This volume provides an up-to-date overview of activation strategies in unemployment benefit systems and social assistance in selected European countries and the United States. A particular focus lies on the development of activation schemes, governance and implementation as well as on the outcomes of activation in terms of labor market and social integration. The volume is the first to address these issues both from a socio-economic and a legal perspective.

This insightful book presents a detailed analysis of the activation policies utilized by governments across Europe and the US. Editors Henning J¿rgensen and Michaela Schulze bring together a wealth of experts to collate key developments and understandings in global activation policies, acknowledging the different ways in which countries and governments attempt to combat unemployment and the importance of subnational governance capabilities.

This book analyzes in what way activation policies impact on given patterns of social citizenship that predominate in national contexts. It argues that the liberal paradigm of activation introduced into labour market policies in all Western European states challenges the specific patterns of social citizenship in each country.

Using panel data for 15 industrial countries, active labor market policies (ALMPs) are shown to have raised employment rates in the business sector in the 1990s, after controlling for many institutions, country-specific effects, and economic variables. Among such policies, direct subsidies to job creation were the most effective. ALMPs also affected employment rates by reducing real wages below levels allowed by technological growth, changes in the unemployment rate, and institutional and other economic factors. However, part of this wage moderation may be linked to a composition effect because policies were targeted to low-paid individuals. Whether ALMPs are cost-effective from a budgetary perspective remains to be determined, but they are certainly not substitutes for comprehensive institutional reforms.

This book aims at explaining the variance in legal status, working conditions, social protection and collective representation of self-employed professionals across Europe. Despite considerable diversity, the authors observe three strategic models of mobilisation: the provision of services; advocacy, lobbying and the political role; and the extension of collective bargaining. They highlight the new urgent challenges that have emerged including the implementation of universal social protection schemes, active labour market policies likely to support sustainable self-employment, and the renewal of social dialogue through bottom-up organisations to extend the collective representation of project-based professionals.

This book addresses the development of increasingly individualised public social services in the EU. It focuses particularly on activation services that have become crucial in the 'modernisation' of welfare states, comparing their introduction in the UK, Germany, Italy, Finland and the Czech Republic.