This volume brings together cutting-edge scholarship on an under-researched and topical issue. Quasi-marketization and managerialization of welfare organizations are found to constitute common reform trends in many European countries and across social policy domains, following similar timings albeit with different intensities. The analysis, carried out at the meso and micro levels, reveals that ex-post control by states has been strengthened, managers are becoming relevant or even central actors, while professionals in public welfare institutions are seeing their role and autonomy challenged.' - Ana M. Guillén, University of Oviedo, Spain 'In the contemporary welfare state public management has become a profession of its own. At the same time professionals in public welfare bureaucracies have incorporated market considerations and managerial objectives in their daily work. This current evolution of welfare governance, path dependent as it is, has been documented thoroughly in this book, both in depth and from a comparative perspective. It makes the book a must read for all who are interested in the welfare state and care about its future.' - Peter Hupe, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands 'This edited collection on welfare governance across Europe will prove itself invaluable for research and teaching purposes. It usefully brings together the whole range of social sciences in a series of well organized, evidenced and argued chapters. The book is organized into two parts, the first focusing on the impact of marketization and managerialization across Europe and across sectors within the welfare state, while the second half focuses on the professions and the emerging human resource management issues. Both are crucial aspects of the new governance and together deliver a coherent and comprehensive set of papers addressing a highly pertinent set of questions for policymakers, analysts and managers for the next decade and will become recommended reading for the students, the welfare state, social and health policy as well as public sector management and administration.' - Mike Dent, Staffordshire University, UK Quasi-markets and managerial steering techniques have spread in the provision of welfare state services and are now a salient feature. This innovative book explores the introduction and impact of marketization and managerialism in social policy by adopting a dual perspective - one on regulation and governance, the other on human resources - covering five fields of social service delivery. Welfare governance (for example, welfare mix, regulation, employment conditions and customer involvement) has changed significantly in the past decade. In particular, the new governance models not only clash with traditional ideas of bureaucratic regulation but also with the norms and standards of professional service delivery. The fact that the labor force in welfare organizations is made up of 'professionals' implies that the introduction of new modes of welfare governance often results in organizational conflicts. The editors and contributors collectively assesses these processes not only by comparing different policy fields and countries, but also by taking a close look inside organizations, examining the coping strategies of professionals, and how they adapt to new models of governing welfare organizations. An ideal compliment to undergraduate and postgraduate study, Restructuring Welfare Governanceis essential reading for scholars in the fields of social policy, public administration and comparative welfare state analysis. Contributors: K. Baadsgaard, V. Burau, F.A. Ceravolo, B. Jantz, H. Jørgensen, T. Klenk, E. Kuhlmann, R. Moscati, M. Noordegraaf, I. Nørup, E. Pavolini, T. Peetz, M. Rostan, U. Schimank, A. Stanchi, C. Teelken, H. Theobald, M. Thunnissen, M. Turri

Governance is now a major topic in political science. To date, analysts of governance have paid scant attention to social policy or welfare state reform. In this book, the concept of governance is used to analyse the outgoing variety of the welfare mix as well as shifting responsibilities and modes of interaction. This unique and path-breaking work analyses the governance of welfare state reform in the areas of health, pensions, labour market and education policy. The authors compare both the different processes of reform (politics) and the change of policies in different welfare state regimes. They question if the change of regulatory structures results in growing convergence or ongoing divergence of welfare states. Governance of Welfare State Reform will be essential reading for researchers and students interested in social policy and governance studies. Political scientists, sociologists and social policymakers will also find this book an invaluable read.

Using an analytical framework based on Foucault's concept of governmentality and through unique case-studies, this volume explores the ongoing transformations taking place in the Swedish welfare state.

Since the early 1980s Ecuador has experienced a series of events unparalleled in its history. Its “free market” strategies exacerbated the debt crisis, and in response new forms of social movement organizing arose among the country’s poor, including women’s groups. Gendered Paradoxes focuses on women’s participation in the political and economic restructuring process of the past twenty-five years, showing how in their daily struggle for survival Ecuadorian women have both reinforced and embraced the neoliberal model yet also challenged its exclusionary nature. Drawing on her extensive ethnographic fieldwork and employing an approach combining political economy and cultural politics, Amy Lind charts the growth of several strands of women’s activism and identifies how they have helped redefine, often in contradictory ways, the real and imagined boundaries of neoliberal development discourse and practice. In her analysis of this ambivalent and “unfinished” cultural project of modernity in the Andes, she examines state policies and their effects on women of various social sectors; women’s community development initiatives and responses to the debt crisis; and the roles played by feminist “issue networks” in reshaping national and international policy agendas in Ecuador and in developing a transnationally influenced, locally based feminist movement.

This Very Short Introduction discusses the necessity of welfare states in modern capitalist societies. Situating social policy in an historical, sociological, and comparative perspective, David Garland brings a new understanding to familiar debates, policies, and institutions.

All over Europe post-Second World War large-scale housing estates face physical, economic, social and cultural problems. This book presents the key findings of a major EU-funded research programme into the restructuring of twenty-nine large-scale housing estates in Northern, Western, Southern and Eastern Europe. Policy and practice between and within the ten countries studied - UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Spain, and France - is compared. While existing literature focuses on the negative aspects of large-scale housing estates, this book starts from the premise that the estates can be transformed into attractive places to live and focuses on the possibilities of sustainability and renewal through social, physical and policy actions. Specifically, the book explains the origins and nature of contemporary problems on the estates; examines which policy objectives, measures and processes have had the greatest impact; assesses and compares a wide range of local, regional and national initiatives; discusses current ideas and philosophies, such as 'place making' and 'collaborative planning' that are likely to influence future policy and practice and provides good practice guidance for neighbourhood sustainability and renewal. Written by a multi-national team of experts and drawing on original fieldwork, the book provides unique comparative insights into the present and future position of large-scale housing estates in Europe. Restructuring large-scale housing estates in Europe is an invaluable resource for a wide audience of academics, researchers, students and policy makers in the fields of housing, urban studies, community studies, regeneration, planning and social policy.

Western Welfare in Decline explores the plight of poor single mothers in five English-speaking countries that have implemented welfare restructuring: the United States, Canada, Britain, and New Zealand.