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.

Evaluation has come of age. Today most social and political observers would have difficulty imagining a society where evaluation is not a fixture of daily life, from individual programs to local authorities to parliamentary committees. While university researchers, grant makers and public servants may think there are too many types of evaluation, rankings and reviews, evaluation is nonetheless viewed positively by the public. It is perceived as a tool for improvement and evaluators are seen as dedicated to using their knowledge for the benefit of society. The book examines the degree to which evaluators seek power for their own interests. This perspective is based on a simple assumption: If you are in possession of an asset that can give you power, why not use it for your own interests? Can we really trust evaluation to be a force for the good? To what degree can we talk about self-interest in evaluation, and is this self-interest something that contradicts other interests such as "the benefit of society?" Such questions and others are addressed in this brilliant, innovative, international collection of pioneering contributions.

Taking nine European countries as case studies, the contributions to this volume analyze the ways that citizenship has changed in key areas such as social security, labor market policies and social services.

How are the numerous member states of the European Union today to reach proper consensus on an eventual common EU social model? In this meditative and reflective philosophical, literary and social inquiry, first presented as invited lectures at the Institute for European Studies of the Jagiellonian University, Peter McCormick highlights the still largely overlooked conceptual and linguistic resources of the distinctive European high modernist poetry of suffering for freshly rearticulating some of the most basic moral and ethical values at the historical roots of European civilization. Against contrasted readings of modernity in the works of both analytic and hermeneutic philosophers, successive studies investigate the figures of moral discourse, moral perception, and both moral motivation and ethical emancipation in the poetry of the Nobel Laureats, T.S. Eliot, Paul Valéry, and Eugenio Montale. The result is the renewed availability of richly resourceful formulations of fundamental European values for stimulating the ongoing work of achieving appropriate political consensus for a future harmonized European Union social policy.

2010 was a critical year for the European Union (EU) in at least three major respects. First of all, many EU countries started showing signs of increased financial stress, while the eurozone began to be affected by a true debt crisis extending well beyond the highly publicised case of Greece. Secondly, the European Union strove to achieve renewal through its first steps to implement the Lisbon Treaty that had come into force on 1 December 2009. The third reason why 2010 represented a turning point for the EU is that the ten-year Lisbon Strategy, launched by the European Council in March 2000 as a framework for EU socio-economic policy coordination, formally reached its end in June 2010 when EU leaders adopted the new Europe 2020 Strategy. All of these developments will have deep and long-lasting effects on social policy at both national and supra-national level. This 2010 edition of Social developments in the European Union examines the ways in which the EU has tackled the main challenges related to the fiscal crisis, the first steps towards implementation of the Lisbon Treaty and the launch of the EU2020 Strategy. The volume sheds light on a number of aspects including the risks for the European social model and European integration project, the state of the debate on revision of the Stability and Growth Pact, the impact of the economic and financial crisis on pensions, the new ‘EU employment policy roadmap’ and, more generally, the tensions, risks and opportunities generated by Europe 2020.

How can we conceptualize identity and legitimacy in the context of the European union? What is the role of narratives, political symbols, public debate and institutional practices in the process of identity formation and legitimacy consolidation? Debating Political Identity and Legitimacy in the European Union addresses these questions and brings together high profile scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds to debate the ontological and epistemological aspects of research on identity and legitimacy formation in the EU. Part I investigates key elements such as the relationship between ‘Europeanization’ of the EU member states and its effect on the political identity of their citizens; the relationship between the politicization of the EU and processes of identity and legitimacy formation; and the indispensability of European identity for legitimizing the EU. Part II looks at pathways to identity formation and legitimacy construction in the EU by considering alternative types of constitutional legitimacy; political symbolism; Europeanization and politicization of the debate on EU focusing on the foreign policy domain. Bringing together a wide but coherent range of high profile perspectives, this book will of interest to students and scholars of European studies, Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology and Law.