Unemployment in the New Europe. Edited by Nancy Bermeo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 368p.$70.00 cloth, $28.00 paper.

Extract

The publication under review is the outcome of a Princeton University conference entitled “Unemployment's Effects” held in 1997. The themes of the chapters extend widely. Some authors focus on broad discussions of the possibilities for the “European model” to survive in a global economic setting, while others look at specific relations, for example, between unemployment and trade union strength, in just one European country. Some chapters have clear theoretical objectives, while others have a focus on empirical detail and statistical analysis. On the other hand, the majority of the chapters are related by a general positive view on the sustainability of the European model, even in the seemingly hostile environment of the global economy. Although the European welfare states and labor markets are often accused of being inflexible and hampered by “institutional sclerosis,” they may also foster the development of a soft and kind capitalism—or organized managed economy—as Nancy Bermeo puts it in her introduction to the book.