engleski

A Missed Opportunity? Social and Labour Market Policies in the Western Balkans

This chapter explores the development of social and labour market policies (social policy for short) in the countries and territories of the Western Balkans. It argues that in-country tendencies to see social protection as a residual category and as a burden on public expenditures, and to seek to flexibilise and activise labour markets, have been reproduced by a number of international organisations, and flexible consultants forming trans-national knowledge networks, whose interventions play a crucial role in restructuring welfare arrangements. It points to the increasing importance of supra-national, particularly regional, scales in social policy and explores the, rather limited, role of the Stability Pact for South East Europe and its successor the Regional Co-operation Council in developing any coherent, progressive approach to social policy questions. The chapter concludes by outlining ways in which these bodies could act as a kind of ‚ bridge‘ to the wider regional processes associated with membership of the Council of Europe and, even more crucially, processes of association with and accession to, the European Union.

social policy, Western Balkans

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