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The workings of multi-level governance -- institutional choices concerning centralisation, decentralisation and subsidiarity -- are widely debated within European public policy, but few systematic studies assessing the effects of changing divisions of power for policy-making have been carried out. This volume offers an assessment of the workings of multi-level governance in terms of social welfare policy across different clusters of European states -- Nordic, Southern European, Central and East European. This book reports on a major comparative study at the European Centre for Social Welfare policy and Research, which included partners from univerisities in Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Spain and Switzerland. It reports on three particular policy areas: social assistance and local policies against poverty; activation and labour market policies; and care for the elderly. The authors describe different starting points, strategies and solutions in European countries which are facing similar challenges and could thus learn from each other. They explore the differences between European welfare regimes in terms of territorial responsibilities, the changes that have taken place over the past few years and their effects. The book is distinctive in highlighting comparative transversal and transnational issues of multi-level governance in social welfare policies, rather than presenting country reports.
This distinctive book highlights the comparative transversal and national issues of multi-level governance in social welfare policies. The author reports on three particular policy areas: social assistance and local policies against poverty; activation and labour market policies; and care for the elderly; whist looking at the changes that have taken place over the past few years and their resulting effects. It will be a key text for those concerned with social policy and welfare.
Discovering methods to combat poverty and social exclusion has now become a major political challenge in Europe. Combating Poverty in Europe offers an original and timely analysis of how this challenge is met by actors at European, national and subnational levels. Building on a European study comparing Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the UK, this book provides new insights into the processes and mechanisms that promote or hinder interaction between the increasingly multi-layered European system for responding to poverty and social exclusion in EU member states. The contributors present systematic and comparative analyses of social policy design, institutional frameworks and delivery practices from a multi-level governance perspective. Original and diverse, this book will appeal to researchers and scholars in comparative social policy, as well as policy officials in the EU, national government and anti-poverty NGOs.
This book examines the relationship of belonging and social policy in a historical-comparative perspective reconstructing individual arguments in favour of or opposed to the expansion of solidarities.
Following the financial crisis and subsequent impacts of economic slowdown and austerity, the emergence of new local governance models and innovation is a very timely issue. The same goes for identifying new types of funding schemes and fiscal models prompted by austerity with the reduction in financial resources for local governments. This book offers a broad perspective on some of the organizational and financial problems faced by cities and local governments across Europe and analyses the reactions and reforms implemented to address current economic and public finance conditions. The geographical coverage of the case studies, multidisciplinary background of the contributing authors and focus on a multiplicity of issues and challenges that confront local governments, not just financial issues as is often the case, means this book is relevant to a wide readership. The book is written for post-graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and researchers in the multidisciplinary field of local government studies (Public Administration, Geography, Political Science, Law, Economy and Sociology), as well as practitioners working in local government institutions.
The importance of subnational welfare measures, and their complex embeddedness in wider multilevel governance systems, has often been underplayed in both urban studies and social policy analysis. This Handbook gives readers the analytical tools to understand urban social policies in context, and bridges the gap in research.
This book analyzes national anti-poverty measures at a local level via a set of unique and up-to-date empirical studies of minimum income support schemes and activation measures in five European cities. In examining this 'local welfare system' approach, it investigates the role that civil society organizations play, and the governance arrangements that prevail in contacts between public and civil society actors in local anti-poverty strategies. The current financial and economic crisis has caused increasing levels of poverty and unemployment, and put national minimum income protection schemes under severe strain. Combating Poverty in Local Welfare Systems therefore represents a timely and important intervention in the political and scientific debates as to whether more ‘local welfare’ is the solution to the challenges facing European welfare states.
This book revives the discussion on public social services and their redesign, with a focus on services relating to care and the social inclusion of vulnerable groups, providing rich information on the changes that occurred in the organisation and supply of public social services over the last thirty years in different European places and service fields. Despite the persisting variety in social service models, three shared trends emerge: public sector disengagement, ‘vertical re-scaling’ of authority and ‘horizontal re-mix’ in the supply system. The consequences of such changes are evaluated from different perspectives – governance, social and territorial cohesion, labour market, gender – and are eventually deemed ‘disruptive’ in both economic and social terms. The policy implications of the restructuring are also explored. This title will be Open Access on Elgaronline.com.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.There is a broad consensus across European states and the EU that social and economic inequality is a problem that needs to be addressed. Yet inequality policy is notoriously complex and contested. This book approaches the issue from two linked perspectives. First, a focus on functional requirementshighlights what policymakers think they need to deliver policy successfully, and the gap between their requirements and reality. We identify this gap in relation to the theory and practice of policy learning, and to multiple sectors, to show how it manifests in health, education, and gender equitypolicies. Second, a focus on territorial politics highlights how the problem is interpreted at different scales, subject to competing demands to take responsibility. This contestation and spread of responsibilities contributes to different policy approaches across spatial scales. We conclude thatgovernments promote many separate equity initiatives, across territories and sectors, without knowing if they are complementary or contradictory. This outcome could reflect the fact that ambiguous policy problems and complex policymaking processes are beyond the full knowledge or control ofgovernments. It could also be part of a strategy to make a rhetorically radical case while knowing that they will translate into safer policies. It allows them to replace debates on values, regarding whose definition of equity matters and which inequalities to tolerate, with more technicaldiscussions of policy processes. Governments may be offering new perspectives on spatial justice or new ways to reduce political attention to inequalities.
This book investigates policies for the promotion of housing affordability in the rental sector of attractive cities in Europe. Affordability links the housing situation to the economic situation of households, referring to conditions of access to housing and to the role of housing in determining poverty or wealth. The book examines the current affordability crisis and frames it in the ongoing process of urban restructuring and devolution of welfare. From the perspective of the Foundational Economy, the book calls for a proactive and effective role of public administrations in making the rental sector an affordable and stable alternative to housing financialization and commodification. By intertwining theory construction and real-world data collected through case studies in Milan and Vienna, the book provides an original framework for the analysis of public policies that promote rental affordability in a multi-level setting. Through the analysis, it highlights critical nodes of the different (housing, urban, and social) policy domains at stake in the promotion of rental affordability in attractive cities. The book proposes a shift from the currently dominant supply-side argument to an integrated, intersectoral and multi-scalar policy system for making cities more affordable.