
The Euro-crisis of 2009-2012 vividly demonstrated that European Union policies matter for the distribution of resources within and between European nation-states. Throughout the crisis, distributive conflicts between the EU's winners and losers worsened, and are still reverberating in European politics today. In Unequal Europe, Jason Beckfield demonstrates that there is a direct connection between European integration and the increase in European income inequality over the past four decades. He places the recent crisis into a broader sociological, political, and economic perspective by analyzing how European integration has reshaped the distribution of income across the households of Europe. Using individual-and household-level income survey data, combined with macro-level data on social policies, and case studies of welfare reforms in EU and non-EU states, Beckfield shows how European integration has re-stratified Europe by simultaneously drawing national economies closer together and increasing inequality among households. Explaining how, where, and why income inequality has changed in the EU, Unequal Europe answers the question: who wins and who loses from European integration?
This book investigates the causal relationship between European integration and the widening gap of income inequality across European households over the last forty years. Jason Beckfield, a sociologist specializing in political economy and social stratification, utilizes a multi-scalar analytical framework to examine how EU policy shifts influence domestic resource distribution. By synthesizing longitudinal survey data with comparative welfare state analysis, the author argues that the integration process has fundamentally re-stratified the continent by favoring specific economic sectors while marginalizing others.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Experts in political sociology and European studies recognize this work as a rigorous empirical examination of the distributive consequences of regional integration. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which is tailored for scholars and students of comparative political economy.
Page Count:
308
Publication Date:
2019-03-26
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190494255
ISBN-13:
9780190494254
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