Juridification refers to a diverse set of processes involving shifts towards more detailed legal regulation, regulations of new areas, and conflicts and problems increasingly being framed in legal and rights-oriented terms. What impact do these international and national regulations have upon vulnerable groups in terms of inclusion, exclusion and social citizenship? The nature and effects of current juridification processes are hotly debated amongst social scientists and legal scholars.Bringing empirical analysis and multidisciplinary, comparative perspectives to the previously fragmented and largely theoretical debate on juridification in the welfare state, this book asks key questions such as: To what extent do international human rights norms secure basic welfare services to vulnerable groups?; How do different regulations affect democratic participation?; What is the role of professionals in the distribution of welfare services? Researchers, students and academics with an interest in law, human rights, social policy and the role of professionals in the welfare state will find much of value in this book. Contributors: H.S. Aasen, S. Bothfeld, L. Brandt, B. Bringedal, S. Bygnes, K. Baeroe, C. Cappelen, T. Eidsvaag, K.J. Fredriksen, O. Ferraz, R. Gargarella, S. Gloppen, E. Le Bruyn Goldeng, A. Kjellevold, S. Kremer, I.R. Lundeberg, A.-M. Magnussen, K. Mjaland, O. Maestad, E. Nilssen, L. Rakner, P. Stephens, H. Stokke, W. van Rossum

This book considers the role of international organizations and their promotion of ideas and recommendations in social and health policy. It explores a wide range of organizations, scrutinizing their ideas-based content, their role as policy actors and their impact on national policy. What is the role of international organizations in the making of national social policy ideas and practices? What is the content of ideas advocated by international organizations? In examining these and other questions this book presents a range of international organizations dealing with social and health policies. The authors illustrate how welfare policy is shaped by the interplay between national and international policy-makers, focusing on the role of ideas rather than revisiting the more commonly discussed economic and technological issues associated with internationalization of welfare policy. They explore the content of ideas that international actors such as the EU and the OECD are promoting through recommendations and decrees concerning various systems of social policy. The possible effects of national and supranational welfare discourses on national welfare systems are also discussed. Dealing with both with the normative and cognitive dimensions of social and health policy discourses, this comprehensive book will prove invaluable to policy-makers as well practitioners within international organizations. It will also strongly appeal to scholars of international studies, public policy and social policy.