The Future of Public Policy

This article reports the results of research that uses policy network theory and advocacy coalition theory to deduce the implications for the future of public policy in EU Member States of king trends: all those technological, economic, environmental, and social trends that can be empirically verified, affect the lives of large numbers of people and are expected by relevant experts to continue for at least the next 20 years. The resulting policy implications can be summarized as more assertive security policies, more business-friendly economic policies, more liberal social policies, and increased public spending.     

Eurabia Comes to Norway

Andres Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 22/7/11 terrorist attacks in Norway, was profoundly inspired by what has become known as the Eurabia genre. Behring Breivik's 1516-page cut-and-paste tract, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, makes extensive reference to Eurabia authors, and most prominently to the blog essays of the Norwegian extreme right-wing blogger “Fjordman,” also known as Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen. A popular transnational genre found in both film and literature, the Eurabia genre is central to understanding the worldviews of extreme right-wing “counter-jihadists.” It is a conspiratorial genre in which a central rhetorical trope is that Europe is on the verge of being taken over by Muslims. It alleges that European Muslims want to establish continent-wide Islamic domination in the form of an Islamic state or a caliphate, using higher fertility rates and immigration as their main means of achieving this. The Eurabia genre has, however, hitherto received limited academic attention. In this article, I use the insights of critical discourse analysis in order to analyse some central contributions to this profoundly Islamophobic genre and its popularization and political mainstreaming in Norway in the past decade.     

Holiness as a mark of the Church in the writings of John Henry Newman

‘Church’ is a common word to denote ordinary, traditional, mass Christian churches. In sociology, four main characteristics are used to describe these religious organisations: a bureaucratic organisational structure, a passive relationship with their members, a positive relationship and attitude to society and the state, and a leading vision for the whole of society including a positive attitude to other religious bodies. This article states that these characteristics are under pressure in the context of globalised social relations. With examples from European churches, it is shown that these organisations are becoming less likely to conform to the ideal type of ‘church’. In the conclusion, three scenario's for the future of ‘churches’ in western society are portrayed.     

The place of psychotherapy and counselling in a healthy European social order: A commentary on Tantam and Van Deurzen

This commentary on Tantam and van Deurzen's vision for psychotherapy in Europe (this issue, pp. 228-235) interrogates their seeming modernity-driven, rights-obsessed convictions. Specifically, their uncritical advocacy of control-fixated political intrusions into the cultural-spiritual sphere is challenged; and critical reflections are offered on institutional professionalization; the authors' profession-centred, grandiose discourse; and therapy's alleged scientificity. Some dangers associated with individualised therapy's becoming a fetishized, institutionally sanctioned ‘regime of truth’ are voiced — one practicable antidote to which is the deliberate cultivation of an ongoingly deconstructive, ‘New Paradigm’ approach to therapy which, not least, mistrusts therapy's tendency towards delusory, self-interested exaggeration of its own cultural indispensability.     

The Discursive Frames of Political Psychology

The aim of this article is to apply elements of contemporary social theory to the major theoretical, methodological, and ideological divisions across political psychology and to consider both the origins and the impact of a range of theories and models. In so doing, we clarify some of the complexity surrounding the discursive and cultural origins of political psychology. On the basis of this analysis, we aim to overcome the redundant binaries and dualisms—both conceptual and geo‐spatial—that have characterized the field up to now. These binary pairs relate to matters of epistemology, ideology, and methodology, and we show how each pair has been the basis of claims made regarding continental differences. As we shall see, such black‐and‐white thinking limits our capacity to understand the nature and potential of political psychology. Instead we wish to encourage a greater degree of universalism and globalism that is appropriate to political psychology as it evolves into a broader global discipline. We argue that political psychology as a field must attempt to deal with the consequences of an increasingly borderless world in which political identities are becoming more fluid, increasingly hybridized, and open to transformation.     

The Lutheran Confessions in Western Europe: Past and Future

Abstract: The idea of a church uniting confession began with the Lutherans in the late 1520s; and with translations of the Augsburg Confession (AC) it spread throughout Europe with the advance of the Reformation. As European culture slips further toward postmodern relativism, the absolute nature of divine claims reflected in confessions will seem odd and unwelcome. Christians must take up the challenge of developing a hermeneutic for interpreting the confessions so that the Truth of God can be respected.     

The pan-European approach in the fight against corruption: The council of Europe

This paper addresses the work of the Council of Europe in the fight against corruption. It presents briefly the Council of Europe’s organisation, activities and priorities and goes on to introduce its work in the fight against corruption. Activities in this field are carried out by the Multidisciplinary Group on Corruption (GMC) which is made up of governmental representatives of the forty Member States of the Organisation and in accordance with a Plan of Action against Corruption. Following work by the GMC, the Committee of Ministers, the decision-making body of the Council of Europe, adopted in 1997 ‘The 20 Guiding principles for the Fight against Corruption’ and in 1998 ‘The Agreement establishing the Group of States against Corruption-GRECO’ which will be called upon to monitor States’ compliance with their international commitments in the fight against corruption. Three international legal instruments are currently under preparation by the GMC, namely: a convention on corruption (dealing with the criminal aspects of the problem), a convention on civil remedies resulting from corruption and a European model code of conduct for Public Officials. Work on these instruments is well advanced and it is expected that they will be adopted before the end of 1998. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Engineering Foundation Conference on “Ethics for Science and Engineering Based International Industries”, Durham, NC, USA, 14–17 September 1997. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necesarily reflect the vews of the Organisation. Information about the Council of Europe can be obtained at 〈http://www.coe.fr〉. Science and Engineering Ethics is published by Opragen Publications, POB 54, Guildford GU1 2YF, UK. 〈http://www.cableol.co.uk/opragen/〉.     

Immigration and femininity in Southern Europe: A gender‐based psychosocial analysis

Despite the growing presence of female immigrants in Western countries, research on the subject highlights two important biases that hinder appropriate explanation of the migratory phenomenon and hence prevent adequate intervention. First, most of the research studies conducted so far focus on male migration; second, the macro‐social perspective has prevailed in these areas of study since socio‐economic and political aspects have taken centre stage in analyses on migratory phenomena, From a gender‐based psychosocial perspective, this study addresses the migration project of 53 women from different South American countries, the Maghreb region and Eastern Europe now living in Southern Spain. For this purpose we conducted 23 in‐depth interviews, and staged six discussion groups with the aim of elucidating to what extent gender‐based psychosocial beliefs—stereotypes, ideology and identity—determine women's migration process. Our results suggest that the main stages in the process—deciding to emigrate, itinerary for social and labour integration in the host country, and general assessment of the migration experience—are strongly influenced by psychosociological constructs which arise as a result of female gender‐typing or female profile. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changing patterns of religious affiliation,church attendance and marriage across five areas of Europe since the early 1980s: trends and associations

This study draws on three waves of the European Values Survey (conducted between 1981 and 1984, between 1989 and 1993, and between 1999 and 2004) across five countries for which full data are available (Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Spain, and Sweden) in order to address five research questions. Question one examined changes in religious affiliation. Across all five countries, the proportions of the non‐affiliated increased. Question two examined changes in church attendance. Across all five countries, the proportions of the non‐attenders increased. Question three examined changes in marital status. Across all five countries the proportions of the population checking the category ‘married’ declined, although in Spain the decline was marginal. Question four examined the association between religious affiliation and being married. The religious affiliated were more likely to be married than the non‐affiliated. Question five examined the association between church attendance and being married. Weekly attenders were more likely to be married than the non‐attenders. Overall these data support the close association between religion and marriage across five European countries (where there are very different religious climates) and support the hypothesis that changing religious values and changing family values go hand‐in‐hand.