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This book addresses the development of increasingly individualised public social services in the EU. It focuses particularly on activation services that have become crucial in the 'modernisation' of welfare states, comparing their introduction in the UK, Germany, Italy, Finland and the Czech Republic.

This book addresses the development of increasingly individualised public social services in the EU. It focuses particularly on activation services that have become crucial in the 'modernisation' of welfare states, comparing their introduction in the UK, Germany, Italy, Finland and the Czech Republic.

This book challenges the underlying presupposition that regular employment is the royal road to inclusion. Drawing on original empirical research, it investigates the inclusionary and exclusionary potentials of different types of work, including activation programmes.

This book challenges the underlying presupposition that regular employment is the royal road to inclusion. Drawing on original empirical research, it investigates the inclusionary and exclusionary potentials of different types of work, including activation programmes.

In the 1980s and 1990s subsidised work has developed into a highly differentiated system involving both reductions in labour costs and integrated employment programmes operating in the private as well as the public sector. With the 'activation' concept becoming the key reference in both social and employment policy in the 1990s, employment programmes are also more sensitive to (at least the formal) profile of the jobseekers. The Netherlands, notably, are characterised by a comprehensive workfare approach. Although Belgium more typically has a mixture of mutually competing programmes, there is an equal pressure on the unemployed to engage in at least one of the employment programs. A more flexible view of activation should, however, also imply more possibilities for individual choice. Not everybody should be expected to be ready for the routine of full-time regular work. There seems to be at least some indications that policy is beginning to recognise this: the Netherlands are offering a few possibilities for voluntary work, while in Belgium some programmes allow for a combination of guidance, training and work.

In European employment and social policy the dominant perception is that a paid job equals social inclusion and unemployment means social exclusion. In accordance with this way of thinking, unemployment policy has been restructured from paying the unemployed 'passive' social benefits to a policy that emphasises activating the unemployed in some sort of activation scheme. Participation in such a scheme is either considered as a substitute for a 'normal' job, giving the activated person the same degree of social inclusion as paid employment in a 'normal' job, or is supposed to provide the unemployed with better opportunities for finding a 'normal' job. The inclusionary potential of this workfare policy is discussed in this article that draws on some of the main findings from a European project on 'Inclusion through participation'.

In der Diskussion um Beschäftigungs- und Sozialpolitik in der EU wird vorwiegend von der Perspektive ausgegangen, daß bezahlte Arbeit soziale Eingliederung (Inklusion), Arbeitslosigkeit dagegen den sozialen Ausschluß (Exklusion) bedeute. Dementsprechend wurde die Politik in bezug auf Arbeitslose umstrukturiert, und zwar weg von der Gewährung 'passiver' Sozialleistungen hin zu einer Betonung auf die 'Aktivierung' der Arbeitslosen in bestimmten Aktivierungsprogrammen. Die Teilnahme an einem solchen Programm wird entweder als Ersatz für einen 'normalen' Job gesehen - d.h. sie soll dem Arbeitslosen einen ebenso hohen Grad an sozialer Eingliederung bieten wie bei bezahlter Arbeit in einem 'normalen' Job - oder sie soll dem Arbeitslosen bessere Chancen geben, eine 'normale' Arbeit zu finden. Das Eingliederungspotential einer solchen Workfare-Politik wird in diesem Artikel, der auf den Ergebnissen eines europäischen Projektes mit dem Titel 'Eingliederung durch Partizipation' basiert, besonders thematisiert. (Transfer / FUB)