Research Area SPA - Social Policy Analysis: Social Structures & Integration

European Social Policy has till now tended to develop through ‘negative’ incentives, i.e. by way of accommodating to the implications of the internal common market (in particular the free mobility of persons and services) and in reaction to the crisis of the (national) welfare state. Nation states and socio-economic interest groups organised nationally have thus slowly albeit steadily ceased being the major or sole agenda-setters in social policy. Increasingly however – and this will comprise the major challenge of the 21st century – the demands rise for articulating a coherent European Social Policy which, among others, takes a stance on the role of the state as regulator, specifically, the extent to which the latter will continue to ‘correct’ for inequality arising out of the operation of the free market. The European Social Policy to-be will have to consider the role of the civil society in this process of integration as well as the changing face of ‘inequality’ as new risk groups emerge, not least among the working population.

Social policy research at the ICCR contributes to this new agenda of European Social Policy. It focuses on the role of social structures, actors and institutions and how they influence policy-making in Member States, the accession countries and the European Union; and explores the emerging ‘meaning’ of European citizenship in the framework of economic and political integration.