European Solidarity in Times of Crisis

COVID-19 and orientations towards solidarity: the cases of Spain, Hungary, and Romania

“…Solidarity has a long history as a key concept in the social sciences (Lahusen and Grasso 2018a;Koos 2019) and in the European history, playing a significant role in the development of welfare states post-World War II, in the development and expansion of the European Union (EU) (Dragalov et al, 2016), being under scrutiny during recent societal crises (Aschauer and Mayerl 2019;Forno and Graziano 2019;Gerhards et al 2019;Koos 2019) and, even more recently, in Europe's response to the Corona crisis. After two decades of almost complete freedom of movement within the EU, the economic recession at the end of the 2000s and the Corona crisis have led to borders being reinvented.…”

Solidarity in Europe: from crisis to policy?

“…Taking stock of the abovementioned normative and empirical scholarly endeavour, we argue that there are three dimensions that frame the study of solidarity at the transnational level. The first defines the trigger of European solidarity (also see Gerhards et al 2019 ; Wallaschek 2019 ). The second dimension captures European solidarity outreach , and establishes who the solidarity actors are.…”

“…The trigger of European solidarity refers to the particular situations (most likely of crisis or adversity) where the sharing of resources is called upon. On a similar vein, Wallasheck (2019) lists seven meanings of solidarity that range from economic and political to questions that challenge the legitimacy of solidarity in Europe, while Gerhards et al ( 2019 ) talk about four domains, from fiscal to refugee solidarity. Yet, most of these classifications are constructed a posteriori based on past experiences.…”

“…Baldwin ( 1990 ) associates it with “tools with which to reapportion and moderate the effects of national and manmade misfortune” , while Stjernø ( 2011 ) refers to “interdependentness, inclusion and protection against social risks ”. In a recent publication, Gerhards et al ( 2019 ) define solidarity as an action or institution through which A gives something to B to support / assist her. A slightly different angle is offered by Sangiovanni ( 2015 ), that defines solidarity as commitment, sharing and acting upon a goal “in order to overcome an adversity ”.…”

“…The sharing of resources captures legal and institutional arrangements that promote solidarity on the one hand, and individual attitudes and behaviour on the other (Gerhards et al 2019 ; Ross 2010 ; Ross in this issue). These latter may support or follow existing solidary laws and institutions, or may arise as bottom-up processes despite the absence of an institutional structure related to solidarity.…”