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Social Investment Policies in the EU: Actively Concrete or Passively Abstract?
[journal article]
Abstract Against the historical-conceptual background of EU social policy and evolutionary governance, this article analyses the approach with which the EU propagates social investment policies. Social investment, understood as an active rather than passive way of social protection, has become a salient inst... view more
Against the historical-conceptual background of EU social policy and evolutionary governance, this article analyses the approach with which the EU propagates social investment policies. Social investment, understood as an active rather than passive way of social protection, has become a salient instrument for reinvigorating the EU's social dimension, especially in the aftermath of the sovereign debt crisis. By means of a large-scale document analysis, we develop four EU social investment propagation approaches (reference, objective, tool, and action) according to how active (passive) and concrete (abstract) the EU's intervention in social investment is. The results show that the EU mainly propagates social investment with an active approach, i.e., policy recommendations targeted at national governments. In terms of substance, the EU's treatment of social investment is based on labour activation policies backed by skills development and job search support policies, which is consistent with the main purpose of social investment.... view less
Keywords
EU; social policy; social investment; governance; activating labor market policy
Classification
European Politics
Social Policy
Free Keywords
co-evolutionary governance; labour market activation
Document language
English
Publication Year
2021
Page/Pages
p. 403-414
Journal
Politics and Governance, 9 (2021) 2
Issue topic
Steering in Governance: Evolutionary Perspectives
ISSN
2183-2463
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed