Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pjpqr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-15T17:58:48.375Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Markets versus morality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2009

Paulette Kurzer
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
Get access

Summary

Charles Mackay (1814–89), a Scottish poet, journalist, song-writer, and author of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, once wrote that nations, like individuals, have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness. If nations have indeed such things as national personalities and habits, then the past ten years offer an intriguing glimpse of how they have adapted to post-Maastricht Europe. This book examines the fate of national cultures, defined here in anthropological terms as everyday socialization, beliefs, norms, institutions, and common behavior in light of the challenges brought by European institution- and market-building. To be sure, numerous studies explore the challenges faced by national governments as they attempt to preserve or redefine national identities or cultures. My contribution to this debate is twofold. First, I describe the formation of national identity and institutions emblematic of the national traits of a country. I concentrate on the national governance of socially sensitive policies and will argue that variations in morality norms shed light on some of the most important aspects of state and national identity. My examples are Dutch drug policy, more liberal than the rest of Europe, Nordic alcohol control policy, more restrictive than the rest of Europe, Markets and moral regulation and Irish policy towards sexual morality, more conservative than the rest of Europe.

Second, I will discuss how constitutive rules, specifying proper behavior, cope with pressures emanating from the expansion of European governance, policies, and institutions. This book's overall conclusion is that national peculiarities are shrinking and that a modest rate of cultural convergence has occurred.

Type
Chapter
Information
Markets and Moral Regulation
Cultural Change in the European Union
, pp. 1 - 26
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Markets versus morality
  • Paulette Kurzer, University of Arizona
  • Book: Markets and Moral Regulation
  • Online publication: 16 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511492006.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Markets versus morality
  • Paulette Kurzer, University of Arizona
  • Book: Markets and Moral Regulation
  • Online publication: 16 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511492006.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Markets versus morality
  • Paulette Kurzer, University of Arizona
  • Book: Markets and Moral Regulation
  • Online publication: 16 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511492006.002
Available formats
×