Arno Tausch

‘Globalization, the Human Condition and Sustainable Development in the Twenty-first Century: Cross-national Perspectives and European Implications’ is a cross-national, 175-nation-based exploration of the deep crisis in which Europe currently finds itself. Investigating the effects of dependency theory and world-systems theory upon the global success of eight dimensions of development – including democracy, environmental sustainability, employment, social cohesion, high-quality tertiary education and gender justice – this study argues that the current European crisis has been precipitated by the pro-globalist policies of the European Commission, and that in the near future these policies threaten to enter Europe into a destructive ‘race to the bottom’.

‘Globalization, the Human Condition and Sustainable Development in the Twenty-first Century: Cross-national Perspectives and European Implications’ is a cross-national, 175-nation-based exploration of the deep crisis in which Europe currently finds itself. Investigating the effects of dependency theory and world-systems theory upon the global success of eight dimensions of development – including democracy, environmental sustainability, employment, social cohesion, high-quality tertiary education and gender justice – this study argues that the current European crisis has been precipitated by the pro-globalist policies of the European Commission, and that in the near future these policies threaten to enter Europe into a destructive ‘race to the bottom’.

Is really "Islam" to blame for many of the ills of the world, like stagnation, gender inequality, social inequality, human rights violations and ecologically unsustainable development? In this book, the authors will present a Barro-type of cross-national development accounting framework for the weight that the variable "Muslims per total population" has in comparison to standard world economic openness, political geography and political history indicators for 17 key economic, political, social and environmental variables in 134 countries. This is a 'first of its kind' to develop a quantitative assessment of the "global Lisbon process" of the convergence or divergence of living conditions across the globe since the 1990's. The authors draw come optimistic, socio-liberal conclusions about Islam in the world system while we show, at the same time, that membership in the EU-15, by comparative standards, has dire long-term consequences in the world economy, and globalisation does not fulfill many of its promises.

While there is a never-ending debate on Islamism, Islamist terrorism and the identity of Europe vis-á-vis growing Muslim communities in Europe, there are hardly any solid cross-national data being presented on the real extent of the Islamist threat facing Europe, and on the social conditions that lead to Islamist radicalism. By and large, our rigorous quantitative results, based on the first systematic use of the Muslim community data contained in the 'European Social Survey' (ESS) all support a socio-liberal view of "migration" and "integration", compatible with much of the rest of current European political economic thinking regarding the future alternatives for the European Union, and contradict the very extended current alarmist political discourse in Western Europe.

Countering some alarmist voices in the West, neither migration nor Muslim culture are to be blamed for the contemporary crisis, but the very nature of unequal capitalist accumulation and dependency that is at the core of the world capitalist system. This title presents optimistic, socio-liberal conclusions about Islam in the world system.

Provides a survey for research and information in the field of globalisation. This book is suitable for those scholars who are interested in political and social sciences.

This study is the outcome of empirical research on the development and decay tendencies of the capitalist world economy since the early 1980s and the role that Europe will play in these constellations. Over these years the conclusion was reached that the logic of capitalist world development changes with the ups and downs of longer Kondratieff cycles, and that different periods of hegemony and of world political constellations, connected with these Kondratieff cycles, in turn give rise to different constellations of world economic ascent and decline. Those that hoped that world trade and open financial markets would shift incomes in favour of the poor, must now recognise that -- however we look at the figures -- there is a tendency towards rising poverty on a global scale, especially after the Asian crash of 1997.