Europe Under Stress: Convergence and Divergence in the European Community is the second of two volumes which flow from a Chatham House project on the political implications of economic divergence in the European Community, funded by the Social Science Research Council. This second volume offers an interpretation of the problems that divergence poses for the European Community in a number of key sectors, from the perspective of a political economist. This book begins with a discussion of the concepts of convergence and divergence followed by an explanation of the methodology adopted in this book. The remaining chapters are organized into two parts. The chapters in Part I examine the attitudes of the major EEC member states to the convergence/divergence issue and what the terms mean for each of them. This part also attempts to relate these positions to the concerns and interests of the countries involved. The chapters in Part II analyze the impact of economic divergence on community policies.

This volume brings together the leaders in the field of PTSD research to present an up-to-date summary and understanding of this complex disorder. All of our current knowledge and controversies concerning the diagnosis, epidemiology, course, pathophysiology and treatment are described in detail. The evidence for efficacy for each of the different forms of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy is reviewed. Particular attention is paid to at-risk groups, including minorities, and coverage of PTSD throughout the world is reviewed as well. The authors present state-of-the-art findings in genetics, epigenetics, neurotransmitter function and brain imaging to provide the most current and comprehensive review of this burgeoning field.

In a representative study made of European workers, twenty-eight per cent of employees reported that stress affects their health and their performance at work. Occupational stress is a serious problem for the performance of individuals, organisations and as a consequence, for national economies. Preventing Stress, Improving Productivity investigates the ways in which companies can combat stress by changing the working environment rather than only treating individual employees with stress symptoms. Costs and benefits of stress prevention are discussed, with an emphasis on appraoches that involve both the work situation and the individual worker. The heart of the book consists of eleven European country chapters, each overviewing the current status with respect to occupational stress and its prevention in that country and then presenting one detailed case study an example of good preventive practice. Preventing Stress, Improving Productivity identifies five factors that are critical for a stress reduction programme to work, both in terms of employee health and well-being and from a financial point of view. Successful strategies combine participation from workers and support from top management. Useful as a reference for psychologists, human resource managers, occupational physicians, ergonomists and consultants, this book will also be an invaluable aid to managers in the day-to-day running of organisations.

This book offers the first comprehensive political analysis of the Euro crisis that erupted in Greece in 2010 and subsequently threatened the very survival of the Euro area. It has left a profound mark on democratic politics all over Europe, changing public attitudes and voting preferences, institutional and societal norms, and deeply anchored political traditions. The contributors to this volume reveal the extent to which policymakers are torn between the pressures emanating from financial markets and the demands put forward by their own constituents; how they struggle to reconcile national preferences with wider European interests; and how a polarized and politicized Union seeks to maintain some degree of cohesion. The emerging picture is that of a European Union under serious stress, transformed by new governance structures and a shifting balance of power. In response, the authors evaluate the prospects of a more legitimate and democratic Europe. They provide a rich and pluralist set of new analyses and proposals, aimed at understanding and navigating the myriad tensions which surround the EU in the aftermath of the crisis. If the European project is to regain the trust of its citizens, such considerations must take a central place in public debate.

DEMOCRACY UNDER STRESS focuses on the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and its implications for democracy. Why and how did the crisis come about? Are there any instructive lessons to be drawn from comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s? What are the democratic response mechanisms to cope with serious crises? Do they work? Is China a new trend setter? Do values matter? Are global democratic rules a possibility? These are some of the key questions addressed in the volume.

This volume investigates environmental and political crises that occurred in Europe during the late Middle Ages and the early Modern Period, and considers their effects on people’s lives. At this time, the fragile human existence was imagined as a ‘Dance of Death’, where anyone, regardless of social status or age, could perish unexpectedly. This book covers events ranging from cooling temperatures and the onset of the Little Ice Age, to the frequent occurrence of epidemic disease, pest infestations, food shortages and famines. Covering the mid-fourteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries, this collection of essays considers a range of countries between Iceland (to the north), Italy (to the south), France (to the west) and the westernmost parts of Russia (to the east). This wide-reaching volume considers how deeply climate variability and changes affected and changed society in the late medieval to early modern period, and asks what factors, other than climate, interfered in the development of environmental stress and socio-economic crises. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Environmental and Climate History, Environmental Humanities, Medieval and Early Modern History and Historical Geography, as well as Climate Change and Environmental Sciences.

This book explores the political and economic issues currently challenging EU member states affecting both the core Eurozone and non-core states. It analyses and explains how its own economic, and political, relationships have been critically influenced by fierce competition from its rivals in other major global economies, as well as by the systemic weaknesses in the economic and financial model it created. The book provides insight into both the underlying and more immediate economic and social challenges created by: its post-2007 enlargement to 28 countries - excluding the Balkan remnants of former Yugoslavia; the nature of the regulatory regime centralized in Brussels, and the host of issues and critiques this fosters; its ‘open borders’ policy and precious guiding principle, crystallized in the Schengen agreement; security weaknesses exacerbated by increasing volumes of migration; and the ongoing debt crises as the greatest existential challenge to the EU project. Featuring interviews with high profile key players from inside and outside Europe the book will examine new and underlying stresses - political and economic - to guide a greater understanding of the EU plan.