Institutions politiques de l'Europe contemporaine : constitution, gouvernement, assemblées parlementaires, administration locale, justice.

Includes bibliographical references.

Legal Institutions and Collective Memories

In recent decades the debate among scholars, lawyers, politicians and others about how societies deal with their past has been constant and intensive. 'Legal Institutions and Collective Memories' situates the processes of transitional justice at the intersection between legal procedures and the production of collective and shared meanings of the past. Building upon the work of Maurice Halbwachs, this collection of essays emphasises the extended role and active involvement of contemporary law and legal institutions in public discourse about the past, and explores their impact on the shape that collective memories take in the course of time. The authors uncover a complex pattern of searching for truth, negotiating the past and cultivating the art of forgetting. Their contributions explore the ambiguous and intricate links between the production of justice, truth and memory. The essays cover a broad range of legal institutions, countries and topics. These include transitional trials as 'monumental spectacles' as well as constitutional courts, and the restitution of property rights in Central and Eastern Europe and Australia. The authors explore the biographies of victims and how their voices were repressed, as in the case of Korean Comfort Women. They explore the role of law and legal institutions in linking individual and collective memories in the transitional period through processes of lustration, and they analyse divided memories about the past and their impact on future reconciliation in South Africa. The collection offers a genuinely comparative approach, allied to cutting-edge theory.

Regulating Food Consumption : Studies of change and variation in Europe

The role of people as buyers and eaters of food has changed significantly. From being protected by a paternalistic welfare state, people appear to be accorded more freedom and responsibility as individuals, where attention is redirected from the state towards market relations. Many have asserted that these changes are accompanied by fragmentation, individualisation, and privatisation, leading to individual uncertainty and lack of confidence. But empirical observations do not always confirm this, distrust is not necessarily growing and while responsibilities may change, the state still plays an active role. This dissertation explores changing relationships between states and markets, on the one hand, and ordinary people in their capacities as consumers and citizens, on the other. Do we see the emergence of new forms of regulation of food consumption? If so, what is the scope and what are the characteristics? Theories of regulation addressing questions about individualisation and self-governance are combined with a conceptualisation of consumption as processes of institutionalisation, involving daily routines, the division of labour between production and consumption, and the institutional field in which consumption is embedded. The analyses focus on the involvement of the state, food producers and scientific, first of all nutritional, expertise in regulating consumption, and on popular responses. Two periods come out as important, first when the ideas of “designing the good life” emerged, giving the state a very particular role in regulating food consumption, and, second, when this “designing” is replaced by ideas of choice and individual responsibility. One might say that “consumer choice” has become a mode of regulation. I use mainly historical studies from Norway to analyse the shifting role of the state in regulating food consumption, complemented with population surveys from six European countries to study how modernisation processes are associated with trust. The studies find that changing regulation is not only a question of societal or state vs individual responsibilities. Degrees of organisation and formalisation are important as well. While increasing organisation may represent discipline and abuses of power (including exploitation of consumer loyalty), organisation can also, to the consumer, provide higher predictability, systems to deal with malfeasance, and efficiency which may provide conditions for acting. The welfare state and the neo-liberal state have very different types of solutions. The welfare state solution is based on (national) egalitarianism, paternalism and discipline (of the market as well as households). Such solutions are still prominent in Norway. Individualisation and self-regulation may represent a regulatory response not only to a declining legitimacy of this kind of interventionism, but also increasing organisational complexity. This is reflected in large-scale re-regulation of markets as well as in relationships with households and consumers. Individualisation of responsibility is to the consumer not a matter of the number of choices that are presented on the shelves, but how choice as a form of consumer based involvement is institutionalised. It is recognition of people as “end-consumers”, as social actors, with systems of empowerment politically as well as via the provisioning system. ‘Consumer choice’ as a regulatory strategy includes not only communicative efforts to make people into “choosing consumers”, but also the provision of institutions which recognise consumer interests and agency. When this is lacking we find distrust as representing powerlessness. Individual responsibility-taking represents agency and is not always a matter of loyal support to shared goals, but involves protest and creativity. More informal (‘communitarian’) innovations may be an indication of that, where self-realisation is intimately combined with responsibility for social problems. But as solutions to counteract existing imbalances of power in the food market the impacts of such initiatives are probably more as part of consumer mobilisation and politicisation than as alternative provisioning.

Representing Europe's Citizens? Electoral Institutions and the Failure of Parliamentary Representation

Scully, Roger, Farrell, David, Representing Europe's Citizens? Electoral Institutions and the Failure of Parliamentary Representation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp.xiii+230 RAE2008

Vitamin D and mortality: meta-analysis of individual participant data from a large consortium of cohort studies from Europe and the United States

Objective: To investigate the association between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations (25(OH)D) and mortality in a large consortium of cohort studies paying particular attention to potential age, sex, season, and country differences.

Design: Meta-analysis of individual participant data of eight prospective cohort studies from Europe and the US.

Setting: General population.

Participants: 26 018 men and women aged 50-79 years

Main outcome measures: All-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality.

Results: 25(OH)D concentrations varied strongly by season (higher in summer), country (higher in US and northern Europe) and sex (higher in men), but no consistent trend with age was observed. During follow-up, 6695 study participants died, among whom 2624 died of cardiovascular diseases and 2227 died of cancer. For each cohort and analysis, 25(OH)D quintiles were defined with cohort and subgroup specific cut-off values. Comparing bottom versus top quintiles resulted in a pooled risk ratio of 1.57 (95% CI 1.36 to 1.81) for all-cause mortality. Risk ratios for cardiovascular mortality were similar in magnitude to that for all-cause mortality in subjects both with and without a history of cardiovascular disease at baseline. With respect to cancer mortality, an association was only observed among subjects with a history of cancer (risk ratio, 1.70 (1.00 to 2.88)). Analyses using all quintiles suggest curvilinear, inverse, dose-response curves for the aforementioned relationships. No strong age, sex, season, or country specific differences were detected. Heterogeneity was low in most meta-analyses.

Conclusions: Despite levels of 25(OH)D strongly varying with country, sex, and season, the association between 25(OH)D level and all-cause and cause-specific mortality was remarkably consistent. Results from a long term randomised controlled trial addressing longevity are being awaited before vitamin D supplementation can be recommended in most individuals with low 25(OH)D levels.

Social Policy Reforms in Turkey : Uses of Europe

Ce mémoire analyse trois réformes majeures de politique sociale en Turquie, en deux domaines: emploi et sécurité social. En utilisant l'approche "Usage de l'Europe", ce mémoire developpe une analyse empirique et apporte une explication théorique de ces changements qui ont été introduits au cours du processus d'adhésion de la Turquie à l'Union européenne. "Les usages de l'Europe" est une approche d'européanisation qui se concentre sur le rôle des acteurs domestiques, au sein des États membres et candidats, ainsi que de leur utilisation des ressources de l'Union européenne. Les études de cas utilisées dans cette thèse démontrent l'introduction de changements au niveau de l'État-providence; ainsi, l'approche originelle est suppléée par des concepts provenant de la littérature sur la politique partisane, les institutions formelles et l'héritage des politiques. Cette recherche utilise la méthode de l'analyse de processus pour suivre la réforme des règlements du travail par la voie de reconstitution des droits individuels des travailleurs et de l'Agence d'emploi en Turquie jusqu'en 2003, ainsi que la transformation du système de sécurité sociale en 2008. Ces trois réformes représentent des changements majeurs tant sur le plan institutionnel que politique en Turquie depuis 2001. Afin de comprendre "les usages de l'Europe" dans ces réformes politiques, l'analyse empirique questionne, si, quand et comment les acteurs turcs ont utilisé les ressources, les références et les développements politiques de l'Union européenne lors de ce processus dynamique de réforme. Les réformes du système de sécurité sociale, des règlements du travail, en plus de la reconstitution de l'Agence d'emploi étaient à l'ordre du jour en Turquie depuis les années 1990. La réforme des règlements du travail ont entraîné l'introduction des accommodements flexibles au travail et une révision de la Loi du travail permettant l'établissement d'une législation de la sécurité d'emploi. La reconstitution de l'Agence d'emploi visait à remplacer la vieille institution défunte par une institution moderne afin d'introduire des politiques d'activation. La réforme de sécurité sociale comprend les pensions de retraite, le système de santé ainsi que l'administration des institutions de sécurité sociale. Les principaux résultats révèlent que la provision des ressources de l'Union européenne en Turquie a augmenté à partir de la reconnaissance de sa candidature en 1999 et ce, jusqu'au lancement des négociations pour son adhésion en 2005; ce qui fut une occasion favorable pour les acteurs domestiques impliqués dans les processus de réformes. Cependant, à l'encontre de certaines attentes originelles de l'approche de "les usages de l'Europe", les résultats de cette recherche démontrent que le temps et le sort de "les usages de l'Europe" dépendent des intérêts des acteurs domestiques, ainsi de leurs stratégies tout au long de ce processus de réforme, plutôt que des phases du processus ou la quantité des ressources fournies par l'Union européenne.

Formation of social capital in Eastern Europe : explaining the gap vis-à-vis developed countries

Recent Eurobarometer survey data are used to document and explain the leveI of social capital in thirteen new members and fifteen current members of the European Union. Social capital in Eastern Europe - measured by participation in clubs and organization, intensity of networks or altruistic behavior - lags behind that in developed countries. The differences in individual-leveI determinants cannot fully account for the gap at the aggregate leveI. Once we also include aggregate measures of economic development and quality of institutions, the gap disappears. This implies that the EU enlargement will contribute to a convergence in social capital, assuming that it contributes to the economic and institutional development of Eastern European countries. A necessary condition is that both, formal and informal institutions and their interaction should be regarded in this process.

Pension reform in Europe in the 90's and lessons for Latin America

Includes bibliography