“That institutions affect the performance of economies is hardly controversial. That the differential performance of economies over time is fundamentally influenced by the way institutions evolve is also not controversial.” (North 1990, p. 3)

The article deals with family solidarities and the grey economy in modes of resistance against poverty and social isolation, in unemployment situations in Portugal. We examine the strategies used by these social groups in order to fight against the economic and social effects of unemployment. We then analyse the social norms structuring the mobilisation of family cooperation and activities on the labour black market. Finally, we conclude by underlining the positive effects and disavantages of these compensations on the experience of unemployment.

This article criticizes two theoretical approaches to ethnicity and ethnic conflict. One emphasizes the intense solidarity generated by the ethnic bond and explains this in terms of a deep, quasi-kin feeling. The other emphasizes the contingency and situatedness of ethnic feeling and the fluctuating character of ethnic “groupness”. We adopt an alternative strategy, locating ethnicity as one factor among many, which may form a path-dependent self-reproductive system generating communal opposition and ethnic conflict.

This paper aims to demonstrate that cosmopolitanism should be understood as a transnational mode of practice, whereby actors construct bonds of mutual commitment and reciprocity across borders through public discourse and sociopolitical struggle. This practice oriented perspective allows us to question three of the main assumptions imbedded within most frameworks theorizing global solidarity, namely cultural homogenization, political fragmentation, and social thinness. To illustrate my argument, I draw upon examples taken from the alternative globalization movement.

This paper raises the question to what extent of East Germans support the political system in which they live. Have people who lived for decades under authoritarian conditions been able to develop a democratic culture? Or are their mind-sets and attitudes still influenced by the effects of GDR socialization with its socialist values and ideals? The paper argues that the peculiarities of the political culture in East Germany are less attributable to effects of GDR socialization than to current differences in the economic situation between East and West Germany.

This study discerns peculiarities in the electoral mobilisation in EU member states in recent years and examines the effect of current social transformations on political discourse and voting behaviour. The overall change is traced to the emergence of opportunity-vs-risk vectors of political identification, challenging the capital vs labour dynamics of conflict. The decline in electoral support for traditional Left parties is attributed to the failure of the European Left to adjust to this realignment.