In this chapter we document a change in the character and quality of Turkish economic growth, with a turning point around 2007. We link this change to the reversal in the nature of economic institutions. This institutional reversal, we argue, is a consequence of a turnaround in political factors. The first phase coincided with a deepening of the Turkish democracy under the prodding and guidance of the European Union. As Turkey-European Union relations collapsed and the removal of the checks against the dominance of the governing party, these political dynamics began to reverse and paved the way for the institutional slide. […]
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This chapter examines policy initiatives that aim to coordinate and integrate higher education in Europe, focusing particularly on the issue of international student mobility. From an inter-regional perspective, a key priority has been to build and maintain the preeminence of European higher education in relation to increased competition from North America and East Asia. Intra-regional priorities center primarily on efforts to support the European Economic Area. This chapter examines these dynamics through three policy initiatives: the Erasmus(+) student mobility programme, the Erasmus Mundus post-graduate mobility programme, and the European Higher Education Area. […]
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This paper reviews some key conceptual and practical barriers that have hampered territorial economic development prospects. Conceptual and comparative empirical studies show that regional knowledge and innovation flows were no longer vertical, linear and cumulative but horizontal, variegated and combinative. This evolutionary economic geography discovery will be supported with insights from resilience and complexity theory and demonstrated by reference to three exemplars of transversality, which is the name for innovation and knowledge flows policy that overcomes the cognitive and policy lock-ins. […]
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European policy strategy has shifted from maintaining a balance between expanding market forces and social development policy to an attitude espousing a neoliberal insistence for deregulation and the strengthening of markets. This change has had negative consequences for employment and labour policy. The relationship between consumption and job security has not been adequately addressed, and the implications of risk and uncertainty for the distribution of income have not been determined. Nor is there any response to the consequences of mass migration following the admission of new member states from Central and Eastern Europe. […]
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What is a member state exactly and what does it look like? What are the factors that have driven this shift from nation-state to member state? Does the current crisis of the EU signal an end to member statehood and a return to a Europe of nation-states or is it a confirmation of it? The chapter will argue that member states are characterized by a growing distance between governments and their own societies. This growing gap between political elites and their own societies lies behind the growth of both populism and technocracy as powerful political phenomena in contemporary European politics. […]
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Some 25 million Muslims live in the 28 Member States of the European Union. The vast majority of these Muslims came seeking work and they were needed as they worked in sectors usually referred to as “difficult, dirty and dangerous”. In the 80’s, they started to be perceived not as Immigrants from Morocco, Pakistan or Turkey but as “Muslims”, eventually threatening the social fabric of European societies. The terrorist attacks by tiny groups of Islamist fanatics and the radicalisation of “thousands” of native Muslim Europeans added fuel to the surging anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe. Unless there is a simultaneous effort by immigrants to better integrate in European societies and by European Societies to show openness, tensions may become worrisome. […]
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The Russians have always been uncertain about their place in Europe. That ambivalence is an important aspect of their cultural history and identity. Living on the margins of the continent, they have never been quite sure if their destiny is there. Are they of the West or of the East? Feelings of ambivalence and insecurity, of envy and resentment towards Europe, have long defined the Russian national consciousness—and they still do today. […]
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This paper documents two gaps in Europe’s growth performance since 2008 and 2009. The first refers to the slower output, investment and productivity growth rate compared to the pre-crisis period. The second refers to the performance gap relative to the United States. Weak productivity growth is a major factor slowing the speed of recovery in Europe. This slowdown has broadened from the services sector to manufacturing, which has been a traditional stronghold for productivity in Europe. There is a need to accelerate investment in the most important assets for productivity recovery. […]
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Democracy promotion and support for civil society have been key defining elements of the enlargement policy since the Eastern Enlargement. A working democracy is a political requirement to join the European Union and a vibrant civil society is perceived as evidence of democracy and good governance at work because it allows citizens to freely associate and engage in civic action. This chapter analyses the European Union’s transformative role through the lens of its enlargement policy’s civil society promotion strategy in candidate countries and to place this analysis in the wider debate about democracy in the EU and the standing of its enlargement policy in the aftermath of the financial crisis. […]
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The ECB has moved from part of the problem to part of the solution. At the beginning, it focused single-mindedly on headline inflation, neglected risks to financial stability, opposed debt restructuring and hesitated to embark on quantitative easing even when the spectre of deflation loomed. Now it acknowledges its lender and liquidity provider responsibilities, has shown itself capable of pursuing unconventional policies in unconventional circumstances, has softened its doctrinal opposition to debt restructuring and has assumed additional responsibilities for banking and financial supervision. This chapter traces the transformation. […]
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