Open AccessSocial Investment Policies in the EU: Actively Concrete or Passively Abstract?
Author(s) -
Gaby Umbach,
Igor Tkalec
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
politics and governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.746
H-Index - 18
ISSN - 2183-2463
DOI - 10.17645/pag.v9i2.4079
Subject(s) - investment (military) , social policy , investment strategy , corporate governance , open ended investment company , investment policy , european union , business , economic system , political science , economics , economic policy , market economy , return on investment , foreign direct investment , finance , law , macroeconomics , production (economics) , politics , market liquidity
Against the historical-conceptual background of EU social policy and evolutionary governance, this article analyses the approach with which the EU propagates social investment policies. Social investment, understood as an active rather than passive way of social protection, has become a salient instrument for reinvigorating the EU’s social dimension, especially in the aftermath of the sovereign debt crisis. By means of a large-scale document analysis, we develop four EU social investment propagation approaches (reference, objective, tool, and action) according to how active (passive) and concrete (abstract) the EU’s intervention in social investment is. The results show that the EU mainly propagates social investment with an active approach, i.e., policy recommendations targeted at national governments. In terms of substance, the EU’s treatment of social investment is based on labour activation policies backed by skills development and job search support policies, which is consistent with the main purpose of social investment.