Francisco Javier Moreno-Fuentes

Globalised minds, roots in the city : urban upper-middle classes in Europe

Globalised Minds, Roots in the City utilises empirical evidence from four European cities to explore the role of urban upper middle classes in the transformations experienced by contemporary European societies. Presents new empirical evidence collected through an original comparative research about professionals and managers in four European cities in three countries Features an innovative combination of approaches, methods, and techniques in its analyses of European post-national societies; Reveals how segments of Europe’s urban population are adopting “exit” or “partial exit” strategies in respect to the nation state; Utilises approaches from classic urban sociology, globalization and mobility studies, and spatial class analysis; Includes in depth interviews, social networking techniques, and classic questions of political representation and values. (Resume editeur)

The Southern European Welfare model in the post-industrial order

ABSTRACT The discussion on the existence of a distinctive ‘Mediterranean’ welfare model has focused on the historical and politico-institutional dynamics, as well as on the policy traits of the welfare arrangements found in Southern European countries. Particular attention has been given to the external pressures and internal constraints faced by the welfare systems of these countries, as well as to what extent there is a common response to such challenges. In this article, we claim that while researchers were embarked in this scholarly effort, Southern European societies kept changing, transforming the nature of existing arrangements in not always forecasted directions, to the point of questioning the adequacy of clustering them under a common type. The current context of economic and financial crisis introduces additional factors in the process of transformation and reform of the welfare schemes of these countries, placed at the epicentre of the turmoil shattering European economies and societies.

Migration and Citizenship Law in Spain: Path-dependency and Policy Change in a Recent Country of Immigration

This article analyzes the links between migratory processes and the evolution of nationality legislation in Spain. We argue that this case challenges the theoretical models that link immigration to liberalizing reforms in citizenship law. Despite large-scale immigration experienced over the last two decades, Spanish nationality law has remained strongly focused on keeping ties with Spanish communities abroad. To account for the high degree of stability of Spanish citizenship law we structure our analysis along three basic lines: the historical conceptions derived from Spains past as a colonial power, as well as its tradition as a country of emigration; the lack of incentives for political actors to introduce the reform of citizenship law in the political agenda; and the strategies adopted by those political actors in relation to the politicization of immigration.

The Southern European migrant-based care model: long-term care and employment trajectories in Italy and Spain

ABSTRACT The development of personal social services and female employment is intertwined, not only in the domain of childcare. With the ageing of the population, the changing forms of care and the developments in the eldercare labour market become crucial issues. The new risk of dependency represents a challenge, but also an opportunity. This paper provides an overview of the relationship between the development of long-term care policies and services in distinct European countries and female employment in the care sector. Whereas Northern European countries have developed policies in the field at an earlier stage and continental countries intervened with new policies in the last 10–15 years, in Southern Europe policies remain weak and fragmented. The paper concentrates on the case of Southern European countries, where the weakness of social policies and low development of services did not prevent the rise of a new care labour market. Next to still low employment rates among women, long-term care tends to be provided mainly by migrant care workers often in the underground economy regardless of their legal status. The last development is a key issue for Southern European countries, as discussed in the paper, not only for the current consequences on migrant workers, older people and their families, but also because it is likely to structure any possible future development in long-term care policies.

The challenge of researching “partial exit” and “rootedness” among upper-middle classes in European cities

ABSTRACT The rise of mobilities has paved the way for important changes within cities and the possibility for urban upper-middle classes to exit from their cities and national societies, disinvesting on them, while still taking profits in a process of deterritorialization with important consequences at the collective level. Investigating the extent to which upper-middle classes shaped and are still rooted (or not) in their cities is a challenge, even more when international comparison is involved. In this paper we focus on two methodological aspects: 1) the different social meaning that upper-middle classes and the social groups composing them can have considering three Western European countries and four cities: Paris, Lyon, Milan and Madrid. 2) How we generated our data through personal interviews with European managers, and the conceptual framework that informed the understanding of rootedness, exit or partial exit of our managers.