Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Consequences of Regional Political and Economic Integration for Inequality and the Welfare State in Western Europe

在世界各地，社会正在联合起来，建立区域经济和政治。 区域一体化现象是一种具有重要社会学意义的剧烈社会变革。 本论文的研究旨在回答两个关键问题。 首先，欧洲联盟的区域一体化对欧洲社会的收入不平等产生了什么影响？ 其次，区域一体化如何影响欧洲国家的福利支出？ 这些问题很重要，因为许多社会都在追求区域一体化，这些社会发现自己陷入了密集的全球网络（例如，北美自由贸易协定、南锥体共同市场和东南亚国家联盟），但几乎没有关于区域一体化后果的科学研究。 为了解决这些研究问题，该项目（1）与曼海姆欧洲社会研究中心和其他地方的欧盟专家协商，制定区域一体化的创新措施，（2）从位于布鲁塞尔的欧盟档案馆和国际协会联盟收集数据，（3）汇编收入不平等和福利国家的标准措施，（4）运用时间序列统计分析方法，估计地区一体化与国际收入不平等和福利国家间差异的关系。（5）运用面板数据统计技术，分析地区一体化与国民收入不平等和福利支出的关系。 这项研究的广泛影响包括以下几点。 该项目将为区域一体化的后果提供新的证据，测试来自各种社会科学学科的假设，并推进关于全球化，福利国家和收入不平等的多学科文献的辩论。 更广泛地说，该项目将有助于我们了解社会行动的地理范围的变化以及新的政治和经济形式制度化的后果。 这项研究还将制定可供其他学者使用的新的区域一体化措施，加强国际研究网络，并传播关于区域一体化后果的政策相关研究结果。

Around the world, societies are binding themselves together and building regional economies and polities. The phenomenon of regional integration is a dramatic social change with important sociological implications. This dissertation research aims to answer two key questions. First, what effect has regional integration in the European Union had on income inequality in European societies? Second, how has regional integration shaped welfare spending in European states? These questions matter because regional integration is pursued by many societies that find themselves enmeshed in dense global networks (e.g., the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Common Market of the Southern Cone, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), yet there is little scientific research on the consequences of regional integration. To resolve these research questions, this project (1) develops innovative measures of regional integration in consultation with EU experts at the Mannheim Center for European Social Research and elsewhere, (2) collects data from the European Union archives and the Union of International Associations, both located in Brussels, (3) compiles standard measures of income inequality and the welfare state, (4) uses time-series statistical analysis to estimate the association between regional integration and international income inequality and differences among welfare states, and (5) employs statistical techniques for panel data to analyze the relationship between regional integration and national income inequality and welfare spending. The broader impacts of this research include the following. This project will contribute new evidence on the consequences of regional integration, test hypotheses drawn from a variety of social science disciplines, and advance debates in multidisciplinary literatures on globalization, the welfare state, and income inequality. More generally, the project will contribute to our understanding of changes in the geographic scale of social action and the consequences of the institutionalization of new political and economic forms. This research also will develop new measures of regional integration that could be used by other scholars, the enhancement of international research networks, and the dissemination of policy-relevant findings on the consequences of regional integration.