Policy Press The Moral Economy of Activation: Ideas, Politics and Policies (Research in Comparative and Global Social Policy)

Activation policies which promote and enforce labour market participation continue to proliferate in Europe and constitute the reform blueprint from centre-left to centre-right, as well as for most international organizations. Through an in-depth study of four major reforms in Denmark and France, this book maps how co-existing ideas are mobilised to justify, criticise and reach activation compromises and how their morality sediments into the instruments governing the unemployed. By rethinking the role of ideas and morality in policy changes, this book illustrates how the moral economy of activation leads to a permanent behaviourist testing of the unemployed in public debate as well as in local jobcentres. Review In this lucidly written and theoretically sophisticated book, Hansen offers an analysis of how welfare activation policy is framed, critiqued and justified in France and Denmark...Not only is it an excellent piece of empirical research in itself, this book presents an emergent theoretical approach which presents an important contribution and challenge to the existing literature." Critical Social Policy About the Author Magnus Paulsen Hansen is an assistant professor of political sociology at Roskilde University. He specializes in the role of ideas and evaluation in the legitimation of welfare state transformations.