Description
Book SynopsisThis book considers the role of international organizations and their promotion of ideas and recommendations in social and health policy. It explores a wide range of organizations, scrutinizing their ideas-based content, their role as policy actors and their impact on national policy.
What is the role of international organizations in the making of national social policy ideas and practices? What is the content of ideas advocated by international organizations? In examining these and other questions this book presents a range of international organizations dealing with social and health policies. The authors illustrate how welfare policy is shaped by the interplay between national and international policy-makers, focusing on the role of ideas rather than revisiting the more commonly discussed economic and technological issues associated with internationalization of welfare policy. They explore the content of ideas that international actors such as the EU and the OECD are promoting through recommendations and decrees concerning various systems of social policy. The possible effects of national and supranational welfare discourses on national welfare systems are also discussed.
Dealing with both with the normative and cognitive dimensions of social and health policy discourses, this comprehensive book will prove invaluable to policy-makers as well practitioners within international organizations. It will also strongly appeal to scholars of international studies, public policy and social policy.
Trade Review'. . . a welcome and highly relevant contribution to the literature on social policy development in a 21st century, globalized world.' -- European Social Observatory
'The Role of International Organizations in Social Policy
makes an important contribution to the research about social policy of nation states that are increasingly integrated both in terms of socio-economic integration and in terms of membership of international organizations. The main strength of the book is to look at ideas and the way they "travel" between IO and nation states. This book is important for research in the field since it reviews the scattered literature and applies analytical perspectives to selected international organizations and their social policy recommendations. In some regards it explores new grounds and offers analyses, which may be an important contribution to an emerging scientific discussion on the role of international organizations and ideas in national welfare states. We lack analyses of various international organizations and their social policy recommendations. In this regard it is one of the first encompassing contributions in the field of IO and social policy.' -- Klaus Armingeon, University of Berne, Switzerland
Table of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Introduction Rune Ervik, Nanna Kildal and Even Nilssen 2. Comparing Social Policy Ideas Within the EU and the OECD Nanna Kildal 3. Directly-deliberative Polyarchy: A Suitable Democracy Model for European Social Policy? Milena Büchs 4. Combating Social Exclusion in the European Union Even Nilssen 5. Policy Making and Application of Law: Free Movement of Persons and the European Court of Justice Aksel Hatland and Even Nilssen 6. EU and OECD Advice and Changes in German Family Policy: Can Reforms be Attributed to Participation in Learning Processes? Tord Skogedal Lindén 7. Policy Actors, Ideas and Power: EU and OECD Pension Policy Recommendations and National Policies in Norway and the UK Rune Ervik 8. In Search of a New Approach to Pension Policy: The International Labour Office between Internal Tension and External Pressure Remi Maier-Rigaud 9. Towards a European Convergence in Pension Policy Outputs? Evidence from the OMC on Pensions Axel West Pedersen and Henning Finseraas 10. Global Health Policy: What Role for International Governmental Organizations? Christof Schiller, Henni Hensen and Stein Kuhnle Index
