There is a developing crisis of social democratic trade unionism in Western Europe; this volume outlines the crisis and examines the emerging alternatives. The authors define 'social democratic trade unionism' and its associated party-union nexus and explain how this traditional model has been threatened by social democracy's accommodation to neo-liberal restructuring and public service reform. Examining the experience of Sweden, Germany, Britain and France, the volume explores the historical rise and fall of social democratic trade unionism in each of these countries and probes the policy and practice of the European Trade Union Confederation. The authors critically examine the possibilities for a revival of social democratic unionism in terms of strategic policy and identity, offering suggestions for an alternative, radicalized political unionism. The research value of the book is highlighted by its focus on contemporary developments and its authors' intimate knowledge of the chosen countries.

There is a developing crisis of social democratic trade unionism in Western Europe; this volume outlines the crisis and examines the emerging alternatives. The authors define 'social democratic trade unionism' and its associated party-union nexus and explain how this traditional model has been threatened by social democracy's accommodation to neo-liberal restructuring and public service reform. Examining the experience of Sweden, Germany, Britain and France, the volume explores the historical rise and fall of social democratic trade unionism in each of these countries and probes the policy and practice of the European Trade Union Confederation. The authors critically examine the possibilities for a revival of social democratic unionism in terms of strategic policy and identity, offering suggestions for an alternative, radicalized political unionism. The research value of the book is highlighted by its focus on contemporary developments and its authors' intimate knowledge of the chosen countries.

This book outlines a developing crisis of social democratic trade unionism in Western Europe and examines emerging alternatives. The authors define 'social democratic trade unionism' and its associated party-union nexus and explain how this traditional model has been threatened by social democracy's accommodation to neoliberal restructuring and public service reform. The experience of Sweden, Germany, Britain and France is examined and the historical rise and fall of social democratic trade unionism in each country is explored. A further chapter probes the policy and practice of the European Trade Union Confederation. The authors critically examine the possibilities for a revival of social democratic unionism in terms of strategic policy and identity and suggest possibilities for an alternative, radicalised political unionism. The research value of the book is highlighted by its focus on contemporary developments and its authors' intimate knowledge of the chosen countries.

Historian and geographer Sorensen (1952-95) wrote her analysis of Danish political policy towards the Marshall Plan during the middle 1980s, but Rudiger says it continues to be essential reading for historians interested in the immediate postwar period. The new edition drops her chapter on COCOM, because more recent studies have made in superfluous. The rest of the study remains intact. It is not indexed. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Socialist and Social Democratic parties leave few political observers and citizens indifferent. For several years, a certain number of actors on the political scene have presented it as a political family in crisis, lacking in imagination and dynamism, incapable of renewal and doomed to fade into insignificance. Others, on the contrary, describe it as a grouping with a promising, even brilliant future.This book does not set out to confirm either of those two visions. Its aim is to analyse in-depth the transformations which are affecting, at the current time, the different aspects of Social Democracy: new organisational models, changes in political and electoral performance, changing relations with the trade unions and civil society associations, reactions to the emergence of new political rivais and new values, new ideological trends and political programmes, etc. For the first time, the analysis does not concern exclusively Western Europe, but also deals with the Social Democratic parties of the consolidated democracies and the organisations that claim to be part of democratic socialism in Central and Eastern Europe, and highlights the specific characteristics and points in common. At the dawn of the 21st century, it is therefore the challenges and the different responses to those challenges that are analysed by several of the leading European specialists in Social Democratic parties in Europe.

The postwar period is no longer current affairs but is becoming the recent past. As such, it is increasingly attracting the attentions of historians. Whilst the Cold War has long been a mainstay of political science and contemporary history, recent research approaches postwar Europe in many different ways, all of which are represented in the 35 chapters of this book. As well as diplomatic, political, institutional, economic, and social history, the The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History contains chapters which approach the past through the lenses of gender, espionage, art and architecture, technology, agriculture, heritage, postcolonialism, memory, and generational change, and shows how the history of postwar Europe can be enriched by looking to disciplines such as anthropology and philosophy. The Handbook covers all of Europe, with a notable focus on Eastern Europe. Including subjects as diverse as the meaning of 'Europe' and European identity, southern Europe after dictatorship, the cultural meanings of the bomb, the 1968 student uprisings, immigration, Americanization, welfare, leisure, decolonization, the Wars of Yugoslav Succession, and coming to terms with the Nazi past, the thirty five essays in this Handbook offer an unparalleled coverage of postwar European history that offers far more than the standard Cold War framework. Readers will find self-contained, state-of-the-art analyses of major subjects, each written by acknowledged experts, as well as stimulating and novel approaches to newer topics. Combining empirical rigour and adventurous conceptual analysis, this Handbook offers in one substantial volume a guide to the numerous ways in which historians are now rewriting the history of postwar Europe.

The first work to reflect in detail on the Left's experiences in government in the 1990s and early twenty-first century.

We are living in a time of crisis which has cascaded through society. Financial crisis has led to an economic crisis of recession and unemployment; an ensuing fiscal crisis over government deficits and austerity has led to a political crisis which threatens to become a democratic crisis. Borne unevenly, the effects of the crisis are exacerbating class and gender inequalities. Rival interpretations – a focus on ‘austerity’ and reduction in welfare spending versus a focus on ‘financial crisis’ and democratic regulation of finance – are used to justify radically diverse policies for the distribution of resources and strategies for economic growth, and contested gender relations lie at the heart of these debates. The future consequences of the crisis depend upon whether there is a deepening of democratic institutions, including in the European Union. Sylvia Walby offers an alternative framework within which to theorize crisis, drawing on complexity science and situating this within the wider field of study of risk, disaster and catastrophe. In doing so, she offers a critique and revision of the social science needed to understand the crisis.