Download or read book Europe and the Spectre of Post Growth Society written by Piotr A. Świtalski and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Europe has been going through its most serious crisis of values since the fall of communism. In public discourse, economic and social pressures have overshadowed the other dimensions of the crisis, including societal values. However, the crisis of values would appear to be more than simply an effect of the recession. Europeans have lost trust in democratic institutions at all levels: European, national and local. Rising xenophobia and discrimination against minorities undermine the vitality of the European model of tolerance. Europe is plagued by endemic corruption which costs it more than €100 billion annually, triggering political instability. Some believe that once Europe is back on the path of growth the crisis of values will disappear, and that there will be a resurgence of faith in European integration. But in the long term, growth in Western societies may be impaired by serious “headwinds” resulting from demographic trends and rising inequalities, and Europe may become the first post-growth society. European societies are already changing their traditional characteristics as a result of exposure to the effects of two global mega-trends: the empowerment of the individual and cosmopolitisation. Can the European project be of relevance when addressing these challenges? What role in this process can be played by the Council of Europe, which is the embodiment of the idea that Europe is big-ger than the European Union and the European agenda is richer than the economy and politics?

Download or read book e pub Europe and the Spectre of Post Growth Society written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Europe has been going through its most serious crisis of values since the fall of communism. In public discourse, economic and social pressures have overshadowed the other dimensions of the crisis, including societal values. However, the crisis of values would appear to be more than simply an effect of the recession.Europeans have lost trust in democratic institutions at all levels: European, national and local. Rising xenophobia and discrimination against minorities undermine the vitality of the European model of tolerance. Europe is plagued by endemic corruption which costs it more than €100 billion annually, triggering political instability.Some believe that once Europe is back on the path of growth the crisis of values will disappear, and that there will be a resurgence of faith in European integration.But in the long term, growth in Western societies may be impaired by serious "headwinds" resulting from demographic trends and rising inequalities, and Europe may become the first post-growth society. European societies are already changing their traditional characteristics as a result of exposure to the effects of two global mega-trends: the empowerment of the individual and cosmopolitisation.Can the European project be of relevance when addressing these challenges? What role in this process can be played by the Council of Europe, which is the embodiment of the idea that Europe is big-ger than the European Union and the European agenda is richer than the economy and politics? Piotr A. Świtalski.

Download or read book We need to talk about Europe European Identity Debates at the Council of Europe 2013 14 written by Council of Europe and published by Council of Europe. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peaceful, prosperous, democratic and respectful of people’s rights, building Europe is an ongoing challenge. For many years it seemed that Europeans lived on a continent of shared values and a common destiny. No one paid attention to the alarm bells warning of growing divisions across the continent, which have become more insistent since the economic and social crisis. Europe and its values, previously taken for granted, are now being contested. These clouds are casting a shadow across Europe’s future, and old demons, long dormant, have started to raise their voices again. With a deepening values divide there is an urgent need for public debate and a reconsideration of how Europeans can strengthen the European project. Is a “Europe united in diversity” still feasible? Can a consensus be forged on a set of values pertaining to a common European identity? What should be done to preserve European unity? The Council of Europe, with its membership covering Europe from Vladivostok to Lisbon and from Reykjavik to Ankara, and its mission to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law, provides an excellent framework for discussing the current state of thinking and dynamics behind the concept of European identity. For these reasons, the Council of Europe, together with the École nationale d’administration in Strasbourg, held a series of European Identity Debates featuring eminent personalities from a variety of backgrounds including politics, civil society, academia and the humanities. This publication presents the 10 European Identity Debates lectures. The authors identify major issues and challenges and provide an original analysis of different aspects of European identity within their fields of expertise. The authors formulate proposals on how to better understand the multifaceted nature of Europe, what it means today to be European, and what should be done in terms of ideas and strategies to keep Europe dynamic and to build a sustainable future.

Download or read book Europe s Growth Champion written by Marcin Piatkowski and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes countries rich? What makes countries poor? Europe's Growth Champion: Insights from the Economic Rise of Poland seeks to answer these questions, and many more, through a study of one of the biggest, and least heard about, economic success stories. Over the last twenty-five years Poland has transitioned from a perennially backward, poor, and peripheral country to unexpectedly join the ranks of the world's high income countries. Europe's Growth Champion is about the lessons learned from Poland's remarkable experience, the conditions that keep countries poor, and the challenges that countries need to face in order to grow. It defines a new growth model that Poland and its Eastern European peers need to adopt to grow and catch up with their Western counterparts. Poland's economic rise emphasizes the importance of the fundamental sources of growth- institutions, culture, ideas, and leaders- in economic development. It demonstrates that a shift from an extractive society, where the few rule for the benefit of the few, to an inclusive society, where many rule for the benefit of many, can be the key to economic success. *IEurope's Growth Champion asserts that a newly emerged inclusive society will support further convergence of Poland and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe with the West, and help to sustain the region's Golden Age. It also acknowledges the future challenges that Poland faces, and that moving to the core of the European economy will require further reforms and changes in Poland's developmental character.

Download or read book Changing European Visions of Disaster and Development written by Vanessa Pupavac and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-09-02 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Goethe’s 1832 poem Faust offers a vision of humanity realising freedom and prosperity through transcending natural adversity. Changing European Visions of Disaster and Development returns to Faust as a way of exploring the rise and fall of European humanist aspirations to build free and prosperous national political communities protected from natural disasters. Faust stories emerged in early modern Europe linked to the shaking of the traditional religious and political order, and the pursuit of new areas of human knowledge and activity which led to a shift from viewing disasters as acts of God to acts of nature. Faust’s dam building and land reclamation project in Goethe’s poem was inspired by Dutch hydro-engineering and in turn inspired others. Faustian dreams of an engineered future were pursued by the American Yugoslav inventor Nikola Tesla and the country of his birth towards establishing its national independence and escaping the fate of being a borderland. Faust remains a compelling reference point to explore European visions of disaster and development. If Faust captured the European spirit of earlier centuries, what is today’s outlook? Ambitious Faustian development visions to eradicate natural disasters have been replaced by anti-Faustian risk cosmopolitanism sceptical towards human activity in ways counter to building collective protection from disaster. Tesla’s country of birth fears returning to being an insecure borderland of Europe. This powerful and timely book calls for a rekindling of European humanism and Faust’s vision of ‘free people standing on free land’.

Download or read book Armed Forces and Society in Europe written by A. Forster and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-10-31 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the post-Cold War era, European militaries are engaged in an ongoing adaptation which is challenging relations between armed forces and the societies that they serve. This book offers an innovative conceptual framework to critically evaluate contemporary civil-military relations across the continent of Europe. It analyzes eight key issues in armed forces and society relations, to explore the scale and intensity of these changes.

Download or read book Prosperity without Growth written by Tim Jackson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can prosperity possibly mean in a world of environmental and social limits? The publication of Prosperity without Growth was a landmark in the sustainability debate. Tim Jackson’s piercing challenge to conventional economics openly questioned the most highly prized goal of politicians and economists alike: the continued pursuit of exponential economic growth. Its findings provoked controversy, inspired debate and led to a new wave of research building on its arguments and conclusions. This substantially revised and re-written edition updates those arguments and considerably expands upon them. Jackson demonstrates that building a ‘post-growth’ economy is a precise, definable and meaningful task. Starting from clear first principles, he sets out the dimensions of that task: the nature of enterprise; the quality of our working lives; the structure of investment; and the role of the money supply. He shows how the economy of tomorrow may be transformed in ways that protect employment, facilitate social investment, reduce inequality and deliver both ecological and financial stability. Seven years after it was first published, Prosperity without Growth is no longer a radical narrative whispered by a marginal fringe, but an essential vision of social progress in a post-crisis world. Fulfilling that vision is simply the most urgent task of our times.

Download or read book Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Illinois Economic Association written by Illinois Economic Association. Meeting and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Search for Europe written by Daron Acemoglu and published by La fabrica. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is now the eighth in the annual series sponsored by BBVA as part of its OpenMind initiative, which is devoted to disseminating knowledge on key issues of our time. The Search for Europe analyses the present and future of the old continent and its integration project, surely the most ambitious political and economic integration project ever attempted in history, a benchmark for similar processes in other regions. The book is divided into three main sections: "The economic foundations of the European project", "Europe and its nations: Politics, society and culture", and "The unresolved Limits of Europe and the new global powers". It features pieces written by international experts such as Javier Solana, Barry Eichengreen, Philip Cooke, Bichara Khader, Vivien Ann Schmidt, John Peet and Thomas Christiansen, among others.

Download or read book The Handbook of Organizing Economic Ecological and Societal Transformation written by Elke Weik and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-08-19 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook gathers contributors from different disciplines of the social sciences, such as organization and management studies, sociology, anthropology and political science, to constructively discuss the kinds of transformations we need to see in coming years. These transformations concern the way we work, produce and consume but also the way in which we think about work, production and consumption. In an explicit rejection of the demand that the social sciences provide quick fixes, the contributors of this handbook discuss possible solutions in a critical and comprehensive manner and with an eye to both their environmental and societal implications. The handbook is divided into four parts: Opening up futures, Techno-economic transformations at work, Sustainable environmental transformation, and Radical democratic futures. The handbook is of interest to all critical academics interested in constructive suggestions regarding necessary societal transformations.

Download or read book Twenty First Century Populism written by D. Albertazzi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-12-14 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-First Century Populism analyses the phenomenon of sustained populist growth in Western Europe by looking at the conditions facilitating populism in specific national contexts and then examining populist fortunes in those countries. The chapters are written by country experts and political scientists from across the continent.

Download or read book Postgrowth and Wellbeing written by Milena Büchs and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-07-20 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a detailed and critical discussion about how human wellbeing can be maintained and improved in a postgrowth era. It highlights the close links between economic growth, market capitalism, and the welfare state demonstrating that, in many ways, wellbeing outcomes currently depend on the growth paradigm. Here the authors argue that notions of basic human needs deserve greater emphasis in debates on postgrowth because they are more compatible with limits to growth. Drawing on theories of social practices, the book explores structural barriers to transitions to a postgrowth society, and ends with suggestions for policies and institutions that could support wellbeing in the context of postgrowth. This thought-provoking work makes a valuable contribution to debates surrounding climate change, sustainability, welfare states and inequality and will appeal to students and scholars of social policy, sociology, political science, economics, political ecology and human geography.

Download or read book Twentieth Century World History written by William J. Duiker and published by Wadsworth Publishing Company. This book was released on 2001-11-21 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text presents a comprehensive, balanced history of the world in the twentieth century. In addition to providing a chronicle of the key events in this revolutionary century, it takes a global approach to examining the underlying issues that have shaped the times. At the same time, it does justice to the distinctive character of individual civilizations and regions. Political, economic, social, and cultural history are integrated into a chronologically ordered synthesis that is presented through a consistent, engaging single-author narrative.

Download or read book The World After GDP written by Lorenzo Fioramonti and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: GDP is much more than a simple statistic. It has become the overarching benchmark of success and a powerful ordering principle at the heart of the global economy. But the convergence of major economic, social and environmental crises has exposed the flaws of our economic system which values GDP above all else as a measure of prosperity and growth. In this provocative and inspiring new book, political economist Lorenzo Fioramonti sets out his vision of a world after GDP. Focusing on pioneering research on alternative metrics of progress, governance innovation and institutional change, he makes a compelling case for the profound and positive transformations that could be achieved through a post-GDP system of development. From a new role for small business, households and civil society to a radical evolution of democracy and international relations, Fioramonti sets out a combination of top-down reforms and bottom-up pressures whose impact, he argues, would be unprecedented, making it possible to build a more equitable, sustainable and happy society.

Download or read book Capital and Ideology written by Thomas Piketty and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 1105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller An NPR Best Book of the Year The epic successor to one of the most important books of the century: at once a retelling of global history, a scathing critique of contemporary politics, and a bold proposal for a new and fairer economic system. Thomas Piketty’s bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century galvanized global debate about inequality. In this audacious follow-up, Piketty challenges us to revolutionize how we think about politics, ideology, and history. He exposes the ideas that have sustained inequality for the past millennium, reveals why the shallow politics of right and left are failing us today, and outlines the structure of a fairer economic system. Our economy, Piketty observes, is not a natural fact. Markets, profits, and capital are all historical constructs that depend on choices. Piketty explores the material and ideological interactions of conflicting social groups that have given us slavery, serfdom, colonialism, communism, and hypercapitalism, shaping the lives of billions. He concludes that the great driver of human progress over the centuries has been the struggle for equality and education and not, as often argued, the assertion of property rights or the pursuit of stability. The new era of extreme inequality that has derailed that progress since the 1980s, he shows, is partly a reaction against communism, but it is also the fruit of ignorance, intellectual specialization, and our drift toward the dead-end politics of identity. Once we understand this, we can begin to envision a more balanced approach to economics and politics. Piketty argues for a new “participatory” socialism, a system founded on an ideology of equality, social property, education, and the sharing of knowledge and power. Capital and Ideology is destined to be one of the indispensable books of our time, a work that will not only help us understand the world, but that will change it.

Download or read book Regulation Theory written by Robert Boyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-08-03 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Boyer and Yves Sailard's Theorie de la Regulation introduces the Francophone public to one of the most important new currents in social science of the past half-century. This long-awaited translation will help broaden its impact still further. Regulation Theory focuses on the structural features of a given model and has helped enliven the examination of core economic concepts.

Download or read book Farewell to Growth written by Serge Latouche and published by Polity. This book was released on 2009 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of us who live in the North and the West consume far too much – too much meat, too much fat, too much sugar, too much salt. We are more likely to put on too much weight than to go hungry. We live in a society that is heading for a crash. We are aware of what is happening and yet we refuse to take it fully into account. Above all we refuse to address the issue that lies at the heart of our problems – namely, the fact that our societies are based on an economy whose only goal is growth for growth’s sake. Serge Latouche argues that we need to rethink from the very foundations the idea that our societies should be based on growth. He offers a radical alternative – a society of ‘de-growth’. De-growth is not the same thing as negative growth. We should be talking about ‘a-growth’, in the sense in which we speak of ‘a-theism’. And we do indeed have to abandon a faith or religion – that of the economy, progress and development—and reject the irrational and quasi-idolatrous cult of growth for growth’s sake. While many realize that that the never-ending pursuit of growth is incompatible with a finite planet, we have yet to come to terms with the implications of this – the need to produce less and consume less. But if we do not change course, we are heading for an ecological and human disaster. There is still time to imagine, quite calmly, a system based upon a different logic, and to plan for a ‘de-growth society’.