Struggling For A Social Europe

In the field of anti-poverty policies, the interplay between the Europe 2020 overarching strategy and the 'Semester' have marked major discontinuity vis-à-vis the Open Method of Coordination for social protection and social inclusion (Social OMC) of the Lisbon phase. This book therefore asks whether and how Europe matters in the fight against poverty and social exclusion by assessing the emergence and possible institutionalisation of a European multi-level, multi-stakeholder and integrated policy arena in the new institutional framework. Supranational developments, multi-level interactions, as well as the strategy effects at the national level are analysed in six European countries - Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, UK and Sweden - with the aim to identify the key factors affecting the implementation of the Europe 2020 anti-poverty strategy. This book will be of key interest to students, scholars and practitioners in social policy, political science and European governance, and more broadly to European Union politics, European integrations studies, sociology and economics.

Protests at summit meetings have inspired intense debate over the nature and significance of the 'anti-globalization' or 'anti-capitalist’ movement. However, the European dimension of this movement is still largely unknown. In this insightful book Andy Mathers addresses this deficit by focusing on events that have marked the birth of a European social movement. He relates the development of the movement to key matters such as economic, employment and welfare state restructuring along neoliberal lines. He also challenges ideas about the nature of contemporary collective action and the character of present day social movements. Mathers discusses the significance of the movement and its future development through a critical engagement with the work of major writers in European sociology and of academics influential in the wider global movement such as Pierre Bourdieu. A postscript brings readers fully up-to-date with developments in the type of 'social Europe' propagated by the institutions of the EU as well as in the maturation of a social movement to oppose it.

As the European Union continues to struggle to establish a common agenda on tackling social problems, this compelling book presents a set of comparative sociological studies in southern European countries from leading scholars working in the region. It widens the debate by looking at the specific social problems of southern Europe and highlights the shared trends and critical regional disparities that may improve our understanding of Mediterranean welfare states.

Available in paperback for the first time, Welfare Policy from Below is the most comprehensive study available of social exclusion in contemporary Europe. Invigorating and informative, the book puts forward a new form of 'social exclusion knowledge', based on an innovative conceptual and theoretical framework and a comparative empirical study of eight European cities. The case studies - encompassing research in Germany, Austria, the UK, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain - focus on a range of problems associated with exclusion. Issues such as poverty, housing, work, migration, gender equality and the family are considered in the context of different European welfare regimes, providing insights into the experiences of ordinary people facing exclusionary challenges. The distinguished contributors argue that social security and welfare must provide the infrastructure for the coping strategies of those at risk of exclusion. Featuring a substantive new preface which includes contemporary discussions in European welfare policy, Welfare Policy from Below will be invaluable to policy-makers as well as academic researchers.

Based on 250 life-story interviews in seven European Union countries, Biography and social exclusion in Europe:analyses personal struggles against social exclusion to illuminate local milieus and changing welfare regimes and contexts;points to challenging new agendas for European politics and welfare, beyond the rhetoric of communitarianism and the New Deal;vividly illustrates the lived experience and environmental complexity working for and against structural processes of social exclusion;refashions the interpretive tradition as a teaching and research tool linking macro and micro realities.·[vbTab]·[vbTab]·[vbTab]Students, academic teachers and professional trainers, practitioners, politicians, policy makers and researchers in applied and comparative welfare fields will all benefit from reading this book.

The sixteenth edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play has a triple ambition. First, it provides easily accessible information to a wide audience about recent developments in both EU and domestic social policymaking. Second, the volume provides a more analytical reading, embedding the key developments of the year 2014 in the most recent academic discourses. Third, the forward-looking perspective of the book aims to provide stakeholders and policymakers with specific tools that allow them to discern new opportunities to influence policymaking. In this 2015 edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play, the authors tackle the topics of the state of EU politics after the parliamentary elections, the socialisation of the European Semester, methods of political protest, the Juncker investment plan, the EU’s contradictory education investment, the EU’s contested influence on national healthcare reforms, and the neoliberal Trojan Horse of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Mapping the class divisions that run throughout Europe Over the last ten years - especially with the 'no' votes in the French and Dutch referendums in 2010, and the victory for Brexit in 2016 - the issue of Europe has been placed at the centre of major political conflicts. Each of these crises has revealed profound splits in society, which are represented in terms of an opposition between those countries on the losing and those on the winning sides of globalisation. Inequalities beyond those between nations are critically absent from the debate. Based on major European statistical surveys, the new research in this work presents a map of social classes inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's sociology. It reveals the common features of the working class, the intermediate class and the privileged class in Europe. National features combine with social inequalities, through an account of the social distance between specific groups in nations in the North and in the countries of the South and East of Europe. The book ends with a reflection on the conditions that would be required for the emergence of a Europe-wide social movement.

This book offers a detailed analysis of the efforts made to reduce poverty and social exclusion in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece.