Unequal Europe
Regional Integration and the Rise of European Inequality
Jason Beckfield
Reviews and Awards
"[a] thought-provoking and well-researched book" - Anton Hemerijck, American Journal of Sociology
"Beckfield shows why EU studies needs sociology more than ever. Unequal Europe delivers hard evidence on the imbalances brought about by the EU's regional integration project, that may now be leading to serious welfare state retrenchment across the continent. Beckfield's argument will not please EU advocates, but it makes a starkly persuasive case for why European institutions must come to grips with the inequalities in its midst." -Adrian Favell, Chair in Sociology and Social Theory, University of Leeds "
"Jason Beckfield's Unequal Europe marshals data to impressively show that much of the increasing income inequality in Europe has been the outcome of the policies of the member states of the European Unions to collectively create a "technocratic capitalism" in Europe. This careful work helps to understand why pro-nationalist and anti-European politics have risen in response as EU led policies have increased inequality." -Neil D. Fligstein, Professor, University of California, Berkeley "
"The political causes and consequences of increasing levels of inequality in industrialized democracies have, rightly, been the focus of a number of recent major contributions to the political economy literature. To this list we should now add Unequal Europe. In this book, Jason Beckfield convincingly argues that European integration has weakened the welfare state and increased, rather than mitigated, income inequality. The egalitarian capitalism often identified with Europe is undermined by a process of regional integration that prioritizes the making of markets and technocratic politics. The book is theoretically rich and empirically well supported, it will be required reading for those of us interested in inequality, redistribution and the future of European welfare states." -David Rueda, Professor of Comparative Politics, Oxford University and Nuffield College "
"14/01/2019"