection and achieved gains in state capacity during the early modern era,...

This paper examines the regional growth process of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe since the start of their transition to market economies. It relates this to three distinctive explanations of regional growth and examines empirically their relevance in explaining the patterns of...

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First Annual Ralf Dahrendorf Memorial Lecture, London School of Economics, 7 October 2010

Many political scientists and economists have addressed the implications of the public sector’s sheltered status on their unions’ wage strategies vis-à-vis the government. Since the public sector is a monopoly provider of necessary and price inelastic services, conventional wisdom suggests...

This article analyses the recourse to religion as a source of law in the legal and political order of the European Union. It demonstrates that the legitimacy of religious input into law is recognised institutionally, symbolically and substantively. However, religious influence within the...

The question of the European cultural heritage and the wider historical legacy of Europe has been the subject of much discussion in recent years as is reflected in new approaches to memory and commemoration, values, and European identity. Unlike earlier histories, which generally contained a...