In August, Edward Elgar Publishing released the edited volume The Future of European Social Rights and European Social Citizenship. The Role of Power Resources, edited by Maarten Keune, Full Professor in Social Security and Labour Relations at the University of Amsterdam.
. The book explores recent transformations in social rights and social citizenship in Europe in light of developments following the global financial crisis and the proclamation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) in 2017. Its aim is twofold: on the one hand, to propose a new theoretical conceptualisation of social rights as power resources; on the other, to reflect on the future of Social Europe.
The volume is the outcome of the European research project ‘The Future of European Social Citizenship – EUSOCIALCIT’, which brought together 10 universities and research institutes from 8 European countries between 2020 and 2024, including the University of Milan, with a research team led by Maurizio Ferrera, and coordinated by the University of Amsterdam.
 Percorsi di Secondo Welfare covers Social Europe through a series of articles edited by Paolo Riva, who writes from Brussels. You can read them here. |
Social rights as power resources for the citizens
The volume puts forward a novel conceptualisation of social rights as bundles of power resources that enable citizens to obtain what they are entitled to. In particular, the book identifies three types of power resources: normative, instrumental, and enforcement resources.
Normative resources comprise legal acts that confer specific rights on specific categories of citizens. They can be divided into deontic resources, which define in abstract terms the rights to be implemented through legislative action and are usually enshrined in solemn documents such as constitutions or bills of rights, and legal resources, which are legal acts that specify in precise terms the rights, their beneficiaries, and the conditions for access.
Instrumental resources are the means that make the rights to which citizens are entitled effectively accessible. They include, for example, tools that inform citizens about their rights or facilitate access to rights and benefits.
Enforcement resources, finally, are those that enable citizens to turn to a court when their rights are not respected.
Traditionally, welfare research has focused on normative and enforcement resources. The conceptualisation proposed by the volume is distinctive in its attention to instrumental resources, which are central to ensuring that rights-holders can effectively enjoy their rights.
It is worth noting that, following globalisation and the process of European integration, welfare has progressively become detached from its previously exclusive connection to the nation-state. In this context, social rights are now the outcome of the interaction of power resources produced at different levels – national, European, and local. The volume’s conceptualisation of social rights as power resources therefore makes it possible to capture these recent developments in social citizenship.
Power resources in action
The volume is organised into ten chapters. Following the introductory first chapter, Chapters 2 and 4 are primarily theoretical: Chapter 2 presents the volume’s theoretical framework, discussing the evolution of social citizenship and introducing the conceptualisation of social rights as power resources, while Chapter 4 explores in greater depth the role of instrumental resources in ensuring citizens’ effective access to their rights.
The remaining chapters apply the approach to concrete cases. Chapter 3 examines the extent to which policies aimed at implementing the EPSR have been transformed into power resources for European citizens. Chapters 5 and 6 explore how the interaction between normative and instrumental resources contributes to making rights accessible, focusing respectively on the 2019 European Directive on work–life balance and on the case of riders working for delivery platforms in Spain and the Netherlands. Chapter 7 empirically examines how power resources contribute to the enjoyment of social rights. Chapter 8 discusses the capacity of the EPSR to tackle poverty. Chapter 9 focuses on housing policies.
Finally, Chapter 10 discusses the relationship between public opinion and Social Europe, characterised by widespread support for Social Europe, but also by limited knowledge of the EU’s role in social policies and general scepticism about the future of the European social dimension.
The future of Social Europe
The volume contributes to the academic debate on the European Union’s recent ‘social turn’. At the end of the acute phase of the global financial crisis and the austerity policies that followed, the European Union sought to relaunch its social dimension with the proclamation of the EPSR in November 2017.
The literature is divided over how this turn should be interpreted. Some authors have emphasised its importance, going so far as to speak of the ‘roaring 20s of Social Europe’ (Kilpatrick, 2023). More sceptical authors, by contrast, have spoken of the ‘end’ of Social Europe (Graziano & Hartlapp, 2019): social issues have become less prominent on the European political agenda, measures tend to be non-binding and, with some exceptions, largely consist of renewing or updating existing policies.
The book takes an intermediate position. While recognising the role of the EPSR in relaunching social rights and social citizenship, inequalities persist in the implementation of the Pillar’s principles; in particular, social protection and inclusion policies should be strengthened, as these are the most effective in tackling poverty and social exclusion. Moreover, although the volume demonstrates the potential of policies at the European level to create power resources for citizens of Member States, the neoliberal economic order – which has put national welfare systems under pressure and was reinforced during the financial crisis – is not fundamentally called into question. Ultimately, the future of Social Europe depends on the willingness and political strength of its proponents, and therefore cannot be taken for granted.
Riferimento
Graziano, P., & Hartlapp, M. (2019). The end of social Europe? Understanding EU social policy change. Journal of European Public Policy, 26(10), 1484–1501.
Kilpatrick, C. (2023). The Roaring 20s for Social Europe. The European Pillar of Social Rights and burgeoning EU legislation. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 29(2), 203–217.