This illuminating book examines the origins and evolution of labor
market policy in Western Europe in three phases: a manpower revolution
during the 1960s and 1970s; a phase of international disagreement about
the causes of and remedies for unemployment, which triggered a variety
of policy responses in the late 1970s and 1980s; and, finally, the
emergence of an activation paradigm in the late 1990s, the influence of
which continues to reverberate today. J. Timo Weishaupt contends that
the evolution of labor market policy is determined not only by
historical trajectories or coalitional struggles, but also by policy
makers' changing normative and cognitive beliefs. Including case studies
of Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, this study will be of value to anyone interested in labor market policy and its governance.
J. Timo Weishaupt is a postdoctoral fellow at the Mannheim Center for European Social Research in Germany.