Abstract
This thesis analyses the performance of active employment policies at the local level, with the aim of identifying both the factors that condition such performance and their modes of functioning. The research is based on four key propositions that are subsequently developed in the theoretical framework:· exclusion from the labour market forms part of a broader reality and is manifested by lack of employment and by casual employment;
· the active nature of employment policies has become a central component of policy responses to unemployment and should be considered as part of a wider restructuring of the welfare state;
· the shift to employability and workfare strategies form part of a hegemonic ideological framework in which active employment policies are developed;
· policies have been territorialised and local actors have become more significant, which has intensified co-operation between different levels of government and actors on the ground.
The creation of models and categories of active employment policies are tested against empirical findings. From an analytical perspective, the qualitative research focuses on a sample of municipalities in Catalonia, with particular attention paid to one case study. The thesis discuses the extent to which local authorities have been capable of producing innovative policies and creating their own spaces for the design and implementation of active employment policies, and the extent to which such policies have reproduced models that are predominant in the discourse and practice of other levels of government. Consequently, the thesis uses a multilevel approach to the study of employment policies, and explores the contributions of different territorial levels of government, namely the EU, the state, the regional and the local levels.
Key words: active employment policies, labour market exclusion, employability, Welfare States, local governance.
| Date of Award | 19 Dec 2007 |
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| Original language | Catalan |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Ricard Josep Goma Carmona (Director) |