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An analysis of post-graduate medical training is utilized to explore political relationships between physician organizations, government bureaucrats and the medical professoriate in Scandinavia and West Germany. The 'enchambered' German medical profession differs from its Scandinavian counterparts largely in the number and political influence of private specialists, who have been politically dominant within the compulsory German organizations. Whereas the Scandinavian medical organizations have, under varying degrees of duress, yielded the authority for specialist accreditation to state-appointed committees, the German chambers have been able to maintain control of this process. Some leaders have also cooperated with medical faculties to thwart attempts by general practitioners to establish zones of GP influence in the medical schools. However, in the context of a worsening medical market in the 1980s, their ability to mediate intra-professional conflicts between GPs and specialists, and between junior and senior doctors, may decrease, and their retention of greater self-governing powers in comparison with Scandinavia, may prove a mixed blessing.

Employing cluster analysis, this article reconsiders a concept formulated by Francis G. Castles that stresses the existence of four families of nations, which markedly differ in respect of public policy-making. For two policy fields - social and economic policy - the hypothesised families of nations can be shown to exist, and they are quite robust and stable over time. Cluster analysis also reveals different paths towards modernity. On the one hand, there are more state-oriented versus more market-oriented models of public policy-making; on the other, there is a cleavage in public policy-making between rich countries located at the centre and somewhat poorer countries located at the periphery.

Recent literature shows that radical right parties (RRPs) present moderate or blurry economic stances. However, this paper argues that this blurriness is restricted to only one of the two main conflicts of contemporary welfare politics, namely questions centring on welfare generosity. In contrast, when it comes to the goals and principles the welfare state should meet, RRPs take a clear stance favouring consumption policies such as old age pensions over social investment, in accordance with their voters' preferences. The empirical analysis based on new, fine-grained coding of welfare stances in party manifestos and original data on voters' perceptions of party stances in seven European countries supports this argument. RRPs de-emphasise how much welfare state they want while consistently and clearly defending the traditional welfare state's consumptive focus against recalibration proposals. These findings have important implications for party competition and welfare politics.

Has social reproduction through families preserved unequal political participation amongst the working class in post-industrial society? This article builds on both political and sociological traditions to consider the family as a tenacious social structure that reproduces political participation from one generation to the next. In order to answer this empirically, the study uses a longitudinal panel data of political behaviour across three biological generations in the United States (1965-1997). The findings show that respondents who grew up in working-class families are less likely to vote as adults regardless of whether they have working-class occupations or not. The transmission of un-equal participation is partially mediated by the voting behaviour of the parent who models this behaviour to their children. The study also shows that the second generation of respondents transmits low political participation to their offspring in the third generation. This study implies that occupational structures of a past industrial society are still politically relevant and that inequalities in political participation remain a legacy amongst the biological descendants of working-class families from the 1960s. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2044220 .

Brexit constitutes a puzzle for integration theory. Functionalist analyses have not only failed to predict the UK's exit but have also underestimated the disintegrative dynamics of the withdrawal negotiations. By contrast, postfunctionalism accounts for the disintegrative Brexit process but struggles to explain the unity and defence of supranational integration among the EU-27. This article tries to make sense of the Brexit puzzle. First, it argues that Brexit constitutes an attack on the EU polity rather than a policy failure - the type of crisis that functionalist theories explain best. Second, it complements the postfunctionalist account of domestic politicisation with an analysis of the reactions and strategies of the defenders of supranational integration. According to this expanded postfunctionalist analysis, the interaction of polity attack and polity defence has produced 'external rebordering': extreme disintegration of the UK from the EU, on the one hand, and strengthened integration of the EU-27, on the other.

Public opinion scholarship suggests that Europeans broadly interpret Brexit as a cautionary fable rather than an encouraging blueprint to follow. Yet, Brexit singularly demonstrates the possibility of European disintegration, and is but one of multiple recent crises that have brought the potential for member state departures into focus. Drawing on new survey data from 16 countries and using logistic regressions, this article charts Europeans' perceptions of the likelihood future EU exits over the next decade. It finds evidence of asymmetric motivated reasoning: Euroscepticism and pro-Brexit views strongly associate with perceiving exits likely, while among Europhiles this association is only ameliorated, not reversed. This reveals two gaps with repercussions for understanding EU public opinion dynamics. First, between Eurosceptic policy elites' softened policy stances on exit and their supporters' steadfast sense that further departures remain likely. Second, between Europhiles' scepticism of Brexit and a residual lack of confidence in EU cohesion.

This article examines the rare phenomenon of mainstream Euroscepticism that has characterised the British Conservative Party and asks whether a similar pattern has appeared elsewhere in the EU. The study traces the long-term evolution of salience and positions on the EU issue in the manifestos of a heterogenous set of centre-right parties, paying particular attention to whether Brexit or successive EU crises have had some noticeable effect. The thesis of Tory exceptionalism is largely supported by the findings - no other mainstream conservative party in the EU has talked more, and more negatively, about the EU over a long time period. Most other centre-right parties were part of the permissive consensus on the EU and have supported, more or less openly, the integration project throughout the past 30 years. However, some parties of mainstream conservatism have shown a similar negative shift as British Conservatives did in the 2000s, such as the Austrian ÖVP, the Hungarian Fidesz, the Polish PiS and (marginally) the Dutch VVD. Being in opposition or pressured by radical right challengers does not necessarily make the mainstream right more critical of the EU. Internal organisational developments (i.e. the ascent of more Eurosceptic influences within the party) constitute the most convincing proximate explanation for mainstream Euroscepticism on the right.

This introduction to the special issue recalls the alarm raised in EU capitals and Brussels after the UK's in-out referendum delivered a Leave vote in June 2016. The fear was of a domino effect and the further fragmentation of an already divided EU. Seven years later, it is clear that there was rapid attrition of Eurosceptic triumphalism, and the EU-27 showed remarkable unity. This required a sustained collective effort to contain a membership crisis and maintain the EU polity. Yet, the issue contributors challenge the notion that the alarm was unfounded and explain why this counter-factual did not materialise, even though potential for future membership crises of different sorts was revealed. Theoretically, this supports an understanding of the EU as a polity that is fragile, yet able to assert porous borders, exercise authority over a diverse membership, and mobilise a modicum of loyalty when the entire integration regime is under threat.