Local Policies and the European Social Fund

Abstract

In the context of an ‘activation turn’ in many European welfare states, the local level gained increasing relevance in the last decades and brought local social policies and national employment policies more closely together. At the same time, at the European level the European Social Fund (ESF) made a career from an unconditional simple financing instrument towards a complex governance tool; meant to back up European social and employment policies in close combination with tools such as reporting or benchmarking. Greater coordination of domestic policies in social and employment policies, where the EU had no regulative competences, was sought to be achieved via ‘bypass strategies’ which directly focused on the subnational implementation systems of the member states. Against the backdrop of these scenarios, the book is interested in the actual role of the ESF in local activation policies. It wants to know how local social and employment policy fields react to the ESF, what shapes their reactions, and what the effects of these reactions are in terms of change in local policy fields. By drawing on both sociologists’ and political scientists’ literature, the book develops a unique perspective on the role of supranational money at the local level. By comparing comprehensive qualitative data from 18 local case studies in six European countries (Sweden, France, Poland, UK, Italy, and Germany) and deploying an innovative mixed-method approach, the book provides rich insights into a field where so far comparative qualitative research is missing.