IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/mpifgw/028.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The European Social Model: Coping with the challenges of diversity

Author

Listed:
  • Scharpf, Fritz W.

Abstract

European integration has created a constitutional asymmetry between policies promoting market efficiencies and policies promoting social protection and equality. National welfare states are legally and economically constrained by European rules of economic integration, liberalization, and competition law, whereas efforts to adopt European social policies are politically impeded by the diversity of national welfare states, differing not only in levels of economic development and hence in their ability to pay for social transfers and services but, even more significantly, in their normative aspirations and institutional structures. In response, the Open Method of Coordination is now applied being in the social-policy field. It leaves effective policy choices at the national level, but tries to improve these through promoting common objectives and common indicators and through comparative evaluations of national policy performance. These efforts are useful but cannot overcome the constitutional asymmetry. Hence there is reason to search for solutions which must have the character of European law in order to establish constitutional parity with the rules of European economic integration, but which also must be sufficiently differentiated to accommodate the existing diversity of national welfare regimes. The article discusses two such options, Closer Cooperation and a combination of differentiated framework directives with the Open Method of Coordination.

Suggested Citation

  • Scharpf, Fritz W., 2002. "The European Social Model: Coping with the challenges of diversity," MPIfG Working Paper 02/8, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgw:028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/44265/1/644399538.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fritz Scharpf, 2002. "Legitimate Diversity: the New Challenge of European Integration," Les Cahiers européens de Sciences Po 1, Centre d'études européennes (CEE) at Sciences Po, Paris.
    2. Wolfgang Streeck, 1997. "Citizenship Under Regime Competition: The Case of the ,,European Works Councils"," Jean Monnet Working Papers 9, Jean Monnet Chair.
    3. Tony Atkinson & Bea Cantillon & Eric Marlier & Brian Nolan, 2002. "Indicators for Social Inclusion," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 7-28.
    4. Streeck, Wolfgang, 1997. "Citizenship under regime competition: The case of the European Works Councils," MPIfG Working Paper 97/3, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    5. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005.
    6. Vandenbroucke, Frank, 2002. "The EU and social protection: What should the European Convention propose?," MPIfG Working Paper 02/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    7. Streeck, Wolfgang, 1997. "Citizenship Under Regime Competition: The Case of the European Works Councils"," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 1, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Scharpf, Fritz W., 1997. "Balancing positive and negative integration: The regulatory options for Europe," MPIfG Working Paper 97/8, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Werner, Benjamin, 2013. "Der Streit um das VW-Gesetz: Wie Europäische Kommission und Europäischer Gerichtshof die Unternehmenskontrolle liberalisieren," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 79, number 79.
    3. Deborah Hann, 2010. "The continuing tensions between European works councils and trade unions - a comparative study of the financial sector," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 16(4), pages 525-540, November.
    4. Treib, Oliver & Bähr, Holger & Falkner, Gerda, 2005. "Modes of Governance: A Note Towards Conceptual Clarification," European Governance Papers (EUROGOV) 2, CONNEX and EUROGOV networks.
    5. Scharpf, Fritz W., 1997. "Demokratische Politik in der internationalisierten Ökonomie," MPIfG Working Paper 97/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Laurens Cherchye & Wim Moesen & Tom Van Puyenbroeck, 2004. "Legitimately Diverse, yet Comparable: On Synthesizing Social Inclusion Performance in the EU," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(5), pages 919-955, December.
    7. Eric Marlier & A. B. Atkinson, 2010. "Indicators of poverty and social exclusion in a global context," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 285-304.
    8. J. Vrooman & Stella Hoff, 2013. "The Disadvantaged Among the Dutch: A Survey Approach to the Multidimensional Measurement of Social Exclusion," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 1261-1287, September.
    9. Veronika V. Eberharter, 2018. "Capability Deprivation, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Social Disadvantages—Empirical Evidence from Selected Countries," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(12), pages 1-22, December.
    10. Timothy Smeeding & Jonathan Gershuny & Karen Robson & Coady Wing, 2009. "Income Poverty and Income Support for Minority and Immigrant Children in Rich Countries," LIS Working papers 527, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    11. Marx, Ive & Nolan, Brian & Olivera, Javier, 2014. "The Welfare State and Anti-Poverty Policy in Rich Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 8154, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Srna Mandic & Andreja Cirman, 2012. "Housing Conditions and Their Structural Determinants," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(4), pages 777-793, March.
    13. Cace, Sorin, 2010. "Good Practices in Social Economy in Greece and in Other States of the European Union," MPRA Paper 79940, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Johan Fritzell & Veli-Matti Ritakallio, 2004. "Societal Shifts and Changed Patterns of Poverty," LIS Working papers 393, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    15. Caroline Dewilde, 2006. "Becoming Poor in Belgium and Britain: The Impact of Demographic and Labour Market Events[1]," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 11(1), pages 87-103, April.
    16. Ngai, L. Rachel & Pissarides, Christopher A., 2009. "Welfare policy and the distribution of hours of work," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28698, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Sam Hickey & Tom Lavers & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Jeremy Seekings, 2018. "The negotiated politics of social protection in sub-Saharan Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-34, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Ilari Ilmakunnas & Lauri Mäkinen, 2021. "Age Differences in Material Deprivation in Finland: How do Consensus and Prevalence-Based Weighting Approaches Change the Picture?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 393-412, April.
    19. Frances McGinnity & Emma Calvert, 2008. "Yuppie Kvetch? Work-life Conflict and Social Class in Western Europe," Papers WP239, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    20. Maria Iacovou, 2013. "The relationship between incomes and living arrangements: variation between countries, over the life course, and over time," ImPRovE Working Papers 13/15, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgw:028. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mpigfde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.