Social cohesion in Europe after the crisis

In the last few years, Europe has been forced to re-think its socio-economic model. Social indicators speak for themselves. Real household income declined significantly between 2008 and 2012, employment rates are lower and the number of people in poverty saw a steady rise with a growing divergence between EU countries. In the eurozone, cuts in public spending and internal devaluation have been the main tools to aim at a correction of unsustainable fiscal positions and a strengthening of competitiveness. It has carried a heavy social price tag. Outside of the eurozone, austerity has also been the prevailing policy, seen as inevitable to avoid economic instability. The crisis has not hit everyone equally. The general losses have been high, but there have also been some quite important redistributive effects. With all the difficulties of defining and measuring 'fairness', it is clear that the adjustment has not been equitable. Apart from issues of market failure, there have been direct increases of inequality within each of the member states. Higher poverty rates have been observed, rises in inequalities between higher and lower income earners as well as intergenerational inequalities between age groups. Long-term consequences are only beginning to surface in the public debate as the most immediate pressures of the crisis are slowly overcome. In this report, the authors first of all look at the results of the survey we have carried out in seven European countries and review perceptions of the socio-economic model. Subsequently, they assess the importance of the social dimension in the broader context of the European growth model. The authors discuss the impact of the structural challenges of globalisation, demography and technological change. They then review the EU’s performance in the crisis. Finally, the authors make a number of recommendations on how to bridge the gap between Europeans‘ expectations and reality.

Fostering social cohesion: the missing link in the EU's exit strategy from the crisis. EPC Discussion Paper, 31 March 2015

In this Discussion Paper, Claire Dhéret argues that the EU should consider the level of social cohesion as a concrete policy priority in its long-term exit strategy from the crisis.

Eurozone Crisis and Social Models: What We Can Learn from Italy and Spain. CES Papers - Open Forum #20, 2013-2014

This paper considers the role of social model features in the economic performance of Italy and Spain during the run-up to the Eurozone crisis, as well as the consequences of that crisis, in turn, for the two countries social models. It takes issue with the prevailing view - what I refer to as the “competitiveness thesis” - which attributes the debtor status of the two countries to a lack of competitive capacity rooted in social model features. This competitiveness thesis has been key in justifying the “liberalization plus austerity” measures that European institutions have demanded in return for financial support for Italy and Spain at critical points during the crisis. The paper challenges this prevailing wisdom. First, it reviews the characteristics of the Italian and Spanish social models and their evolution in the period prior to the crisis, revealing a far more complex, dynamic and differentiated picture than is given in the political economy literature. Second, the paper considers various ways in which social model characteristics are said to have contributed to the Eurozone crisis, finding such explanations wanting. Italy and Spain ́s debtor status was primarily the result of much broader dynamics in the Euro- zone, including capital flows from richer to poorer countries that affected economic demand, with social model features playing, at most, an ancillary role. More aggressive reforms responding to EU demands in Spain may have increased the long term social and economic costs of the crisis, whereas the political stalemate that slowed such reforms in Italy may have paradoxically mitigated these costs. The comparison of the two countries thus suggests that, in the absence of broader macro-institutional reform of the Eurozone, compliance with EU dictates may have had perverse effects.

País rico, pueblo y gobierno pobres; estudio económico social sobre la situación actual en la República Argentina,

Mode of access: Internet.

La Economía social en la Argentina y el mundo /

Papers from a seminar, organized by two university institutions and two private organizations, and held Sept. 26-27, 1988 under sponsorship of the Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales de la UBA.

The world in crisis; political and social movements in the twentieth century.

Bibliography: p. 411-419.

Crisis y transformación de la identidad-acción colectiva en México

Este trabajo tiene por objetivo analizar las transformaciones de la identidad-acción colectiva a partir de los cambios impulsados por los procesos de globalización económica. Estos procesos fragmentan y diversifican la identidad social, política, cultural, comunitaria y colectiva, para ajustarla a las tendencias de los mercados globales, causando crisis de identidad nacional y al mismo tiempo, el resurgimiento de identidad comunitaria. Se delimitan las relaciones de la identidad y acción colectiva que sustentan a los movimientos sociales, lo cual se ejemplifican con algunos casos de la realidad mexicana

La protesta social en los noventa en Argentina

En esta ponencia nos proponemos presentar las líneas principales que tomaron las protestas populares frente a la reestructuración capitalista en la década de los noventa. Para ello, primero realizamos una introducción histórica a la evolución de la protesta laboral a partir de series disponibles a lo largo del siglo. En segundo lugar, damos cuenta de la variación cuantitativa y cualitativa de las protestas de trabajadores en el inicio de la década en cuestión. En la parte final, nos proponemos complementar los estudios realizados por otros autores con la consideración de las huelgas generales como forma articuladora tanto social como política