Book Review: European Welfare State Constitutions after the Financial Crisis by Ulrich Becker and Anastasia Poulou
| Author | Effrosyni Bakirtzi |
| DOI | 10.1177/13882627211037698 |
| Published date | 01 March 2022 |
| Date | 01 March 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Beyond the various chapters in Parts III and IV, van Oorschot’sreflections on his own personal
and professional development in the field of social policy are of particular interest. In a chapter
entitled ‘A Privileged Career’, van Oorschot reflects on the reasons why he chose his research
areas: ‘I would find it difficult to say why I was alternately interested in such specific phenomena
as non-take-up, disability policies, labour market policies, benefit recipiency, and deservingness
attitudes’(p.394). He also reflects on how social sciences research and postgraduate studies have
changed over the years. Today’s younger PhD students are exposed to stress when they have to
publish their results in international journals: ‘The â publish or perish culture’that we knew
from the US soon became a reality in Dutch academia’(p.397). He describes the New Public
Management and neo-liberalism and the effects they had on the individual perspective. The univer-
sities have come to be characterised by individual merits that are quantified. Van Oorschot also
reflects on what collegial support means and how important it is for researchers to work together
in different research projects in order to gain inspiration from colleagues about both theories and
research problems.
In the book, the reader meets both social policy issues and social policy history. The Liber
Amicorum can therefore be recommended to students, teachers and researchers in the field of
social work and social policy. It will certainly be a basis for further discussions on the meaning
and contributions of social policy and also the need for continued social policy research.
ORCID iD
Jörgen Lundälv https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0552-886X
Ulrich Becker and Anastasia Poulou (eds) European Welfare State Constitutions after the Financial Crisis,
Oxford University Press, 400 Oxford, pages, 2020, ISBN 978-0-19-885177-6
Reviewed by: Effrosyni Bakirtzi, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany
DOI: 10.1177/13882627211037698
The economic and financial crisis in 2008, as an external event, played an important role in struc-
tural reforms and emergency measures. In the context of the financial assistance programmes in
several European countries, it had a strong impact on fiscal policies and decisions with relevance
to public expenditure. Extensive national and international literature has examined the conse-
quences of the crisis for the social protection systems in affected countries due to the austerity mea-
sures. The novelty of the reviewed edited volume consists in approaching this phenomenon from a
national constitutional law perspective. According to the editors, the most important source of law
for steering and controlling the adoption and implementation of social protection systems in legal
terms is national constitutional law. However, the role of constitutional control differs from country
to county depending on each national legal culture. They suggest that the examination of the out-
comes of social protection reforms cannot be separated from the exploration of the procedures used
Book Reviews 73
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