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About Harold James

is Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University and Marie Curie Professor of History at the European University Institute, Florence. His most recent book is The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalization Cycle.

Harold James

Macron’s Mission

by Harold James on 25th April 2017

The centrist Emmanuel Macron’s success in the first round of the French presidential election is likely to re-energize Europe. Unlike the other candidates, Macron does not just recognize the need for radical change to the European Union; he supports bringing it through Europe-wide cooperation. But Macron’s plurality of the popular vote was narrow, and a […]

Harold James

Containing The Populist Contagion

by Harold James on 30th November 2016

With populism seemingly going viral in the advanced economies, the political establishment is in retreat. Outsiders are achieving significant political victories by making dramatic promises to shake up or overthrow the system. The populists’ enemies are members of the “global elite,” who have betrayed national values; and yet their revolt against what US President-elect Donald […]

Harold James

Can The UK Survive Brexit?

by Harold James on 7th January 2016

The upcoming referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership in the European Union, almost certain to be held this year, could turn out to be yet another major catastrophe to hit Europe. If, as seems increasingly plausible, British voters chose to leave, the result would be a profoundly destabilized EU – and a shattered UK. […]

Harold James

Europe’s Last Straw?

by Harold James on 6th November 2015

The European Union is facing a truly terrifying array of crises. After prolonged euro and sovereign-debt crises polarized and radicalized the continent, creating a deep north-south rift, the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees has pitted east (plus the United Kingdom) against west. Add to that numerous other divides and contradictions, and the EU’s […]

Harold James

Rule Germania

by Harold James on 31st July 2015

A persistent theme – indeed the leitmotif – of the way that German leaders discuss the eurozone is their insistence on the importance of following the rules. That refrain is followed by a chorus from the rest of the monetary union demanding to know why Germany is taking such an inflexible approach. The answer, it […]

Harold James

The New Inequality

by Harold James on 8th January 2014

New inequality – From the start, policy responses to the 2008 financial crisis were colored by memories and interpretations of the Great Depression. The conventional wisdom now holds that the world avoided a repeat of the interwar catastrophe, largely because policymakers made better decisions this time around. But, while there is plenty of room for […]

Social Europe Publishing book

The Brexit endgame is upon us: deal or no deal, the transition period will end on January 1st. With a pandemic raging, for those countries most affected by Brexit the end of the transition could not come at a worse time. Yet, might the UK's withdrawal be a blessing in disguise? With its biggest veto player gone, might the European Pillar of Social Rights take centre stage? This book brings together leading experts in European politics and policy to examine social citizenship rights across the European continent in the wake of Brexit. Will member states see an enhanced social Europe or a race to the bottom?

'This book correctly emphasises the need to place the future of social rights in Europe front and centre in the post-Brexit debate, to move on from the economistic bias that has obscured our vision of a progressive social Europe.' Michael D Higgins, president of Ireland


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Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of the EU recovery and resilience facility

This policy brief analyses the macroeconomic effects of the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). We present the basics of the RRF and then use the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to analyse the facility's macroeconomic effects. The simulations show, first, that if the funds are in fact used to finance additional public investment (as intended), public capital stocks throughout the EU will increase markedly during the time of the RRF. Secondly, in some especially hard-hit southern European countries, the RRF would offset a significant share of the output lost during the pandemic. Thirdly, as gains in GDP due to the RRF will be much stronger in (poorer) southern and eastern European countries, the RRF has the potential to reduce economic divergence. Finally, and in direct consequence of the increased GDP, the RRF will lead to lower public debt ratios—between 2.0 and 4.4 percentage points below baseline for southern European countries in 2023.


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Benchmarking Working Europe 2020

A virus is haunting Europe. This year’s 20th anniversary issue of our flagship publication Benchmarking Working Europe brings to a growing audience of trade unionists, industrial relations specialists and policy-makers a warning: besides SARS-CoV-2, ‘austerity’ is the other nefarious agent from which workers, and Europe as a whole, need to be protected in the months and years ahead. Just as the scientific community appears on the verge of producing one or more effective and affordable vaccines that could generate widespread immunity against SARS-CoV-2, however, policy-makers, at both national and European levels, are now approaching this challenging juncture in a way that departs from the austerity-driven responses deployed a decade ago, in the aftermath of the previous crisis. It is particularly apt for the 20th anniversary issue of Benchmarking, a publication that has allowed the ETUI and the ETUC to contribute to key European debates, to set out our case for a socially responsive and ecologically sustainable road out of the Covid-19 crisis.


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Eurofound advertisement

Industrial relations: developments 2015-2019

Eurofound has monitored and analysed developments in industrial relations systems at EU level and in EU member states for over 40 years. This new flagship report provides an overview of developments in industrial relations and social dialogue in the years immediately prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. Findings are placed in the context of the key developments in EU policy affecting employment, working conditions and social policy, and linked to the work done by social partners—as well as public authorities—at European and national levels.


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Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Read FEPS Covid Response Papers

In this moment, more than ever, policy-making requires support and ideas to design further responses that can meet the scale of the problem. FEPS contributes to this reflection with policy ideas, analysis of the different proposals and open reflections with the new FEPS Covid Response Papers series and the FEPS Covid Response Webinars. The latest FEPS Covid Response Paper by the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, 'Recovering from the pandemic: an appraisal of lessons learned', provides an overview of the failures and successes in dealing with Covid-19 and its economic aftermath. Among the authors: Lodewijk Asscher, László Andor, Estrella Durá, Daniela Gabor, Amandine Crespy, Alberto Botta, Francesco Corti, and many more.


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