Activating the Unemployed — Directions and Divisions in Europe

Abstract

One of the continuously disputed issues of research on welfare state reform is the question of convergence or divergence. Despite much reform in the direction of an activating kind of unemployment policy, for example, differences between these unemployment policies remain. These differences are often attributed to different types of welfare regimes. This article departs from the assumption that policy changes have brought about changes in diversity. It proposes a two-dimensional model of activation, putting forward a new type of ‘coercive welfare’ in addition to the distinction between generous and strict activation. The study compares policy development in three European countries, Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, and applies a fuzzy-set methodology (Ragin 2000). The findings show that by re-conceptualising indicators commonly used in research on activation policies, a puzzle of opposite reform directions emerges.