Economic Stimulus Packages: How to Explain Differences in the Level of Intensity in European Governments’ Response to the Financial Crisis?
Since the end of World War II, capitalism and liberalism have been viewed as the system of the rich and have led the world into a period of unprecedented economic growth and development. The recent financial and economic crisis, however, by its magnitude, has shaken the system significantly, and led many states to invest increasingly to sustain the economy and avoid a broader and more damaging collapse (in line with Keynesian theory). Through multilevel modelling of European state-level political, public finance and economic data, we investigated key drivers explaining differences in the level of intensity in European governments’ response to the financial crisis. First of all, politics can explain the volatile and mercantile side of the decisions. Secondly, also interesting is that monetary and public finance highlights the regulatory and financial pressure and constraints of the investment in the economic stimulus package. Thirdly, a macro-economic analysis can help us assess the link between the damage (economic crisis) and the remedies (stimulus packages). This thematic approach allowed us to assess key factors that influenced the governments in their decision making and explain the heterogeneity in the magnitude of response between countries.
Development and Crisis of the Welfare State: Parties and Policies in Global Markets
This text offers a systematic examination of the origins, character, effects and prospects of generous welfare states in advanced industrial democracies in the post-World War II era. The authors demonstrate that prolonged government by different parties results in different welfare states, with strong differences in levels of poverty and inequality. Combining quantitative studies with historical qualitative research, the authors look closely at nine countries that achieved high degrees of social protection through different types of welfare regimes: social democratic states, Christian democratic states, and "wage earner" states.
The development of biological systematics : Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, nature, and the natural system
A reevaluation of the history of biological systematics that discusses the formative years of the so-called natural system of classification in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Shows how classifications came to be treated as conventions; systematic practice was not linked to clearly articulated theory; there was general confusion over the "shape" of nature; botany, elements of natural history, and systematics were conflated; and systematics took a position near the bottom of the hierarchy of sciences.