Patrick Emmenegger

I have recently published an article in the French daily Le Monde together with the representatives of several other national political science associations. The piece is entitled: “La science politique entravée parce qu’elle est perçue comme dangereuse”

Here is a link to the article

The Journal of European Social Policy has just accepted an article I have co-authored with Caroline de la Porte (Copenhagen Business School).

De la Porte, Caroline and Patrick Emmenegger (2016) The European Court of Justice and Fixed-Term Workers: Putting a Brake on Labour Market Dualisation? Journal of European Social Policy. Forthcoming.

Here is the abstract:

While fixed-term work benefits employers and increases the prospects of employability of various categories of workers, it is inherently precarious. The EU directive on fixed-term work emphasizes the importance of equal treatment of workers on fixed-term contracts with comparable permanent workers and aims to prevent abuse of this contract form. Surprisingly, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rulings in this area have by and large been neglected in comparative labour market research. We fill this gap by systematically analysing the CJEU case law concerning fixed-term work and connecting it to the literatures on labour market dualisation and Europeanisation of labour law. We develop an analytical framework to analyse the Europeanisation of labour law, which we then use to analyse the directive and the case law regarding the directive on fixed-term work. Our findings show that the equal treatment is affirmed in all cases under analysis for different provisions of labour contracts. With regard to abuse of recourse to fixed-term contracts, by contrast, the rulings still represent a zone of legal uncertainty, whereby some judgements allow for fixed-term contracts, such as for social policy purposes, while others prohibit their use. We therefore conclude that the CJEU does not put a brake on the politics of dualisation, but it does insist on equal treatment of workers, regardless of their contractual arrangements.

My book review of Marius Busemeyer’s fine new book is now out.

Emmenegger, Patrick (2016): Book Review of Marius Busemeyer’s (2015): Skills and Inequality: Partisan Politics and the Political Economy of Education Reforms in Western Welfare States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swiss Political Science Review 22(1): 167-169.

I have just finished a book review on Sanford F. Schram’s book “The Return of Ordinary Capitalism: Neoliberalism, Precarity, Occupy”. It will soon appear in Perspectives on Politics.

I have recently published a new working paper on the European Union’s Fixed-Term Work Directive and how the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled in its case law on the directive (together with Caroline de la Porte). The working paper is available on the website of the ETUI.

I have recently published in two blogs on my research on the demise of Swiss banking secrecy:

DeFacto: “Was Liechtenstein beim Kampf ums Bankgeheimnis besser machte als die Schweiz” (together with Katrin Eggenberger). This blog contribution is based on my article in the Swiss Political Science Review (Economic Vulnerability and Political Responses to International Pressure: Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Struggle for Banking Secrecy. Swiss Political Science Review 21(4): 491-507).

Duck of Minerva: “No Escape from Uncle Sam.” This blog contribution is based on my article in Business and Politics (The Long Arm of Justice: U.S. Structural Power and International Banking. Business and Politics 17(3): 473-493).

There are several more contributions on the structural power of business. See the Duck of Minerva for the whole symposium.

I have just finished a review of Marius Busemeyer’s fine book “Skills and Inequality”. It will soon appear in the Swiss Political Science Review.

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung just published my comment on the banking secrecy dispute with Germany, entitled “Klare Regeln sind gut für die Schweiz”. Here is a link to the article (in German):

Regulation & Governance just accepted my article “A Nut too Hard to Crack? Swiss Banking Secrecy and the Problem of International Cooperation in Tax Matters”. Here is the abstract:

How was Swiss resistance to international cooperation in tax matters overcome? This article argues that while Swiss banks are structurally dependent on access to the U.S. financial market, Switzerland is structurally dependent on its largest banks’ economic welfare. Taking advantage of a tax evasion scandal in the midst of the global financial crisis, this indirect dependence gave U.S. law enforcement authorities the opportunity to exercise pressure on Switzerland by threatening to criminally indict Switzerland’s largest bank. The tax evasion scandal and subsequent Swiss concessions to the USA had two important consequences for international tax cooperation. First, the scandal provided a focal point for collective action that allowed other countries to coordinate their strategies and direct them against the country that had just been identified as uncooperative. Second, the scandal undermined Switzerland’s ability to impede collective action because the bank’s public admission of wrongdoing demonstrated the necessity of international tax cooperation.

The Swiss Political Science Review just accepted my paper entitled “Economic Vulnerability and Political Responses to International Pressure: Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Struggle for Banking Secrecy” (together with Katrin Eggenberger). It is part of a special issue on “Disenchanted Swiss Democracy” (editors Daniel Bochsler, Regula Hänggli and Silja Häusermann). Here is the abstract:

After doggedly opposing any increase in exchange of information on tax matters for several decades, both Liechtenstein and Switzerland have made significant concessions over recent years. However, the two countries have reacted rather differently to international pressure: while Liechtenstein has adopted a more proactive approach, offering far-reaching bilateral deals to several major economies, Switzerland has been slow to react to international pressure, despite calls for a more proactive strategy by its financial services industry. We suggest that these differences have a range of causes; in Liechtenstein, in particular, the pressure was more evenly distributed, thus allowing the financial services industry to close ranks and use its privileged access to the government to shape the government’s response decisively. By contrast, there was internal division in the Swiss financial services industry and it was soon on the back foot in public debate, eventually losing control over the issue.