The Political Economy of Active Labor-Market Policy

Abstract

Active labor-market policies (ALMPs) have developed significantly over the past two decades across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, with substantial cross-national differences in terms of both extent and overall orientation. The objective of this article is to account for cross-national variation in this policy field. It starts by reviewing existing scholarship concerning political, institutional, and ideational determinants of ALMPs. It then argues that ALMP is too broad a category to be used without further specification, and it develops a typology of four different types of ALMPs: incentive reinforcement, employment assistance, occupation, and human capital investment. These are discussed and examined through ALMP expenditure profiles in selected countries. The article uses this typology to analyze ALMP trajectories in six Western European countries and shows that the role of this instrument changes dramatically over time. It concludes that there is little regularity in the political determinants of ALMPs. In contrast, it finds strong institutional and ideational effects, nested in the interaction between the changing economic context and existing labor-market policies.

How policy instruments are chosen: patterns of decision makers’ choices

“…Industrial economies, as well as undeveloped countries (e.g. MENA, the Mediterranean North African countries), indifferently adopt instruments such as training, incentives and subsidies for firms, regardless of the context and of their effectiveness, because they are universally reputed as suitable by the insiders (Martin 1998;Bonoli 2010), whereas they may have a significant normative impact which is not taken into consideration if the legitimacy dimension is dealt with only internally (Daguerre 2007).…”

Omsorgssektoren som integreringsarena:

“…En overordnet debatt i forskningen er hvorvidt aktiviseringspolitikk er rettet mot kvalifisering og kompetansebygging, eller om det handler om kontroll og disiplinering (Djuve 2011;Bonoli 2010;Dean 2006). Dean (2006) omtaler førstnevnte som «human capital», og sistnevnte som «work first»-tilnaerminger til inkludering.…”

“…This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). I følge Bonoli (2010) er dikotomien mellom det Dean kaller «human capital»-og «work first»-tilnaerminger et nyttig utgangspunkt for å forstå tvetydighet i velferdspolitikken, men dikotomien er overforenklende, og innebaerer risiko for svakt forankrede og normative analyser. For å forstå hva som ligger i de ulike tilnaermingene, må man i tillegg utforske to underliggende dimensjoner.…”

“…Den andre dimensjonen viser til i hvilken grad politikken rettes mot å investere i reell utvikling av humankapitalen til dem som står utenfor arbeidsmarkedet. Ved å kombinere de to dimensjonene finner Bonoli (2010) at en kan identifisere fire ulike aktiviseringsstrategier: incentive reinforcement (forsterkning gjennom insentiver), employment assistance (arbeidsstøtte), occupation (arbeidsrettede kurs) og human capital investment (videre kvalifisering).…”

“…Vi har således påvist viktige distinksjoner i tiltak med sterk arbeidsmarkedsorientering. Samlet sett finner vi trekk fra alle de fire idealtypene til Bonoli (2010): forsterking gjennom insentiver, arbeidsstøtte, arbeidsrettede kurs og videre kvalifisering. Idealtypene fremtrer med ulik styrke i tiltakene.…”