The National Governance of Integrated Social Cohesion Policy
Work Package Leader: CED
In WP02 the LOCALISE agenda is to analyse how different countries cope with the challenge of a multi-dimensional, multi-level and multi-stakeholder approach, which affects local approaches of an integrated social cohesion policy. We develop a typology of the varieties in the national governance of integrated social cohesion which will serve as an analytical frame of reference for subsequent work packages.
The Lisbon agenda and social OMC processes, by promoting inter-ministerial co-ordination (between Ministries of Labour, Social Affairs, Family, Education, Economy, Finance), multi-level co-operation and multi-stakeholder partnership have fostered an integrated approach on social cohesion. Particularly the EES is supposed to create possibilities for an integrated and multi-dimensional policy approach (Lindsay et al. 2008 :716) producing ‘better and cheaper’ employment services (Bredgaard and Larsen 2007). However, new tensions, for example between competition and coordination (Lindsay and McQuaid 2008, Green and Orton 2009), and between efficiency and social cohesion (Bredgaard and Larsen 2007) have first of all to be settled on the national level.
• First, WP 2 addresses how the different organisational arenas (job placement, unemployment benefits, education and training, family and child care policies, debt counselling …), the different political levels (national, regional, local) and different actors (public, private and third sector) are regulated at the national level and how
new institutional and organisational solutions for coordination problems inherent in integrated social cohesion policy are developed. Consequently, WP02’s intrinsic objective is to explain the different national reform paths in the six countries involved in the project, representing distinct combinations of these patterns of coordination,
cooperation and partnership in the field of integrated employment and social policies at the local level.
• Secondly, this WP delivers an analytical framework for the institutional context of local policies in governing integrated social cohesion policy, which will serve as an analytical background for subsequent WPs.
Please find here the National Reports on the Governance of Social Cohesion:
Please find here the Comparative Report on the National Governance of Integrated Social Cohesion Policies.