Morality Politics In Western Europe

Why do some countries have 'Culture Wars' over morality issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage while other countries hardly experience any conflict? This book argues that morality issues only generate major conflicts in political systems with a significant conflict between religious and secular parties.

The regulation of issues like abortion, euthanasia, gun control, same-sex unions, pornography, prostitution, drugs, or gambling is commonly referred to a special class of so called morality policies. The distinctive feature of these policies is that politics are shaped by conflicts over first principle: When does life end? When does it begin? Is gambling, drug consumption or prostitution inherently malignant? The regulation of these value conflicts entails decisions about "right" or "wrong" and hence the "validation of a particular set of basic values". Yet there is still a remarkable lack of scholarly attention on morality policies, in particular with regard to general implications for the study of public policy. To stimulate further research in this area, this book focuses on different concepts and theories of morality policy change in European countries. It is based on a broad and comparative empirical perspective on different morality issues, including, for instance, the regulation of prostitution, abortion, euthanasia, gambling, drugs, as well as gun controls.This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

In 'Morality and politics in modern Europe', Oakeshott argues that two conflicting moralities underlie two opposed understandings of the office of government in modern Europe. On one hand is the morality of individuality, according to which the role of government is to frame and enforce rules of law that enable individuals to invent and pursue in peace their own diverse projects. On the other is the morality of collectivism, by which government is interpreted as the manager of a unified enterprise whose function is to provide for the community, regarded as an organic whole that pursues a single project to which all other activities are subordinate.

Cutting-edge comparative analysis of the challenges posed by the populist radical right to Western Europe's Conservative, Liberal and Christian Democratic parties.

One of the first volumes to explore the intersection of economics, morality, and culture, this collection analyzes the role of the developing monetary economy in Western Europe from the twelfth to the seventeenth century. The contributors--scholars from the fields of history, literature, art history and musicology--explore how money infiltrated every aspect of everyday life, modified notions of social identity, and encouraged debates about ethical uses of wealth.

Based on two international conferences at Princeton University and the Central European University, this is a handy guide to the problem of corruption in transition countries, with an important comparative content. Political Corruption in Transition is distinguished from similar publications by at least two features: by the quality of the carefully selected and edited essays ans by its original treatment. Instead of the usual preaching and excommunications, this Skeptic`s Handbook represents down-to-earth realism. Combines general issues with case studies and original research. The geographic coverage is wide, though it is ideas rather than a geography that drive the volume`s organization.