Dismantling Social Europe

The notion of the European Social Model (ESM) has been one of the fastest growing in European political and academic discourse in recent years. It is conventionally used to describe the European experience of simultaneously promoting sustainable economic growth and social cohesion. However, the concept has suffered from a lack of clear definition. And where definitions have been found in the literature, they do not necessarily converge. This book presents the outcome of a project coordinated by the European Trade Union Institute in which experts from different countries and social scientific disciplines (sociology, political science and economics) were invited to reflect on both the meaning and political status of the concept of the ESM. In addition to analysing the ambiguities and multiple meanings attributed to the concept, the authors unpick the underlying assumptions and make use of a new approach - the ESM as political project - with which European countries can build consensus and share a common understanding. Offering a new analytical framework and with new empirical evidence, Unwrapping the European Social Model is essential reading for all those involved in European social policy research, education, policy and practice.

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive and systematic assessment of the impact of the crisis and austerity policies on all elements of the European Social Model. This book assesses the situation in each individual EU member state on the basi

Why is neoliberalism winning out as a social policy in the European Union? This title demonstrates how, despite the commitment to 'Social Europe' that has been entrenched in the EU treaty framework since the late 1990s, neoliberal actors have successfully reframed the policy debates and affected the welfare policies adopted by the member states.

The current crisis in Europe is being labelled, in mainstream media and politics, as a ‘public debt crisis’. The present book draws a markedly different picture. What is happening now is rooted, in a variety of different ways, in the destabilisation of national models of capitalism due to the predominance of neoliberalism since the demise of the post-war ‘golden age’. Ten country analyses provide insights into national ways of coping – or failing to cope – with the ongoing crisis. They reveal the extent to which the respective socio-economic development models are unsustainable, either for the country in question, or for other countries. The bottom-line of the book is twofold. First, there will be no European reform agenda at all unless each country does its own homework. Second, and equally urgent, is a new European reform agenda without which alternative approaches in individual countries will inevitably be suffocated. This message, delivered by the country chapters, is underscored by more general chapters on the prospects of trade union policy in Europe and on current austerity policies and how they interact with the new approaches to economic governance at the EU level. These insights are aimed at providing a better understanding across borders at a time when European rhetoric is being used as a smokescreen for national egoism.

This book examines the European Left's attempt to think and give shape to an alternative type of European integration-a 'social Europe'-during the long 1970s. Based on fresh archival material, it shows that the western European Left-in particular social democratic parties, trade unions, and to a lesser extent 'Eurocommunist' parties-formulated a project to turn 'capitalist Europe' into a 'workers' Europe'. This project favoured coordinated measures for wealth redistribution, market regulation, a democratisation of the economy and of European institutions, upward harmonisation of social and fiscal systems, more inclusive welfare regimes, guaranteed employment, economic and social planning with greater consideration for the environment, increased public spending to meet collective needs, greater control of capital flows and multinational corporations, a reduction in working time, and a fairer international economic order favouring the global south. During the pivotal years following 1968, deeply marked by labour militancy, new social movements, economic crisis, and the unmaking of the 'postwar compromise', a window of opportunity opened in which European integration could have taken different roads. The defeat of 'social Europe' was a result of a decade-long social conflict which ended with the affirmation of a neoliberal Europe. Investigating this forgotten struggle and the reasons of its defeat can be useful not just to scholars and students eager to understand the historical evolution of European integration, the European Left, and European capitalism, but also to anyone interested in building alternative European and global futures.

In a context of economic and budgetary crisis, this book presents a long-term analysis of the transformations of EU gender equality. It analyses the mechanisms of construction, consolidation and deconstruction of this policy and questions the effects of its current dismantling.

Dismantling does not even merit a mention in most public policy textbooks.