Book review: Discretion in the Welfare State: Social Rights and Professional Judgment
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1388262719836793 |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Reconceptualising EU equality law is a great challenge. Johanna Croon-Gestefeld approaches it
from an angle that, in practice, is often veiled and not fully understood by the public. By trying to
make sense of the CJEU’s equality-adjudication and analysing it from a comparative-institutional
point of view, she contributes to a better understanding of EU equality law. One of the strengths of
this book is that she provides concrete tools and techniques for judges to carry out such a com-
parative institutional analysis (see, in particular, Chapter 7). This book can therefore be warmly
recommended as a very worthwhile read.
References
Felten, E. (2018) in Schrattbauer, B, Pfeil, WJ and Mosler, R. (eds), Migration, Arbeitsmarkt und
Sozialpolitik, Wien: Manz Verlag, 233 et seq.
Kaspar, M. (2018) ‘Sozialhilfelei stungen fu
¨r Drittstaatsangeho¨rige aufgr und eines derivativen
Aufenthaltsrechts?’, JAS, 74(1), 86 et seq.
Verschueren, H. (2017) ‘Recent Cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union’,
European Journal of Social Security, 19(1), 71–82.
Weiler, J. H. H. (1991) ‘The Transformation of Europe’ Yale Law Journal, 100(8), 2403–2483.
Author biography
Elisabeth Brameshuber is Privatdozentin and Assistant Professor of Labour Law and Social
Security Law at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. She is also a Vertretung-
sprofessorin (Substitute Professor) of Civil Law, Labour Law, Commercial Law and Comparative
Law at Ruhr-University Bochum.
Anders Molander, Discretion in the Welfare State: Social Rights and Professional Judgment, Abingdon:
Routledge, 2016, 90 pages, ISBN: 978-1138212428
Reviewed by: Jed Meers, York Law School, University of York, UK
DOI: 10.1177/1388262719836793
This self-described ‘little book’ – at 90 pages, manageable easily in one sitting – has an ambition
that far outstretches its modest length. At its core, it advances an argument on how to best
conceptualise discretion, proposing a distinction between discretionary space (structural discre-
tion) and discretionary reasoning (epistemic discretion). Before unpacking this, it is important to
contextualise the book in two strands of work.
The first is the longstanding socio-legal literature which tries to make sense of discretionary
decision-making. The enduring status of these debates is perhaps best illustrated by HLA Hart’s
‘long-lost’ essay, Discretion, missing for decades among his famously disorganised files before
being unearthed and published in 2013 (Hart 2013). That the questions he posed in the 1950s are
still as relevant published today demonstrates that this is a field which has been wrestling with
Book reviews 81
To continue reading
Request your trial