Activation And Workfare

This paper discusses the impact of neoliberalism on disability policy and activism. The paper highlights the neoliberalisation of postsocialist disability policy, as well as the convergence between the neoliberal critique of welfare-state paternalism and the advocacy of disabled people’s movement for deinstitutionalisation and direct payments (personal assistance). The discussion is supported by examples from Bulgaria and the United Kingdom. In conclusion, the paper argues that neoliberalism confronts the disabled people’s movement with two difficult tasks: to defend self-determination while criticising market-based individualism, and to defend the welfare state while criticising expert-based paternalism.

The Norwegian system of benefits for lone mothers was revised in the late 1990s. The reform entailed an altered conception of the interrelations between gender, the labour market and the welfare state in Norway – basically shrinking the period it is possible to stay at home with your children as a lone mother. This article discusses the implementation and the consequences of these new policies from a gender and power perspective. The reform was meant to give lone parents more power over their own life, independence, higher income and self-realisation. Lone parents own statements about their experiences show the problematic aspects of dependency on welfare, as well as the difficult aspects of dependency on the market. The reform was based on two assumptions, namely that the market provides work-opportunities and that gender equality has now been achieved in Norway. The article concludes that since both assumptions are questionable, those lone parents least capable for this struggle have been turned into pioneers struggling for a place in the market and for that very gender equality.

This paper examines how middle-aged and older post-Soviet immigrants in eastern Berlin navigate the neoliberalized landscape of work-based integration in face of their long-term unemployment. I first show how these immigrants’ own insistence on the centrality of paid work for their feeling integrated contributes to their experience of collective despondency and enrollment in exploitative quasi-markets, including workfare. Focusing on this insistence, I examine how it draws strength primarily from their continued subscription to the conceptions of self as deeply socially embedded, and of work as a practice of such an embedding, adopted through their Soviet-era socialization into the culture of dispersed personhood and obligation to work, rather than from their adoption of neoliberal concepts of citizenship in Germany. Contributing to geographies of post- socialist experience of neoliberalized regimes of citizenship and immigrant integration this paper thus highlights how some of the aspects of post-socialist subjectivities dovetail unexpectedly with the neoliberal project.

This article, inspired by the recent restructuring of social dialogue in Poland, reflects on the role played by neo-corporatist institutions in the country, with specific reference to their capacity to influence (or not) the approach, contents and implementation of labour policies and, therefore, affect social change. For this purpose, it presents the findings of a case study focused on the sub-national level of regulation and conducted in the region of Lower Silesia, within the framework of the Airmulp project. The analysis-which relies on mixed methods, including the analysis of statistical data, the review of official documents, and interviews with key informants-reveals that regional social dialogue is not likely to produce substantial outcomes and is, most feasibly, a means for building consensus on neo-liberal policies from the bottom up.

This paper examines the importance of informal methods (especially social networking) to the job search strategies used by unemployed people. It compares three areas: a small rural town; a larger, more sparsely populated, remote rural area; and a centrally-located, peri-urban labour market. The analysis is based first on survey research undertaken with 490 job seekers across the study areas. Emerging issues were then followed up during a series of twelve focus groups. The survey research showed that job seekers in the rural study areas were significantly more likely to use social networks to look for work. However, those who had experienced repeated or long-term periods out of work, the unskilled and young people were significantly less likely to use such networks. Focus groups confirmed the perceived importance of social networking to the job search process in rural areas, in contrast to the more marginal role such methods appear to play in peri-urban settings. For many rural job seekers, formal job search activities conducted through Jobcentres were seen as largely symbolic, lacking the practical value of social networking. These results suggest that service providers seeking to assist unemployed people in rural areas need to address the problems faced by many disadvantaged job seekers who are currently caught between their lack of social network relations and the absence of local public employment service facilities in more remote communities.

Este estudo analisa a activação de desempregados na perspectiva das agendas de reforma dos Estados de bem-estar.
Neste capítulo, a agenda liberal centrou-se na contenção da intervenção do Estado, procurando cortar custos e na legitimação ideológica da sua retirada de funções sociais, conduzindo à responsabilização individual, dando corpo ao workfare, que resulta na compulsão ao trabalho, assumindo-se que o compromisso do Estado com o cidadão em situação de necessidade se extingue quando este por si não procura trabalho ou se esgotou um período considerado razoável de tempo sem que o tenha obtido.
As respostas reformadoras não liberais, que encontramos em países quer da variante conservadora quer da variante social-democrata do Estado de bem-estar, propuseram-se pôr em marcha um Estado social activo. Ao contrário do workfare, entendem a activação como um sistema de deveres cruzados, uma activação recíproca entre o Estado (que se obriga a desenvolver medidas que apoiem a inserção social do cidadão e não apenas a garantir-lhe um nível mínimo de rendimentos) e o beneficiário (que se obriga a procurar emprego e/ou a aproveitar as oportunidades que lhe são proporcionadas). Gera-se, pois, um direito-dever de inserção e uma dupla activação, do Estado (que tem que se reformar) e dos cidadãos (que têm que se transformar).
Portugal surge no quadro Europeu como um caso de Estado social protector em adaptação, introduzindo elementos do Estado social activo. A análise das despesas com política de mercado de trabalho e das prioridades de intervenção do Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional entre 2000 e 2006 permitiu identificar o modelo português de activação de desempregados, cujo foco predominante é o desenvolvimento de actividades ocupacionais para desempregados, acompanhado da qualificação profissional e da aproximação de jovens aos contextos de trabalho.

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This study examines the unemployed activation policies in the perspective of welfare reform agendas.
Regarding this issue, the liberal agenda has focused on curbing government intervention, seeking to cut costs. It has an ideological orientation toward State withdrawal from social functions and is focused in individual responsibility. Its orientation, the workfare, results in the compulsion to work, assuming that the state's involvement with the citizen in need is extinguished when he does not by himself look for a job or elapsed a reasonable period of time without obtaining it.
Alternative reform agendas are found both in conservative variant and social democratic welfare state. The last ones intend set in motion an active welfare state. Unlike workfare, it understands activation as a system of crossed duties, a reciprocal processing that challenges both the State (which undertakes to develop measures to support the social integration of citizens and not just to provide a minimum level of income) and the beneficiary (which must seek employment and / or seize the opportunities that are offered). The result is therefore a right and duty to social integration and a double activation of the State (that has to be reformed) and citizens (who have to change).
In European context, Portugal is a case of protective welfare state in adaptation by introducing elements of active welfare state. The analysis of the costs of labor market policy and priorities from the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training between 2000 and 2006 allowed us to identify the Portuguese model of activation. It is predominantly focused in the development of occupational activities for unemployed, together with vocational training and easing transition of youth to labor market.

This book provides a unique insight into negotiations around language investment for employability in the context of public employment services. Drawing on extensive ethnographical research carried out in Regional Employment Offices in Switzerland, the authors follow the stories of various job seekers. In doing so, they challenge the currently dominant assumption that investment in language competences leads to better employability. Arguing for a political economic perspective on these issues, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the connections between language and social inequality, as well as students and scholars of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics.

This article documents how job readiness programs-as anchors of the devolved organizational landscape of neoliberal poverty governance in the United States-endeavor to instill within the poor not simply the virtue of work, but the virtue of thrift, and thus orient them to "both sides of the paycheck." Using a comparative ethnographic study of two community-based, government-funded nonprofit job readiness programs, we show that this pedagogic focus on budgeting is central to the overall goal of conditioning clients to embrace and endure a degraded labor market. Recognizing that most participants will remain poor with or without low-wage employment, these programs suggest that it is as crafty consumers that participants may retake control of their lives. Despite the programs' differing target populations and racialized and gendered logics, both attempt to accommodate participants to the dictates of the neoliberal economic order: jobs are hard to find and, even if you get one, wages will not be enough.

EU-Migrant*innen treten gegen Lohnbetrug ein, protestieren gegen Polizeirepression, fordern das Recht auf ein Existenzminimum und auf Wohnraum. Arbeit! Wohnen! geht von diesen urbanen Konflikten (2009-2014) aus und untersucht, wie EU-Migration in München regiert wird. Unter den Bedingungen der EU-Freizügigkeit wird der Zwang zur Arbeit immer weiter radikalisiert. Auch bundespolitische und EU-europäische Prozesse spielen dabei eine Rolle. In Zeiten von Nationalprotektionismus und neuem Rassismus, Sozialabbau und der Prekarisierung von Arbeit gibt das Buch Anstöße für eine transnationale politische Praxis in Wissenschaft und Aktivismus.

Mit „Konflikt als Methode“ stellt es eine eigene Spielart intervenierender Forschung vor und ist theoriepolitisch als Versuch einzuordnen, die soziale Frage in transnationalen Verhältnissen zu stellen sowie Kämpfe der Migration in kapitalistischen Verhältnissen zu kontextualisieren.

The article offers a re-conceptualization of the labor integration process which takes temporality into account as a relevant feature that, rather than following patterned frames of reference, is actively referenced through narratively and socially constructed formations of understanding. The European policy strategy regarding immigrants has shifted in the past decades from a focus on social integration to a predominant focus on labor market integration, due in part to the relatively high unemployment rates of immigrants entering and migrating within Europe. A personalized approach used throughout Europe to “empower” and move immigrants into the labor market has not been realized in practice. Norway, a “best case scenario” for a more personalized approach through comprehensive labor integration and activation measures, has also had limited success with the sustained labor integration of immigrants. We suggest that a source of the problem lies in the conceptualization of labor integr...

Workfare, ein zusammengesetzter Begriff aus Welfare and Work, bezeichnet Politiken, in denen Sozialleistungen nur im Austausch für Gegenleistungen, etwa Arbeit oder Integrationsbemühungen, gezahlt werden. Das Konzept von Workfare hat sich zusammen mit dem Neoliberalismus in den letzten Jahrzehnten in Wohlfahrtsstaaten verbreitet. Im Text werden die programmatischen und operativen Elemente von Workfare in der deutschen Grundsicherung (Hartz IV) herausgearbeitet und die Wirkungen auf armutsgefährdete Menschen sowie die gesellschaftspolitischen Konsequenzen aufgezeigt. Die sozialpolitische Wirkung von Workfare muss differenziert betrachtet werden. So scheinen die größten Konsequenzen nicht in praktischen Erfolgen erfolgreicher Arbeitsmarktintegration zu liegen, sondern in einem erheblichen Autonomieverlust über das eigene Leben, in einer Stratifizierung von politischer Beteiligung und von sozialen Staatsbürger*innenrechten. Die nochmals verstärkte Orientierung an Erwerbsarbeit lässt das Verhältnis von gesellschaftlich notwendiger Nicht-Erwerbsarbeit und Erwerbsarbeit sowie ihre geschlechtsspezifische Verteilung ungelöst.

This review essay investigates two recent contributions - Geoffroy de Lagasnerie's "La dernière leçon de Michel Foucault" and Daniel Zamora's edited volume "Critiquer Foucault : Les années 1980 et la tentation néoliberale" - to the 'seduction thesis' - the claim that Michel Foucault, since the end of the 1970s became seduced by neoliberal thinkers. While the essay dismisses the 'seduction thesis', it calls for a need to revise some of the implicit theses on neoliberalism of Foucault and, in particular, governmentality studies.

The concept of ‘employability’ plays a crucial role in informing labour market policy in the UK, the EU and beyond. This paper analyses current and previous applications of the term and discusses its value as an exploratory concept and a framework for policy analysis. It then traces the development of the concept, discusses its role in current labour market and training strategies (with particular reference to the UK) and seeks to identify an approach to defining employability that can better inform labour market policy, by transcending explanations of employment and unemployment that focus solely on either supply-side or demand-side factors. Although the literature offers a range of definitions of ‘employability’, many policy-makers have recently used the term as shorthand for ‘the individual’s employability skills and attributes’. It is argued that this ‘narrow’ usage can lead to a ‘hollowing out’ of the concept of employability. The paper concludes by presenting a broad framework for analysing employability built around individual factors, personal circumstances and external factors, which acknowledges the importance of both supply- and demand-side factors.

What work is turning into has become a common question. The answers range from the claim that nothing is changing to fears of robots taking jobs and a utopia of fully automated luxury socialism. To compare a variety of emerging jobs, I examine four theses that have been put forward. One is that work is becoming increasingly insecure, short-term, precarious. Another is that forms of work are multiplying, especially what is called flexible employment. A third is that work is becoming increasingly digital, governed by an economy of automated algorithms, platforms and social networks. Finally, I examine the claim that work itself has been overcome, that the conventional pay for productive labour is giving way to a variety of redistributive schemes. What those theses share, I argue, is a tension between claims of emancipation and realities of exploitation, the sense of new possibilities opening up and others closing down. Economic anthropology has the tools to address this mix of freedom and constraint, commitment and alienation.

Since the late 1980s, European welfare states and labour market regulation have gradually but radically been transformed into ways of underpinning a more “active society” where active usually entails paid work or activities, such as training and qualification, that aim towards work. The thesis investigates the transformation towards the ‘active society’ through the spectre of unemployment and how it is governed. Two puzzles in the transformations have motivated the inquiry: firstly, the co-existence of a plurality of different, and often contradictory, conceptions of who the unemployed are and why they are unemployed; and secondly, the co-existence of wills to emancipate the unemployed alongside the justification of using coercive measures towards them.
This thesis argues that if we want to understand the varieties within the transformations, the “what?” question, it is necessary to address the “how?”; i.e., how transformations are legitimised. Here, ideas and morality are pivotal. Inspired by French pragmatic sociology (Boltanski and Thévenot), the ideas are approached as cities of unemployment that are mobilised to justify and criticise policies related to the governing of unemployment. In these situations where the question of what is the best way to govern unemployment is put to the test, cities of unemployment enable actors to prepare and qualify the reality of the situation for critique and justification.
Each city of unemployment is founded on a principle with specific principles to try or test both those who govern and the subjects inhabiting each city, thus entailing a specific understanding of what emancipating the unemployed involves, i.e., what kind of moral subject the unemployed person is with what kind of needs and characteristics. The thesis thus asks which cities of unemployment are mobilised in contemporary reform processes of the governing of unemployment, how are the cities mobilised to justify and criticise, and how do the cities sediment into instruments and institutions governing the unemployed?
The questions are operationalised through an in-depth comparative study of four key contemporary reform processes: two in Denmark and two in France. The thesis is the first systematic investigation into the test situations that unfold in the public debates with a focus on the plurality of ideas that are mobilised to qualify and evaluate existing policies and justify changes.
The thesis shows how the governing of unemployment is the result of an ongoing sedimentation in the cities tied together in compromises. This makes the governing inherently composite and unstable. The thesis identifies and maps seven distinct cities of unemployment that are mobilised in all debates surrounding all four reforms: the cities of Demand, Redistribution, Insurance, Incentives, Mobility, Investment and the Paternal city. Regardless of differences between the four cases, all analyses show that reforms are particularly driven by justifications from the Paternal, Mobility, Investment and Incentives cities, which are all tied together in multiple ways. The other three cities do not vanish completely, but in the qualification of the unemployed they are increasingly put to the margins.
Finally, the thesis shows how the tensions between the cities that are mobilised for justificatory purposes are mitigated in categorisations and various institutionalised tests that continuously evaluate the behaviour of the unemployed. The tests, such as triage, screening, interviews and contracts, thus question and settle what kind of subject the unemployed person is, i.e., what city he lives in, how worthy he is, and what instruments will bring him closer to emancipation (i.e., the ‘active society’). In this way, the possibility of requalifying the unemployed is made permanent. A similar experimentalist dynamic is identifiable in the public debates concerning justification and critique. Here unemployment is increasingly seen as a multi-causal phenomenon that, in the end, is a matter of how to make the unemployed act in certain ways. The result is a constant uncertainty as to how to attach particular causes to particular categories of unemployment. Hence, the demand for targeting or “personalising” the governing in order to make the unemployed respond to it results in increasingly intimate and often coercive instruments.

Özet Refah rejimleri vatandaşların sosyal ve ekonomik menfaatlerini korumak ve geliştirmek için yürütülen sosyal ve ekonomik politikalardan oluşur. Küreselleşmenin yarattığı ivme ile neoliberal politikalar yaygınlaştıkça refah rejimleri; sosyal durum güvenliği, sonuçlarda eşitlik, toplu ve paylaşılan refah kavramları yerine kişisel başarı, fırsat eşitliği, bireysel güçlenme kavramlarını vurgulayan bu neoliberal prensiplerden olumsuz etkilenmektedir. Algıdaki bu değişiklik toplumda eşitsizliği derinleştirerek güçlendirilen ve zayıflaştırılan bireyler arasında uçurum yaratmış, 'sosyal adalet' kavramının geri çağırılma ihtiyacını zorunlu hale getirmiştir. Bu durum sosyal içerme kavramının ve sosyal risk yönetimi politikalarının temelinin nasıl oluştuğunu gözler önüne sermektedir. Bu makale, söz konusu temelin AB yoluyla Türkiye'ye yansıma yolları ve Türkiye'de sosyal politikanın gelişiminde olası fayda/maliyeti veya avantaj/dezavantajlarını tartışmaktadır. AB ve Türkiye'nin sosyal içerme politikalarının analizinde Graziano'nun siyasaları: hedefler, prensipler, prosedürler ve araçlar olmak üzere 4 temel boyutta değerlendiren teorik bakış açısı kullanılmıştır. Abstract Welfare regime is composed of social and economic policies that are adopted to protect and promote the economic and social well-being of its citizens. While neoliberal principles extend through globalization, welfare regimes have been suffering from this spreading principles emphasizing on individual empowerment and equality of opportunity rather than collective security, equality of results and shared welfare. This perception has widened the inequalities in the society between empowered and weakened individuals and the urgent need to call back the 'social justice' becomes sino qua non. This is the base of how the concept of social inclusion and social risk management policies has emerged. This article analyzes ways of the reflection of this basis from EU to Turkey and its possible benefits/costs and 1 advantages/disadvantages for Turkish social policy development. The policy approach suggested by Graziano that evaluates policies with four key dimensions: objectives, principles, procedures and instruments is applied to the analysis of EU and Turkish social inclusion policy implementations.

Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit der Frage, wie die aktivierende Integrationspolitik in der Praxis lokaler Organisationen umgesetzt wird. Anhand zahlreicher Interviews mit einschlägigen Akteuren vor Ort – Schlüsselpersonen im Sozialreferat, in Wohlfahrtsverbänden, im Jobcenter, im Ausländerbeirat, in unterschiedlichen freien Trägern sowie Bewohner mit Migrationshintergrund – beleuchtet die Autorin, wie die Aktivierungsprogramme jeweils kommunizierbar gemacht werden. Auf Grundlage einer Systemtheorie Luhmann‘scher Prägung analysiert sie dabei Problemwahrnehmungen und Kommunikationsformen der aktivierenden Integrationspraxis, die jeweils beobachterabhängig differieren. Die Komplexität organisatorischer Kommunikationen wird unter dem Begriffsapparat „polyphoner Organisation“ praxisnah erörtert. Die Aktivierungspraxis wird daraufhin als „Willenskommunikation“ betrachtet, in der nicht nur die politisch zugeschnittene Willensvorstellung von Engagement, Teilnahme und Integrationsbereitschaft, sondern autonome Selbstbeschreibungen von Migranten ins Spiel kommen. Die Aktivierungspraxis wird dadurch als ein Spannungsfeld dargestellt, in dem die Handlungslogiken verschiedener Akteure aufeinander Bezug nehmen und dabei auch miteinander in Konflikt geraten können. Die Umgestaltung des Sozialen drückt sich in diesem Spannungsfeld zwischen politisch-strukturellen Programmen und operativen Praxen aus. Die gesellschaftsstiftende Aspekte der kommunikativen Diskrepanzen auf einer empirisch inhaltsvollen und theoretisch begründeten Weise auszuloten, ist das Ziel dieser Arbeit.

This article examines the role of inter-agency cooperation, which is one form of ‘partnership’, in new approaches to employability in the UK. The article articulates a ‘model for effective partnership working’ on employability. This model is applied first in a general review of employability policy and then to discuss case study research on the recent ‘Pathways to Work’ and ‘Working Neighbourhoods’ pilots. It is argued that successful partnerships need a clear strategic focus based on a necessity for inter-agency cooperation and institutional arrangements that allow for shared ownership, trust and mutualism, and flexibility in resource-sharing. While some of these factors are apparent in UK employability services, an over-reliance on contractualism and centralized organizational structures may undermine partnership-based approaches. Many of the success factors associated with effective partnership working appeared to be in place, even though the role of the Public Employment Service was fundamentally different in each case (as a key actor in implementing the first pilot, but largely withdrawing from the implementation role in the second). The article concludes by outlining the relevance of this model and the case study findings to discussions of the future development of employability policies and related partnership working.

Si l’Union européenne n’a pas de compétence législative en
matière de politiques sociales, elle diffuse un certain nombre
de normes et de bonnes pratiques auprès des Etats membres
allant dans le sens d’une mise en emploi des bénéficiaires de
minima sociaux. La création du Revenu de Solidarité Active en
France illustre cette tendance à l’activation de la protection sociale.
La mise en oeuvre de ce dispositif est marquée par une
attention particulière portée à l’évaluation, d’abord dans le
cadre des expérimentations du RSA (2008) puis suite à sa généralisation
(2011). Ce papier propose d’interroger le rôle des
évaluations du RSA pour comprendre en quoi elles ont contribué
à légitimer le dispositif, ont souligné certaines de ses limites,
sans aller jusqu’à remettre en question sa pertinence et
le référentiel d’activation sur lequel il repose. Dans cette perspective,
cet article questionne l’inertie des politiques sociales
au niveau national, liée à la difficulté de remise en question des
normes diffusées au niveau européen. Il interroge également
les évaluations comme instrument d’action publique mobilisé
dans une perspective de technicisation et de dépolitisation de
l’action publique afin de contrer les difficultés de réformes dans
le champ des politiques sociales.

Les politiques d’activation, quand elles ne sont pas justifiées pour des raisons purement économiques – qui ne suffisent pas à elles seules à en établir la désirabilité –, le sont souvent en référence à une obligation morale de travailler, ou de se rendre utile à la société, qui s’appliquerait à l’ensemble des citoyens. Cet article vise à prendre au sérieux cette idée, réfléchir à sa portée et à ses implications concrètes dans l’organisation de l’économie.

Acht Monate nach der Einführung von »Hartz IV« im Januar 2005 veröffentlichte das Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Arbeit der rot-grünen Bundesregierung einen Bericht »gegen Missbrauch, ›Abzocke’ und Selbstbedienung im Sozialstaat« und trat damit eine Lawine von Medienberichten über »Sozialmissbrauch« los. Diese in periodischen Abständen wiederkehrende Diskussion erreichte einen neuen Höhepunkt, woraufhin die Große Koalition im Jahr 2006 den Bezug von »Hartz IV«-Leistungen gesetzlich erschwerte. Der Vorwurf des Sozialmissbrauchs« war von Politikern und Wissenschaftlern, in den Medien und in alltäglichen Unterhaltungen gleichermaßen vernehmbar. Wo aber ist der »Sozialschmarotzer« laut diesen Aussagen konkret zu finden? Welche Argumentationsstrategien werden benutzt, um seine Existenz fortzuschreiben? Auf welche Alltagserfahrungen und Deutungsmuster wird dabei zurückgegriffen und mit welchen neuen Attributen zeigt er sich? Die vorliegende Studie analysiert den Diskurs um »Sozialmissbrauch« und setzt ihn ins Verhältnis zu zeitgleich umgesetzten Politiken wie denen des »aktivierenden Sozialstaates«, des Ausbaus des Niedriglohnsektors oder der Vermittlung eines neuen Gerechtigkeitsideals. Je prekärer die Arbeits- und Lebensverhältnisse in Deutschland werden, desto geringer scheint die Akzeptanz der sozialen Sicherungssysteme zu sein. Das vereinfachende Bild des arbeitsunwilligen »Sozialschmarotzers« spiegelt und fördert diese Entwicklung. Der positive Gegenentwurf ist der »aktivierte« Unternehmer seiner selbst, der immer wieder neu an den Start geht.

This study proposes to investigate market activation policies maintained by European welfare states in the 2000's. The reasons that push EU governments to follow activation policies for some risk groups such as women, elderly, disabled people, etc. are the main rationale for the current paper. From this point forth, some joint programmes and implementations , which are Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP) and Social Investment Strategies (SIS), will be underlined. The effectiveness of these policies on minimizing unemployment in EU region will be looked over. In the study, beside the theoretical framework , some specific implementations and institutions remind activation policies in the UK and Germany will be dealt with. In relation to this, some statistical information regarding the consequences of the activation policies will be given. In doing so, it is proposed to make some critical analyses on the main subject examined in the paper. It should be noted that current paper focuses on the 2000's by assuming that this period is a milestone for EU countries to implement joint welfare policies in a liberal perspective. Even today, these policies give shape for the socioeconomic and demographic policies in EU region as the precautions of post-industrial period.

RÉSUMÉ – Les conseillers à l ’emploi sont pris en tension entre une mission d’égalité et un
mandat de sélection. Dans ce cadre, certaines caractéristiques extra-professionnelles
rejetées par les employeurs empêchent le travail de placement. Mais cette catégorie de
“freins périphériques” demeure opératoire car elle permet de répartir les demandeurs
d’emploi entre différents organismes, afin de désengorger la file d’attente. Au risque de
légitimer ces catégories de jugement ?
MOTS-CLÉS – Pôle emploi, conseillers à l'emploi, sélection des publics, activation,
chômeurs
ABSTRACT – Employment counselors are caught between a mission of equality and a
mandate of selection. In this context, some extra-professional traits rejected by
employers prevent the work of placement. This category of “peripheral obstacles”
remains operatory, however, because it allows job seekers to be divided between
different organizations to reduce waiting times. But is it at the risk of legitimizing
these categories of judgment?
KEYWORDS – Employment center, employment counselors, selection of publics,
activation, unemployed

The distinctive character of the unemployment policies overhaul, known as the 'activation turn' of the 1990s, was that OECD governments intensified coercion against unemployed individuals while relaxing their own commitment to ensuring full employment. By now supply-side activation policies have been tested long enough to permit conclusive evaluations, and the article surveys the body of empirical assessments to determine the achievements of the activation turn. The implementation of welfare-to-work policies has not resulted in bringing down the rates of unemployment (independently of the business cycle), combating long-term unemployment, reducing (in-work) poverty or empowering jobseekers as consumers of public services, which were all goals of the reformed 'activating state'. Instead, by dint of its complementarity with employer-centred flexibility, activation has been working as a mechanism of entrapment at the margins of liberalised labour markets. The activation turn has thus failed to achieve its direct labour market and social objectives. However, it has produced pronounced indirect negative effects in the labour market, and its social impact has been regressive and repressive, as anticipated in normative and political-economic critiques of the rising 'workfare state'.

Unedited longer version of article published in Public Seminar Garland, C. (2018) ‘The Unfolding Welfare Crisis in the UK’ in PUBLIC SEMINAR Informing debate by any means necessary

http://www.publicseminar.org/2018/12/the-unfolding-welfare-crisis-in-the-uk/

Opracowanie ma charakter poglądowo-teoretyczny, powstało bowiem na podstawie przeglądu dostępnej literatury przedmiotu (polskiej i zagranicznej). Publikacja skierowana jest zarówno do naukowców jak i studentów zajmujących się tematyką starzenia się ludności, starości i osób starszych oraz do coraz szerszego grona zainteresowanych tymi zagadnieniami praktyków, w tym polityków i decydentów oraz reprezentantów usług publicznych, przedstawicieli mediów i organizacji pozarządowych.
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The study is illustrative and theoretical in nature, as it was based on a review of the available literature on the subject (Polish and foreign). The publication is addressed to both scholars and students dealing with the subjects of population ageing, old age, and older adults, as well as to a growing group of practitioners interested in these issues, including politicians and decision-makers as well as representatives of public services, the media, and non-governmental organizations.

1. Una doppia premessa. A. UBI, Universal Basic Income come reddito di esistenza. B. Re Ubu/Padre Ubu: alle origini della patafisica. 2. Nuove protezioni sociali, finalmente? 3. Il reddito di base: utopia per i tempi presenti. 4. Né con la Silicon Valley, né con le sorde classi dirigenti nazionali e globali? 5. La miseria italiana: Workfare e leggi sui poveri. 6. Épater le robot et la télévision? A quarant'anni dal 1977. 7. Reddito di base: per una visione mediterranea dentro la Silicon Valley globale.
https://www.bin-italia.org/qr7-reddito-garantito-innovazione-tecnologica-algoritmi-robotica/

Welfare-to-work programmes imply a legal duty to perform work, often accompanied by sanctions which can be questioned from the angle of human rights and the freedom of work. The chapter examines the conformity of those programmes with the prohibition of forced labour and the right to freely chosen work proclaimed in international human rights instruments. It shows that the mandatory character of those programmes does not violate per se the prohibition of forced labour, neither the right to freely chosen work. However, those fundamental rights set limits and frames the development of welfare to work measures. Through a rigorous analysis of the emerging international case law, the chapter identifies six criteria for assessing the conformity of welfare-to-work programmes with those rights.

In the present work, an effort has been made to develop suitable process conditions for synthesis of carbon molecular sieve (CMS) from a locally available palm shell of Tenera type. The process involves three stages; carbonization, physical activation with steam, and carbon deposition by using benzene cracking technique. The highest micropore volume of activated carbon was obtained at 53.2% burn-off,