The article deals with the relation between union action and the development of welfare, from the first forms of union health assistance down to the more recent changes that are affecting labour regulations. The first part reviews some of the main national experiences that accompanied the development of health assistance along with the first programmes for social protection on the cusp of the XIX and XX centuries. This means examining the expansionist period of Fordist welfare, concentrating on the forms of union involvement in the functioning of the national welfare states. The analysis continues, looking at the changes that marked the crisis of Fordist welfare and the reform processes connected with the new paradigm of active welfare. In particular, it considers the changes that concern union action in the new framework of activation processes, with reference to the practices and forms of involvement - Ghent system/bilateralism - that seem most responsive to the need to reinforce the active intervention of the unions in the labour market.only subscribers can see the full article

After explaining the links between reproductive freedom and wo-men’s individuation dynamics, the author discusses reproductive rights as rights of citizenship. She focuses on reproductive freedom as a crystallization of the demand for political, civil and social rights and their transformation from rights of citizenship into human rights in the framework of the international conferences organized by the United Nations.only subscribers can see the full article

Why is our attention still focussed on gender/women when the debate seems to be more attracted to the link between gender and dif-ferences? From the point of view of principles, in enlarged Europe women «on the move» and women who «have never moved» share the same cultural regime of freedom and choice. Nevertheless, if we look at social practices, narratives and the features of gender structures in welfare regimes, what comes up is a different picture: freedom and choice redefine unspoken hierarchies of and between women through the construction of internal and external European boundaries. only subscribers can see the full article

Various strategies as to the activating of the entire social protection systems are currently implemented in Europe and the developed countries. These go well beyond the scope ascribed to activating the unemployed and involve the whole system of funding welfare and social protection, as well as tax and benefits designing. Although the Ees (and less so, the Omc inclusion) are organized so as to foster the activation trend, their influence has so far been limited, at the level of dissemination of conceptions. The fundamentals of the outcome of activation strategies lie in the dynamics of the national systems and vary across welfare regimes.only subscribers can see the full article

Regionalism has come back to prominence, as the political, economic, cultural, and social meaning of space changes. In some ways, politics, economics, and public policies are deterritorializing; but at the same time there is a reterritorialization. The «new regionalism» is the product of this decomposition and recomposition of the territorial frame-work of public life, consequent on changes in the state, the market, and the international context. Functional needs, institutional restructuring, and political mobilization all play a role. Regionalism must now be placed in the context of the international market and the European Union, as well as the nation-state.only subscribers can see the full article

The author considers the term «migrant» to discuss the possibility and legitimacy of defining immigrants solely on the basis of a static cultural affiliation. The logic of alien worlds that meet, or clash, doesn’t help to settle problems that emerge from day to day relations. The construction of individual or group identity is a process that comes up against the complexity of the modern world, as discerned from migrants’ testimonies: stratified and changeable identities, aspirations and dreams that transcend both the traditional world of the homeland and the mass culture of industrialised countries.only subscribers can see the full article

During the ’90s, we witnessed in Europe the spread of types of relationships between public administration and private organizations derived from the two main categories of contracting out and accreditation. These models, linked to the process of developing new modes of governance, also focus on forms of contracting between providers and users of services. This contractual configuration of local welfare systems seems to encourage «civil society» and recipients to play a more active role in designing interventions and putting them into practice. Nonetheless, many questions still remain, especially about the different position assumed by the beneficiaries in the case of intervention theoretically aimed to ensure or increase their «freedom of choice». This paper sets out to analyse these questions with specific reference to the implementation of the Italian legal reform of social assistance. only subscribers can see the full article