Jef Van Langendonck (ed.), The right to social security, Social Europe Series, vol. 12, Antwerpen-Oxford: Intersentia, 2007

No abstract (available).

European social citizenship and the privatisation of welfare state

Το άρθρο αποπειράται να διαγράψει τις πρόσφατες τάσεις που εκδηλώνονται για την ιδιωτικοποίηση των συστημάτων κοινωνικής ασφάλισης στην Ευρώπη και ακολούθως επιχειρεί την κριτική αποτίμησή τους. Αρχές της οικονομίας της αγοράς, όπως η ανταγωνιστικότητα και η μεγιστοποίηση της αποδοτικότητας, αποκτούν όλο και μεγαλύτερη σημασία, ανταγωνιζόμενες τις αρχές που παραδοσιακά συνδέονταν με την κοινωνική πολιτική, όπως ισότητα, αλληλεγγύη και κοινωνική δικαιοσύνη. Ωστόσο, ο δημόσιος και ο ιδιωτικός τομέας δεν παρουσιάζουν λειτουργική αντιστοιχία. Υπάρχουν ρόλοι, όπως η αναδιανομή, που μόνον το κράτος μπορεί να εκπληρώσει. Εκτός αυτού, αξίες όπως η ιδιότητα του πολίτη κατά τον ορισμό του Μάρσαλ δεν μεταφέρονται εύκολα στο ιδιωτικό πεδίο.The paper tries to outline the recent trends of privatization of public pension schemes in Europe and then to proceed to a critical appraisal of them. Market principles, such as competitiveness and the maximisation of cost efficiency, are becoming more prominent across Europe, contradicting those principles that have traditionally associated with social policy, like equity, solidarity, social justice. However, private and public sectors are not functionally equivalent. There are some roles, as, for instance, redistribution, that only the State can fulfil. Besides that, public values, such as citizenship, in the Marshallean sense, are not easily transferable in privatized environmen

Τhe South European welfare states at the dawn of the new Millennium: identity and problems

Το παρόν άρθρο εξετάζει τα ιδιαίτερα γνωρίσματατης «νοτιο-ευρωπαϊκής» απόκλισης υπό το πρίσματων κλασικών κατηγοριοποιήσεων των κρατών πρό-νοιας. Στο πλαίσιο αυτό, επανεξετάζεται το επιχείρη-μα των Katrougalos & Lazaridis (2003) λαμβάνονταςυπόψη μεταγενέστερες θέσεις και τα πρόσφαταδεδομένα. Ακολούθως παρουσιάζονται τα βασικάγνωρίσματα των κρατών της νότιας Ευρώπης. Υπο-στηρίζεται ότι το σύνολο των κρατών αυτών χαρα-κτηρίζεται από τα βασικά χαρακτηριστικά του «κρα-τικού-κορπορατιστικού» προνοιακού μοντέλου. Τηνίδια στιγμή εμφανής είναι η ύπαρξη σημαντικώνδιαφορών μεταξύ τους σε σημείο που κάποια απότα κράτη αυτά να εμφανίζουν περισσότερα κοινάχαρακτηριστικά με τη Γαλλία παρά με τα λοιπά μέλητου νοτιο-ευρωπαϊκού μοντέλου. Η ύπαρξη των δι-αφορών αυτών ανάγεται στις διαφορετικές ιστορικέςπαραδόσεις και ειδικότερα στο διαφορετικό ειδικόβάρος των πελατειακών σχέσεων.The present paper examines the identity ofthe “South European” deviation againstclassical typologies. Against this background,the argument presented some yearsearlier by Katrougalos and Lazaridis (2003)is revisited, bearing in mind later contributionsin the field as well as recent data.The article then proceeds by presenting themain traits of Southern European states, arguingthat they all share the basic characteristicsof the “state-corporatist” welfaremodel. Nonetheless, important differencescan be discerned among them, while someseem to share more common features withFrance than with the other members of theSouthern cluster. These differences are inturn attributed to their historic traditions,and in particular the dissimilar weight ofpatronage and clientelism

Τhe South European welfare states at the dawn of the new Millennium: identity and problems

Το παρόν άρθρο εξετάζει τα ιδιαίτερα γνωρίσματατης «νοτιο-ευρωπαϊκής» απόκλισης υπό το πρίσματων κλασικών κατηγοριοποιήσεων των κρατών πρό-νοιας. Στο πλαίσιο αυτό, επανεξετάζεται το επιχείρη-μα των Katrougalos & Lazaridis (2003) λαμβάνονταςυπόψη μεταγενέστερες θέσεις και τα πρόσφαταδεδομένα. Ακολούθως παρουσιάζονται τα βασικάγνωρίσματα των κρατών της νότιας Ευρώπης. Υπο-στηρίζεται ότι το σύνολο των κρατών αυτών χαρα-κτηρίζεται από τα βασικά χαρακτηριστικά του «κρα-τικού-κορπορατιστικού» προνοιακού μοντέλου. Τηνίδια στιγμή εμφανής είναι η ύπαρξη σημαντικώνδιαφορών μεταξύ τους σε σημείο που κάποια απότα κράτη αυτά να εμφανίζουν περισσότερα κοινάχαρακτηριστικά με τη Γαλλία παρά με τα λοιπά μέλητου νοτιο-ευρωπαϊκού μοντέλου. Η ύπαρξη των δι-αφορών αυτών ανάγεται στις διαφορετικές ιστορικέςπαραδόσεις και ειδικότερα στο διαφορετικό ειδικόβάρος των πελατειακών σχέσεων.The present paper examines the identity ofthe “South European” deviation againstclassical typologies. Against this background,the argument presented some yearsearlier by Katrougalos and Lazaridis (2003)is revisited, bearing in mind later contributionsin the field as well as recent data.The article then proceeds by presenting themain traits of Southern European states, arguingthat they all share the basic characteristicsof the “state-corporatist” welfaremodel. Nonetheless, important differencescan be discerned among them, while someseem to share more common features withFrance than with the other members of theSouthern cluster. These differences are inturn attributed to their historic traditions,and in particular the dissimilar weight ofpatronage and clientelism

12 - The Present Limits and Future Potential of European Social Constitutionalism

The future of economic and social rights is unlikely to resemble its past. Neglected within the human rights movement, avoided by courts, and subsumed within a single-minded conception of development as economic growth, economic and social rights enjoyed an uncertain status in international human rights law and in the public laws of most countries. However, today, under conditions of immense poverty, insecurity, and political instability, the rights to education, health care, housing, social security, food, water, and sanitation are central components of the human rights agenda. The Future of Economic and Social Rights captures the significant transformations occurring in the theory and practice of economic and social rights, in constitutional and human rights law. Professor Katharine G. Young brings together a group of distinguished scholars from diverse disciplines to examine and advance the broad research field of economic and social rights that incorporates legal, political science, economic, philosophy and anthropology scholars

Unemployment insurance reform – 1991–2006 : a new balance between rights and obligations in France, Germany, Portugal and Spain

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, focusing on unemployment insurance schemes, the article seeks to identify the development of social rights and obligations in four countries (France, Germany, Portugal and Spain), representative of the conservative regime, over the period 1991–2006. Second, the article aims to verify whether or not there was a common reform trajectory in time as well as in space, given the already known divergence over the appropriateness of classifying Mediterranean countries within the framework of a specific regime. Based on analysis of 25 legislative changes concerning entitlement and eligibility criteria, the study presents three major findings. First, the four insurance schemes reveal a new balance between (weaker) social rights and (stronger) obligations, which may indicate a trend toward a re-commodification of work. Second, Portugal adopted a specific trajectory while the Spanish reform process more closely resembled that carried out by France and Germany. Finally, two waves of reform may be identified: first, between 1991 and 1997 and justified by cost-containment concerns and, subsequently, from 2001 onwards, associated with a stronger recalibration of benefit rights

The south European welfare model: The Greek welfare state, in search of an identity

The aim of this article is not to describe in detail the social protection system in Greece or in the other southern European countries. Its main ambition is to offer a general overview of its formation and an explanation for its particularities. The basic thesis is that essentially the Greek Welfare State belongs to the continental model. Its consolidation is very recent, because the post-civil war 'dual society' (1946-74) did not allow the formation of a viable social consensus, a necessary prerequisite for the welfare state. There are, consequently, important distortions in the development of the social security system. Although many of these institutional particularities are common in the Mediterranean South, they are not qualitatively sufficient so as to create a new institutional paradigm or a 'South-European' Welfare model. In the first section an attempt is made to clarify the problem of the existence of a 'Latin-rim' welfare model and the classification of the Greek social protection system within it, in order subsequently to examine its specific characteristics in relation to the turbulent history of this country. The conclusion of the author is that although there is a clear trend in the direction of convergence of the Greek welfare system with the median European standards, Greece still has a considerable lag to overcome