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PurposeThe article investigates whether and to what extent outsiderness is gendered in Western Europe, both in terms of its spread and degree. It thus explores which male and female post-Fordist social classes are more exposed to the risk of this phenomenon. It also scrutinizes whether such a gendered characterization has varied over time and across clusters of Western European countries.Design/methodology/approachRelying on a comparative analysis of the data provided by the European Social Survey (ESS) dataset and comparing two points in time – the early/mid-2000s and the late 2010s – the work provides both a dichotomous and continuous variable of outsiderness, which measure its spread and degree in the female and male workforces of a pooled set of growth models.FindingsThe empirical analysis shows that outsiderness is profoundly gendered in Western Europe and thus a feminized social phenomenon. However, the comparative investigation highlights that outsiderness has been genderized in diverse ways across the four growth models. Different patterns of gendered outsiderness can be identified.Originality/valueThe article provides a comparative and diachronic analysis of outsiderness from a gender lens, putting into a mutual dialogue different literature on labour market, and shows that outsiderness represents a key analytical dimension for assessing gender inequalities.

AbstractThe positions of the radical right parties (RRPs) concerning the family have generally been examined through a socio-cultural lens, but very little is known about their distributive preferences. Based on the theoretical insights from the literature on varieties of familialism and social investment, the article investigates the RRPs' family policy agenda in terms of preference and support for familialism and de-familialism. Furthermore, cross-country similarities and differences will be investigated through an explanatory framework that combines the literature on partisan politics with that on historical institutionalism. A content analysis of party manifestos has shown that the RRPs adopt a male-breadwinner policy agenda, mostly intended to please their authoritarian electorate. However, comparative empirical research has highlighted some cross-country differences. These are explained by considering the counter-feedback mechanism triggered by the policy legacies, which provides RRPs with divergent electoral incentives and disincentives to promote their family policy agenda.

AbstractSince the Golden Age of the Welfare State ended, the male‐breadwinner family model traditionally supported by conservative parties has been put under pressure. Familialism appears to be no longer attractive to a changing, more volatile constituency. By comparing four different European countries – namely, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom – this work investigates the evolution of the conservative parties' family policy positions in the post‐Fordist era (1990s–2010s). The article has two goals. First, relying on a multidimensional theoretical framework where both social consumption and social investment policy instruments are at stake, it probes whether conservatives have switched their positions by backing de‐familialism and thus the dual‐earner family model. Second, it explains policy position change or stability over time and cross‐country differences through a multicausal analytical framework.The content analysis of party manifestos shows that, in the post‐Fordist era, the conservative parties have supported 'optional familialism', thus upholding both familiarizing and de‐familiarizing measures. However, such positions are not static. In the 1990s, support for familialism was higher while, since the 2000s, there has been a constant, increasing backing of de‐familialism. While the shift is evident for all the parties, cross‐country differences remain. The comparative historical analysis has pointed out that the specific 'optional familialism' positions taken by the conservative parties over time result from the interaction of constituency‐oriented, institutional, contextual and political factors.

PurposeThe article explores to what extent party politics has influenced the different trajectories in Spain and Italy in terms of gendered active social policies (ASPs) (i.e. ALMPs and WLBPs). Second, it investigates how social and political modernization in the two countries has facilitated or hindered party competition on gendered ASPs.Design/methodology/approachTo investigate to what extent parties support gendered ASPs, the article relies on an original content analysis of party manifestos issued during the 2010s national elections. A total of 1387 quasi-sentences have been coded. The results were then quantified to graphically show how positions differentiate across parties and countries.FindingsThe content analysis of party manifestos displays that party politics matters: gendered ASPs are backed in a very different way by the Spanish and Italian parties. While in Spain all political parties have strongly championed ALMPs and WLBPs, this is not the case for the Italian parties. The research has also stressed that the specific path of social and political modernization is an important intervening variable that alters positively or negatively parties' support for gendered ASPs.Originality/valueThe article contributes to widen theoretically and empirically the literature on ASPs in the Southern European countries. Theoretically, it questions the supposed homogeneity of the Southern social model and investigated the alleged bifurcation between Italy and Spain, focusing on those policies – ASPs – that constitute the foundations of the Southern model: familialism and dualization. Furthermore, this bifurcation was analyzed adopting a gender perspective, and exploring adherence to or departure from the Southern model. Third, the article focuses on the politics of ASPs demonstrating that inspecting the political arena can contribute to explain policy change.

AbstractThe article investigates whether and to what extent the welfare policies of Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs) vary in diverse government coalitions. Relying on a multidimensional framework differentiating coalitional politics along the welfare size and deservingness dimension, we conduct a comparative case study analysing welfare reforms of the 'standard' centre-right/PRRP government coalition ÖVP-FPÖ in Austria and the 'new' populist government coalition M5S-Lega in Italy. We find that both PRRPs do not promote pro-welfare policies in general, but rather opt for selective expansion of benefits for 'makers', while aiming at retrenching benefits for 'takers'. This welfare strategy includes pensioners and male breadwinner families but excludes migrants or long-term unemployed. The analysis furthermore shows that the central line of conflict with the centre-right ÖVP is mostly about the size of welfare policies, especially for 'deserving' citizens, while with the socially more left-leaning M5S it is rather centred around the deservingness dimension, e.g., benefits for takers. These results offer a more fine-grained understanding of the PRRPs' welfare agenda and their coalitional welfare politics in office.

The literature concerning active labour market policy (ALMP) in advanced economies during the post-Fordist Age is very informative. Nevertheless, surprisingly, we know little about ALMP politicization. By focusing on two archetypes of the Mediterranean countries, Italy and Spain, this study argues that the geographical distribution of social stratification affects ALMP politicization at the national level. Analysing the party manifestos of the main nationwide parties in the most recent electoral turnouts (2013–2019), this article shows that while the issue is highly politicized in Spain, it is almost completely neglected in Italy. We demonstrate that when outsiderness is concentrated in a delimited geographical area, as in Italy, it hinders ALMP politicization on a national level, since it becomes a regional issue. On the contrary, when it is spread across the whole national territory, as in Spain, ALMP politicization is more likely, since the issue is nationally relevant. However, the concentration of outsiders is not sufficient to trigger a change in the electoral competition dynamic and the intervening effect of policy legacy may enhance or constrain ALMP politicization.

Forms of political violence such as terrorism, as well as, migration flows have traditionally been interpreted and discussed in very different ways by the right wing and left wing parties. Yet, during the 2017 presidential campaign, Marine le Pen, leader for the National Front (FN) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of France Unbowed (FI), despite obvious differences in terms of conceptualisation of justice and legitimation of violence, presented an agenda on the two phenomena revealing some critical overlapping points. The literature, however, does not yet provide a clear framework to understand party competition in relation to the terrorism-migration nexus here understood and analysed in relation to EU integration and national foreign policy. Hence, by building on studies on the cultural dimension of political competition, this paper analyses the positioning of the two parties over the four key issues, namely EU integration, foreign policy, migration and terrorism. Our study reveals and discusses what kind of nexus these two parties recognise and elaborate and how the party competition dynamics has been altered accordingly. In particular, we show that an 'U-Curve' is visible also in relation of an alleged migrationterrorism nexus revealing an increased convergence of opposing radical parties.

Bjoern Schwander,1 Simona Ravera,2 Giovanni Giuliani,2 Mark Nuijten,3 Stefan Walzer11Assessment-in-Medicine (AiM) GmbH, Loerrach, Germany; 2Roche SpA, Monza, Italy; 3Ars Accessus Medica, Amsterdam (Jisp), NetherlandsBackground: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide (1.38 million cancer deaths, 18.2% of the total) and of cancer morbidity (1.61 million new cases, 12.7% of all new cancers). Currently only three second-line non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) pharmacotherapies are licensed in the European Union: the chemotherapies pemetrexed and docetaxel and the epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor erlotinib. These therapy alternatives have shown a comparable efficacy (survival benefit). In the past, cost comparisons showed that erlotinib was less costly compared to docetaxel, which in turn is cheaper than pemetrexed. Nowadays erlotinib (and docetaxel) are still less expensive than pemetrexed; but docetaxel lost patent protection (basic compound patent) at the end of 2010, so docetaxel drug costs have decreased rapidly and the question remains whether erlotinib is still the least costly therapy alternative in second-line NSCLC.Material and methods: Italy was selected for base case analysis to compare the total therapy costs, estimated by combining country-specific drug costs, administration costs, and adverse event costs of erlotinib and generic docetaxel in second-line NSCLC therapy. Sensitivity analyses on central input parameters have been performed.Results: The total costs of treating one patient with erlotinib therapy of €5121 are lower than the docetaxel costs of €6699 for the Italian health care setting. Although the drug costs of erlotinib are higher than generic docetaxel (incremental €3770): the costs of intravenous chemotherapy administration (incremental -€4510), and the costs of adverse event therapy (incremental -€837) lead to higher total therapy costs for docetaxel compared to the epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy erlotinib.Conclusion: The cost comparison findings for Italy show that erlotinib is still the less costly therapy alternative in second-line NSCLC. These results were robust to changes of central input parameters and robust to further potential price decreases for docetaxel.Keywords: erlotinib, docetaxel, non-small-cell lung cancer, pharmacotherapy, cost analysis, Italy

Over the last couple of years, industry operators' associations issued requirements towards an end-to-end management and orchestration plane for 5G networks. Consequently, standard organisations started their activities in this domain. This article provides an analysis and an architectural survey of these initiatives and of the main requirements, proposes descriptions for the key concepts of domain, resource and service slicing, end-to-end orchestration and a reference architecture for the end-to-end orchestration plane. Then, a set of currently available or under development domain orchestration frameworks are mapped to this reference architecture. These frameworks, meant to provide coordination and automated management of cloud and networking resources, network functions and services, fulfil multi-domain (i.e. multi-technology and multi-operator) orchestration requirements, thus enabling the realisation of an end-to-end orchestration plane. Finally, based on the analysis of existing single-domain and multi-domain orchestration components and requirements, this paper presents a functional architecture for the end-to-end management and orchestration plane, paving the way to its full realisation. ; This work was partially supported by the ICT14 5GExchange (5GEx) innovation project (grant agreement no.671636) co-funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 EU Framework Programme. ; Publicado