Does it matter how much land your neighbour owns? The functioning of land markets in Poland from a social comparison perspective. Factor Markets Working Document No. 59, August 2013

While many factors have been studied in relation to the functioning of land markets, the role of land distribution has received relatively little attention. In this paper, we ask to what extent farmers’ propensity to buy land is related to the difference between them and their neighbours in terms of land ownership. To this end, we employ the concept of relative deprivation. Drawing on micro-level data from the transition period in Poland and using both OLS and instrumental variables strategy, we find that interpersonal comparisons with others in one’s reference group may have motivated a farmer’s behaviour in the land market. In particular, the propensity to purchase land is positively associated with experiencing higher relative deprivation. In addition, this relationship waned over time in a predictable manner: late in the transition period it was weaker than at the beginning of the period.

Current Problems of Social Europe. Research Papers in Law, 7/2007

From the Introduction. The main difficulty of Theology lies in the fact that the very existence of its subject-matter, God, may be put into question. Talking about Social Europe has something of a theological dimension. The aim of this article is to contribute into the debate, by putting into perspective some of the latest manifestations of social Europe. The need for the pursuance of social policies at the European level is now more pressing than ever (para 2). The EU, however, as it now stands, is the direct evolutionary result of the predominantly economic entity created back in 1957. This explains that the social policies pursued at the European level are piecemeal and often impregnated with market concerns (para. 3). From an instrumental point of view, EU social policy is being pursued concomitantly by secondary legislation (hard law) in the fields where the EU does have the relevant competences and by softer means of cooperation (soft law) in several other fields. Hard law has given the occasion to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), in a series of recent judgments, of putting to the fore the concept of a ‘social market’ (para. 4). Soft cooperation has been formalised into the infamous Lisbon Strategy and has been the main object of experimentation with the open method of coordination (OMC) (para. 5). The advances achieved in the above ways, however, do not offer firm answers to basic questions concerning the future development of the European social identity (para. 6)

Bundeswehr 3.0: The political, military and social dimensions of the reform of the German armed forces. OSW Point of View Number 28, May 2012

This reform of the Bundeswehr, launched in 2011, is the latest of the three decisive stages in the post-war transformation of the German armed forces. The reform aims at “constructing” the armed forces anew in the political, military and social dimensions.The present paper presents the evolution of the role of the armed forces in German foreign and security policy and the ongoing process of “constructing” a new Bundeswehr. It analyses the process of redefining the objectives and principles of: the Bundeswehr’s participation in international operations, its current military transformation, and changes in its image and social identity. It also presents the implications of this broader transformation for political and military.

Ideas and Policy: The European Union considers social policy futures. ACES Cases No. 2010.2

The European Union’s social policy perspectives have changed quite dramatically over the last several decades. Now EU’s social policy discourse often promises to “invest in people,” sometimes “to invest in children,” and always to pay particular attention to youth. This paper argues that the tools of historical institutionalism can lead to understanding the ideational roots of this social investment perspective so distant from the “European social model.” Coming out of social movements, and with collective identities shaped both by those movement roots and national experiences, activists have effectively focused their practices on altering the social representations of European social solidarity through their interest group interventions, their participation in policy forums, and their mobilization within civil society at the European and sub-European levels. They have been able to make common cause with several epistemic communities that themselves revamped their ideas in the face of new institutional constraints, in order to advance their interests in promoting particular directions for social policy. The paper documents that “ideas” are not a variable and discourse “sometimes important” but that the ideas carried by movements and in epistemic communities are integral to the very definition of their interests that they promote within and with institutions.

Images of Europeans: In-Group Trust and Support for European Integration. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 14 No. 3, March 2014

Prior research on citizen support for European integration does not consider how individuals’ evaluations of European nationalities are associated with support. This paper fills this gap by developing a political cohesion model based on social identity theory. I claim that the probability of supporting integration increases with greater levels of trust in fellow Europeans, which assumes to reflect their positive images. Also, trust in eastern European Union nationalities has the highest impact on the probability for support, followed by trust in the southern nationalities, and then northern nationalities due to the eastern and southern nationalities relatively lower economic development. Controlling for various factors, the ordered logistic regression analysis of the European Election Study (2004) data support these claims.

Structure as Process: The Regularized Intergovernmentalism of Franco-German Bilateralism, CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No.02.3, 2002

This article systematically scrutinizes the intergovernmental and administrative aspects of Franco- German relations with the 1963 Elysée Treaty at their core. This treaty, together with its various additions and extensions, has defined the basic processes of bilateral interaction between the French and German states. Recurrent tension in Franco-German relations notwithstanding, many observers and participants have viewed France and Germany to be connected particularly closely since the 1960s. This article explores key elements of what it is that links France and Germany. Thereby it clarifies the concept of regularized intergovernmentalism, suggests viewing this specific set of international practices from a social-structural perspective, and evaluates the effects and limits of such regularized procedures. Its findings suggest that bilateral structures have complemented and undergirded a broadly multilateral post-World War II world and are likely to continue to do.

Corporate social responsibility: a European perspective. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 13 No. 6, June 2013

From the Introduction. CSR grows at different rhythms. CSR varies from continent to continent, country from country, sector from sector and corporation from corporation. The Responsible Competitive Index (RCI) from the UK NGO Accountability and the Brazilian Business School, Fundaçao Dom Cabral, looks at how countries are performing in their efforts to promote responsible business practices and issues periodical indexes about such performances. The RCI’s index for 2007 analysed 108 countries (96% of global GDP). The analysis showed that more advanced economies do better in this area. The top 20 countries, by the ranking order of best performance, were the following: 1 Sweden, 2 Denmark, 3 Finland, 4 Iceland, 5 UK, 6 Norway, 7 New Zealand, 8 Ireland, 9 Australia, 10 Canada, 11 Germany, 12, Netherlands, 13 Switzerland, 14 Belgium, 15 Singapore, 16 Austria, 17 France, 18 USA, 19 Japan, and 20 Hong Kong, etc. However, it is important to bear in mind that advanced economies have often moved their more dirty industries to other parts of the world where there are less stringent environmental and social standards. As a result, other countries may be polluting on their behalf, and the indexes do not factor those in.2