Social Policy and the Eurocrisis. Quo vadis Social Europe ?

The edited volume entitled Social Policy and the Eurocrisis. Quo vadis Social Europe ? brings together a team of international interdisciplinary experts from across Europe who explore the developments in social policy in the EU, both before and after the Eurocrisis. The main findings of the book will be presented by one of the editors, two chapter authors and critically discussed by two prominent specialists of social policy and the European Union (EU). The book examines how and why the expectations raised in the Delorsian era remained unfulfilled, but also move the scholarly debate beyond the emphasis on courts and markets in order to unveil the genuinely political factors which have led to the demise of Social Europe. Overall, the book argues that, whilst the pursuit of Social Europe has long proved elusive, the new constellation of policy and politics emerging from the Eurocrisis suggests a fundamental departure from Social Europe understood as a political project pursuing the building of a supranational social market economy. European Commission policy entrepreneurship, eastern enlargement, the shifting ideological contours of European Social Democracy, and the spirit of the Lisbon Agenda have all led to market creation taking strong precedence over market correcting policies. More specifically, the book points to the ways in which the post-crisis governance, on the one hand, and German leadership, on the other hand, have led from a logic of path dependency to one of “fast-forward Europeanization” (Graziano and Ladi) in the realm of social policy.