Unemployment is one of Southern Europe's most serious political problems. Though much has been written about unemployment's causes and cures, systematic attention to its consequences is lacking. This collection of original essays deals with the effects of unemployment on regimes, parties, immigrants, economies and families, highlighting the differences and the similarities among Southern European states and offering lessons about the profound human consequences of unemployment in general.

Unemployment and union strategies in Spain, Katrina Burgess; the casualty of unemployment - the breakdown of social concertation in Spain, Omar G. Encarnacion; unemployment, informalisation, and trade-union decline in Greece - questioning analytical and prescriptive orthodoxies, Seraphin Seferiades; rigidity and flexibility - patterns of labour market policy change in Portugal and Spain, 1981-1996, Miguel Glatzer; unemployment and the left coalition in France and Spain, W. Rand Smith; political crises and unemployment - popular perceptions in post-revolution Portugal, Mario Bachalau, Thomas Bruneau; does labour under-utilisation really affect political attitudes? southern Europe in comparative perspective, Ugo M. Amoretti; attitudes and threat perception -unemployment and immigration in Portugal, M. Margarida Marques; immigration and unemployment in Greece -perceptions and realities, Martin Baldwin-Edwards, Constantina Safilios Rothchild; unemployment and the political economy of The Portuguese Labour Market, Manuel Villaverde Cabral; relying on stop-gap measures - coping with unemployment in Greece, Neovi M. Karakatsanis; what's working in southern Europe? Nancy G. Bermeo.