Following Reher’s (1998) seminal paper on family ties in western Europe, the perspective that family solidarity patterns are divided along the lines of an individualistic north and a familialistic south has dominated the research literature. We challenge this view and address variability in intergenerational family solidarity within and across countries. Using multiple dimensions of intergenera...

This article analyses the dynamics of family solidarity in Spain. The existing literature so far has defined the Spanish caring model as familistic due to the primacy of the family in the protection of dependants. However, this article shows that recent data on Spaniards’ preferences concerning the care of their family dependents might question the sustainability of the bases of such model. Thi...

This paper is concerned with the relationship between solidarity and difference in European countries of immigration. Public and policy discourses on immigration and ethnic diversity in Europe have undergone substantial changes in recent years, revealing a shift away from the pluralist and multicultural approaches of the 1970s and 1980s. The new emphasis is on social cohesion and integration in...

From the mid-1990s citizens in Belgium, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands and Switzerland have a guaranteed periodic choice among risk-bearing sickness funds, who are responsible for purchasing their care or providing them with medical care. The rationale of this arrangement is to stimulate the sickness funds to improve efficiency in health care production and to respond to consumers' preference...

The concept of substantial equivalence, introduced for the risk assessment of genetically modified (GM) food, is a reducing concept because it ignores the context in which these products have been produced and brought to the consumer at the end of the food chain. Food quality cannot be restricted to mere substance and food acts on human beings not only at the level of nutrition but also through...

Although Habermas’ sophisticated conception of constitutional patriotism successfully avoids the charge of trying to ground patriotism in a set of principles that is too thin and abstract to sustain a real sense of solidarity and belonging, his optimism regarding the prospect in modern pluralist societies of building a genuinely shared political culture is misplaced. The march of modernisation ...

1. Short summary of results of the original research (extended summary see below) At this moment (1 September 2001), about two third of the research period are completed. In accordance with the work plan, the focus has been on theoretical model building in the first two years and will shift to empirical testing and publication of research results in the third year. Articles based on the researc...

The paper presents the process of refugee identity transformation in the mirror of the Slovene refugee politics. It has been discussed that the problem of the refugee mental health can not be identified with the psychopathological phenomenon of the PTSD. The identity processing of the refugees changes within the relational system of the cross-cultural communication. That has been determined by ...