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.

The Danish Welfare State analyzes a broad range of areas, such as globalization, labor marked, family life, health and social exclusion, the book demonstrates that life in a modern welfare state is changing rapidly, creating both challenges and possibilities for future management.

How did Denmark avoid a macro-economic catastrophe in the 1980s and 1990s and still manage not only to maintain but also expand its welfare state? Denmark's macro-economic troubles apparently derived from a number of vices identified by critics of the welfare state: it had an enormous, thoroughly unionized, and unresponsive public sector; large numbers of people relied on the state for their livelihood, making programmatic cuts politically difficult; many programs had the characteristic of property rights and were hard to modify. Taxes to sustain this welfare state compressed investment, eroding both fiscal and current account balances. Yet by the mid 1990s, public support for the welfare state was as high as ever, while fiscal and current accounts were essentially in balance. The analyses in this book suggest that most of the vices that traditional welfare state scholarship identifies are also virtues. This book presents a comprehensive picture of how the Danish welfare state and political economy works by looking at the governance of and interactions between the welfare state and economy at all levels, using analyses of general macro-economic policy, center-local relations, budgeting, labour market, and welfare state transfers and services in three critical areas. A critical introductory survey of the welfare state literature and a synthetic conclusion frame these studies. This fine-grained analysis shows how alleged weaknesses were actually strengths that allowed a negotiated adaptation of the Danish model to external and internal changes. This sheds light on the future of the welfare state and economic governance in a globalizing world, and the complementarities and synergies between economic and welfare state governance.

"The book uses analyses of general macro-economic policy, center-local relations, budgeting, labor market, and welfare state transfers and services in three critical areas to present a comprehensive picture of the governance of and interactions between the Danish welfare state and political economy at all levels. A critical introductory survey of the welfare state literature and a synthetic conclusion frame these studies."--BOOK JACKET.