Book review: Welfare to Work in European Welfare States: Legal, Sociological and Philosophical Perspectives on Justice and Domination

Published date01 March 2021
DOI10.1177/1388262720987246
Date01 March 2021
AuthorMichael Adler
Subject MatterBook reviews
Anja Eleveld, Thomas Kampen and Josien Arts (eds.) Welfare to Work in European Welfare States:
Legal, Sociological and Philosophical Perspectives on Justice and Domination, Bristol: Policy Press, 355
pages, 2020, ISBN 978-1-4473-4001-0 (hardcover).
Reviewed by: Michael Adler ,University of Edinburgh, Scotland
DOI: 10.1177/1388262720987246
Edited books fall into one of two categories. The first type comprises a collection of stand-alone
articles on a given topic in which the editor, or editors, adopt a light touch and play a back-seat role.
The second type is one in which the editor plays a much more prominent role in supplying an
intellectual framework for the other authors whose contributions are used to advance a general
argument. This book exemplifies the second type, and, for this reason, it more closely resembles a
single-authored book. Although it was hard work, it contains many fascinating insights and I
learned a great deal from reading it.
As Stuart White points out, in Chapter 12, the recent revival of republican political theory has
promoted the idea of ‘freedom as non-domination’ and the proper goal of the state is to create
institutions that protect individuals against the risk of domination by others in the economy, in
other contexts of social life, and in relation to the state itself. This raises important issues of social
or distributive justice that are explored in this book.
The book, which focuses on the ways in which the state treats those who are out of work, has a
number of novel features. It is genuinely inter-disciplinary and draws on legal, sociological and
philosophical scholarship. Some of the chapters are analytic and based on conceptual analysis,
while others are empirical and informed by qualitative social research.
The first, legal part of the book focuse s on the right and the duty to work. Ch apter 2 (by
Amir Paz-Fuchs) and Chapter 3 (by Elise Dermine) outline the broad objectives of Welfare to
Work (WTW) law; Chapter 4 (also by Elise Dermine) tests it against human rights instru-
ments, in particular those concerned with the right to work, the prohibition of forced labour,
the right to freely chosen employment, the right to minimum subsistence and the right to
human dignity; while Chapters 5 (by Melanie Studer and Kurt Pa¨rli) and 6 (by Anja Eleveld,
Neville Harris and Christian Scho¨ler) consider the extent t o which national law in Switzer-
land, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK complies with these standards.
The second part of the book develops a n ormative sociological per spective on WTW based
on qualitative research conducted in Switzerland by Jean-Michel Bonvin and Luca Perrig
(Chapter 7); Denmark (Chapter 8 by Mathias Nielsen, Sophie Dinners and Niklas Andersen);
the UK (Chapter 9 by Peter Dwyer); the Netherlands (Chapter 10 by Josien Arts and Chapter
11 by Thomas Kampen).
The contributions to the third, philosophical part of the book, focus on the republican theory of
non-domination. Chapter 12 (by Anja Eleveld) assesses the extent to which it can be used in the
normative analysis of WTW procedures, while Chapters 13 (by Simon Birnbaum) and 14 (by
Stuart White) assess basic income from the perspective of the republican theory of non-
domination. The concluding chapter (also by Anja Eleveld) makes a number of very sensible
proposals that would promote human rights and reduce the extent of domination in WTW schemes.
One way to characterise theories of justice is in te rms of their answers to two very basic
questions: first, ‘what is it that ultimately counts as valuable from a justice point of view?’ and,
Book reviews 95

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