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31. Temporary work agencies and equilibrium unemployment

Author:
Michael Neugart and Donald Storrie
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
A striking feature of OECD labor markets in the 1990s has been the very rapid increase of temporary agency work. We augment the equilibrium unemployment model as developed by Pissarides and Mortensen with temporary work agencies in order to focus on their role as matching intermediaries and to examine the aggregate impact on employment. Our model implies that the improvement in the matching efficiency of agencies led to the emergence and growth of temporary agency work. We also show that temporary agency work does not necessarily crowd out other jobs.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

32. National Role Conceptions and Foreign Policies:France and Germany Compared

Author:
Ulrich Krotz
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
In spite of domestic and international political changes, French and German foreign policies have displayed high degrees of continuity between the late 1950s and the mid-1990s. Over the same time period, the directions of the two states' foreign policies have also continued to differ from each other. Why do states similar in many respects often part ways in what they want and do? This article argues that the French and German national role conceptions (NRCs) account for both of these continuities. NRCs are domestically shared understandings regarding the proper role and purpose of one's own state as a social collectivity in the international arena. As internal reference systems, they affect national interests and foreign policies. This article reestablishes the NRC concept, empirically codes it for France and Germany for the time period under consideration, and demonstrates comparatively how different NRCs lead to varying interests and policies across the major policy areas in security, defense, and armament.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe, France, and Germany

33. De Gaulle and Europe: Historical Revision and Social Science Theory

Author:
Andrew Moravcsik
Publication Date:
05-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The thousands of books and articles on Charles de Gaulle's policy toward European integration, whether written by historians, political scientists, or commentators, universally accord primary explanatory importance to the General's distinctive geopolitical ideology. In explaining his motivations, only secondary significance, if any at all, is attached to commercial considerations. This paper seeks to reverse this historiographical consensus by the four major decisions toward European integration taken under de Gaulle's Presidency: the decisions to remain in the Common Market in 1958, to propose the Fouchet Plan in the early 1960s, to veto British accession to the EC, and to provoke the “empty chair” crisis in 1965-1966, resulting in “Luxembourg Compromise.” In each case, the overwhelming bulk of the primary evidence—speeches, memoirs, or government documents—suggests that de Gaulle's primary motivation was economic, not geopolitical or ideological. Like his predecessors and successors, de Gaulle sought to promote French industry and agriculture by establishing protected markets for their export products. This empirical finding has three broader implications: (1) For those interested in the European Union, it suggests that regional integration has been driven primarily by economic, not geopolitical considerations—even in the “least likely” case. (2) For those interested in the role of ideas in foreign policy, it suggests that strong interest groups in a democracy limit the impact of a leader's geopolitical ideology—even where the executive has very broad institutional autonomy. De Gaulle was a democratic statesman first and an ideological visionary second. (3) For those who employ qualitative case-study methods, it suggests that even a broad, representative sample of secondary sources does not create a firm basis for causal inference. For political scientists, as for historians, there is in many cases no reliable alternative to primary-source research.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, International Organization, Political Economy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and France

34. Charismatic Leadership and Democratization: A Weberian Perspective

Author:
Michael Bernhard
Publication Date:
01-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Given the history of charismatic dictatorship in this century, charismatic leaders have been seen as threats to democracy. At the same time, periods of accelerated political change, such as the period of post-Communist democratization in Eastern and Central Europe, also give rise to charismatic leaders. This paper establishes the conditions under which charismatic leaders are compatible with democracy. Using a framework drawn from Max Weber's sociological writings the paper argues that charismatic leadership is only compatible with democracy when charisma is routinized in a rational-legal direction. In that routinization, however, rational-legal procedures (the rule-boundedness of power) must predominate over charismatic elements (the arbitrary and personal exercise of power). When this balance is reversed the result will be dictatorship. This discussion highlights the fact that both modern dictatorship and democracy legitimate themselves by a combination of charismatic and rational elements. It then considers whether Weber's theory can help us to understand the impact of the charismatic leadership on post-communist democratization by considering the experience of Havel in the Czech Republic, Wa__sa in Poland, and Yeltsin in Russia. It concludes with a discussion of charisma and its role in both democracy and dictatorship in the contemporary era. It finds that the similarity in the way in which modern democracy and dictatorship are legitimated augers better for the viability of authoritarian regimes than the many recent accounts which predict a diminished prospect for dictatorship in the current era might suggest.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Eastern Europe