Implementing Social Europe in Times of Crises : Re-Established Boundaries of Welfare?

This volume examines the state of Social Europe as it manifests itself when European Union (EU) principles and policies have to be implemented in the member states while the EU legitimacy crisis and Great Recession prevail. The volume explores diverse processes, stages and subjects of implementation in a variety of social policies to carve out how different institutional dynamics and actor behaviours are at play. The individual contributions thus takes us from examining the transposition of the patients’ rights directive to, the Europeanizisation of pension reforms, the role of national parliaments in transposing social Europe, judicial Europeanizisation and the multi-level enforcement of EU decisions. Theoretically, the volume highlights that as we move down the implementation ladder, implementation is often conditioned by domestic politics or comes as a "random walk" due to organisational and cognitive constraints. Empirically, the volume has three main findings. First, the constitutive components of the EU tend to have a contradictory impact on the EU’s social policies and the national welfare systems in times of crises. Second, crises impact the implementation of social Europe, at times leading to a modification of fundamental principles and content, but not across the board. Third, differentiated Europeanisation comes as a result