Book Review: Activation Policies for the Unemployed, the Right to Work and the Duty to Work, the Law of the Activating Welfare State
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/138826271601800305 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
320 Intersentia
BOOK REVIEWS
Elise Dermine and Da niel Dumont (eds.), Activation Policies for the Unemployed,
e Rig ht to Work and the Duty to Work, Brussels: P.I.E – Peter Lang, 2 014, 280 pp.,
ISBN 978–2-87574–232–2
Eberhard Eichenhofer, e Law of the Activating Welfare State, Baden-Baden:
Nomos/Hart Publishi ng, 2015, 184 pp., ISBN 978–1-50990–02 4–4
‘Activation’ and ‘responsibilisation’ are the key concepts of contemporary social
policies in many western countr ies. Activation policy, conceived of as a set of
measures intended to develop the connec tion between social security a nd the labour
market, is based on the belief t hat social bene ts and the willingness to work are
closely interconnected. e rise of act ivation measures entails the creation of new
instruments in social protection systems and a renewed relationship between labour
market and social polic y. is phenomenon lies at the core of two recently publ ished
books.
Elise Dermine and Daniel Dumont are the editors of the rst book, entitled
Activation Policies for the Unemployed, the Right to Work and the Duty to Work. e
origins of this publication were an international symposium held at the European
Trade Union Institute, in Brussels, on 15 March 2013. Dermine and Dumont
consider that a ‘turn towards activation’ has been experienced in Eu ropean and
North American cou ntries. ey identif y this turn as a ‘multiplication of measures
aimed at bringing t hose who are unemployed and in receipt of social bene ts closer
to participation in the labour market’ (p. 11). e starting point of the book is the
hypothesis that activation measures tend to coercion and can reduce the right to
work to a duty to work. Analysis is focused on the impact of activation measures on
the right to freely chosen work, given the assumption that activation policies may
hinder this right. rough a collection of essays, structured in four parts, it includes
historical and phi losophical perspectives on the right and the duty to work, the
human right to work with respec t to the international instruments protecting this
right, and prospective views such as the universal basic income or the guarantee of
a decent job.
e second book, written by Eberhard Eichenhofer, Professor of Social L aw at the
Friedrich-Schil ler-Universität Jena, provides a wide-ranging of what the author cal ls
‘the law of the activati ng welfare state’. It o ers a broader view of activation policy,
as activation is not restricted to job-seekers and the unemployed, by attempting to
explore its conceptual foundation and the new questions that have arisen w ith the
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