Amparo Serrano Pascual

The European Social Model: an exercise in deconstruction

One of the fastest growing European catchwords at the present time - the ‘European Social Model’ (ESM) - is used to describe the European experience of simultaneously promoting sustainable economic growth and social cohesion. The use of the concept of ESM in academic and political debate is characterized by two main and interconnected features: on the one hand, the usually taken-for-granted assumption of the reality of the concept (the reality called ‘Europe’ becomes a naturally occurring phenomenon); on the other hand, the highly ambiguous and polysemic nature of this concept. A clear definition of what constitutes its essence seems to be lacking in most documents on the subject, while a review of some of the most important of these documents reveals that, insofar as definitions are to be found, they do not necessarily converge. This article aims to discuss the concept of the ESM. It analyses and deconstructs the concept in order to identify the main understandings and the various dimensions of the model. It classifies and discusses the ways in which the ESM is most frequently construed and proposes a new approach to understanding this polysemy. We argue that the different dimensions of the concept can be seen as rhetorical resources intended to legitimize the politically constructed and identity-building project of the EU institutions.

Europeización del Bienestar y activación

The process of Europeanization implies a confluence of resources, social representations and outputs by the EU member states. This is mainly due to the sharing of ideas and values, to structural economic harmonisation, and to institutional system-building. This article deals with welfare developments concerned with the European social model (ESM) in contemporary times. Such and related terms, together with other conceptual premises, are analysed in the introductory section, followed by a discussion on the various European welfare regimes. Activation is single out as the new paradigm assumed in various degrees and understandings by all the European countries. However, different perspectives can be identified on the activation paradigm, a task carried out in the third and fourth sections. The ‘Open Method of Co-ordination’ (OMC) serves as main element of reference and comparison. Among other concluding remarks, it is argued that the general process of Europeanization is conditioned by an ambivalent perception of activation as enhancing regulatory principles and solidarity or as empowering citizens by means of welfare individualization.

From ‘Employab-ility’ to ‘Entrepreneurial-ity’ in Spain: youth in the spotlight in times of crisis

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses the processes of individualisation of work and redefinition of the referential category of worker fostered by youth employability schemes in Spain. Employability measures proposed by the recent Spanish Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan and its antithetical youth representations (as a group ‘without qualities’ – the ‘NEETS’– while at the same time as a referential value and cultural model – ‘the young entrepreneur’-) will be analysed. These paradoxes strengthened by employability policies, and further aggravated in the wake of the current economic crisis, do not give rise to political contradictions due to the depolitisation promoted by employability policies: social problems are converted into individual deficits. These processes of psychologisation of work are further discussed on the basis of a recent study on employment counselling and career guidance to help to enhance the employability of jobless people in three Spanish cities, Seville, Madrid and Valencia. These tools ...ABSTRACT This paper discusses the processes of individualisation of work and redefinition of the referential category of worker fostered by youth employability schemes in Spain. Employability measures proposed by the recent Spanish Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan and its antithetical youth representations (as a group ‘without qualities’ – the ‘NEETS’– while at the same time as a referential value and cultural model – ‘the young entrepreneur’-) will be analysed. These paradoxes strengthened by employability policies, and further aggravated in the wake of the current economic crisis, do not give rise to political contradictions due to the depolitisation promoted by employability policies: social problems are converted into individual deficits. These processes of psychologisation of work are further discussed on the basis of a recent study on employment counselling and career guidance to help to enhance the employability of jobless people in three Spanish cities, Seville, Madrid and Valencia. These tools are aimed at fostering employability of unemployed people with a high risk of social exclusion and are emblematic concerning the principle of employability (new governance tools, different intervention logics/principles). Some paradoxes concerning employability policies (entrepreneuriality) in the current labour market crisis will be outlined.

Flexicurity and the semantic transformation of the concept of security: the modernisation of the Spanish social protection

During the last decade, flexicurity has appeared as the cornerstone to face the problems of vulnerability and social exclusion. In order to preserve the adaptation to the ‘taken for granted’ need to change and the capacity to re-define competences and skills of employees, the regulatory frames of the labour markets have undertaken a deep political and axiological transformation. This paper – based on an ongoing research project – will explore these new models of governance in the Spanish context focusing on how flexicurity has been translated and developed by the public employment agencies. These developments have enhanced the ‘de-politisation’ of work and strengthened the ‘psychologisation’ of social protection.

Del desempleo como riesgo al desempleo como trampa: ¿Qué distribución de las responsabilidades plantea el paradigma de la activación propuesto por las instituciones europeas?

The purpose of this contribution is to discuss the social and ethical principles underlying the new model of social intervention proposed by these bodies. To promote and place in circulation concepts that will fuel public debate is an approach to the achievement of supranational regulation increasingly favoured by the European institutions. Here, in relation to the specific case of activation, we will discuss both the differing ways in which the model is utilised and the effects entailed by its implementation, as well as how it affects the adjudication of responsibilities between the welfare state, workers and employers. A diagnosis of the problem will be proposed and explored, together with possible and legitimate alternatives for its resolution. The activation paradigm posits a transformation of the social and ethical underpinnings of the social contract, requiring us to take up a moral stance in relation to unemployment and social exclusion. It accordingly fosters a change in ideological and terminological presuppositions —in what is taken for granted— as a means of depoliticising the handling of the social conflicts likely to accompany current developments in changing production models, in order to prevent the socio-political nature of social exclusion from emerging. The point is to avoid all consideration of this issue, thereby forestalling any questions of power or oppression that might be raised.

From the logic of permanence to the logic of fragmentation: Socio-productive conditions and rearticulation of the middle-class

The rise and consolidation of industrial societies was intrinsically linked to the ascendant ethos of modernity, in which the middle classes played a central role. This ethos entails the concept of the person as a permanent entity (consistent in various situations) in a process of linear evolution and the integrated centre of behaviour and action. This chapter discusses the internal relation between the ideological factors establishing the wage earner’s condition and the normative affirmation of the middleclass ethos.

De la metáfora del mercado a la sinécdoque del emprendedor: la reconfiguración política del modelo referencial de trabajador

De la metafora del mercado a la sinecdoque del emprendedor: la reconfiguracion politica del modelo referencial de trabajador.

Strategy, organisation and the changing nature of work

It is noteworthy how much research is currently being conducted with a view to understanding the complex processes of changes in work in the wake of accelerating globalisation of the economy and increasing use of new technologies. The various studies approach their subject from different angles such as changing labour regulations, the nature of work, type of tasks, etc. This book focuses specifically on one dimension of these changes, namely the transformation of work organisation, and it conducts a sensitive and extremely detailed analysis of the various dimensions of these organisational changes. In view of this overall focus, the reader may regret the lack of a chapter offering an empirical approach to the consequences of these organisational changes on the firm’s productivity, or on the well-being of the worker, although it is assumed throughout much of the book that these consequences are potentially beneficial in both cases.

Book review: Maria Silvia Portella de Castro and Achim Wachendorfer (eds.) Sindicalismo y globalización: la dolorosa inserción en un mundo incierto Caracas: Nueva Sociedad, 1998, 360pp. ISBN 980-317-136-4

Wachendorfer’s book, which translates literally into English as &dquo;Trade unionism and globalisation : the painful insertion into an uncertain world&dquo;, is indeed an eloquent description of the problematic with which the book attempts to get to grips: what is the role of the trade unions in the wake of the profound economic and social changes that have forced a reordering of the defining features constitutive of trade union identity throughout the 20th century ? The book focuses essentially on one particular dimension of this change, namely the redefinition of the areas within which solidar-