Social Europe and its limits : hardening integration, softening constraints?

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dc.contributor.authorSCHREURS, Sven
dc.date.accessioned2025-05-27T13:11:03Z
dc.date.available2025-05-27T13:11:03Z
dc.date.issued2025
dc.descriptionPublished online: 26 May 2025
dc.description.abstractThe theory of the structural asymmetry has profoundly influenced how scholars think about European integration. At a first glance, a widely-acclaimed ‘revival’ of EU social policy casts doubt on Scharpf’s predictions about the systematic undermining of social market economies, as I have argued elsewhere. But does this critique hold up, on closer inspection? Höpner and co-authors rightly point out that the literature on ‘social Europe’ has focused on the (supranational) agency behind recent policy changes, but often neglected the underlying structural conditions under which these have taken place. Institutional hurdles and socioeconomic diversity still constrain the opportunities for social integration. Nonetheless, I argue in this piece that the space for social and labour market policy-making at the EU level has expanded over the past two decades, resulting from a process of policy learning and the (re-)legitimation of the European polity.
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.citationJournal of European public policy, 2025, OnlineFirst
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/13501763.2025.2510527
dc.identifier.issn1350-1763
dc.identifier.issn1466-4429
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/92731
dc.language.isoen
dc.orcid.putcode1814/80346:184846184
dc.publisherRoutledge
dc.relation.ispartofJournal of European public policy
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccess
dc.rights.licenseAttribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
dc.subjectEuropean integration
dc.subjectSocial policy
dc.subjectLabour law
dc.subjectLearning
dc.subjectLegitimacy
dc.titleSocial Europe and its limits : hardening integration, softening constraints?
dc.typeArticle
dspace.entity.typePublication
person.identifier.orcid0000-0002-2602-7004
person.identifier.other46588
relation.isAuthorOfPublicationb1a9a22c-832e-4a6c-a2fe-8d062eb01bf0
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscoveryb1a9a22c-832e-4a6c-a2fe-8d062eb01bf0
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