15. European Politics and Society

Anna Grzymala-Busse, University of Michigan, abusse@umich.edu

The European Politics Section welcomes a diverse set of papers for the 2008 APSA meeting under the theme “Categories and the Politics of Global Inequalities.” While some European countries have long fought inequalities in income, social security, and economic and political opportunities in a relatively stable institutional framework, others have had to reorient and restructure their policies as part of broader regime changes. Europe thus offers a set of comparative perspectives on global inequalities. We are especially interested in comparative work that examines the different forms that inequality takes in Europe: whether political, economic, social, or ethnic. Other critical questions include the ways in which new and old welfare states address the potential tradeoffs between equality and efficiency,  the impact of European Union on the inequalities between “old” and “new” Europe, the international ramifications of European policy diffusion, foreign assistance, and NGO work, and the ways in which citizenship and social policy have become linked and challenged.