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By many measures, a revolution in living conditions is sweeping the world. Most people today are better fed, clothed, & housed than their predecessors 2 centuries ago. They are healthier, live longer, & can read & write. Women's lives are less centered on bearing & raising children, & political democracy has gained a foothold. Western Europe & its offshoots have been the leaders of this advance in the human condition. Most of the less-developed world joined in the 20th century, with the newly emerging nations of sub-Saharan Africa the latest to participate. Although the picture is not one of universal progress, it is the greatest advance in the condition of the world's population ever achieved in such a brief span of time. 5 Tables, 53 References. Adapted from the source document.

The present study challenges and critically reevaluates the century-old hypothesis cherished by historical sciences stating that leprosy sufferers formed the group of social outcasts in medieval Europe. Mythmaking, misconceptions and biases in modern historiography have contributed to this persisting image: the uncritical application of theological or modern medical concepts (e.g., "sinner's leprosy", "infectiousness") to medieval times has presented essential components. This study responds to those traditions in historical research by offering context-sensitive in-depth analyses of a generically and chronologically diverse spectrum of sources, which ranges from archeology and historical medical literature to medieval hagiography, theology, law and fictional literature and which comprises Antiquity as well as the Late Middle Ages

In the first section of this chapter a conceptual review of ideas and theoretical assumptions is presented. Ethnoterritoriality, collective identities and the territorial accommodation in plural societies are among the concepts analysed. In the second section, a reflection on the implications of globalization, the extension of market values and the relative loss of power and influence by the nation-state is put forward. The last section of this article focuses on the growing role played by those meso-level communities in Europe which have been able to make the general and the particular compatible. This development seems to be in line with a trend towards what can be labeled as a new cosmopolitan localism. ; Peer reviewed

Three challenges face the European Union at the dawn of the new century: (1) expansion or the challenge of effectiveness -- a problem of method including the institutional questions that are at the center of the negotiations leading toward Nice; (2) globalization or the challenge of power -- how to unite economic & political globalization & how to influence the formation of its rules; & (3) opinion or the challenge of the legitimacy of democracy -- how to discourage the opinion that Europe is far away & bureaucratic, & how to communicate a vision. The author concludes that even before Nice, we are already beginning to perceive what could be after Nice. E. Sanchez

abstract : Through the question of the price of freedom, a question directly related to the reparations to be paid to East European victims of Nazism and, thus, to the end of a bipolar world, a long-coming, difficult process is described: German-Czech reconciliation, the "ugly duckling" of Germany's relations with central Europe. Whereas Germany's relations with its central European neighbors took a hopeful turn after 1989, no new start could be made in relations with the Czech Republic before both parties accepted to openly face a tragic past, covered up on both sides. The consequences had to be drawn in material as well as moral terms.

Since the fateful events of June 1984, when the Indian army entered the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Sikhs' holiest shrine, the activities of the Sikh diaspora have attracted considerable academic attention. The fortunes of this vibrant community have become a major transnational irritant to Western states, linking the complex, and often interminable, politics of the homeland with ethnic and social concerns in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australasia. This volume by Tatla is the first serious effort to study the subject, and it has emerged from the Transnational Communities Programme at the University of Oxford, which is sponsored by the Economic and Social Science Research Council of the United Kingdom.

This paper focuses on three major themes in the policy debate on European unemployment. A first issue concerns the causes of unemployment. We point to the diversity of the unemployment performance in Europe and plead for a policy approach which takes into account the interdependence between employment, labour costs and social protection. As a second major theme, we evaluate existing EU policies. While a EU social dimension is gradually developing, the European level is far from providing a comprehensive policy framework at this stage. A third issue relates to the national policy dimension and is linked to Europe's quest for a third way. We compare the corporatist and competitive labour market approach.

During the 1990s the principle of workfarehas dominated welfare reforms in Europe; claimants are increasingly obliged to work in return for their benefits, otherwise they are denied the right to income support. In Norway this strategy is called the 'work line', and this article gives a critical account of five arguments used by the Norwegian government to justify it. The discussion focuses on the normative content and empirical assumptions involved in the arguments, and the conclusion is that none of them give good reasons to deny citizens basic opportunity goods. The article gives particular attention to the idea of social justice as reciprocity which is tacitly expressed in the arguments.

Over the last five to ten years Europe has witnessed a return to fashion for evaluation. As an activity it has been expanded in most EU states and very considerably within the EU Commission. Within this broad trend there has been a strong sub-fashion for collaborative, 'pluralist' and 'partenarial' approaches to evaluation. This article comments on the nature of these approaches, notes some of the claims made on their behalf, and identifies situations in which collaboration is likely to decrease both the scientific rigour and the usefulness of an evaluation. In certain circumstances, the 'old-fashioned' model of an independent, scientific, form of evaluation is to be preferred to models of pluralism, participation and empowerment.

ABSTRACTThe operational management of landfills is currently being reviewed in the UK and Europe. In the UK, the 'flushing bioreactor' approach to landfilling involves (a) enhancing microbially mediated degradation of domestic waste to promote rapid waste stabilization, (b) increased methane recovery, and (c) reduced timescales to final landfill stabilization. Flushing oeprations under bioreactive conditions could be used to optimize the removal of ammoniacal nitrogen from landfilled waste. In this study, the flushing of ammonia from pulverized domestic waste was investigated using laboratory‐scale test cells to simulate landfill conditions. A simple mathematical model, based on test‐cell water balance, was used to describe the latter stages of ammonia reduction.

Countries in eastern Europe are going through a period of economic transition as they move from centrally planned to free market economies. But they can only achieve continuing economic growth if they have appropriate infrastructures – and in many countries the existing infrastructure is struggling to meet new demands. In Poland, the government introduced in series of reforms to promote rapid economic development, but the resulting increase in trade put pressure on a transport system that had been largely ignored for 40 years. Road transport was privatised and deregulated, but there are still problems with the inadequate road network. Describes some of the changes that have occurred in road transport during Poland's economic transition.

We present a model to explain why in the transition economies of Central andEastern Europe an important output fall has been associated with price liberalization. Its key ingredients are search frictions and Williamsonian relation‐specific investment, implying that new investments are made only after having found a new long‐term partner. When all firms search for new partners, output may fall because of three effects: a) disruption of previous production links, b) a fall in investment, and c) capital depreciation due to the absence of replacement investment. We show that forms of gradual liberalization like the Chinese 'dual‐track' price liberalization may avoid the transitory output fall.JEL classification: D21, D50, E30, E61, P41, P51.

Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht unter anderem die Effekte zweier klassischer Prinzipien der internationalen Kapitalbesteuerung auf die Gerechtigkeit und die Effizienz: das Bestimmungslandund das Ursprungslandprinzip. Weiterhin werden die Harmonisierungs- und die Steuerwettbewerbspolitik in der Unternehmensbesteuerung diskutiert, um die wünschenswerte Zukunft in der Besteuerung von Kapitals in Europa darzustellen. Abschließend werden in dem Beitrag die neuen Ansätze in der Kapitalbesteuerung, die gegenwärtig durch die Europäische Kommission unterstützt werden, analysiert und begründet. ; The present paper studies among other issues the effects on equity and efficiency of two classic principles of international capital taxation: the principle of residence and the principle of source. In addition, it discusses harmonization and tax competition policies in corporate taxation, aiming at establishing which should be the future of taxation of capital in Europe. Finally, the paper analyses und justifies the new approaches of levelling the playing field in capital taxation that are currently supported by the European Commission.

Das Themenheft befasst sich mit der historischen Migrationsforschung. Die Beiträge dokumentieren historische Probleme der Integration von Zuwanderern sowie die Ausgrenzung und Vertreibung von Bevölkerungsgruppen in internationaler Perspektive. (IAB). Inhaltsverzeichnis: Jochen Oltmer: Einführung; Magnus Mörner: Seventeenth-century immigration in Sweden; Walter D. Kamphoefner: Deutsch-Amerikaner: Musterknaben der Einwanderung?; Steve Hochstadt: Vertreibung aus Deutschland und Überleben in Shanghai: jüdische NS-Vertriebene in China; Hans-Ake Persson: Settling the peace, the Cold War, and the ethnic cleansing of the Germans from Central and Eastern Europe; Arune Liucija Arbusauskaite: The Soviet policy towards the 'Kaliningrad Germans' 1945-1951; Henk L. Wesseling: Migration and decolonization: the case of the Netherlands; Michael Bommes: Zweites DFG-Graduiertenkolleg "Migration im modernen Europa" am IMIS eröffnet; Hans-Joachim Hoffmann-Nowotny: Aspekte der internationalen Migration.

The purpose of this article is to analyze some of the main lines profiled in the European Union's cooperation toward Latin America after the Cold War. The areas of cooperation have changed according to the new topics of the international agenda such as drug trafficking and sustainable development, among others. In the second part, the author examines some important points of the interregional experience, and highlights the new formulae that will shape EU-Latin American cooperation in the future. In the conclusions, he reflects on the importance, the possibilities and the challenges of Mexico's cooperation with Europe and its impact on other Latin American countries. (Rev Mex Polit Exter/DÜI)