Suchergebnisse

This article looks at the long struggle to reform the Dutch disability insurance fund, which covered close to 10% of the labor force in 2002. Ideas played a strategic role in the framing and discourse of the policy reforms. A template propagated by the European Commission was used by center-left reform advocates to soften a neoliberal campaign to overhaul the disability insurance scheme. Center-left politicians used European deliberations to convince their colleagues to accept increased spending on activation programs rather than rely on rounds of cutbacks. Labor market activation also resonated with voters, for very different reasons. Voters in the 2000s rallied around activation in order to bar ethnic minorities from taking advantage of the disability program. By the time that the disability law was repealed in 2006, many voters had altered their minds about the disability fund, resenting the fact that "problematic" minorities lived off welfare state benefits. Adapted from the source document.

This article looks at the long struggle to reform the Dutch disability insurance fund, which covered close to 10% of the labor force in 2002. Ideas played a strategic role in the framing and discourse of the policy reforms. A template propagated by the European Commission was used by center‐left reform advocates to soften a neoliberal campaign to overhaul the disability insurance scheme. Center‐left politicians used European deliberations to convince their colleagues to accept increased spending on activation programs rather than rely on rounds of cutbacks. Labor market activation also resonated with voters, for very different reasons. Voters in the 2000s rallied around activation in order to bar ethnic minorities from taking advantage of the disability program. By the time that the disability law was repealed in 2006, many voters had altered their minds about the disability fund, resenting the fact that "problematic" minorities lived off welfare state benefits.

Examines environmental & health issues in the US & EU to clarify why some products are identified as unnatural or inadequate in the former but not the latter system. The first section explicates why tobacco drew the interest of American "policy entrepreneurs" but not of their European counterparts & why transgenic food became a volatile matter in the EU but did not rouse the American public. In the last section, the issue of convergence & homogenization is revisited because despite different identifications of what is harmful or risky, the US & EU are becoming increasingly similar in regards to tobacco & genetically modified organisms (GMOs). K. Coddon

Examines how comparative politics is taught & what the approach means for the state of the subdiscipline. At issue are the emphases in courses in the context of 10 years of vast global changes, the topics chosen vs those ignored, & what topics ought to be included. Analysis is based on 30+ comparative politics syllabi in undergraduate courses & graduate seminars. 40 References. J. Zendejas