This book provides a major new examination of the current dilemmas of liberal anti-racist policies in European societies, linking two discourses that are normally quite separate in social science: immigration and ethnic relations research on the one hand, and the political economy of the welfare state on the other. The authors rephrase Gunnar Myrdal's questions in An American Dilemma with reference to Europe's current dual crisis - that of the established welfare statefacing a declining capacity to maintain equity, and that of the nation state unable to accommodate incremental ethnic diversity. They compare developments across the European Union with the contemporary US experience of poverty, race, and class. They highlight the major moral-political dilemma emerging acrossthe EU out of the discord between declared ideals of citizenship and actual exclusion from civil, political, and social rights. Pursuing this overall European predicament, the authors provide a critical scrutiny of the EU's growing policy involvement in the fields of international migration, integration, discrimination, and racism. They relate current policy issues to overall processes of economic integration and efforts to develop a European 'social dimension'. Drawing on case-study analysisof migration, the changing welfare state, and labour markets in the UK, Germany, Italy, and Sweden, the book charts the immense variety of Europe's social and political landscape. Trends of divergence and convergence between single countries are related to the European Union's emerging policies fordiversity and social inclusion. It is, among other things, the plurality of national histories and contemporary trajectories that makes the European Union's predicament of migration, welfare, and citizenship different from the American experience. These reasons also account in part for why it is exceedingly difficult to advance concerted and consistent approaches to one of the most pressing policy issues of our time.Very few of the existing sociological texts which compare different European societies on specific topics are accessible to a broad range of scholars and students. The European Societies series will help to fill this gap in the literature, and attempt to answer questions such as: Is there really such a thing as a 'European model' of society? Do the economic and political integration processes of the European Union also implyconvergence in more general aspects of social life, such a family or religious behaviour? What do the societies of Western Europe have in common with those further to the East?This series will cover the main social institutions, although not every author will cover the full range of European countries. As well as surveying existing knowledge in a manner useful to students, each book will also seek to contribute to our growing knowledge of what remains in many respects a sociologically unknown continent. The series editor is Colin Crouch.

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Western Europe, grade: 1,0, University of Münster (Politikwissenschaft - European Studies), course: European Social Policies, language: English, abstract: Armed conflict, economic despair, and systematic violations of human rights have produced unprecedented challenges to today’s international system. It is thus; the post-Cold War era has become witness to significant alterations in global politics that has subsequently generated acute increases in the number of worldwide migrants. Consequently, it is the relationship staggered between immigration and welfare that continues to become an increasingly salient European affair. Immigration continues to remain a contentious issue spawning vigorous debates intensely focused on welfare and social rights. Areimmigrants likely to make positive contributions to welfare states? Or are immigrants rather liable to be a threat, posingfinancial, social and political burdens, and an overall risk to the survival of these welfare states? Underpinning these ubiquitousquestions has been a realignment of debates about the needs and resources of European welfare states, with the renewed interest in immigration as a means of offsetting skills and labour market shortages, while countering the effects of a demographicallyaging European population.1Immigration additionally has beenviewed as a means in achieving the European Union’s ambitious Lisbon targets, in that Europe “would become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion”.2Yet as with most social issues, the simple term ‘immigration’ fails to do justice to the wide range of issues that this policy area entails. In fact, there is much to be said about the composition of immigrants, and it would be a huge oversight to classify immigration as though it were homogenous. An acute distinction must be drawn between ‘desired’ and ‘undesired’ forms of immigration, in the ways in which debates about needs and resources have been recast in Europe. Indeed, it seems that through this differentiation, European welfare states have pursued a janus-headed approach to immigration, in that European welfare states continue to open their doors, to highly-skilled immigrants, deemed as positive, but on the otherhand have continued to vigorously close their doors, particularly to asylum immigrants, which have become increasingly unwanted and the source of restrictive polices.

This timely and original book explores new migration challenges such as asylum seekers and Europe's increasingly restrictive immigration policies.

As the European Union faces the ongoing challenges of legitimacy, identity, and social cohesion, an understanding of the social purpose and direction of EU citizenship becomes increasingly vital. This book is the first of its kind to map the development of EU citizenship and its relation to various localities of EU governance. From a critical political economy perspective, the authors argue for an integrated analysis of EU citizenship, one that considers the interrelated processes of migration, economic transformation, and social change and the challenges they present.

This open access book explores the role of family, public, market and third sector welfare provision for individual and households’ decisions regarding geographical mobility. It challenges the state-centred approach in research on welfare and migration by emphasising migrants’ own reflections and experiences. It asks whether and in which ways different welfare concerns are part of migrants’ decisions regarding (or aspirations for) mobility. Employing a transnational and a translocal perspective, the book addresses different forms of geographical mobility, such as immigration, emigration, and re-migration, circular and return migration. By bringing in empirical findings from across a variety of Western and non-Western contexts, the book challenges the Eurocentric focus in current debates and contributes to a more nuanced and more integrated global account of the welfare-migration nexus.

This first open access book in a series of three volumes provides an in-depth analysis of social protection policies that EU Member States make accessible to resident nationals, non-resident nationals and non-national residents. In doing so, it discusses different scenarios in which the interplay between nationality and residence could lead to inequalities of access to welfare. Each chapter maps the eligibility conditions for accessing social benefits, by paying particular attention to the social entitlements that migrants can claim in host countries and/or export from home countries. The book also identifies and compares recent trends of access to welfare entitlements across five policy areas: health care, unemployment, family benefits, pensions, and guaranteed minimum resources. As such this book is a valuable read to researchers, policy makers, government employees and NGO’s.

This book explores the historical development of post-war immigration politics in Norway, Sweden and Denmark from the perspective of the welfare state, examining how welfare states with high ambitions, generous and inclusive welfare schemes and a strong sense of egalitarianism cope with the pressures of immigration and growing diversities.