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Financial Crisis, Labour Markets and InstitutionsEdited by
edited by IIIS Research Associate Pasquale Tridico and Sebastiano Fadda

This book seeks to explain the global financial crisis and its wider economic, political, and social repercussions, arguing that the 2007-9 meltdown was in fact a systemic crisis of the capitalist system.The volume makes these points through the exploration of several key questions:

• What kind of institutional political economy is appropriate to explain crisis periods and failures of crisis-management?
• Are different varieties of capitalism more or less crisis-prone, and can the global financial crisis can be attributed to one variety more than others?
• What is the interaction between the labour market and the financialization process?

The book argues that each variety of capitalism has its own specific crisis tendencies, and that the uneven global character of the crisis is related to the current forms of integration of the world market. More specifically, the 2007-09 economic crisis is rooted in the uneven income distribution and inequality caused by the current financial-led model of growth.The book explains how the introduction of more flexibility in the labour markets and financial deregulation affected everything from wages to job security to trade union influence. Uneven income distribution and inequality weakened aggregate demand and brought about structural deficiencies in aggregate demand and supply. It is argued that the process of financialization has profoundly changed how capitalist economies operate. The volume posits that financial globalization has given rise to growing international imbalances, which have allowed two growth models to emerge: a debt-led consumption growth model and an export-led growth model. Both should be understood as reactions to the lack of effective demand due to the polarization of income distribution. For more details

the Political Economy of the Service Transition
edited by IIIS Research Associate Anne Wren

IIIS is happy to announce the publication of The Political Economy of the Service Transition (Oxford University Press, 2013), edited by IIIS Research Associate Dr. Anne Wren.
This volume was produced under the auspices Dr. Wren's Marie Curie Excellence Team project of the same name which was hosted by IIIS (financed by the European Commission).

Over the past four decades the wealthiest OECD economies-in Europe, North America, and Australasia- have faced massive structural change. Industrial sectors, which were once considered the economic backbone of these societies, have shrunk inexorably in terms of size and economic significance, while service sectors have taken over as the primary engines of output and employment expansion. The impact on labor markets has been profound: in many OECD countries more than three-quarters of employment is now in services, while industrial sectors, on average, account for less than one-fifth. For more details

The Palgrave Handbook of EU-Asia Relations
edited by IIIS Research Associate Philomena Murray and Thomas Christiansen and Emil Kirchner

This edited book fills a gap in the literature on EU-Asia relations. The European Union and Asia are two regions undergoing significant changes internally while at the same time developing stronger relations with each other. In the context of an emerging multi-polar world, Europe and Asia are seen as major actors, making their relations increasingly crucial for the understanding of global politics. The Handbook is distinctive because it constitutes a thoroughly comprehensive collection of more than 40 contributions from a variety of disciplines and perspectives, bringing together leading authors in their respective fields. Contributors come from Europe, Asia, North America and Australia, thereby providing a genuinely global perspective on this important topic.

The Handbook is structured along several key dimensions in the relationship, ensuring that bilateral relations, multilateral contexts, institutional aspects, the comparative dimension and the global perspective, are all covered a unique set of contributions. In addition, sections look specifically at political, economic and cultural relations between the two regions.

• 18th February 2013 EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series: European Identity and the Crisis’ by Prof Ettore Recchi (UNICH)
• 27th February 2013 EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series: Performances, ‘Performing European Memories: Trauma, Ethics, Politics' by Prof Milija Gluhovic (Warwick)
• 6th March 2013 EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series: Between the 'Blue Card' and Circular Migration: Crisis of EU's Immigration Policy for the Third-country Nationals’ by Prof Binod Khadria (Jawaharial Nehru University)
• 13th March 2013 EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series ‘The ESM and its Constitutionality’ by Dr Peter M Huber (German Federal Constitutional Court)
• 21st March 2013 EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series "Born in YU: Performing, Negotiating, and Re-imaging an Abject Identity" by Dr Silvija Jestrovic (Univ of Warwick) and "Hurt Identities? The Postwar Bosnian narrative of Self-Victimization" by Ms Ana Mijic (Univ of Vienna)
  
• 22nd March 2103 IIIS Seminar: The World is Bumpy: Power, Uneven Development and the Impact of New ICTs on South African Manufacturing.by Padgraig Carmody (TCD)
• 25th March 2013 EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series: ‘Europe in Search of Itself, in Search of the other’ by Prof Joep Leerssen (Amsterdam)

EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series

Title: ‘European Identity and the Crisis’
Speaker: Prof Ettore Recchi (UNICH)
Date: Monday, 18th February
Time: 18.15
Venue: Trinity Long Room Hub
This is a jointly organised lecture by the IIIS and the Trinity Long Room Hub. This lecture series is an associated event of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The series will run from January to June. Admission is free and all are welcome. Please download the full programme.

Abstract
Is EU identity affected by the Euro-crisis? To answer this question on the basis of available evidence, I draw on a conceptual distinction between the ‘identity of the EU’, understood as its public image formed by many images of many different social groups, and ‘identification with the EU’ or the sense of attachment perceived by individuals who formally (via citizenship) belong to the EU. These two concepts tap different dimensions of identity that I expect to be more and less volatile, reflecting their differing ‘identity salience’. To test this hypothesis I use Eurobarometer data for the last decade. Data analysis reveals a deterioration of the EU image and a relative stability of identifications with the EU in the context of the Euro-crisis.

EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series

Title: ‘Performing European Memories: Trauma, Ethics, Politics'
Speaker: Prof Milija Gluhovic (Warwick)
Date: Wednesday, 27th February
Time: 18.15
Venue: Trinity Long Room Hub

This is a jointly organised lecture by the IIIS and the Trinity Long Room Hub. This lecture series is an associated event of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The series will run from January to June. Admission is free and all are welcome. Please download the full programme.

Abstract

The end of the forty-year Cold War that split the postwar European continent provided the impetus for rethinking the past all over Europe as well as for the study of “European memory.” A commitment on the part of European countries to “work through the past” as individual nations and often contentious negotiations about what to remember and what to forget ran parallel with the search for a transnational memory of the conflicts, contentions, complexity and ambiguity of Europe’s past. This lecture explores the intersections between contemporary European theatre and performance, the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, and current preoccupations with the politics of memory in Europe.  It discusses different ways in which European artists engage with the traumatic experiences of the Holocaust, the Stalinist Gulags, colonialism, and imperialism, challenging their audiences’ historical imagination, and renewing their affective engagement with Europe’s past.  Milija Gluhovic is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Warwick. His research interests include: contemporary European theatre and performance, memory studies, and discourses of European identity, migrations and human rights. His monograph Performing European Memories: Trauma, Ethics, Politics and an edited collection Performing the ‘New’ Europe: Identities, Feelings, and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest (with Karen Fricker) are forthcoming with Palgrave in 2013. Milija is also the director of an Erasmus Mundus MA in International Performance Research, an EU sponsored program taught collaboratively at the University of Warwick, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Helsinki and the University of Arts in Belgrade.

EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series

Title: ‘Between the 'Blue Card' and Circular Migration: Crisis of EU's Immigration Policy for the Third-country Nationals’
Speaker: Prof Binod Khadria (Jawaharial Nehru University)
Date: Wednesday, 6th March
Time: 18.15
Venue: Trinity Long Room Hub
This is a jointly organised lecture by the IIIS and the Trinity Long Room Hub. This lecture series is an associated event of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The series will run from January to June. Admission is free and all are welcome. Please download the full programme.

Abstract
Barring United Kingdom and Ireland, rest of Europe has traditionally been known as the ‘fortress Europe’ so far as its links of migration with the outside world is concerned. Europe has however moved away from this position of being closed to immigrants, apparently borrowing from the experience of the UK and Ireland in being open to migration to and from the third-countries. The post-9/11 transition in the US immigration policy, which became restrictive, provided an immediate impetus to the switch in the European stance. With the consolidation of the EU, , there have been two diametrically opposite trends in the homogenization of the EU immigration policy towards third-country nationals, mainly for those coming from the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Whereas, the so-called Blue-card was floated to compete with the American Green-card by way of promising settlement rights to the highly skilled immigrants and their families from countries of these continents, the circular migration policy was to give precedence to temporary immigration over permanent. Whereas the Blue card was perceived to be an instrument for unification and reunification of families, circular migration, which silently discouraged families to accompany the migrants, led to the splitting and nomadization of the family. This contradiction is reflected in the range or the spread of diversity in the visa issuance policies of the countries of the EU. In fact, the contradictions are subtle and hidden in the practices of visa issuances as compared to the explicitly laid down policies. The contradiction provides the EU countries a convenient handle of selectiveness for choosing the highly skilled scarce workers for their most productive part of life cycle and to rotate the unskilled and the low-skilled at shorter intervals. Transitory nature of the immigration policy, arising from frequent and unanticipated changes therein, has become the hallmark of sovereignty over border control of EU’s unified boundaries. This raises some pertinent questions regarding the age-old issues of brain drain and brain gain in the context of EU’s current fixation with circular migration.

EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series

EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series

Title: ‘The ESM and its Constitutionality’
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Peter M. Huber, Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
Date: Wednesday, 13th March
Time: 18.15
Venue: Trinity Long Room Hub
This is a jointly organised lecture by the IIIS and the Trinity Long Room Hub. This lecture series is an associated event of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU.

The series will run from January to June.
PLEASE NOTE:All are welcome and admission is free however there is limited capacity so we request you to RSVP to iiis@tcd.ie
Please download the full programme.

Abstract
There has been no fundamental change in the Federal Constitutional Court’s view on the division of competence between the EEC (later EU) and the Member States since it first started dealing with the European integration at the beginning of the 1970s. There may have been a change in tone over the past 40 years. The cornerstones of the FCC’s approach, however, remain unchanged. The Maastricht judgement (12th October 1993), the Lisbon judgement (30th June 2009), the judgement concerning supporting measures for Greece and the euro rescue package (7th September 2011) and the judgment on the ESM and the fiscal compact (12th September 2012) are the main landmarks on this way.

At the base of this long line of case law is a concept of the EU as an association of sovereign states (Staatenverbund) in which the Member States are ‘masters of the treaties’ and cannot be deprived of this role but for an act of the constituent power i.e. a referendum according to Article 146 Basic Law.

Accordingly, the European Union possesses only such competences conferred upon it by the Member States (principle of conferral). The activities of the EU are democratically legitimate only insofar as they keep within the scope of this programme of integration. The programme of integration, however, grants EU law precedence over national law, which in principle applies to national constitutions as well.

The conceptual basis of precedence is in all Member States - although they differ in its concrete design - an act of national ratification (Rechtsanwendungsbefehl), in Germany the Act Approving the EEC Treaty and its subsequent amendments. Taking this into account, it seems inevitable that limits to pecedence should arise from national law. Over the past 20 years, the national constitutional identity and the programme of integration have proven to be relevant limits.

The Basic Law sets substantial requirements for the division of competence between the EU and the Member States and, as a necessary consequence, for the democratic legitimation and control of EU decisions as well, which happens primarily through the German Bundestag. These requirements are also valid for other supranational organizations such as the ESM.

In a more specific way the democratic principle as it is laid down in art. 20 par 1 and 2 of the Basic law entails the requirement that the Bundestag remains the place where decisions on the amount of loans and guaranties which Germany may give for other countries, their duration and their conditions have to be decided on in order to make a public debate and accountability possible.

During the ongoing crisis, this may slow down responses to the financial markets̕ actual or perceived demands. This means, as the president of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, stated in an interview, that democracy is indeed proving to be an impediment to overcoming the crisis. Yet, this is a price we must be willing to pay for the sake of our and our children’s freedom and self determination.

t democracy is indeed proving to be an impediment to overcoming the crisis. Yet, this is a price we must be willing to pay for the sake of our and our children’s freedom and self determination.

EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series

Title: "Born in YU: Performing, Negotiating, and Re-imaging an Abject Identity"
Speaker:Dr Silvija Jestrovic (Univ of Warwick)
and
Title: "Hurt Identities? The Postwar Bosnian narrative of Self-Victimization"
Speaker:Ms Ana Mijic (Univ of Vienna)

Date: Thursday, 21 March
Time: 13.00
Venue: Trinity Long Room Hub
This is a jointly organised lecture by the IIIS and the Trinity Long Room Hub. This lecture series is an associated event of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The series will run from January to June. Admission is free and all are welcome. Please download the full programme.

Abstracts to follow

IIIS Seminar Series

Title: The World is Bumpy: Power, Uneven Development and the Impact of New ICTs on South African Manufacturing.
Speaker: Padraig Carmody
Date: Friday, 22 March
Time: 13.00
Venue: IIIS Seminar Room, 6th floor Arts Building, TCD

Abstract
Some now assert Sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) marginalization in the global economy is being reversed by an information technology revolution. However, while many claims are made for new ICTs - and mobile phones in particular - very little research has been done on the precise ways in which firms use these technologies and their developmental impacts. Drawing on over fifty firm-level interviews, this paper examines evidence of the uses and impacts of new ICTs in the wood products industry in Durban, South Africa and its surrounding region. In contrast to assumptions in much of the literature, it finds that rather than primarily being used to connect to global markets, they are most commonly used as technologies of local labour control and inter-firm competition. Consequently the use of these technologies may deepen existing inequalities and uneven development, and in some instances disinformationalisation, rather than reduce or overcome them.

EURO-VISIONS Lecture Series

Title: ‘Europe in Search of Itself, in Search of the other’
Speaker: Prof Joep Leerssen (Amsterdam)
Date: Monday, 25th March
Time: 18.15
Venue: Trinity Long Room Hub
This is a jointly organised lecture by the IIIS and the Trinity Long Room Hub. This lecture series is an associated event of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The series will run from January to June. Admission is free and all are welcome. Please download the full programme.

Abstract to follow

• 7th March 2013 ESRI Conference: "Reaping the Benefits of Globalisation: Opportunities and Challenges for Europe and Ireland"
• 12th March 2013 P rof. Remi Brague, Universities of Munich and Paris Sorbonne, on the theme: Philosophies of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the Medieval Cultural Space,
• TCD UCD Development Research Seminar Series 2013

   

ESRI Conference

Conference: "Reaping the Benefits of Globalisation: Opportunities and Challenges for Europe and Ireland"
Date: Thursday 7/03/2013
Time: 08.30 to 13:00
Venue: ESRI, Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin 2
.
This conference, jointly organised with the European Commission will present and discuss the main findings of the 2012 edition of the European Competitiveness Report as well as recent related empirical evidence and its implications for industrial and innovation policies in Europe and Ireland. There is no fee to attend but please register online here by Thursday 28 February. More ..

Trinity Long Room Hub, with the School of Religions, Theology and Ecumenics,
Lecture Series 2012-2013 - Religion(s), Ethics, Cultural Engagement

P rof. Remi Brague, Universities of Munich and Paris Sorbonne, on the theme: Philosophies of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the Medieval Cultural Space,
Date: Tuesday 12 March, 2013, 17.00.
Venue: Neill/Hoey Lecture Theatre, Long Room Hub

To view the full seminar series poster please click here.

Please note unless other wise stated these seminars are open to the public, and do not require registration.
Contact: Email: tidi@tcd.ie, Website: www.tcd.ie/tidi, or http://www.ucd.ie/hdi/.

• What future for the Global Aid for Trade Initiative? Towards a fair assessment of its achievements and limitations
  William Hynes, Patrick Holden
  IIIS Discussion Paper No. 421

PLEASE NOTE: We have introduced some changes to the process for submitting a paper to the Discussion Paper Series. I would be grateful if you could please refer to  How to submit a paper? before submitting your next paper, thank you.

• Full list of all Discussion Papers

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