Active aging policy in Europe: Between path dependency and path departure

Abstract

Active aging, that is the idea that policy encourage and enable people to participate actively in social, political and economic life, is a political backwater in Europe. Since demographic aging affects may different policy domains in different ways, the institutional landscapes in which aging and active aging policy takes place are fragmented. This means that two distinct and countervailing institutional settings shape active aging policy agendas. The first institutional setting, national welfare states, concentrates social policy-making at the national level by emphasizing institutional path dependency. Conversely, the other institutional context, which consists of service-oriented policy communities at sub-national level, emphasizes differences between policy domains across national borders. While the former institutional dynamic precludes all but the most general role for European institutions in active aging policy, the second institutional setting would allow for considerable European policy coordination and cooperation. The paper shows how these opposing institutional landscapes shape active aging agendas in Europe as well as points to the opportunities and dangers that emerge from this interaction.