This paper addresses four persistent legal and philosophical issues that imbue workfare, albeit usually not explicitly. First, forced labour is relatively common charge against workfare. If workfare is tantamount to forced labour, it cannot be justified, legally or morally. But to what extent do...

This paper compares sanctioning policies of 22 different EU member states to the national social policies and national social protection schemes. The comparison focuses on sanctions imposed on recipients of social assistance who do not comply with work-related obligations. For this purpose, this...

Since the rise of the activation paradigm in the 1990s, the duty to work without a wage has become widespread in European social assistance legislation. This paper investigates in a precise way the extent to which the duty to work without a wage follows the legal logic of a contractual...