Full Description
At a time when the future of the welfare state is the object of heated debate in many European countries, this edited collection explores the relationship between this institution and social rights. Structured around the themes of the politics of social rights, questions of equality and social exclusion/inclusion, and the increasing impact of market imperatives on social policy, the book explores the effect of transformations in the welfare state upon social rights and their underlying rationalities and logics. Written by a group of international scholars, many of the essays discuss a number of urgent and topical issues within social policy, including: the social rights of asylum seekers; the increasing marketization and consumerization of public welfare services; the care of the elderly; and the obligation to work as a condition of access to welfare benefits. International in its scope, and interdisciplinary in its approach, this collection of essays will appeal to scholars and students working in the fields of law and socio-legal studies, sociology, social policy, and politics. It will also be of interest to policy makers and all those engaged in the debate over the future of the welfare state and social rights.
Contents
Introduction
Part I: The Politics of Social Rights
1. Nordic Welfare States and the Short History of Social Rights Discourse, Toomas Kotkas
2. From Rules to Principles: The Shift towards Individual Social Rights, Malcolm Langford
3. Unemployment and the Obligatory Dimension of Social Rights, Kenneth Veitch
Part II: Social Rights, Equalities, and Inclusions
4. Social Rights and Equality: From Universal Formalism to Individualized Conditionality, Maija Aalto-Heinilä
5. New Social Risks and New Social Rights in the French Welfare System, Philippe Martin
6. Asylum seekers, social rights and the rise of new nationalism: From an inclusive to exclusive British welfare state?, Katie Bales
Part III: Social Rights and the Market
7. From Social Rights to Economic Incentives? The Moral (Re)construction of Welfare Capitalism, Sabine Frerichs
8. Social Rights and User Charges: Resistance or Subsumption?, Amir Paz-Fuchs
9. European integration and the transformation of the 'social' state: from symbiosis to dominance, Fernando Losada Fraga
