This book explores developments in the social legitimacy of present-day European welfare states since the banking crisis of 2008. It analyses how the welfare attitudes of Europeans have been influenced by economic recession and consequent welfare reforms, as well as reactions to on-going debates around welfare. Utilising cross-national perspectives, the book analyses the differences and similarities in welfare attitudes of Europeans between 2008 and 2016. It highlights popular welfare attitudes towards different groups of society, including migrants, the elderly and unemployed, exploring if and why specific practices and policies would meet popular resistance or approval. Social policy and sociology scholars will find this book helpful, as the cross-national analysis provides new insights into the contextual drivers of welfare attitudes. It will also be useful to policy-makers and practitioners working in Europe offering analysis of welfare preferences, evaluations and perceptions. Contributors include: H. Chung, L. de Blok, S. Delespaul, B. Ebbinghaus, M.A. Eger, H. Ervasti, J. Gale, D. Gugushvili, A. Haugsgjerd, S. Kumlin, T. Laenen, C.A. Larsen, B. Meuleman, J. Mewes, E. Naumann, E. Politi, F. Roosma, C. Staerkle, W. van Oorschot

Presenting a stimulating contribution to the quickly advancing field of welfare attitudes research, this important book develops the understanding of welfare legitimacy. It does so by assessing the nature of popular judgments about welfare deservingness, as well as the roots and consequences of these attitudes, offering a state-of-the-art picture of the latest theoretical, conceptual and methodological developments. The Social Legitimacy of Targeted Welfare provides a multidisciplinary view on deservingness attitudes, with contributions from sociology, political science, media studies and social psychology. It advocates a multi-actor perspective, looking not only at citizens' attitudes, but also at attitudes of social administrators and policy-makers. The chapters also present new research methods in the field, including discrete choice experiments, factorial surveys, focus groups, and media content analysis. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in sociology, political science, and the fields of social psychology, philosophy, economics and history. It will help practitioners and policymakers in social policy, social work and healthcare understand popular perceptions and beliefs regarding just distributions of welfare. Contributors include: H. Blomberg, A. Bos, C. Buss, R. de Vries, M. De Wilde, B. Ebbinghaus, S. Evers, A. Fladmoe, B.B. Geiger, M. Hiligsmann, M. Jeene, J. Kallio, O. Kangas, A. Kootstra, C. Kroll, S. Kumlin, T. Laenen, D. Lepianka, B. Meuleman, E. Naumann, M. Niemela, A. Paulus, J. Ragusa, T. Reeskens, F. Roosma, M. Sadin, K. Steen-Johnson, W. Uunk, M. van der Aa, T. van der Meer, B. van Doorn, W. van Oorschot, D. Wollebaek

Culture and Welfare State provides comparative studies on the interplay between cultural factors and welfare policies. Starting with an analysis of the historical and cultural foundations of Western European welfare states, reflected in the competing ideologies of liberalism, conservatism and socialism, the book goes on to compare the Western European welfare model to those in North America, Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. Comprehensive and engaging, this volume examines not only the relationships between cultural change and welfare restructuring, taking empirical evidence from policy reforms in contemporary Europe, but also the popular legitimacy of welfare, focusing particularly on the underlying values, beliefs and attitudes of people in European countries. This book will be of great interest to sociologists and political scientists, as well as social policy experts interested in a cultural perspective on the welfare state.

It is often argued that European welfare states, with regulated labour markets, relatively generous social protection and relatively high wage equality, have become counter-productive in a globalised and knowledge-intensive economy. Using in-depth, comparative and interdisciplinary analysis of employment, welfare and citizenship in a number of European countries, this book challenges this view. It provides: an overview of employment and unemployment in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century; a comprehensive critique of the idea of globalisation as a challenge to European welfare states; detailed country chapters with new and previously inaccessible information about employment and unemployment policies written by national experts. Europe's new state of welfare is essential reading for students and teachers of social policy, welfare studies, politics and economics.

Originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Social Security, issue 4, Volume 2, this book aims to review and discuss the disability policies that have developed in six Western countries in recent years. What have been the major changes? Have the disability policies of these countries become more similar in the course of the 1990s? If so, is is possible to identify a closer relationship between the emerging EU Disability Strategy and national policy developments in this area? The countries discussed - Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain - are all represented in an academic network on vocational rehabilitation of disabled people that seeks to understand and compare policy developments in the field. All articules include detailed information on recent changes in disability policies in the respective countries.

'Invisible social security' is a term coined by Jos Berghman in his early work to draw attention to those aspects of social security that easily tend to be neglected in an instrumental perspective that conceives of social security merely as a particular set of instruments that national welfare states deploy to guarantee basic living standards to their citizens. Among others, Berghman emphasised that social security should rather be conceptualised in a situational sense, that is, as a state of being in which citizens feel confident about themselves and about their future lives. This book, Invisible Social Security Revisited, is a collection of essays published at the occasion of the retirement of Jos Berghman as Professor of Social Policy at KU Leuven - University of Leuven. Taking the notion of 'invisible social security' as a point of reference, nearly thirty years after it was coined, the authors address a series of contemporary issues in social security research and policy-making. One can read about social protection in the past and in the future, about prevention and activation, about European and local policies, about poverty and social exclusion, about feelings of insecurity and failing protection of informal workers, about social values in relation to social policies, and so on. The wide range of issues that are thus covered goes to show that over the years the concept of 'invisible social security' has retained its academic appeal, as well as its significance for the conceptual and empirical understanding of social security policies and realities. Taken together, the essays provide the reader with up-to-date and innovative ideas and information on important questions regarding the social protection of citizens. This Liber Amicorum for Jos Berghman is published at the occasion of his retirement as Professor of Social Policy at the Centre for Sociological Research of the KU Leuven - University of Leuven, 1 October 2014.