Download or read book Social Policy in the Smaller European Union States written by Gary B. Cohen and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2011-12-30 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Europe and around the world, social policies and welfare services have faced increasing pressure in recent years as a result of political, economic, and social changes. Just as Europe was a leader in the development of the welfare state and the supportive structures of corporatist politics from the 1920s onward, Europe in particular has experienced stresses from globalization and striking innovation in welfare policies. While debates in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France often attract wide international attention, smaller European countries-Belgium, Denmark, Austria, or Finland-are often overlooked. This volume seeks to correct this unfortunate oversight as these smaller countries serve as models for reform, undertaking experiments that only later gain the attention of stymied reformers in the larger countries.

Download or read book Social policy in the European Union state of play 2015 written by David Natali (OSE) and published by ETUI. This book was released on 2015-09-23 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sixteenth edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play has a triple ambition. First, it provides easily accessible information to a wide audience about recent developments in both EU and domestic social policymaking. Second, the volume provides a more analytical reading, embedding the key developments of the year 2014 in the most recent academic discourses. Third, the forward-looking perspective of the book aims to provide stakeholders and policymakers with specific tools that allow them to discern new opportunities to influence policymaking. In this 2015 edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play, the authors tackle the topics of the state of EU politics after the parliamentary elections, the socialisation of the European Semester, methods of political protest, the Juncker investment plan, the EU’s contradictory education investment, the EU’s contested influence on national healthcare reforms, and the neoliberal Trojan Horse of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Download or read book Small States Inside and Outside the European Union written by Laurent Goetschel and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1998-10-31 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Small States in and outside the European Union offers a broad overview of the small states problematic in Europe. It touches upon definition issues, history, security policy, neutrality, EU institutional aspects and also includes contributors from Central and Eastern European countries. It presents a thorough analysis of different scenarios for EU institutional reform and their repercussions on the influence of small member states. The comparative results are visualized in tables. The work contains several contributions from practitioners who give insight into policy games and issues of national sensitivity not usually covered by purely scholarly publications. The European environment has changed dramatically through the processes of regional integration and rising interdependence. Relations between European states both inside and outside the EU are governed as never before by rules, norms, and fixed procedures. The book investigates the consequences of these developments on the foreign and security policy of small states. Academics and professionals from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland, as well as from the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, elaborate on these issues. Institutional regulations and traditional power politics as well as the foreign and security policy traditions of the states concerned, including the question of neutrality, are investigated. In addition, the book identifies the main interests of small states in today's Europe and offers an overview of different strategies these states apply in the realm of foreign and security policy. The book is interesting for the case studies it offers as well as for the reflections it contains regarding fundamental questions of the essence of statehood in today's Europe.

Download or read book Social Policy in Central and Eastern Europe written by Alfio Cerami and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2006 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By explaining the path of extrication from state socialism, this book clarifies the patterns of the welfare state's transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. It identifies the emergence of a peculiar Eastern European welfare regime through the fusionof pre-communist, communist and post-communist features.

Download or read book Social Policy in the European Union written by Karen M. Anderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-03-26 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social policy has become an increasingly prominent component of the European Union's policy-making responsibilities. Today, for example, a highly developed body of law regulates equal treatment in social security and co-ordinates national security schemes; national health services have opened up to patients and service providers from other states; and rules govern the translation of educational and vocational certificates across member states. This state of affairs is all the more remarkable given the relatively limited resources at the EU's disposal and the initial intentions of its founders. During negotiations for the Treaty of Rome in the 1950s, social policy was viewed as the exclusive provenance of the member states. There were to be provisions to facilitate labour mobility within the common market, but until the 1970s social policy making at the EU-level was modest. However, plans for the internal market moved social policy on the EU's decision-making agenda. The Social Chapter was adopted in 1989, and the Single European Act expanded EU competencies in social policy. The Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice all expanded competencies further, so that by the time the heads of government met in Lisbon in 2007 to sign the EU's latest treaty, the extent of supranational control over important aspects of social policy making was quite impressive. This important book provides a full account of the evolution of social policy in the EU and of its current reach. It examines the reasons for the increased role of the EU in the area, in spite of formidable obstacles, and details its effects in member states, where social provision is often the biggest item in government budgets and a crucial issue in national elections. Drawing on research done on welfare states around the world and on European integration, this book provides a distinctive and sophisticated account of social policy in Europe, showing how it must now be understood in the context of multi-level governance in which EU institutions play a pivotal role.

Download or read book New Risks New Welfare written by Peter Taylor-Gooby and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-11-11 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the concept of new social risks in welfare state studies and explains their relevance to the comparative understanding of social policy in Europe. New social risks arise from shifts in the balance of work and family life as a direct result of the declining importance of the male breadwinner family, changes in the labour market, and the impact of globalization on national policy-making. They differ from the old social risks of the standard industrial life-course, which were concerned primarily with interruptions to income from sickness, unemployment, retirement, and similar issues. New social risks pose new challenges for the welfare policies of European countries, such as the care of children and the elderly, more equal opportunities, the activation of labour markets and the management of needs that arise from welfare state reform, and new opportunities for the coordination of policies at the EU level. The book includes detailed and up-to-date case studies of policy development across these areas in the major European countries. These studies, written by leading experts, are organized in a comparative framework which is followed throughout the book. They highlight the way in which national welfare state regimes and institutional arrangements shape policy-making to meet new social risks. A major feature of this volume is the analysis of developments at the EU level and their interaction with national policies. The EU has been largely unsuccessful in its interventions in old social risk policy, but appears to have more success in its attempts to coordinate policy for new social risks. Experience here may provide lessons for future developments in EU policy-making. The comparative framework of the book seeks to inform an understanding of the development of new social risks in Europe and of the particular political opportunities and challenges that result. It provides an original analysis of pressing issues at the forefront of European welfare policy debate and locates it at the heart of current theoretical debates.

Download or read book Social Policy in the European Union written by Linda Hantrais and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1995 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previous ed.: Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000.

Download or read book The Boundaries of Welfare written by Maurizio Ferrera and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-11-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To what extent has the process of European integration re-drawn the boundaries of national welfare states? What are the effects of such re-drawing? Boundaries count: they are essential in bringing together individuals, groups, and territorial units, and for activating or strengthening shared ties between them. If the profile of boundaries changes over time, we might expect significant consequences on bonding dynamics, i.e. on the way solidarity is structured in a given political community. The book addresses these two questions in a broad historical and comparative perspective. The first chapter sets out a novel theoretical framework which re-conceptualizes the welfare state as a 'bounded space' characterized by a distinct spatial politics. This reconceptualization takes as a starting point the 'state-building tradition' in political science and in particular the work of Stein Rokkan. The second chapter briefly outlines the early emergence and expansion of European welfare states till World War II. Chapters 3 and 4 analyse the relationship between domestic welfare state developments and the formation of a supranational European Community between the 1960s and the 2000s, illustrating how the process of European integration has increasingly eroded the social sovereignty of the nation-state. Chapter 5 focuses on new emerging forms of sub-national and trans-national social protection, while Chapter 6 discusses current trends and future perspectives for a re-structuring of social protection at the EU level. While there is no doubt that European integration has significantly altered the boundaries of national welfare, de-stabilizing delicate political and institutional equilibria, the book concludes by offering some suggestions on how a viable system of multi-level social protection could possibly emerge within the new EU wide boundary configuration.

Download or read book Social Policy in the European Union Third Edition written by Linda Hantrais and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-16 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking account of the debates about adapting the Union's institutional structures to accommodate different welfare arrangements and the need for more open forms of European governance, the third edition of this well received book offers a compact, clear and authoritative account of 50 years of social policy formation and implementation across the EU.

Download or read book Dismantling Social Europe written by Daniel V. Preece and published by FirstForumPress. This book was released on 2009 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is neoliberalism winning out as a social policy in the European Union? This title demonstrates how, despite the commitment to 'Social Europe' that has been entrenched in the EU treaty framework since the late 1990s, neoliberal actors have successfully reframed the policy debates and affected the welfare policies adopted by the member states.

Download or read book Small States in Europe written by Robert Steinmetz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The effects of recent institutional change within the European Union on small states have often been overlooked. This book offers an accessible, coherent and informative analysis of contemporary and future foreign policy challenges facing small states in Europe. Leading experts analyze the experiences of a number of small states including the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Iceland, Austria and Switzerland. Each account, written to a common template, explores the challenges and opportunities faced by each state as a consequence of EU integration, and how their behaviour regarding EU integration has been characterized. In particular, the contributors emphasize the importance of power politics, institutional dynamics and lessons of the past. Innovative and sophisticated, the study draws on the relational understanding of small states to emphasize the implications of institutional change at the European level for the smaller states and to explain how the foreign and European policies of small states in the region are affected by the European Union.

Download or read book The Future of the Welfare State written by Robert Urbé and published by Lambertus-Verlag. This book was released on 2012-12-25 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Future of Europe has to be social, or there will be no Future! Welfare in itself is a concept that is dependent on cultural differences. These provide an explanation for the different historically-rooted welfare concepts throughout European countries. For our research we have consciously focused on European Union member countries, the number of countries involved in one way or another in the project is twenty. According to Esping-Andersen we differentiate three different types of Welfare models: the liberal "Beveridge systems, the conservative, corporatist "Bismarck systems and the social democratic or Scandinavian (Nordic) regimes. Our working group decided to opt for an "own class of countries belonging to a "Mediterranean Model. And we added also a group of "Central and Eastern European Systems. After having described these systems and their development, we have examined if, and to what extent the countries of a given regime are all following the same trends and developments. The question of a possible convergence of all these models in one future European social model was also investigated. At the end the most important questions remain: How can we overcome the austerity paradigm and move towards a cohesive society where everyone participates according to his means and where everybody gets according to his needs? How can we agree on a minimum socket of social rights in all European Countries

Download or read book Ideas and Welfare State Reform in Western Europe written by P. Taylor-Gooby and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-08-02 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new welfare settlement in Europe involves a re-direction of policy in the context of a unified market and currency system and of more stringent economic competition. Realignment of the policy assumptions and goals of the key actors is central to this process. This book reviews the main policy paradigms and analyzes the processes whereby they have changed in the most salient policy areas, and is based on recent interviews with more than two hundred and fifty senior policy actors in seven West European countries.

Download or read book A European Welfare State written by Mark Kleinman and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Social Policy and International Interventions in South East Europe written by Bob Deacon and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social Policy and International Interventions in South East Europe proves a comprehensive, dense, and thought provoking read, particularly successful in framing both the historical and institutional contexts of the countries examined, as well as literary debates on the subject and is thus a precious resource. . . Irene Dioli, Journal of Southeastern Europe The questions broached by the volume are of interest to all who are concerned with development and politics. Experts will find the data and is presentation quite useful; others will benefit from the background information presented in each chapter. . . . Social Policy and International Interventions in South East Europe is an excellent addition to the academic literature and will serve all those who are trying to keep pace with fluid developments in the transitional states of south east Europe. Richard P. Farkas, Slavic Review This is a remarkably rich and thought-provoking collection. Its substantial case studies make it a vital resource for studying social policy in South East Europe. Its focus on the flows of international actors, agencies, ideas and resources poses critical questions about how the emergence of social policy, the emergence of new forms of governance and the creation of new spaces of welfare are connected. The implications of this concern with emergent forms and directions reach far beyond the region itself. John Clarke, The Open University, UK A brilliant book that shows conclusively that transnational actors have taken their place alongside states in setting social policy in Europe. Through careful and comprehensive case studies of a wide range of South East European countries, this volume systematically presents a wealth of new data on transnational actor interventions. It helps to shape an emerging debate on the relative power of transnational and domestic actors and makes a unique empirical contribution to the discussion. The authors have done an amazing job of coordinated digging and produced some impressive results. Mitchell Orenstein, Johns Hopkins University, US This comprehensive and engaging book investigates the role of international actors in the making of social policy in South East Europe. Introductory chapters on transnationalism and Europeanization are followed by a series of nine linked case studies depicting research undertaken within this region. The book charts the variable influence that international actors such as formal organizations, non-governmental organizations, consulting companies and individual transnational policy entrepreneurs have on key policy issues, including pensions, social protection, labour markets and health. The authors conclude that welfare settlements are a complex product of historical and institutional legacies, the neo-liberal interventions of the World Bank, the emerging impact of the EU, and the crowded international arena resulting from war and post-war reconstruction agendas. Written by leading researchers in the field, Social Policy and International Interventions in South East Europe will be of great interest to researchers and students of social policy, policy studies and regional studies, as well as policymakers within international and governmental organizations.

Download or read book Enabling Social Europe written by B. Maydell v. and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-02-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Enabling Social Europe’ examines how the paradigm of the ‘enabling welfare state’ might offer a new perspective for European social policy in the decades to come. The ‘enabling’ concept is perceived as going beyond that of mere ‘activation’, thus also embracing policies aimed at increasing personal autonomy, individual responsibility and social inclusion by endowing individuals with the resources and capabilities needed to manage and balance their life courses in a better way. The study is distinguished by a unique collaboration of social and economic policy experts coming from a wide range of disciplines: economics, law, sociology, political science, and philosophy. The authors seek to shed new light on whether European social policy ought to play a role in the future and, if so, what sort of role that could be. They convincingly argue that despite an implicit normative consensus on the ‘European social model’, there is still room for a multifaceted world in which welfare regimes can maintain their own path-dependent ways of achieving a fair and just society with a high level of welfare for all. The empirical part of the book contains an appraisal of policies and reforms with a view to the ‘enabling welfare state’ approach in four important policy areas: health care, old-age security, family policy, and poverty prevention. Within each sector, the authors compare the policies and practices of two countries attributable to different regime types: Germany and the United Kingdom, Poland and Germany, Finland and Estonia, and Belgium and Denmark. This book is highly recommendable not only for scholars and policymakers active in this field, but also for students of welfare and labour economics, sociology, social policy, political science and law.

Download or read book Social Services of General Interest in the EU written by Ulla Neergaard and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The EU has limited legislative competence in the field of social law. However, the Member States are increasingly modernizing social services and social (welfare) protection, attempting to make social services more efficient by increasingly looking to the market for the provision of such services. This policy move brings social services into the radar of EU law. The EU response to this sensitive issue has resulted in a piecemeal and fragmented approach towards the treatment of a new policy area of Social Services of General Interest (SSGI) in EU law and policy. This book is a first contribution towards charting how SSGI have emerged as a special category of SGI in the EU, the reaction of the Member States and stake-holders and how policy is being made through new governance processes, carve-outs and safe havens in legislation and soft law, especially in the light of the new values of the EU introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon 2009. It takes an inter-disciplinary approach and will be of interest to lawyers, economists and political scientists who are interested in EU policy-making as well as practioners, EU and national policy-makers. Ulla Neergaard is Professor of EU law at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Erika Szyszczak is a Jean Monnet Professor of European Law ad personam, Professor of European Competition and Labour Law at the University of Leicester, Barrister, Littleton Chambers, UK. Johan W. van de Gronden is Professor of European Law at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Markus Krajewski is Professor of Public and International law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.