Combating Poverty in Europe. Active Inclusion in a Multi-Level and Multi-Actor Context

Discovering methods to combat poverty and social exclusion has now become a major political challenge in Europe. Combating Poverty in Europe offers an original and timely analysis of how this challenge is met by actors at European, national and subnational levels.

Building on a European study comparing Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, this book provides new insights into the processes and mechanisms that promote or hinder interaction between the increasingly multi-layered European system for responding to poverty and social exclusion in EU member states. The contributors present systematic and comparative analyses of social policy design, institutional frameworks and delivery practices from a multilevel governance perspective.

Original and diverse, this book will appeal to researchers and scholars in comparative social policy, as well as policy officials in the EU, national government and anti-poverty NGOs.

Contents:

PART I BACKGROUND
1. Introduction: How to Achieve Active Inclusion in a Multi-layered Political Context?
Rune Halvorsen and Bjørn Hvinden

2. Who is Poor? Linking Perceptions of Poor People and Political Responses to Poverty
Bjørn Hvinden and Rune Halvorsen

3. Poverty and Social Exclusion as Challenge for Active Inclusion – The Spatial Dimension
Elisabeth Ugreninov and Dorethee Spanagel

4. Poverty and Social Inclusion as Emerging Policy Arenas in the EU
Maurizio Ferrera and Matteo Jessoula

PART II A MULTI-LEVEL SYSTEM AS SEEN FROM THE NATIONAL ANGLE
5. Institutional Arrangements and Policy Coordination in National Anti-poverty Regimes
Daniel Clegg

6. Have Governments Designed Provisions for Lone Mothers, Long-term Unemployed and Working Poor to be Multi-dimensional and Integrated?
Anna Angelin, Hayley Bennett and Marianna Zielenska

7. Killing, Domesticating or Feeding the Snake: The Implementation of the Europe 2020 Anti-poverty Component at the National Level
Matteo Jessoula

PART III A MULTI-LEVEL SYSTEM AS SEEN FROM SUBNATIONAL ANGLES
8. Approaches, Actors and Models of Vertical Collaborative Governance Arrangements in Combating Poverty - Five European Cities Compared
Max Koch and Alexandru Panican

9. Mixing Multi-level and Network Governance: How do Local Actors Relate to the Policies, Steering Mechanisms and Resources of Higher-level Actors?
Håkan Johansson and Franca Maino

10. The Perspectives of Lone Mothers, Long-term Unemployed and Working Poor People on Provisions for Active Inclusion
Wieslawa Kozek and Julia Kubisa

PART IV CONCLUSION
11. An Emerging Multilevel System of Active Inclusion in Europe?
Bjørn Hvinden and Rune Halvorsen

Index