The Workfare Illusion: Re-examining the Concept and the British Case

This article contends that workfare programmes pursued by various OECD countries since the mid-1990s do not amount to a fundamental change in policy. The limited potential of workfare is due to the fact that it fails to transcend the constraints of earlier forms of ‘active’ responses to unemployment. Furthermore, it suffers from specific policy-making disadvantages not shared by these responses. The article opens with a survey of relevant academic debates on the subject. It then places workfare in a broader context by identifying its functional reach, as compared to other active policy responses to unemployment such as active labour market policy (ALMP). The third section analyses workfare policies in the United Kingdom, as developed since 1997, by reexamining the British New Deal employment programme. That review demonstrates that workfare policies either depend on their ‘fit’ with the existing policy-making heritage, or that they remain merely symbolic. The article concludes by suggesting that the potential of workfare to effect change in responses to unemployment continues to be of limited significance. In other words, capitalist employment and welfare systems continue to be characterized by incremental adaptation rather than by fundamental regime change as suggested by the critics of workfare

From Fragile to Collapsed Statehood: The Case of the Republic of Yemen (1990-2020)

The unification of the two Yemeni states–the northern Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the southern People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), respectively - in 1990 has been a resounding failure. Merging the tribal-dominated northern and state-party dominated southern regimes meant increasing the number of factions competing for access to state resources to satisfy material and security needs of their respective networks of influence. In particular, efforts at growing the resource base of the unified state after 1990, by means of an expansion of oil and gas exploration and extraction, raised the revenue base of the state in an unsustainable manner. Such growth in national oil and gas rents increased rather than decreased competition over state authority to control the spoils. The major subsequent events, such as the 1994 civil war, the 2004-2010 "Saada wars" against the Houthi movement, the Yemeni version of the "Arab Spring" in 2011, the failure of the National Dialogue Conference (March 2013-January 2014), and the start of the Saudi and Emirati bombing campaign and subsequent ground war in Yemen since March 2015 all triggered major clashes between different factions of the Yemeni state bureaucracy, army, and civil society. On each of these occasions, efforts to freeze out some Yemeni actors produced escalating conflict between the remaining factions instead of a winning coalition that could have reestablished a degree of stability. The article explains how local, regional, and global factors have jointly overwhelmed the Yemeni actors, and how foreign intervention has led to the further deterioration of the pre-existing national crisis

Germany's Corona Crisis: The State of Emergency and Policy(Mis)learning

This article analyzes Germany's policy-making in response to the Corona crisis between January 2020 and March 2021. Two theoretical perspectives are advanced. The first concerns how the government's imposition of a 'state of emergency' affects liberal democratic policy-making resulting in the closure of deliberation in favor of top-down imposition. The second perspective looks at different types of policy learning under crisis conditions. The central thesis is that Germany's emergency regime failed to facilitate effective policy-making since it closed down venues in which policy learning could occur. Thus, the state of emergency combined authoritarianism and inefficiency. A variety of explanations are advanced to clarify causes for the sluggishness of the German federal, regional, and local government levels to meet Corona-related challenges

From Merkel to Kramp‐Karrenbauer: Can German Christian Democracy Reinvent Itself?

Germany's Christian Democrats have started preparing for the time after Angela Merkel. After ten years as German chancellor facing a weak opposition, Merkel unexpectedly split the country in late 2015 and early 2016 because of her 'open border' policies that allowed more than 1 million refugees and migrants to rapidly enter Germany. Her management of the subsequent crisis was largely considered a failure and her party suffered a series of dramatic election defeats. Reacting to the negative electoral feedback, and in particular the breakthrough of the rightist and anti‐immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Christian Democratic Union organised an intra‐party contest to replace Merkel as party leader. Three candidates with different political profiles, Annegret Kramp‐Karrenbauer, Friedrich Merz and Jens Spahn, contested the election. By voting for Kramp‐Karrenbauer, the CDU membership voiced support for maintaining a large‐scale political coalition based on efforts to find compromises between different party wings and social and cultural interests

Syria's Global War and Beyond: Will the Balance of Power in the Middle East be Restored?

This paper analyses the Syrian conflict since 2011 in the context of the larger Middle East, focusing on local, regional and global actors. The first section highlights some geopolitical and historical factors regarding Syria. The second part outlines post-Cold War US and Israeli strategic debates on Syria and the Middle East. It is argued that the behavior of the US in the Syrian conflict since 2011 underlines the continuing significance of US-led regime change agendas as initially associated with the so-called ‘neoconservatives’ and near unconditional US backing of Israel’s regional strategic objectives. The third section examines how local conflicts in Syria, since 18 March 2011, became transformed into a lengthy global war over world order during which the US challenged Russia’s long-standing geopolitical patronage of Syria’s political leadership. The interaction between military and political factors and the manner in which the crisis narrative was managed in the western media system is also sketched. Finally, the fourth section focuses on the theory of ‘peripheral realism’ and offers a discussion of this theory’s concept of state hierarchy applied to the Middle Eastern context. It is suggested that the war in Syria serves to destroy the existing regional state hierarchy and regional state’s potential capacity for upward mobility in the global state syste

From "Moderniser" to "Traditionalist": Oskar Lafontaine and German Social Democracy in the 1990s

Oskar Lafontaine’s resignation as finance minister of the Federal Republic, as chairman of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), and as member of the German parliament on 11 March 1999 was widely perceived as a dramatic episode in the debate about the future direction of social democracy in Europe. Directly after the resignation of the second most important politician of the ruling SPD-Green Party coalition, his decision was explained on four accounts. First, the relationship between Lafontaine and the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, was understood as a power struggle between the leader of the major party in government on the one hand, and the leader of the government on the other. Second, Lafontaine was presented as a ‘traditionalist’, who preached doctrines about state intervention in the economy that were no longer acceptable in the global discourse of economic deregulation. Third, in the short period between the defeat of the Kohl government on 27 September 1998 and his resignation, Lafontaine had gained a certain degree of notoriety as “the most dangerous man in Europe” (The Sun ). In the media, he was presented as too left- wing a politician to fit into the supposedly more ‘modern’ political project of the ‘new centre’ in Germany or the ‘third way’ in Britain. Fourth, for the first time in the history of the German SPD, the resignation of its leader had a strong impact on the markets: a short term rise of the Euro against the Dollar, and a sharp rise of stock market prices underlined the satisfaction of some observers about the end of a long political career. In the following article, Oskar Lafontaine’s political life will be discussed in or- der to highlight the shifting meaning of ‘modernity’ in social democratic dis- course in the Federal Republic and in Europe. The focus will be on Lafontaine’s failure to transfer successfully his standing as a social democratic ‘moderniser’ (which he possessed in the 1980s) into the 1990s. It will be argued here that analysis of his failure helps to understand why many social democrats have abandoned former core beliefs about the corporatist regulation of society in favour of the ‘chance’ of globalisation, and of market-driven ‘modernisation’

Germany's Federal Election of 2021: Multi-Crisis Politics and the Consolidation of the Six-Party System

The German federal election of 2021 reshuffled Germany's party-political hierarchy, but left the six-party system intact. For the first time since 2002, the SPD narrowly overtook the CDU/CSU to become the party with the largest vote share. The Greens and the FDP also gained votes while the CDU/CSU and the Left party suffered high losses and the AfD minor losses. Crucially, party system continuity coexists with severe challenges for German policy makers, namely regional and global insecurity, decline in the country's infrastructure and social coherence, as well as the highly divisive management of the Covid crisis. While the electorate still focusses mostly on social protection and economic security, it is unclear whether Germany's political class can deliver on such expectations in a multi-crisis context. Crucially, technocratic updating at the expense of liberal democracy and constitutional order will worsen rather than improve the current situation

Transnational war in Syria: the Eisenhower doctrine in the 21st century?

This article analyzes the geopolitical interests and strategy of the United States (US) in the Middle East region. The focus is placed on a case study of Syria, a state that has been outside of the US sphere of influence since the mid-1950s. Long term, mid term, and short term factors of US conduct in the region and with regard to Syria are jointly discussed. It is argued that the geopolitical writings of Nicholas J. Spykman inspired the Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957, which suggested that the US should assume the role of single external balancer in the Middle East. This aspiration explains why US policymakers have intervened in the Syrian conflict since March 2011 using regional proxies and covert action. Such intervention points to continuity in US efforts to balance regional powers such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey against each other in order to strengthen the US geopolitical role