United in Diversity?

Comparing Social Models in Europe and America

Edited by Jens Alber and Neil Gilbert

International Policy Exchange

Investigates large margin of variation between EU member states and their social models.
Analyses highlight important similarities between Europe and the United States.

United in Diversity?

Comparing Social Models in Europe and America

Edited by Jens Alber and Neil Gilbert

Description

Since the advent of the European Union, politicians have increasingly emphasized the notion of a European social model as an alternative to the American form of market capitalism, which is seen as promoting economic growth without regard for solidarity and social progress. As this political discourse has advanced, social scientists and academic policy analysts have raised questions concerning the extent to which the E.U. and U.S. social models exist outside the minds of diplomats and politicians seeking to stitch together a common identity. How much unity is there still within Europe after the Eastern enlargements have considerably increased economic and cultural diversity? To whatever extent one might discern a distinct set of commonalities that represent the core of a European approach, how different are the European characteristics of social, economic, and political life from those of America?

Addressing these issues, this book systematically analyzes how much European countries and the United States have in common and how much variation we find within the enlarged European Union in eight central spheres of socio-economic and political life: employment, equality/mobility, educational opportunity, integration of immigrants, democratic functioning, political participation, rights to welfare, and levels of public spending. Drawing on empirical analyses by U.S. and European scholars who represent multi-disciplinary backgrounds, each of these topics is put under scrutiny. The results of this study illuminate points of convergence and divergence as seen from the perspectives of scholars from both sides of the Atlantic.

United in Diversity?

Comparing Social Models in Europe and America

Edited by Jens Alber and Neil Gilbert

International Policy Exchange

Introduction
Jens Alber and Neil Gilbert
Part I: State: Structure and Policy
Section I. Democratic Functioning
1.:Democratic Quality in America and Europe. Stein Ringen
2.:Liberalism and Democracy in America Today. John Samples
Section II. Political Integration
3.:The Inequality of Electoral Participation in Europe and America and the Politically Integrative Functions of the Welfare State. Jens Alber and Ulrich Kohler
4.:Income Inequality and Participation in United States Elections.Michael P. McDonald
Section III. Patterns of Public Expenditure
5.:Patterns of State Expenditure in Europe and America. Francis G. Castles
6.:Comparative Analyses of Stateness and State Action: What Can We Learn From Patterns of Expenditure? Neil Gilbert
Section IV. Citizenship and Welfare
7.:Concepts and Practices of Social Citizenship in Europe: The Case of Poverty and Income Support for the Poor. Chiara Saraceno
8.:The New American Model of Work-Conditioned Public Support. Rebecca M. Blank
Part 2: Society: Conditions and Outcomes
Section V. The Goal of Full Employment
9.:Welfare and Employment: a European Dilemma? Werner Eichhorst and Anton Hemerijck
10.:Fulfilling the Ballyhoo of a Peak Economy? The US Economic Model. Richard B. Freeman
Section VI. Inequality and Mobility
11.:Egalitarianism versus Economic Dynamics? An Empirical Assessment of the Friedman Conjecture. Markus Gangl
13.:Are United States Inequality and Mobility Trends in the European Union's Future? Richard V. Burkhauser and Kenneth A. Couch
Section VII. Educational Opportunity
13.:Education in Europe and the Lisbon Benchmarks Jutta Allmendinger, Christian Ebner, and Rita Nikolai
14.:The U.S. Educational System: Can it be a Model for Europe? Patricia Maloney and Karl Ulrich Mayer
Section VIII. Immigrant Integration
15.:Different Countries, Different Groups, Same Mechanisms? The Structural Assimilation of the Second Generation in Europe (D, F, GB) and the U.S. Frank Kalter and Nadia Granato
16.:Immigration and Nativism in the United States and Europe: Demography and Globalization versus the Nation-State. Charles Hirschman, Anthony Daniel Perez
Section IX Conclusion
17.:The Epistemology of Comparative Analyses: What Do We Know? Jens Alber, Neil Gilbert

United in Diversity?

Comparing Social Models in Europe and America

Edited by Jens Alber and Neil Gilbert

International Policy Exchange

Author Information

Edited by Jens Alber, Professor of Sociology, Free University of Berlin, and Edited by Neil Gilbert, Chernin Professor of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley

Contributors:

Jens Alber Research Unit "Inequality and Social Integration", Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) Berlin, Germany
Jutta Allmendinger Social Science Research Center , Berlin (WZB) Berlin, Germany
Rebecca M. Blank Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan
Richard V. Burkhauser College of Human Ecology, Cornell University Ithaca, New York
Francis G. Castles Department of Political Science, Australian National University Canberra, Australia
Kenneth A. Couch Department of Economics, University of Connecticut Storrs, Connecticut
Christian Ebner Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) Berlin, Germany
Werner Eichhorst Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn, Germany
Richard B. Freeman Harvard University, and National Bureau of Economic Research
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Markus Gangl Faculty of Sociology, University of Mannheim Mannheim, Germany
Neil Gilbert Center for Comparative Family Welfare and Poverty Research University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, California
Nadia Granato Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany
Anton Hemerijck Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) The Hague, The Netherlands
Charles Hirschman Department of Sociology, University of Washington Seattle, Washington
Frank Kalter Institute of Sociology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
Ulrich Kohler Research Unit "Inequality and Social Integration", Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) Berlin, Germany
Patricia Maloney Department of Sociology, Yale University New Haven, Connecticut
Karl Ulrich Mayer Department of Sociology, Yale University New Haven, Connecticut
Michael P. McDonald Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University Fairfax, Virginia
Rita Nikolai Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) Berlin, Germany
Anthony Daniel Perez Department of Sociology, University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
Stein Ringen Social Sciences Division University of Oxford Oxford, United Kingdom
John Samples Center for Representative Government CATO Institute, Washington, District of Columbia
Chiara Saraceno Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) Berlin, Germany