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This thoroughly original book provides a comprehensive overview of the development of welfare arrangements and their wider context in Western Europe. Using the concept of social modernity, Ingo Bode investigates current challenges to these arrangements and examines prospects for progressive welfare reform.Adopting a sociological perspective, The Fate of Social Modernity dissects the complex layers of welfare agreements and assesses their potential for promoting socially balanced societies. Ingo Bode outlines how both public programmes and involved welfare organisations addressing children, disadvantaged workers, or elderly people may prompt yet also hamper processes of social development. He also explains how insights into social dynamics in European countries, such as Germany, Italy, Norway, and the UK, may contribute to a better understanding of problems and opportunities elsewhere in the world.This foundational book is a crucial read for scholars in the fields of comparative social policy, sociological theory, and organization studies. It will also be of benefit to practitioners in public administration and non-profit sector studies seeking to better understand the chemistry of social development.

This open access edited book investigates European social rights in practice from socio-legal perspectives. It brings together fourteen socio-legal scholars, representing Nordic and Western European countries, who analyse different aspects pertaining to European social rights, namely the regulation of social rights, encounters between welfare professionals and citizens, and citizens'mobilisation of social rights. These three different aspects form the structure for the sections in the anthology, each analysing transformations related to regulation, encounters and rights mobilisation. The book contributes to the existing literature as it focuses on interdependent transformations on macro, meso and micro levels which are key for understanding processes and contexts related to European social rights in practice. It speaks particularly to academics in sociology of law and/or regulation.

This unique and forward-thinking book explores how we understand needs in relation to the welfare state and to what extent we can, if at all, measure need.Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, Bent Greve examines the paradoxes and contradictions present when assessing human needs and the welfare state, analysing whether it is possible to meaningfully measure the need for welfare benefits and services in modern societies. The book addresses the crucial question of how the welfare state decides to apportion support, contemplating which needs are society's responsibility and which are the individual's own. Comparing welfare states in Europe, it delivers an incisive contribution to the emerging body of literature on this topic and considers how best to balance demand and supply in a way that reduces the expectation on the state.Presenting key arguments on a prescient issue, this book will be an excellent resource for students, researchers and academics interested in sociology and social policy, political sociology, health policy, economics and finance. Exploring the metric assessments of needs and the ways in which the state can deliver, it will also be of interest to professionals working in sustainable development, health and social care and social work.

This book focuses on the main institutional changes affecting the Social Investment approach as the framework for the European social agenda. The contributions gathered address these issues from different angles, placing two fundamental issues at the centre of the analysis. The first concerns the promotion of the strategic actions of European institutions and the national governments aimed at making social investment a recovery priority in the Eurozone. The second aims to make the social investment approach compatible not only with a high road to growth, as it is in the Stock-Flow-Buffer scheme, but also with the right to balance market and non-market activities as a universal right linked to a different combination of working and living time. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of social policy and European politics.

Foreword by Ian GoughThis seminal book addresses the critical and urgent question of ‘what makes welfare states sustainable?'in the era of climate change. Expert authors challenge traditional perspectives on questions of sustainability which have focused on population ageing, global economic turbulence and on containing current and future public social spending.The chapters present new empirical evidence in the form of in-depth comparative country studies from across Europe, offering an insight into how political actors, social partners and civil society organisations in countries associated with different welfare models address questions of sustainability and the extent to which they balance social, ecological and economic considerations. The editors conclude by mapping out ways in which welfare states can address these increasingly urgent and complex issues and facilitate an eco-social transition towards true sustainability.This book will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of comparative social policy, environmental politics and policy and climate change. Highlighting the political and structural challenges European societies face in the transition to low carbon economies, this book will also be beneficial for policymakers and practitioners in these areas.

In many European countries, processes of individualisation have contributed to transforming the middle class into a multitude of people, a sort of ‘middle mass'with an unstable social identity and radical activism. The different ‘worlds'of European welfare states seem progressively less able to manage this new kind of middle-class activism. This book is an essential contribution to ongoing public and academic debates on the unpredictability of middle-class attitudes and on their changing relations with the welfare state. Identifying key trends in the literature, it considers the impact of recent welfare reforms on the needs and preferences of the middle class.

This timely book explores how Northern European countries have sought to balance their welfare states with increased levels of migration from low-income countries outside the EU. Using case studies of the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, leading scholars analyse the varying approaches to this so-called ‘progressive dilemma'. Providing an in-depth analysis of the relationship between public policies and the flow of migrants into these Northern European states, the book considers which destination-country policies most attract asylum seekers and other migrants. Chapters explore how the four states have responded to increased levels of immigration, examining their handling of issues related to integrating admitted applicants into the labour market, educating the children of immigrants, and naturalisation. Concluding with an investigation into contemporary public consensus regarding migrant selection, based on original survey experiments, the book sheds light on an issue that has become both politically and academically salient in Europe since the late 20th century. Interdisciplinary in scope, this expansive book contributes to the emerging field of research in the intersection between European migration studies and welfare studies. Its examination of the states'varying responses to increased migration will be of significant interest to researchers, policymakers, and public intellectuals in Northern Europe and beyond.

This volume represents the beginning of a'cross pollination'of different social scientific disciplines, bridging the boundaries between national and disciplinary epistemic communities in the worlds of European welfare markets. It maps the common ground and uncovers new research directions for the future study of actors, policies and institutions shaping the growth and dynamics of European welfare markets.The book defines welfare markets as politically shaped, regulated and state supported markets that provide social goods and services through the competitive activities of non-state actors. The chapters focus on what happens after states have initiated welfare markets, with equal weight given to the analysis of the agency of state actors and non-state actors in the contraction, stabilisation, and disruption of welfare markets. By focusing the analysis on two cases of welfare markets, private pensions and home-based domestic/care work, the contributions explore and compare the dynamics of different types of markets.The research will be of use to sociologists and scholars of social policy interested in the social dimension of welfare markets, political scientists and political economists, as well as diverse epistemic communities across the social sciences.Chapter 1 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The development of social policy in Europe is explored in this accessible intellectual history and analysis of the welfare state. From the Industrial Revolution onwards, the book identifies three important concepts behind efforts to address social concerns in Europe: social democracy, Christian democracy and liberalism. With guides to the political and ideological protagonists and the beliefs and values that lie behind reforms, it traces the progress and legacies of each of the three traditions. For academics and students across social policy and the political economy, this is an illuminating new perspective on the welfare state through the last two centuries.

Living with Hard Times: Europeans in the Great Recession provides a new, comprehensive comparative study of the socio-political effects of the Great Recession amongst European citizens. It presents a detailed investigation of heterogeneity in the population within countries with respect to how citizens made sense of the crisis and how this situation impacted their livelihoods, outlooks and political engagement. Marco Giugni and Maria Grasso analyse citizens'experiences during the economic crisis, the decline of living standards and deprivation by structural location as well as differences in economic outlooks. They also examine the ways in which citizens from different social groups were resilient to the effects of the economic crisis. Moreover, they show how social support and social capital emerging from social relations contributed to resilience in the face of the crisis. This book explores citizen attitudes towards various welfare policies and towards immigration, and it shows how support for populist parties is differentiated within the population. Finally, Living with Hard Times looks at the impact of the crisis on different types of political action challenging incumbent governments and protesting against austerity policies.

Hit by the European financial and economic crisis in 2008, several Member States of the European Monetary Union (EMU) were unable to refinance their public debt through the financial markets. As a result, they asked for financial assistance from international institutions and European financial assistance mechanisms. That assistance often came at a high price for citizens, cuts in pensions and social assistance, and controversial reforms in public healthcare. These far-reaching reforms were, in many cases, experienced as violations of people's human rights. National constitutional courts, the Court of Justice of the EU, and the European Court of Human Rights issued a series of rulings on the conformity of the reforms in social protection initiated during the Eurozone crisis. This book offers a holistic analysis of the specific reforms in social protection introduced during the European financial crisis and their implications for constitutional law. Focusing on the social reforms of nine European countries that were greatly affected by the financial crisis, the volume seeks to address the legacy of the financial crisis on the application of constitutional law and the welfare state. The book will act as a helpful tool to legal academics interested in the challenges of constitutional and social law initiated by financial assistance conditionality, to advocates in quest of sound legal bases for the protection of individuals affected by social security reforms, and to national and international judges who are confronted with cases that question the legality and legitimacy of the crisis-related reforms.

This book explores developments in the social legitimacy of present-day European welfare states since the banking crisis of 2008. It analyses how the welfare attitudes of Europeans have been influenced by economic recession and consequent welfare reforms, as well as reactions to on-going debates around welfare. Utilising cross-national perspectives, the book analyses the differences and similarities in welfare attitudes of Europeans between 2008 and 2016. It highlights popular welfare attitudes towards different groups of society, including migrants, the elderly and unemployed, exploring if and why specific practices and policies would meet popular resistance or approval. Social policy and sociology scholars will find this book helpful, as the cross-national analysis provides new insights into the contextual drivers of welfare attitudes. It will also be useful to policy-makers and practitioners working in Europe offering analysis of welfare preferences, evaluations and perceptions. Contributors include: H. Chung, L. de Blok, S. Delespaul, B. Ebbinghaus, M.A. Eger, H. Ervasti, J. Gale, D. Gugushvili, A. Haugsgjerd, S. Kumlin, T. Laenen, C.A. Larsen, B. Meuleman, J. Mewes, E. Naumann, E. Politi, F. Roosma, C. Staerklé, W. van Oorschot

Gender equality has been one of the defining projects of European welfare states. It has proven an elusive goal, not just because of political opposition but also due to a lack of clarity in how to best frame equality and take account of family-related considerations. This wide-ranging book assembles the most pertinent literature and evidence to provide a critical understanding of how contemporary state policies engage with gender inequalities. Examining progress in gender equality in EU member states, this thought-provoking book traces developments from the last decade and earlier regarding women's and men's relative positioning in respect of income, employment and time. Located in a critical feminist perspective, the result is a compelling overview of the gender-related achievements in the EU and continuing gaps and inequalities. As well as taking stock of where we are now, the book identifies a research agenda going forward. This seeks to revitalise the feminist social policy project, in light of key welfare state developments and intersectional inequalities in Europe and beyond. This innovative and detailed book constitutes an important contribution to debates about gender equality and policies in Europe and provides a timely reminder of the content of the gender critique of welfare states and why it is still salient.

Are we living in an age of permanent austerity? In this insightful book, Bent Greve provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of welfare states since 2000, exploring the ways in which austerity can be measured and quantified and how far retrenchment has impinged on European welfare states. Featuring clear and succinct discussions defining austerity and retrenchment, Greve offers strong methodological approaches to the measurement of austerity. This timely book provides detailed comparative European analysis, unpacking changes in health care, pension systems and employment policies to better understand the nature, impact and extent of austerity in welfare services. Detailed and nuanced, this book is critical for students of social policy, sociology and political science exploring contemporary European austerity programs. Researchers will also benefit, as the author casts new light on the development and trajectories of the modern welfare state.

This book introduces a unique, new dataset on welfare state reforms in the UK, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany from 1974 to 2014. Using a variety of welfare state types in Europe, the authors have systematically investigated core questions that have preoccupied the welfare state literature at least since the 1990s. These include the extent of path dependency in mature welfare states, the usage of so-called'invisible'policy instruments for hiding cutbacks, and the role of partisanship – on whether the ideological color of the incumbent affects policy – which have been analysed in depth by examining the new dataset presented in this book.This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners studying, and working in, welfare and the welfare state, and more broadly to political science, sociology and social policy.

Since the 1990s, mainstream political parties have failed to address the problem of growing inequality, resulting in political backlash and the transformation of European party systems. Most attempts to explain the rise of inequality in political science take a far too narrow approach, considering only economic inequality and failing to recognize how multiple manifestations of inequality combine to reinforce each other and the underlying political features of advanced welfare states. Combining training in public health with a background in political science, Julia Lynch brings a unique perspective to debates about inequality in political science and to public health thinking about the causes of and remedies for health inequalities. Based on case studies of efforts to reduce health inequalities in England, France and Finland, Lynch argues that inequality persists because political leaders chose to frame the issue of inequality in ways that made it harder to solve.

This timely book assesses how Europe's welfare states have dealt with the challenges of globalization and the financial crisis. It asks whether the European Union has adopted a general strategy for dealing with four major threats to the sustainable development of European societies: the employability of a growing number of redundant workers, an ageing population, low birth rates and the persistent problem of gender inequality. The book will be an important read for social policy scholars, particularly those focusing on European welfare states, how they differ and lessons to be learnt from them. It also highlights key lessons from a broad range of case studies to help policymakers in understanding how and where improvements may be made in the future.

Originally published in 2005. The primary focus of this work is the relationship between family, work and the welfare system. Focusing on Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, the study draws comparisons between societies which represent different types of welfare mix between state, market and civil society. Three important issues in the transformation of the European welfare state systems are considered: The conditions for social citizenship in European welfare states and how they have changed in relation to family and work; Changes in the provision of social welfare and how they have affected the interrelationship between the welfare state, the market and civil society; The impacts of constraints on public expenditure and the financing of the welfare state. The authors discuss the question of whether the welfare states of these countries have profoundly changed over the last ten to fifteen years and examine how this might provide insights into the contemporary welfare state. The framework developed by the authors can be applied in other specific areas of the development and transformation of welfare states.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. The turn towards a Social Investment approach to welfare implies deploying resources to enhance human capital and mobilise the productive potential of citizens, starting in early childhood. This edited collection brings regional and local realities to the forefront of social investment debates by showcasing successes, challenges and setbacks of Social Investment policies and services from ten European countries: Italy, UK, Sweden, Finland, Greece, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Spain. It provides practical, accessible illustrations of good practice, routes to success, and lessons learned. The book is informed throughout by engagement with service users and local communities, and features many previously unheard voices including front-line workers, local decision makers, volunteers and beneficiaries.

This edited book draws on a cross-cultural and historical lens to theoretically and practically analyse gambling regulations and the use of gambling revenue. It takes on a broad spectrum of perspectives, from the origin of the money, to the regulators, operators and beneficiaries of gambling, and looks at the interests, networks and power relations involved.This multidisciplinary collection elicits a shift in analysis, shedding light on a broader societal, historical and economic view of gambling and gambling policies, by its attention to implicit networks of power, influential legislation, gambling provision and infrastructure.Gambling Policies in European Welfare States will be of interest to students and scholars alike who are seeking cross-national and interdisciplinary analyses of welfare, politics, sociology and economics.

This edited collection uses democratic forums to study what people want from the welfare state in five European countries. The forum method yields new insights into how people frame social issues, their priorities and acceptable solutions. This is the first time democratic forums have been used as a research tool in this field.The contributors'research show that most people recognize growing inequality, population ageing, paying for health care and pensions, social care and immigration as areas where the welfare state faces real challenges. The most striking findings are the high level of support across all countries for social investment, and the way justifications for this vary between welfare state regimes. The authors also explore key areas such as immigration and intergenerational differences.Attitudes, Aspirations and Welfare will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including politics, social policy and sociology, as wellas policy-makers.

Europe's political landscapes are in turmoil, and new radical parties challenge the established political order. This book locates Europe's contemporary challenges within the longer economic and political trajectories of its'welfare democracies'. The book argues that it is imperative to understand the specific structures of political competition and voter-party links to make sense of the political and economic turmoil of the last decades. In four distinct European welfare democracies (Nordic, Continental, Southern, and Anglo-Saxon), the political economy, the party system, and the structure of the political space are co-determined in a specific way. Accordingly, different packages of policies and politics and distinct patterns of alignment between core electoral groups and political parties exist in the four welfare democracies and shape the reactions of European welfare democracies to the current turmoil. This volume provides an analytical framework that links welfare states to party systems, combining recent contributions to the comparative political economy of the welfare state and insights from party and electoral politics. It states three phenomena. First, concerning electoral politics, the book identifies a certain homogenization of European party systems, the emergence of a new combination of leftist socio-economic and rightist socio-cultural positions in many parties, and, finally, the different electoral success of the radical right in the north of Europe and of the radical left in the south. Secondly, the contributions to this book indicate a confluence toward renewed welfare state support among parties and voters. Thirdly it demonstrates that the Europeanization of political dynamics, combined with incompatible growth models, has created pronounced European cleavages.

This title was first published in 2001. Investigating the consequences of restrictive austerity policies and the downsizing of the welfare state this edited collection reflects on possible ways out by analyzing economic developments, social conflicts, legal forms and the prevailing directions of economic policy. According to official figures, around 9.5 per cent of the working population of the European Union is unemployed. Fifteen million European citizens are officially looking for work. In other countries such as the US, the increasing wage inequality has marginalized large parts of the population. The precipitous rise in unemployment (mainly in Europe) and income inequality (mainly in the USA) as well as the weakening of democratic and welfare institutions in almost every developed nation have caused huge social and political problems in recent years.

Although in Europe there continues to be a large degree of consensus that it is the responsibility of government to ensure that nobody who is poor, sick, disabled, unemployed, or old is left deprived, there are mounting calls to roll back spending on the welfare state. It is argued that it fails to achieve its main objectives, that it is responsible for a decline in economic performance, and that it was conceived in a very different period and is therefore not adapted to modern realities. This second edition of The Welfare State in Europe: Economic and Social Perspectives provides an informed analysis of the key criticisms of the welfare state and examines the prospects of this system in an increasingly integrated world. It answers important questions regarding the current social situation of European countries, the performance of the welfare states, and the reforms that should be undertaken. It calls for fundamental changes in social policies in order to address the rising inequality that hampers social cohesion in Europe. Now focused on Europe in its entirety and including a new chapter on long term care, this new edition of an integral text on the welfare state places increased focus on social divisions and the populist vote to provide a balanced and up-to-date analysis of the performance of current systems.

In recent decades, and particularly since the financial crisis, continental Europe has seen an increasing gap between those workers who have well-protected, good-paying jobs with strong benefits and those who work lower-quality, nonstandard jobs, or who have no regular work at all. This situation would seem to call for increased spending on the social safety net, yet governments throughout the region have instead been turning to austerity. In the face of that reality, the options for helping disadvantaged workers are to extend coverage through re-allocating the benefits given to higher-level workers, maintain the benefits of the well-off as the number of outsiders continues to grow, or simply ignore the problem. This book asks why different nations have taken different tacks in handling-or not handling-this problem.

L'affermazione del populismo è figlia della perdita di credibilità della classe dirigente e di uno stato sociale che non è in grado di proteggere ampi strati della popolazione dai cambiamenti indotti dalla globalizzazione e dal progresso tecnologico. Occorre dare risposte innovative, eliminando i trattamenti di favore di chi ha posizioni di potere e rendendo la protezione sociale più efficiente nel raggiungere chi ha davvero bisogno d'aiuto. La democrazia diretta invocata dai populisti rischia di sfociare nella dittatura della maggioranza. Il peggiore nemico del populismo sono i corpi intermedi della cosiddetta società civile: associazioni, partiti, sindacati, autorità indipendenti, amministrazioni pubbliche. La lucida analisi di una questione essenziale per il futuro del nostro mondo, e una proposta concreta sul tema dell'immigrazione.

European welfare states are undergoing profound change, driven by globalization, technical changes, and population ageing. More immediately, the aftermath of the Great Recession and unprecedented levels of immigration have imposed additional pressures. This book examines welfare state transformations across a representative range of European countries and at the EU level, and considers likely new directions in social policy. It reviews the dominant neo-liberal austerity response and discusses social investment, fightback, welfare chauvinism, and protectionism. It argues that the class solidarities and cleavages that shaped the development of welfare states are no longer powerful. Tensions surrounding divisions between old and young, women and men, immigrants and denizens, and between the winners in a new, more competitive, world and those who feel left behind are becoming steadily more important. European countries have entered a period of political instability and this is reflected in policy directions. Austerity predominates nearly everywhere, but patterns of social investment, protectionism, neo-Keynesian intervention, and fightback vary between countries. The volume identify areas of convergence and difference in European welfare state futures in this up-to-date study - essential reading to grasp the pace and directions of change.

Using welfare as a prism, Religion and Welfare in Europe explores regional conceptions and variations in welfare and religion across Europe. Methodological approaches to research and practice draw thematic comparisons on these issues using case studies focused on gendered and minority perspectives as they relate to the varied provision of social welfare in selected European countries. Contributors offer comparative insights on majority-minority relations concerning practices, patterns and mechanisms of social welfare provision, explaining how these lead to conflict, cohesion or – as is so often the case – the grey area in between. The book will be of interest not only to religion and social policy researchers, but to welfare practitioners and policy advisors with a particular interest in the interaction between religion, social welfare, minorities and gender.

This wide-ranging and comparative text reviews the major theoretical and substantive debates on social inequality in Europe. It provides a valuable dual focus on European society and individual societies while placing Europe in its wider global context. Demonstrating the continued importance of national difference within Europe, the author argues that nonetheless the European Social Model has softened social inequalities such as those of wealth and income distribution, social class, gender and possibly even ethnicity. However these achievements are now being undermined, partially by the European Union itself. The book also challenges conventional wisdom on Europe's alleged need for immigration and highlights the UK's distinctiveness within Europe, explaining the country's uneasy relation to the European project. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Politics, European Societies, Social Policy and Comparative Studies.

The modern welfare state is indeed one of the greatest achievements of the post-war 20th century. With its key aims of eradicating the five giant social ills of Want, Ignorance, Disease, Squalor and Idleness, it aimed to providing a minimum standard of living, with all people of working age paying a weekly contribution; in return, benefits would be paid to anyone who was sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. The modern welfare state, therefore, is about maintaining a delicate equilibrium between dependent social groups on the one hand and the active working classes on the other. In the case of old-age security, this balance is being achieved (or not) by the so-called Generation Contract. This social pact is more of an implicit, unwritten and unspecified social contract. This ground-breaking book demonstrates how countries are addressing population-ageing challenges in depth, using the case study of Austria to gain the required complexity and differentiation in a comparative European framework of empirical evidence. This is a broad social science study in political economy and sociology, not an economic analysis. Though focusing on pensions, it centres on the (im)balance between work and non-work, issues of health, work ability, employability, and benefit receipt from old-age security to disability allowance. It will be required reading for all sociologists and social policy experts and academics working within this area.

This book explores the European welfare model, arguing that the rollout of European policies for welfare services has led to increased marketization. The author argues that the rise of profit-making in utilities, transport, child and health care is exacerbating rather than reducing inequalities among citizens, demonstrating how the marketization of European welfare has taken place over successive rounds of policymaking for European integration. These rounds have motivated national level public services reform, as well as contestation over these measures from civil society groups. The study traces the developments of policymaking at EU level since the late 1980s, offers in-depth studies of contentious debates which have sealed the fate of welfare services at the turn of the century, and offers insights on the problems involved with prolonged austerity in Europe. This book therefore shows how European integration is provoking a democratic challenge to what kind of Europe citizens want.

Drawing together leading international experts such as Knut Halvorsen, Robert Y. Shapiro, Stefan Svallfors and Wim van Oorschot, this volume addresses issues of justice and legitimacy in the context of welfare state transformation. The contributors demonstrate that the Western welfare state is not at risk of losing support or encountering fundamental opposition, but does face serious challenges including growing social and ethnic diversity, new social risks, fiscal constraints and contested notions of justice. The volume focuses on four main aspects: attitude formation in cross-national perspective, the just distribution of burdens and benefits, political factors mediating the effects of social attitudes on public policy and challenges to the welfare state stemming from immigration and ethnic diversity. Providing a comparative perspective on the issue, Social Justice, Legitimacy and the Welfare State makes a significant contribution to the literature on the public standing of the welfare state.

„Die Zukunft des Sozialen Rechtsstaates in Europa“ ist zweifellos eine brisante topaktuelle Frage, die Gegenstand des Zehnten, Jubiläumskongress der Societas Iuris Publici Europaei (SIPE) in Athen war.Die gegenwärtige Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise ist gleichzeitig eine politische und soziale Krise, die der europäischen Konstruktion droht. Sie stellt die Zukunft des sozialen Rechtsstaats vor neue theoretische und praktische Herausforderungen. Außerdem könnte sie die Rolle der Gerichte in Frage stellen: Worin besteht die Rolle des nationalen, supranationalen und internationalen Richters, der die finanzielle, politische und soziale Realität zu bewältigen hat, ohne gleichzeitig die rechtsstaatlichen Prinzipien zu opfern, die unserer Rechtskultur innewohnen?Diese vielschichtigen und komplizierten Fragen wurden zwei Tage lang von Fachleuten aus Theorie und Praxis, namhaften Juristen, Wissenschaftlern und Richtern aus ganz Europa, im Akropolis Museum lebhaft diskutiert. Die Schwerpunktthemen hatten die Sicht derjenigen europäischen Akteure zum Gegenstand, die für den Schutz des Sozialstaats und der Grundrechte sozialen Charakters unmittelbar oder mittelbar die Verantwortung tragen: der Mitgliedstaaten, der Europäischen Union und des Europarats. Die Tagung endete mit einer der Brisanz des Gegenstands entsprechend lebhafte Podiumsdiskussion, die übergreifende Fragen wie den Schutz des sozialen Besitzstandes oder die Auswirkungen der Globalisierung auf den Sozialstaat zum Gegenstand hatte.Der Band enthält die schriftliche, überarbeitete Fassung der in Athen gehaltenen Referate zusammen mit den Beiträgen aus dem „Atelier Junger Wissenschaftler“. Die Referate sind in der beim Vortrag jeweils verwendeten Sprache – stets eine der drei „offiziellen“ SIPE-Sprachen, d.h. deutsch, englisch und französisch – abgedruckt.

This book assesses the current situations in EU Member States with regard to the European Social Model on the basis of detailed empirical evidence and concrete case studies of the social policies that have been discontinued or altered, distinguishing between recent developments caused by the economic crisis and long-term trends. Co-published with Edward Elgar.

Since the 1990s, and increasingly so, European welfare states have been undergoing fundamental change. The analysis presented in this book shows that these changes may be interpreted as a paradigmatic shift of European societies, since fundamental concepts, principles and societal effects of welfare institutions have been redefined, reset and rearranged. Given contemporary institutional, economic, social and cultural changes, current post-industrial forms of welfare states are characterised by a very different logic than that which prevailed some 30 years ago. This logic, while being ambivalent in certain areas, brings about highly modified societies.This book provides an understanding and identification of different facets of this paradigmatic shift, in order to contribute to the bigger picture of welfare state and societal change. Rather than referring to persisting differences in welfare state regimes, which are in parts identified here also, it directs its attention towards new and cross-country and cross-regime developments and tensions. The interpretations of welfare state change found in other studies, thereby, are enhanced in original ways. The theoretically-based empirical analysis of welfare state change departs from the generally accepted insight that mature democratic welfare states depend on social cohesion. The central question of this study, therefore, is how emancipatory past and present welfare state regulations are. The results show that the mechanisms, visibility and lines of social inequality differ significantly after three decades of partly fundamental reforms characterized by marketization, fragmentation and equalisation of welfare provision.

The European Social Model has been an integral part of the construction of the European Community and has been effective in stimulating its economic growth. This social dimension represents the soul of the European Union, and has been envied and adopted by other regions and countries in the world.Under the pressure of the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent introduction of austerity measures across Europe, many countries have reformed basic elements of the model including social protection, pensions, public services, workers'rights, quality of jobs, working conditions and social dialogue, often undermining social cohesion. These trends have raised questions: is Europe currently losing its legacy? If so, what are the social and economic implications, both in the short and longer term? The European Social Model in Crisis assesses social policy developments in each EU individual member state on the basis of detailed empirical evidence and concrete case studies.The volume is a timely warning about the weakening of the European Social Model and its possibly devastating future effects. The alternative options proposed here make the book essential reading for policy-makers, while scholars and researchers of European studies and social policy will find it an invaluable reference.Contributors include: J.I. Antón, D. Anxo, G. Bosch, R. Muñoz de Bustillo Llorente, K. Espenberg, A. Figueiredo, J. Gautié, P. González, D. Grimshaw, M. Karamessini, J. Masso, I. Mierina, Á. Scharle, A. Simonazzi, D. Szikra, D. Vaughan-Whitehead

This volume presents a new perspective for discussing the European social contract and its main challenges, bringing together single-nation and comparative studies from across Europe. Presenting both theoretical discussions and empirical case studies, it explores various aspects of social cohesion, including social protection, the labour market, social movements, healthcare, social inequalities and poverty. With particular attention to the effects of the international economic and financial crisis on social cohesion, particularly in the light of the implementation of so-called'austerity measures', authors engage with questions surrounding the possible fragmentation of the European model of social cohesion and the transformation of forms of social protection, asking whether social cohesion continues to represent - if it ever did - a common feature of European countries. Breaking new ground in understanding the future of Social Europe and its main dynamics of change, The European Social Model Adrift will appeal to scholars of sociology, social policy and politics, with interests in social cohesion, the effects of financial crisis and the European social model.

This book examines the link between poverty on the one hand and labour market participation and the distributive capacity of welfare states on the other hand. It focuses on the working-age population and the evolutions in Europe during the'good economic years'before the financial crisis. The book provides social research in an accessible way. It introduces the reader into the various concepts of measuring poverty and exclusion and discusses data limitations. Obviously, we are not the first to observe worrying trends in poverty or inequality. The specific approach in this book may be summarized as follows. First, to gain a better understanding of the nexus of labour market participation, social redistribution and poverty, we focus on the distinction between work-poor and work-rich households. Second, we augment a traditional'pre-post approach'of the impact of social transfers with regression analysis and policy indicators. Third, we refine the common method of measuring the redistributive effect of social expenditure, particularly for in-kind benefits. Fourth, we give due consideration to concepts and data. Most of the analyses are based on the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (SILC), but when relevant and feasible, we include alternative surveys (in the case of Germany, SILC and SOEP data) and additional data, i.e. administrative expenditure data and indicators that inform directly on policy. Finally, we discuss our observations with reference to the employment-centred welfare reforms that were prominent in European countries since the mid-1990s, and link the analysis with a broader perspective on the socio-economic, demographic and paradigmatic evolutions in contemporary welfare states.

Conventional wisdom says that Europe's crisis is a financial crisis. But is this really the case? In Industrial Poverty, economist Sven R. Larson, challenges this view and suggests instead that Europe is in a state of permanent economic decline. The crisis, says Larson, is in fact a welfare-state crisis. Over decades, government has grown too big for the private sector to pay for; when the recession hit in 2008 most European economies could no longer bear the burden of the welfare state. Raging deficits, accelerating unemployment and harsh austerity policies hurled the continent into more than a regular recession. Europe is entering a new economic state: industrial poverty. Using Sweden in the 1990s as an example, Larson shows how a welfare-state crisis combined with the wrong kind of austerity policies replaces prosperity with industrial poverty. In a desperate effort to balance the budget and save the welfare state in the midst of the crisis, the Swedish government subjected the country to some of the toughest austerity measures on record. The outcome was a permanent reduction in the standard of living for Swedish families as well as the standard of government services. Today, Europe is going through the same transition into industrial poverty. Tomorrow, it could be the United States, unless Congress and the President take decisive action against the runaway budget deficit.

EU member states have seen high levels of unemployment in recent years especially amongst young people. At the same time the fiscal crisis of welfare states has made it difficult for them to invest in new jobs and new economic growth. The EU, at least since the enactment of the Amsterdam treaty, has had a focus on how to support member states'development of an employment policy which aims for higher levels of participation, lower levels of unemployment and more gender equal approaches. Through exploring patterns in the recent development of financing and governance of social services and developments of social services and employment in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany and the UK, this volume provides readers with new knowledge and evidence of the options regarding social innovation in social services. Furthermore, it provides a comparative European perspective on how the interplay between a public and private mix of social service on the one hand might help in creating jobs, and, on the other, be a way of coping with the needs and expectations of higher level of services in the core areas of the welfare state.

This book investigates the causes of inequalities that have developed in the European Union, analyzes their social and economic consequences, and assesses the political measures taken to address these issues – also on the basis of public survey results.The detailed analyses presented focus on structures of inequality to be found in the areas education, culture, labor market, Internet access, families and children, gender, and the regions of the EU. The book also critically examines both the legal framework conditions and financial / taxation policy as instruments that can be used to either produce or combat inequality.

In recent decades, Western nations have increasingly implemented encompassing welfare state reforms that try to establish equality through social programs and governmental intervention rather than direct redistribution of funds. In this book, Christoph Arndt examines the political ramifications of reforming deeply entrenched welfare states through a careful comparative analysis of four European countries that recalibrated their system of social protection under social democratic governments. Arndt discovers that the'third way'has produced a setback for social democrats and that the nature and scale of this setback is contingent on each country's electoral system.

In the burgeoning literature on welfare regimes and typologies, this comparative study offers a stimulating new perspective. Kaufmann, the doyen of the sociology of social policy in Germany, emphasizes norms, culture and history, in contrast to political economy approaches. Comparing Britain, Sweden, France and Germany, Kaufmann highlights the „idiosyncrasy” of each welfare state: countries are compared with regard to their state traditions and the relationship between state and civil society; their national “social questions”; their economic systems, including the unions and labour law; social security and redistribution; and their personal social services and education. The socio-cultural approach enables Kaufmann to show that not all modern states are welfare states. Some are just „capitalism“ (the USA), others are „socialism“ (the former Soviet Union). In this light, the (essentially North-West European) welfare state is portrayed as a third way between capitalism and socialism.

Drawing on cross-national European data from the European Social Survey as well as Swedish national survey data and registers, this book investigates social capital in relation to health and health inequalities in European welfare states.

In the wake of the Greek and Irish crises, and at a moment when solidarity between states is hotly debated on a daily basis at EU level, it is important to understand how ‘solidarity'can happen at all. The Road to Social Europe reviews the development of political cultural processes since the nineteenth century, showing how social protection and social justice have gradually become interwoven with systems of social protection, or welfare states. Grounded on extensive empirical research conducted in many EU countries and in the European Commission's administration over twenty years, the book provides a cultural analysis of welfare systems in Europe. It also presents an original enquiry into the importance of languages for politics in Europe, for the politics of welfare, and for sociological research. It shows how sociological and ethnographic analysis can help in understanding the current and future challenges of European integration that rely unilaterally on functional economics.This in-depth sociological analysis of European diversity will appeal to a wide audience of students and scholars of sociology, political science, political economy and European studies.

At a time when welfare states in Europe are coming under increasing pressure from both growing demand and, in some countries, severe financial austerity measures, the attitudes of ordinary people and European social cohesion are much debated. Using data from the European Social Survey, these empirical analyses examine welfare state attitudes and draw conclusions for the future. Theoretically the book is linked to analyses of altering social risks, policy challenges, policy changes and policy performance of the European welfare states. The analyses in the book explore a variety of individual and macro-level determinants of welfare policy attitudes ranging from socio-economic factors to religiosity, but a special emphasis is laid on solidarity, social cohesion and social capital among European nations. This multi-disciplinary study will appeal to academics, researchers, graduate and postgraduate students in sociology, social policy, social administration and European studies. Contributors: M. Ainsaar, S.N. Andersen, H. Chung, H. Ervasti, H. Finseraas, T. Fridberg, J. Goul Andersen, M. Hjerm, T. Kankainen, A. Kouvo, B. Meuleman, M. Niemelä, K. Ringdal, A. Schnabel, W. van Oorschot

Olaf Cramme is Director of Policy Network and a Visiting Fellow at the European Institute of the London School of Economics. Previously, he worked as a Parliamentary Researcher at the Houses of Parliament. Patrick Diamond is Senior Research Fellow at Policy Network. He is also a Gwilym Gibbon Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Oxford. He was formerly Head of Policy Planning in 10 Downing Street and Senior Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister.

This book offers an analysis of European capitalist welfare societies, centering on the questions of sustainability and the financing of social rights. Capitalism is defined as a multi-model economy, comprising of a market economy (including production, distribution and exchange), a state welfare economy (based on compulsory transfers, such as taxes and social contributions), a household economy and a voluntary economy. The resources for the welfare economy are produced by some activities of the life course, and used by other activities, once rights over these resources are acquired. Setting out a new conceptual framework that integrates an adapted version of the theory of instituted economic processes with the changing structuration of the life course in European countries, the book argues that European capitalist welfare societies are not sustainable in their present form and that the future financing of social rights is conditional on substantial transformations. The book also analyzes relevant data on the socio-economic positioning of women and migrants.

While social welfare programs, often inspired by international organizations, are spreading throughout the world, the more far-reaching notion of governmental responsibility for the basic well-being of all members of a political society is not, although it remains a feature of Europe and the former British Commonwealth. The welfare state in the European sense is not simply an administrative arrangement of various measures of social protection but a political project embedded in distinct cultural traditions. Offering the first accessible account in English of the historical development of the European idea of the welfare state, this book reviews the intellectual foundations which underpinned the road towards the European welfare state, formulates some basic concepts for its understanding, and highlights the differences in the underlying structural and philosophical conditions between continental Europe and the English-speaking world.

Our health, our income and our social networks at older ages are the consequence of what has happened to us over the course of our lives. The situation at age 50+ reflects our own decisions as well as many environmental factors, especially interventions by the welfare state. This book explores the richness of 28,000 life histories in thirteen European countries, collected as part of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Combining these data with a comprehensive account of European welfare state interventions provides a unique opportunity to answer the important public policy questions of our time – how the welfare state affects people's incomes, housing, families, retirement, volunteering and health. The overarching theme of the welfare state creates a book of genuinely interdisciplinary analyses, a valuable resource for economists, gerontologists, historians, political scientists, public health analysts, and sociologists alike.