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Comparative Social Policy Analysis and Active Labour Market Policy: Putting Quality before Quantity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2015

JOCHEN CLASEN ,
DANIEL CLEGG  and
ALEXANDER GOERNE
JOCHEN CLASEN
Affiliation:
School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, 15A George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD email: jochen.clasen@ed.ac.uk
DANIEL CLEGG
Affiliation:
School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, 15A George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD
ALEXANDER GOERNE
Affiliation:
German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs
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Abstract

In the past decade, active labour market policy (ALMP) has become a major topic in comparative social policy analysis, with scholars exploiting cross-national variation to seek to identify the determinants of policy development in this central area of the ‘new welfare state’. In this paper, we argue that better integration of this policy field into social policy scholarship requires rather more critical engagement with considerable methodological, conceptual and theoretical challenges in order to analyse these policies comparatively. Most fundamentally, rather more reflection is needed on what the substantially relevant dimensions of variation in ALMP from a social policy perspective actually are, as well as enhanced efforts to ensure that it is those that are being analysed and compared.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 21 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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