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der Kommission, available at http://www.bmas.de/DE/Service/Publikationen/ moderne-dienstleistungen-am-arbeitsmarkt.html (accessed 22 October 2015). Heidenreich, M. (2004), 'Beschäftigungsordnungen im internationalen Vergleich', Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 33 (3), 206-227. Heidenreich, M. and P. Aurich-Beerheide (2014), 'European worlds of inclu sive activation: The challenges of coordinated service provision', International Journal of Social Welfttre, 23 (Sl ), S6-S22. Heidenreich, M., N. Petzold, M. Natali and A. Panican (2014), 'Active inclusion as an organisational challenge: Integrated anti-poverty policies in three European countries', Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, 30 (2), 180-198. Heyer, G., S. Koch, G. Stephan and J. Wolff (2012), 'Evaluation der aktiven Arbeitsmarktpolitik: Ein Sachstandsbericht für die Instrumentenreform 2011', Journal for Labour Market Research, 45 (1), 41-62. Kaltenborn, B. and P. Kaps (2012), Einbeziehung der kommunalen Leistungen in die Zielsteuerung des SGB II (Forschungsbericht Arbeitsmarkt No. 434), Berlin: Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales. K,nuth, M. (2009), 'Path shifting and path dependence: Labor market policy reforms under German federalism', International Journal of Public Administration, 32 (12), 1048-1069. Knuth, M. (2014), 'Broken hierarchies, quasi-markets and supported networks: A governance experiment in the second tier of Germany's Public Employment Service', Social Policy & Administration, 48 (2), 240-261. Ludwig-Mayerhofer, W, 0. Behrend and A. Sondermann (2014), 'Activation, public employment services and their clients: The role of social class in a conti nental welfare state', Social Policy & Administration, 48 (5), 594-612. Mückenberger, U. (1985), 'Die Krise des Normalarbeitsverhältnisses: Hat das Arbeitsrecht noch Zukunft', Zeitschrift für Sozialreform, 31, 415-475. Van Berkel, R. and E. Knies (2015), 'Performance management, caseloads and the frontline provision of social services', Social Policy & Administration (Early View, 4 May 2015). Van Berkel, R. and P. van der Aa (2012), 'Activation work: Policy programme administration or professional service provision?', Journal of Social Policy, 41 (3), 493-510. Wegrich, K. (2015), 'Accommodating a foreign object: Federalism, coordination and performance management in the reform of German employment adminis tration', Public Management Review, 17 (7), 940-959. Zimmermann, K., P. Aurich, P.R. Graziano and V Fuertes (2014), 'Local worlds of marketization: Employment policies in Germany, Italy and the UK compared', Social Policy & Administration, 48 (2), 127-148.

9.

The local usages of Europe in social cohesion policies: a comparative analysis Serida L. Catalano and Paolo R. Graziano

9.1

INTRODUCTION

In order to achieve the European employment and social policy targets out lined in the Lisbon strategy, 1 the EU builds on an innovative approach of coordinating Member States' policies through the so-called Open Method of Coordination (Begg and Berghman 2002, Heritier 2003, Radaelli 2003, Citi and Rhodes 2007).The concept of 'subsidiarity' and the local delivery of services, social assistance and employment policies have come to play a crucial role in these coordination processes.For example, the Commission suggested to 'encourage local and regional authorities to develop strate gies for employment [...] and promote partnerships' because 'all actors at the regional and local levels [ ...] must be mobilized to implement the European Employment Strategy (EES)' (European Commission 2001).In order to support the regional and local implementation of these European policies, structural funds (€347 billion from 2007 to 2013) are currently aimed primarily at the objectives defined by the Integrated Guidelines for Growth and Jobs (Mairate 2006, European Commission 2005, 2006). The EES is pursued prominently via the European Social Fund (ESF), which was worth more than €7 5 billion between 2007 and 2013 and which facilitates integrated social cohesion policies, particularly at the regional and local level. For member states with weaker administrative capacities, structural funds have been an important incentive for institutional reform (Zirra 2010, Mailand 2008, L6pez-Santana 2006). However, while the Europeanization of national employment and social policies has been thoroughly researched in recent years (Heidenreich and Zeitlin 2009), the local usage of EU resources beyond the financial ones (such as ESF funds) has received less attention to date.This should be remedied because not accounting for the local usage of European resources may result in over looking the Europeanization dynamics linked to social cohesion.Without 185

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any doubt the EU relationship with the local level is mostly mediated by the national level. Therefore, exploring local actors' perception of the EU and the usages of European resources that those actors are willing or capable of may contribute to the shedding of light not only on the EU local relationship but also on the national-local one and, consequently, on the real effects of the application of the subsidiarity principle. Indeed, as will become clearer below, the fact that the central and/or regional levels often act as gatekeepers for EU financial resources and policy decisions may well contribute to amplifying the power asymmetry between various governmental levels, thus reducing the 'perceived' impact of the EU at the local level. In order to address the aforementioned research gap, this chapter will analyse the 'usages of Europe' (see next section) at the local level. For this purpose an in-depth empirical analysis of the EU impact at the local level was conducted in eighteen local municipalities belonging to six European countries, namely France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

9.2 THE USAGES OF EUROPE This chapter seeks to analyse whether, to what extent and how the EU affects social cohesion policies at the local level. In order to reach this goal, the approach of the 'usages of Europe' (Jacquot and Woll 2003, 2004, Jacquot 2008, Woll and Jacquot 2010, Graziano et al. 2011a, 20llb, 2013) will be used. This approach has been developed as a contribution to the Europeanization literature (Graziano and Vink 2007) that previ ously focused mainly on structural and institutional aspects enabling or inhibiting an EU impact on domestic policy structures. However, established Europeanization approaches did not fully capture the way in which national actors make use of EU resources and constraints, while also downgrading to 'mediating factors' the role played by national actors in 'bringing Europe back in'. In contrast, the notion of usages does not merely imply that actors respond to the institutional context, but also that they exert autonomous actions in the transformation of the European political system because they 'can choose and learn and thus develop agency independent of structural conditions' (Woll and Jacquot 2010: 116). In this sense, the notion of usages, by departing from the micro foundations of actors' behaviour, refers to the social practices through which 'actors engage with, interpret, appropriate or ignore the dynamics of European integration' (Woll' and Jacquot 2010: 116). In addition, the

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approach does not merely look at the way in which actors use Europe for pursuing their goals and interests but also at 'how actors are transformed by their relations with European policies, instruments and actors, thereby eventually creating a context of reciprocal influence' (Jacquot 2008: 22). Since the EU is likely to change national, regional and local political configurations by providing new resources (both material and immaterial) to political actors, it becomes crucial to study how and through which mechanisms or political games sub-national actors use these resources or transform EU constraints into political opportunities. In particular, five main types of EU resources can be listed (Jacquot and Woll 2003, 2004, Woll and Jacquot 2010, Graziano et al. 20l lb): • legal resources (primary legislation, secondary legislation, case law, etc.); • financial resources (budgetary constraints but also European funding); • cognitive and normative resources (communication, ideas, etc.); • political resources (argumentation, blame avoidance mechanisms, multilevel games, etc.); • institutional resources (committees, agencies, etc.). To these resources correspond three main types of usages: •

Cognitive usages refer to the understanding and interpretation of a political issue and are most common when matters are being defined or need to be discussed; ideas serve as persuasion mechanisms, helping to aggregate interests and build coalitions among heteroge neous actors; • Strategie usages refer to the pursuit of clearly defined goals by trying to influence policy decisions or one's own room for manoeuvre, be it by increasing one's access to the policy process or the number of political tools available; • Legitimating usages mix cognitive and strategic elements and occur when political decisions must be communicated and justified for political purposes (consensus building, consolidation, etc.).

By building on the research material provided by the various consortium partners of the LOCALISE project, we aim to detect in the next sections whether Europe has any influence at the local level, what kind of European resources (if any) local actors mobilize and which kinds of usages local actors pursue. This chapter is hence designed as an inductive case study aimed at generating new hypotheses on a topic that has hitherto obtained

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very limited comparative attention. Our main (and basic) research hypoth esis, derived from Europeanization theory, is that usages are more wide spread in cases where European resources are needed most (that is in cases of low social cohesion, such as high unemployment or poverty rates) and where local political actors have no room for manoeuvre. Furthermore, we hypothesize that financial resources will be most relevant for the local level, since only they allow local actors to make specific gains without conced ing more intrusive powers to the EU, for instance over the definition of local objectives and principles of social cohesion policies. lt follows that in municipalities that are 'over-performing' in terms of social cohesion, we can expe�t an overall limited usage of Europe, and more specifically only a strategie usage of primarily financial resources, whereas in other munici palities (both 'average' and 'underperforming' ones) we should expect a greater usage of a füll range of resources. In the following section, we inves tigate the six countries under study to understand the prevailing usages and resources at the municipal level. For each country, we selected three local cases with either average, below-average or above-average performance in terms of labour force participation rates, unemployment and regional gross domestic product. In the sections below, any direct quotes that are not identified otherwise are taken from the research reports of the research consortium (Fuertes and McQuaid 2013 for the UK, Languin et al. 2013 for France, Zimmermann et al. 2013 for Germany, Catalano et al. 2013 for Italy, Mandes 2013 for Poland, and Jacobsson et al. 2013 for Sweden).

9.3

THE LOCAL USAGE OF EUROPEAN RESOURCES IN THE UK

Despite the fact that political devolution has transferred some statutory powers from the London-based UK parliament to the Scottish govern ment, the Welsh government and the Northern Ireland Executive,2 the UK government still retains control over the majority of public spending and crucially (with reference to structural funds) also still supervises social security and public employment services. As will become apparent below, this central control has several consequences for the European impact at the local level. European financial resources, and particularly the EU structural funds, are by far the most used and recognized EU resources at the UK local level. Due to the overwhelming importance of the central UK government, local actors' participation in EU policy-making is very limited. Local actors might even come to perceive themselves as mere recipients of EU funds who appear to be using EU money to fund UK objectives.


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The central and to some extent regional control over funds represents a crucial barrier to the adequate targeting of programmes at local needs. This is particularly manifested in the case of Wales, where structural funds are conspicuous owing to the presence of convergence areas in the region.3 Indeed, the Welsh European Funding.Office (WEFO), aspart of the Welsh government, has been given responsibility for funding, policy implemen tation and the setting of overall policy objectives linked to EU funds (in terms of interpreting the guidelines coming from Europe). Nevertheless, several interviewees pointed out that this working method strongly impacts on the political ownership of local strategies. lt would be more beneficial to local needs if relevant local policy departments wrote such strategies and the WEFO implemented them, since the departments know and under stand the local reality better. EU financial resources are considered as crucial in augmenting incen tives for programme and policy alignment, thus spurring recourse to strategie EU usages in the UK context. Nevertheless, local actors also emphasize that such alignment would likely have occurred anyway because the UK government is regarded as having always been a leader in the field of employment, active labour market policies (ALMPs) and social inclu sion, meaning that it is unlikely to follow an EU policy lead in these areas (Macphail 2010). On the contrary, some participants stated that the EU seems to be following the UK in terms of policy direction, particularly in the area of ALMPs and welfare-to-work reforms. A number of interviewees at the UK local level stated that European funding has influenced their work as they have been able to learn from other countries' experiences, work with new partners and run programmes that they would otherwise not have been able to engage with or run. In certain instances, EU funding has also permitted the expansion of the range and quality of services. Furthermore, Europe was in some cases described as a potential corrective against the centralization of UK policy. Indeed, some interviewees emphasized that the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) and European recommendations have contributed to encouraging multi stakeholder coordination between the local and the national level, and the involvement of the third sector in policy development. Nevertheless, EU financial resources come with many negative effects. Apart from the complexity of applying for structural funds and the fact that extra funding can be 'a bit of a distraction' rather than adding value (owing to organizations focusing on 'chasing the funding'), many inter viewees also stressed that financial resources may encourage duplications through the proliferation of projects: 'it starts to be a bit of a jungle out there'. Furthermore, others emphasized the negative impact of late payment on the cash flow of organizations, and the fact that the level of

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financial control over EU funding is 'excessive, ridiculous and dispropor tionate', while the performance of projects (that is how the money is spent) is not monitored at all. As for the other types of EU resources, and particularly cognitive and legal resources, structural funds are the main vehicle for disseminating the EU policy perspective. Therefore, EU money is instrumental in getting acquainted with European ideas. Nevertheless, the direct impact of EU policy guidelines, directives and programmes at the local level is usually perceived as quite negligible. As previously stated, according to many interviewees the main reason is linked to the fact that funding for local programmes comes from the central government even if it accrues from EU structural funds - therefore, local programmes must be aligned with national policy.Hence, an EU 'cognitive influence' on the local level occurs mainly through the intermediation of the national and regional levels.4 In this sense, national policy obscures the EU influence because EU policies and guidelines are read and filtered through the lens of national policy.By the time local actors are able to perceive any European policy direction, the national level has already 'imposed' that direction through its policies and the legal system.As one interviewee pointed out, 'UK employment policy has actually overwhelmed any influence that Europe might have had'. To sum up, the employment and social policy of the UK government is understood by most local officials to be the dominant driving force behind policies related to social cohesion.EU financial resources are rec ognized as the most important resources at the UK local level, despite local actors often perceiving themselves as mere recipients of these resources. Consequently, strategic usages occur mainly via policy alignment to ensure compliance with national structural funding requirements, rather than through trying to influence policy decisions at the national level. Even if local actors are aware of EU cognitive resources, cognitive as well as politi cal usages occur mainly at the national and regional level of government through the alignment of national and regional government policies and legislation to EU social cohesion policies. Finally, no significant evidence of any discursive references to the EU and related legitimizing usages emerged from the analysis.

9.4 THE LOCAL USAGE OF EUROPEAN RESOURCES IN FRANCE In France, the centralization of employment and social cohesion policies results in a clear division of competences between the national level (policy development) and the regional and local level (policy implementation and

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service delivery, respectively).More specifically, regional actors implement eniployment and social cohesion policy while local caseworkers provide and deliver services.The use of European resources and their correspond ing usages is strongly related to the phase of the policy cycle: policy devel opment covers a much broader spectrum of resources and usages (other than strategic), with the consequence that national and to some extent also regional actors mobilize a larger quantity and range of European resources than sub-national actors. In all French local case studies analysed,5 financial resources are the most important European resources employed at the local level by far, especially ESF funds.In this respect, the analysis clearly showed that local actors consider having knowledge of EU funding mechanisms as useful, even if such knowledge is almost exclusively directed at gathering money. Furthermore, many local actors acknowledge that if they had an adequate budget, they would avoid 'resorting' to the EU: ' ...we explore European recommendations and we design projects that fit them because we need money. So yes, there is a European influence but an influence under obligation.' Thus, Europe's impact was generally perceived as an obligation and/or a constraint rather than an opportunity by the interviewees, even when the purpose behind the usage of Europe is to gather financial resources which in itself should represent an opportunity. The problematic per ception of EU financial resources is due to the fact that the European procedures for accessing funding are viewed as too bureaucratized and burdensome, and that EU money comes with many side effects that cover a continuum from administrative and time-consuming costs to the loss of discretion and control over processes. Furthermore, local actors mainly implement national policies that have been influenced by EU guidelines, with the latter being perceived as a prominent cause for the increase of controls and evaluation mechanisms. When EU resources are viewed as opportunities, this has more to do with individual leadership and profes sional background than with local political or administrative culture. Therefore, the EU is often perceived as an actor that 'makes things more complex', thus hindering the policy implementation process.For example, interviewees were unanimous in pointing out that managing ESF-related projects requires a strong professionalization and the development of new competences within the respective structures. Furthermore, the positive effect of upgrading the management techniques and managerial culture required for running these projects was often recognized as a negative upshot of the useless burden of formality, complexity, redundant control and evaluation procedures that come with EU funds.For this reason, many local actors observed that in order to attract European financial resources,

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an organization must 'expect numerous controls and be ready to justify everything', 6 'be prepared to face uncertainty and delays in funding'7 and be equipped with the know-how needed to face European complexity. Owing to the importance attributed to EU financial resources, strategie usage of EU resources is relevant at the French local level, according to the interviewees. In cases where organizational changes are required for adapting local bodies to European recommendations, these changes are carried out following an instrumental logic and not because the European goals are shared by the various actors involved. This instrumental logic also appears with respect to the linkage between project management and human resources, since participating in EU calls and managing projects might become a way through which it is possible 'to keep the staff and the caseworkers'. In other words, the only reason why institutions participate in EU projects is that they may obtain resources that can be useful for maintaining staff and workers that are otherwise too expensive for the local institutions' budgets. A very scant knowledge of the European Union's guidelines and strate gies emerged from the interviews. Indeed, even if most of the interviewees recognized the existence of European eognitive and legal resources, they referred to them without having a detailed knowledge of the EU guidelines and/or without being fully aware of using them. Europe is considered too far from the local priorities and needs that local actors have to address on a daily basis. To some extent, it appears that local actors deem it impor tant to acknowledge the relevance of linkages to EU cognitive and legal resources. At the same time, however, they admit that it is difficult to effec tively track down such linkages at the local level. Furthermore, as already mentioned with regard to financial resources, the limited usage of EU cognitive and legal resources is mostly of a strategie nature. Local actors considered the usage of EU cognitive and legal resources as instrumental in achieving their agenda and goals rather than becoming familiarized with new practices. In summary, the usage of Europe at the local level in France is relatively limited and mainly related to financial resources. Only very few local actors are aware of European strategies and guidelines. They become interested in them according to an instrumental logic, in other words, they follow them primarily in order to obtain funding. In this sense, eognitive usages might at most emerge as a side effect of strategie ones, which remain the main kind of usage at the French local level. Likewise, legitimizing usages are quite unusual at the sub-national levels: they are mainly to be found in the national employment agencies when they seek to explain their manage ment schemes (notably regarding ,governance schemes, choice of targets and increasing sanctions) or justify national changes.


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9.5 THE LOCAL USAGE OF EUROPEAN RESOURCES IN GERMANY Germany is a federal country in which policy formulation in employment policies mainly takes place at the national level, while the regional level has some additional competences. As the lowest administrative level, the local level (mainly the municipalities) is only partly involved in employ ment policies while holding a strong role in designing social policies that display strong interfaces with employment policies in the field of long term unemployment. The analysis of European resource usages revealed a differentiated picture of the German local level. Two unemployment protection schemes are to be distinguished (unemployment insurance or UB I and minimum income scheme or UB II). Consequently, both the relevance of certain EU resources and their usages by local actors differs on the basis of the eco nomic and labour market performance of each local entity. 8 More specifically, UB II is a long-term unemployment scheme, mostly addressed at those unemployed who are capable of work but are not enti tled to unemployment insurance. lt is tax-financed, needs-tested, flat-rate and entails the delivery of services such as psycho-social counselling and debt-counselling as well as support for child care or housing, if necessary. UB II and the social services related to it are administrated and delivered by training providers, welfare associations and especially the local job centres, which in most cases are jointly governed by a municipality and the Federal Employment Agency (FEA), a public body under tripartite self-government. UB II is especially relevant for the long-term unemployed (LTU), thus becoming crucial in local entities with a low performance regarding unemployment, poverty and social exclusion. The actors man aging UB II use more EU financial resources at the service delivery level compared to those managing UB I. The latter is a relatively status-protecting, contribution-financed unem ployment insurance scheme which is addressed at the short-term unem ployed (provision is generally limited to one year). UB I is more relevant in well-performing local entities. The main actors involved in policy formula tion and implementation (the chambers of craft and commerce, public authorities, social partners and the local employment agencies) declared to use more legal and cognitive EU resources but fewer financial resources compared to the actors involved in UB II policy. However, despite this, actors are often well informed about European discourses and legisla tion, but only the well-performing case among the three local case studies displayed direct inter-European contacts. The regional level also provides certain infrastructures (such as dedicated staff and offices) for deepening

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such contacts, thus making EU institutional and political resources impor tant as well. Nevertheless, financial EU resources - which are in fact limited to the ESF - are absolutely paramount at the service delivery stage. All actors at the service delivery level are informed about ESF funding and several actors specialize in the application and implementation of ESF-based projects (for example by means of specialized departments, specialized staff or even external support structures, such as consulting firms or public offices). For many German municipalities, EU money is a major element in their budget. Very often, the ESF is their only link to the European level, since regulations, guidelines or European discourses are not relevant for them. Although the ESF is the most relevant EU resource used in the German cases, the extent to which it is used differs between municipalities. For example, in the least well-performing of the three local cases, the use of the ESF is very intensive; by contrast, in the well-performing case, only some actors apply for ESF money. This difference is mainly explained by the economic situation, the available funding and the necessary co-funding which an organization must contribute out of its own budget. In the underperforming local German case, the financial incentives for applying for ESF funds are stronger owing to the large number of unemployed that increase the chance of being successful with an application. Furthermore, actors in the underperforming case must invest much less of their own funds in the co-funding (about 20 per cent) than the average and well performing cases (about 50 per cent). Nevertheless, institutional factors also play a role in influencing the recourse to the ESF. Indeed, due to the highly complex bureaucratic procedures related to the ESF, local actors need substantial administra tive support and know-how to access ESF funds. The underperforming case is equipped with much more elaborate administrative infrastructures than the other cases, since the higher amount of available funding makes applications more profitable and investing in one's own administrative competences is therefore worthwhile. The well-performing municipality recently strengthened this aspect, though. Nevertheless, a large number of local actors still perceive the administrative processes as a burden and hence as an obstacle to using the ESF. Several actors report not to apply because they do not have the time, money or staff for the application and implementation process. Furthermore, the programmatic aims of the ESF include elements that are very much in line with the programmatic goals and governance design of the UB II scheme, such as thv labour market integration of excluded groups, a target group approach, a link between social and employment


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services, individualized services, and the partnership approach that fosters cooperation between different actors. This facilitates the usage of the ESF by actors involved in this scheme, especially in the underperforming case where the UB II scheme is of very high relevance owing to the weak economic situation. In addition, several actors in the underperforming and average case use the ESF to overcome the strict bureaucratic and pro grammatic boundaries of the instrument portfolio of the UB II scheme (for example to finance follow-up support after successful placement). By contrast, the programmatic approach of the ESF, which focuses on vul nerable groups, does not correspond with the target group of the UB I or unemployment insurance scheme (for the short-term unemployed, who are mostly easy to integrate). Summing up, in the Germany case,financial resources and more specifi cally ESF funds are the most-used EU resources at the local level, while legal regulations, European discourses and institutions are used in a very limited way. Almost in all local cases, the strategic usage of EU resources is the dominant type of usage, ·also with respect to other, non-financial resources (mostly legal regulations). In particular, the decisions for and against applying for ESF funding are interest-driven and mainly aimed at resource mobilization and allocation. EU institutional, cognitive and politi cal resources are slightly more important in the well-performing case than in the other two local cases at the policy formulation and implementation stage. In particular, institutions become crucial tools for reinterpreting issues, thus being associated not only with strategic but also with cognitive usages. In fact, the German case is one of the few cases where differentia tions among the three municipalities emerge in line with our expectations (municipalities in 'underperforming' regions use European resources more intensively than municipalities in 'over-performing' or average-performing regions).

9.6 THE LOCAL USAGE OF EUROPEAN RESOURCES IN ITALY In Italy, the lower levels of government, province and comuni (municipali ties) are responsible for policy implementation and service delivery in the areas of labour and social policies, respectively. By contrast, the national and regional levels set the legislative framework for social cohesion policies and manage policy formulation and development. The strategic planning of the EU structural funds is also handled centrally by the super-ordinate levels (national and regional). This fact has crucial consequences for the relationship between Europe and the local level. Furthermore, we found

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local variations among the three Italian case studies9 that are related to the highly dissimilar amount of EU funds 10 they are apportioned as a result of their differing territorial development and socio-economic context. Local actors at the subordinate levels often complain about not being able to strategically influence political decisions at the EU level because the super-ordinate levels are the main 'interlocutors' of the EU: As a result, the municipal and provincial levels, as 'indirect' resource recipients from the super-ordinate levels, are mostly involved in receiving and spend ing these resources in keeping with the objectives and strategic guidelines set down in the regional plans, without necessarily having a say in the latter. Indeed, margins for influencing the regional level generally remain quite negligible. The fact that the region acts as a gatekeeper of EU finan cial resources by also setting the strategic guidelines by which they are allo cated might contribute to a further amplification of the power asymmetry between the regional and the municipal level. In all three cases scrutinized, EU financial resources are by far the most crucial EU resources at the Italian local level, with the result that Europe is often mainly considered as a 'money provider'. In this sense, the EU is frequently approached in an instrumental way in order to obtain funds when decision-makers and bureaucratic actors are not able to find them elsewhere - a phenomenon which is spreading more and more owing to the economic crisis. Due to the large amount of EU financial resources granted to the region of Naples, the municipal EU offices work mainly with the regular EU structural funds and, as a result, are less troubled by the need to participate in European calls to 'get money'. By contrast, especially in the well-performing Italian local case where EU structural funds are less ample, a somewhat fragmented, random and anxious method of dealing with Europe emerged. Thus, local policy-makers might be more inclined to 'handpick EU calls through a senseless race' based on the money they would potentially receive rather than based on the objective they are seeking to achieve. Nevertheless, in all three local cases, the interviewees pointed out that EU projects are often isolated and not preceded or fol lowed by an effective strategic plan to amalgamate these projects into local policy development. EU financial resources are often criticized for several reasons, first and foremost for the 'remarkable complexity and the mammoth work' required to participate in EU calls, which results in a huge overload of work for bureaucrats - apart from spending responsibilities. In this respect, many actors complain that the bureaucratization of the funding procedures makes the EU 'caged into rule,S'. This in turn contributes to the inacces sibility of EU funding. Furthermore, the management of the EU funds,


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especially with respect to bookkeeping, often requires extra· personnel, which is nearly impossible to hire during a period of economic crisis with a staff turnover freeze within the public administration. In many cases EU projects are also said to be costly due to the difficulty of fulfilling the co financing quota. Political resources, especially with respect to blame avoidance mecha nisms and multilevel games, emerged as the second most important EU resource in the case of both Rome and Naples. On the one hand, some actors hold the EU responsible for operating as a massive constrictive power that de facto impacts negatively on the municipality's spending ability. On the other hand, other actors blame the Italian government for being 'subjected to EU's decisions' without being able to negotiate more 'advantageous conditions' with the EU. The continual references to political resources in these two localities, which did not emerge in the case of Milan, are likely due to the intensity with which the crisis has struck these more fragile economic regions as opposed to that of the 'richer' Milan. Therefore, it seems clear that dis cursive references to the weighty constraints posed by the EU as well as by the Italian government are quite rampant in these localities because they can be used as 'political tools', to be eventually translated into legitimizing usages in the public space. What has been outlined so far does certainly not imply that a negative attitude towards the EU prevails at the local level. In fact, local actors clearly distinguish the EU's political role from the EU's cognitive role. In all three local Italian cases, Europe is likewise referred to as an entity from which 'we can and should learn many things'. Respondents are also fully aware of the relevance of EU cognitive and legal resources. While they are not always able to make precise references or provide specific examples of such EU resources, many of them attribute this to the fact that these resources are so entrenched, especially in the Italian legislation, that it becomes 'difficult to effectively disentangle what is European from what is not'. Nevertheless, it is worth underlining that since the national and regional levels are the main law-makers and decision-makers, cognitive usages mainly occur at these levels as well. The biggest portion of EU cog nitive and legal resources is handed over to the local level via a top-down 'legislative' transmission belt or through 'policy windows' that are opened up in the national arena by EU ideas, policies, strategies and guidelines. In summary, at the Italian local level, EU financial resources and stra tegic usages are by far the most relevant. Cognitive and legal resources are acknowledged as being very important, despite the fact that local actors have some difficulties in tracking them down de facto at the local level. Finally, political resources and legitimizing usages are especially important

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in the low and average-performing local cases, which (as in the case of Germany) is in line with the expectations formulated in section 9.2.

9.7 THE LOCAL USAGE OF EUROPEAN RESOURCES IN POLAND The European Union is often spontaneously mentioned by interviewees at the Polish local level. Indeed, almost all interviewed actors declared to have had indirect or direct contacts with the EU, especially in the framework of European projects. For most interviewees at the local level, the EU is often associated with the financial resources it provides, which are allocated in accordance to centrally (especially nationally and regionally) established mechanisms in Poland. Almost without exception, when asked about the influence of the EU on local social cohesion policies, local actors refer to EU funding, which turns out to be crucial especially for employment and social assistance policies. Some interviewees emphasized that had no EU funds been available, many local initiatives and/or programmes (and the institutions needed to implement them) would not have been launched at all. Therefore, local actors in Poland believe that the EU has triggered an expansion of the tasks performed, the services offered and the amount of people reached. The empirical analysis11 also shows that the availability of EU funds deeply impacts on the relations between institutions at various levels of government. In this sense, financial resources are often played as political resources, since they are used not only as tools for expanding the range of activities and programmes implemented at the local level, but also as instruments for increasing the role and significance of one political level against the others. lt is worth underlining that decentralization in Poland occurred in two steps. Initially, the gmina (municipalities) were created and were equipped with numerous competences and funds, while the powiats (district level) and voivodeships (regional level) were established only a few years later and were assigned a negligible amount of economic resources and com petences related mostly to control and regulation. Furthermore, due to a lack of direct power over the municipalities and also due to the high inter institutional competition between the voivodeships and powiats, even these functions cannot be fully and effectively carried out. Nevertheless, EU funds have quite radically altered the power asymmetry between political levels in Poland, as the voivodeship level performs precisely the task of allocating EU economic resources, resulting in a strengthening


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of its political relevance and a redefinition of the relations between the various levels. In addition and in consequence, the process of resource allocation might provoke tensions between institutions. Indeed, it appears that the voivodeship level is progressively tightening the procedures for the apportionment of such funds by also trying to influence the goals, policy priorities and target groups to be financed. When doing so, the powiat level often refers to EU requirements, ideas and guidelines in order to justify its choices. In this sense, not only the EU financial resources but also the cognitive ones are strongly linked with political resources. Furthermore and with regard to legitimizing usages, blame avoidance mechanisms are employed to strategically steer the expenditure of EU funds according to voivodeship priorities and increase the inter-institutional weight of this local level of government. EU institutional and cognitive resources play a special role in Poland compared to the other countries analysed in this chapter. This is due to the strong adaptation pressure and the conditions that Poland had to meet in order to be admitted into the European Union. The accession process in Poland, which ended in 2004 with the country's inclusion in the EU, was preceded by carefully planned preparations. To this end, several training programmes took place. Many interviewees declared that they had partici pated in training to become acquainted with the complexity of the EU's institutions, directives and fund management techniques. Furthermore, many projects were carried out within the PHARE 12 programme, which was an important experimental instrument to show how to become famil iar with EU funds. Many interviewees spontaneously mentioned their first contacts with the EU during the pre-accession period, saying that the role of EU cognitive resources had never been as crucial in Poland as in that period when 'we were all learning' . Despite that groundwork, when Poland joined the EU, bureaucrats found themselves thrown into a new reality which implied an intensive involvement in several EU projects. In this sense, the 'appearance' of EU financial resources and their further increase after the accession point intensified pressures to develop institutional capacities and acquire new skills and cognitive resources., The 'project method' to which the appor tionment of EU funds is linked is especially singled out by the interviewees as having strongly increased the cognitive and institutional challenges at the local level. In particular, the acquisition of relevant know-how and the introduction of organizational changes at the local level are often referred to as strategically indispensable in the Europeanized Poland, especially with regard to developing a viable method for dealing with EU projects and thereby further enhance the possibilities for acquiring EU financial resources.

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Nevertheless, also in the Polish local cases, EU financial resources are far from being solely considered as an opportunity. On the contrary, many local actors emphasize the extent to which these resources come with many negative side effects, first and foremost due to the bureaucratic rigidity associated with EU projects. Furthermore, the latter are often referred to as a source of additional obligations, assignments and responsibilities for bureaucrats, who have to manage them without being released from their ordinary tasks and without being rewarded with extra remuneration. Additionally, EU projects are often considered as temporary and their effects as impermanent. Thus, a certain sense of frustration and scepticism towards the EU emerges. Many respondents state that the changes expected with Poland's accession to the EU are far from having been fulfilled, especially with respect to the social and employment fields. Despite most interviewees recognizing that EU funds are very noticeable at the Polish local level, there is also a mounting awareness that having more money in itself is not a sufficient condition for doing more and better. Thus, interviewees often depict the EU as the main cause of problems, especially with regard to its rigid bureaucratic rules. Summing up, the influence of the EU at the Polish local level is per ceived as quite strong and it is mainly related to financial resources. Despite this, knowledge of European guidelines and directives is in fact very limited. The pre-accession phase and the relatively recent accession have made (and continue to make) European resources other than finan cial resources relevant, especially cognitive and institutional resources. These resources are frequently deployed according to strategic usages in order to gather even more financial resources. Furthermore, Europe is often referred to as a political resource for blame avoidance, not only towards the general public but also between institutions in multilevel games.

9.8 THE LOCAL USAGE OF EUROPEAN RESOURCES IN SWEDEN In Sweden, labour market policy is a centralized policy field; policies are articulated by the national government and implemented by the local offices of the Public Employment Service (PES). However, municipalities are also engaged in activation, mainly related to dients on social assistance. This means that a dual system of activation policies is actually in place. A constitutional right to local au�onomy counteracts any attempts to make the municipalities mere implementers of national policy. Due to local


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variations, it is particularly interesting to compare local policy approaches across municipalities in Sweden. Previous research (for example Jacobsson 2005) has emphasized the good 'fit' between the European Employment Strategy and the Swedish labour market policy approaches. The European strategies have brought little new to Sweden in terms of policy thinking. In addition, the ambition of policy integration, organizational partnerships and coordinated policy delivery also have a long tradition at the Swedish local level (see Hollertz in this volume). As a result, there is no reason to see the EU as driving these developments or as spurring local organizational or policy change. The empirical analysis 13 confirms that the European dimension of activation and social cohesion policy is by and large invisible at the local level in Sweden, which of course does not mean that it is non-existent or non-influential. After all, the EU impact on the local level is mainly medi ated by the national level. Thus, local actors can be more influenced by Europe than they are aware of. However, most Swedish interviewees dearly displayed a quite manifest 'distance' from Europe and a lacking awareness of it. The EU is mainly present at the local level through its financial resources and, more precisely, as a provider of funding through the ESF. ESF pro jects are perceived as useful, mainly for introducing new working methods and eventually forcing partners to cooperate. The flipside, again, is the high administrative 'price tag', 'extreme administration' and 'Stalin-like control'; this is considered as so disproportionate 'that we seriously con sider never to apply for ESF money again because it is not worth the work effort'. Another problem reported with regard to ESF projects is that only social security beneficiaries can take part in them, since the benefit received by the dient is counted as co-financing, and payments from the ESF are related to the number of participants. Consequently, if a dient gets a job and disappears, this is perceived as a problem and not a success (because of the implied financial loss). Moreover, ESF projects require almost full time participation in order to be economically sustainable, but participants are too often unable to attend füll-time. Another issue is that EU projects are often too costly and staff-intensive to be sustainably implemented in the post-project phase. This creates the risk of a lacking continuity and of the projects having little effect on regular policy implementation after the project period. ESF projects are primarily considered as a way of compensating for the lade of resources in the relevant organizations' regular work budget. Still, by providing additional financial resources, ESF projects enable more individualized approaches in relation to the selected target groups and also provide funding for more costly activities which exceed the ordinary

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budget. Nevertheless, if EU financial resources do not match an identified need, other domestic avenues and resources are used instead. The stakeholders in the best-performing Swedish local case have deliber ately decided to stay out of ESF projects, while in the average-performing case, they are engaged in ESF projects but express doubts as to whether they are really worthwhile. In the under-performing case, local actors are slightly more positive regarding their participation in ESF projects based on a long experience of such participation. After all, in order to be able to access potential ESF financial resources, previous experience and skills in project administration are needed, which some of the studied munici palities (Trollhättan) have more than others (Nacka). Another variable explaining the different involvement in ESF projects between the three local case studies is the socio-economic context. For example, since Nacka does not suffer any substantial shortage of financial resources, it does not have as much incentive for participating in EU projects as Trollhättan. As mentioned above, the European dimension of activation and social cohesion policies is quite negligible at the Swedish local level. Indeed, the three case studies show that knowledge about the EES has 'trickled down' to the local level only to a small extent. Local actors are by and large not aware of EU processes or initiatives. Nevertheless, there are examples of local actors participating in trans-national learning exercises as well as exchanges of experiences, knowledge and ideas that can be directly or indirectly related to the EU. Furthermore, labour migration and mobility are two issues that informants associate with the European level. Generally speaking, the capacity for making use of the available European cognitive resources seems dependent on individuals with interest in, and knowledge of, the EU system. European labour market policy discourses, however, have a limited impact on day-to-day work with the unemployed and socially excluded. For instance, the policy concept of employability is not used at the local level; instead, terms such as 'work capacity' or 'to be in activity' , 'to be active' and 'to participate in activities' are commonly employed. Likewise, partnership is not a practitioner concept in Sweden; the established term is samverkan, understood as something between coordination and coopera tion. This has a long tradition in Sweden, preceding EU membership and policy processes. Therefore, changes in line with EU policy are not neces sarily driven by EU policy. Instead, we would argue that national policy has been the most decisive factor. Summing up, although little evidence of an EU influence on policy development was found at the Swedish local level, the EU does fulfil a role in service delivery through ESF projects. This role consists mainly in making up for failures in regular service delivery. In this sense, EU financial


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resources and strategie usages are the most common at the Swedish local level. As for eognitive resources, the EU level appears as too abstract and far away according to our interviewees. lt is likely that the European impact on the local level is mainly mediated by the national level. The EU is not very present in local discourse� and no evidence has been found of EU-blaming or of justifying or legitimating policies with reference to the EU. Furthermore, no use of the EU as a political or institutional resource has been detected. Sweden, with its 'dual' system of activation policies thus seems to only partially confirm our hypothesis: the municipality in the over-performing region does not use many European resources (not even financial resources) while the other municipalities do use European financial resources - but no other EU resources.

9.9 THE 'LOCAL USAGES' OF EUROPE The above analysis clearly showed that strategie usages, and EU finaneial resourees- both direct ones (for example EU funds) and indirect ones (for example budgetary constraints) - are by far the most crucial EU resources at the European local level. In particular, the structural funds and more specifically the ESF account for most of the EU financial resources used. However, our research hypothesis was only very partially confirmed with respect to EU funds: European financial resources are indeed less rel evant in municipalities belonging to 'over-performing' regions in Sweden, Germany and ltaly, but there seems to be less country-internal differentia tion in the UK, France and Poland (where the role of financial resources is generally perceived as quite important in all the local cases). With respect to the other EU resources, they generally play a less important role than EU funds and no clear-cut pattern emerged in their usage at the local level. This was also due to the difficulty experienced by local actors in concretely pinning down or being able to discern the impact of non-economic EU resources in their work. Nevertheless, political resources are more signifi cant in the less economically flourishing countries (for example Poland and ltaly) than in the more prosperous countries. How can we explain the limited confirmation of our hypothesis? lt seems clear that not only the national settings but also local policy features count more than we initially acknowledged. In this sense, institutional factors (for example a country's degree of centralization), socio-economic factors (for example the overall amount of EU funds received) as well as administrative and cultural factors (for example know-how and leader ship) might eventually play a strong role in explaining not only local actors' willingness to use EU resources, but also the latter's effectiveness.

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The national policy structure was found to be significant for the per ceived impact of the EU in terms of financial and cognitive resources in Germany, Sweden and the UK. The case of Germany is in fact a peculiar one because in the under-performing case, the use of the ESF is facilitated by a policy alignment between the programmatic aims of the ESF and the overall approach of the German minimum income scheme. In the British case, it emerged that the EU seems to be following the UK in terms of policy content, particularly with regard to labour market policies and welfare-to-work reforms, rather than vice-versa. In other words, the UK has been 'uploading' policy contents and seen them translated into poli cies at the EU level more than 'downloading' EU prescriptions and trying to adapt to them to the national context. Although this might facilitate a good fit of local programmes with structural funding requirements, this also contributes to a decreased impact of EU principles and guidelines. Likewise, in the Swedish case, the 'natural fit' between the European Employment Strategy and the Swedish labour market policy seems to have brought little new in terms of policy thinking, thus making the European dimension of activation and social cohesion almost invisible at the Swedish local level. Overall, the alignment between national and EU policy structures seems to have a twofold effect. On the one hand, it can facilitate the employment of EU financial resources (as in the case of Germany and to a lesser extent the UK); on the other hand, it can contribute to augmenting the perceived insignificance of EU cognitive resources at the local level (as in Sweden and the UK). Table 9.1 summarizes the usages of Europe 14 at the local level. Despite the fact that strategic usages were found to be the most impor tant ones at the local level, they frequently appear to be triggered by efforts to augment the available financial tools rather than by efforts to expand local access to regional, national or European policy processes and thereby influence policy decisions. In fact, the centralization of social cohesion policy-making and the consequent involvement of the local level especially in policy implementation and/or service delivery leaves this level with a low margin of manoeuvre to influence policy decisions at superordinate levels. Table 9.1

Cognitive Strategie Legitimizing

The local usages of Europe in six European countries

UK

France

Germany Italy

Po land

Sweden

Low High Low

Low High Low

Medium High Low

Medium High Medium

Low Medium Low

Low High Medium

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The cases of the UK, Italy and France are noteworthy in this respect. Here, the fact that funding for local programmes delivered from structural funds comes from the super-ordinate levels (national and regional) has often overshadowed local actors' degree of freedom. In consequence, local actors might come to perceive themselves as mere 'resource recipients' with few possibilities for directly interacting with the EU level. Furthermore, these local actors do not feel directly influenced by Europe because they are 'overwhelmed' by national and regional policy prescriptions and stra tegic orientations - even though these might result from alignment with EU guidelines, directives or 'soft' regulations. Particularly in France, EU resources, including financial ones, are often considered as constraints rather than opportunities, because local actors must implement national policies that are influenced by EU policy prescriptions, which also imply increasing controls and evaluation mechanisms. Summing up, the fact that the central level acts as a gatekeeper of EU financial resources and policy decisions might contribute to an amplified power asymmetly between the central and local level. This reduces not only the influence of the local level over other levels of government, but also the 'perceived' impact of the EU on the local level. Furthermore, what emerges is that EU resources can be both direct (for example ESF funds managed directly from Brussels) and indirect (for example ESF funds managed nationally or regionally). Since almost all of the funds available to the local level are indirect, the gatekeeping role played by national and regional actors 'shadows' the EU as the origin of the funds. EU legal, institutional and cognitive resources, rather than being con sidered important per se, are often deemed essential for instrumentally gathering money from the EU. Local actors consider it useful to acquire knowledge of EU policy prescriptions, guidelines, communications and programmes in order to ensure that their projects fit with them, thus increasing their chances of obtaining financial tools, achieving their agenda and realizing their goals. This instrumental learning process is particularly virulent in the French case where, as mentioned above, some local actors have come to consider the European influence at the local level as an 'influence under obligation' mainly 'forced' by the lade of financial resources, and hence a burden and/or a constraint rather than an opportunity. Generally speaking, while actors at the local level might in principle be aware of the relevance of EU cognitive and legal resources, they are mostly unable to give precise references or provide specific examples of these EU resources. In fact, effective and concrete knowledge of this kind of EU resources is de facto quite negligible at the local level. The capacity to make use of EU cognitive resources seems to be particularly dependent on

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individuals' background and leadership abilities (especially in France, Italy and Sweden, while Germany is more professionalized). Nevertheless, in all cases analysed, many local actors are conscious that it is quite difficult to track down 'cognitive influences' of the EU at the local level. In the UK, Italy and France especially, many respondents spontaneously recognized that this kind of influence mainly occurs through the intermediation of the national and regional levels, which are the main 'law-makers' and 'policy makers'. As a result, cognitive usages mainly also fall at these levels and the biggest portion of EU cognitive and legal resources is handed over to the local level via a top-down legislative and policy transmission. From another standpoint, EU financial resources are the main vehicles for disseminating the EU policy perspective and spreading EU cognitive resources. In addition to the incentive of acquiring EU cognitive resources in order to gather money, local actors can also 'absorb' new ideas, develop new working methods, managerial styles and policy approaches, and so on, by participating in EU projects (and thus spending EU money). Nevertheless, without any exception, respondents in all analysed cases emphasized the extent to which the effects of such projects are often impermanent and temporary rather than structural. Participating in them often results in a huge (and unpaid) overload of work and responsibilities for bureaucrats. EU procedures and monitoring were almost unanimously considered as too rigid and were referred to with a variety of negative adjectives (for example cogent, burdensome, prosaic, pedestrian, ridicu lous and disproportionate). Therefore, EU excessive bureaucratization and the 'burden of formality' contributes to making Europe a distant, abstract, far away and even 'inaccessible' entity in the perception of local actors. EU political resources, and consequently legitimizing usages, did not emerge as relevant at the local level, with the exception of the Italian and Polish cases. Particularly in Po land, financial (especially budgetary con straints), institutional (especially monitoring and control mies) and cogni tive resources are often used to increase the role and significance of the regional political level against the other levels (sub-regional and munici pal) in inter-institutional multilevel games. Accordingly, blame avoidance mechanisms are employed with legitimizing usages to augment the inter institutional weight of the regional level over the others. Blame avoidance mechanisms are likewise often exhibited in Italy. Here, discursive references are made to both the EU and the Italian government, describing them as weighty constraints that impact negatively on local spending capacities. lt is possible to infer that the uptake of European resources and their corresponding usages (especially other than strategic) appear to be strongly linked to the phase of the policy cycle. Policy development is likely to cover a much broader spectnim of resources and usages than policy


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implementation and service delivery. As a result, due to the centralization of policy formulation with regard to social cohesion policies, national and to some extent also regional actors mobilize more European resources (and with a stronger intensity) than sub-national actors. EU financial resources thus become a redistributive instrumen.t that might contribute to enlarging the deliverable spectrum of social and employment policies. In sum, the evidence presented in this chapter illustrates the partial relevance of our hypothesis. However, the analysis in this chapter has also demonstrated that a more nuanced framework is needed, since not all local and national cases could be understood through the lens of our basic hypothesis that localities with low social cohesion scores will be most likely to use EU resources for policy development and implementation. Future research on the local dimension of the EU and the usages of EU resources must pay more attention to institutional factors such as the degree of cen tralization or decentralization, financial factors such as the overall avail ability of EU funds, and local policy traditions. Only a research design that carefully considers these variables - and their interaction - will be able to contribute further to the understanding of the local usages of Europe.

NOTES 1.

The Lisbon Strategy was launched in 2000 with the aim of making the EU 'the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world' by 2010. Economic modernization was at the heart of the strategy for growth and jobs, as a key to main taining Europe's unique social model in the face of increasingly global markets, tech nological change, environmental concerns and demographic pressures. Nevertheless, the strategy's ambitious goals were far from being fully achieved in its ten-year life cycle, and a new successor was launched in 2010: the Europe 2020 strategy. The latter set five headline targets for the EU to be achieved by the end of 2020. These cover employment; research and development; climate/energy; education; social inclusion and poverty reduction. More specifically, for employment and social inclusion, the targets are 75 per cent of 20-64 year olds to be employed and at least 20 million fewer people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion. 2. The empirical analysis in the British case is based on three regions in the UK (the two devolved adrninistrations of Wales and Scotland and the North Bast of England) and one city within each region: Cardiff (Wales) as average performing; Edinburgh (Scotland) as over-performing and Newcastle (England) as underperforrning. See Fuertes and McQuaid (2013). 3. Seven local authorities in Wales are Competitiveness and Employment Regions while the other 15 local authorities are Convergence Areas. There is around f700 rnillion of funding for the convergence areas, and much less for the Bast Wales area (Regional Competitiveness and Employment funding - RCE of around f52 million). 4. The National Strategy Reference Framework (NSRF) sets the policy context at the national UK level and aims to align national priorities with EU policy priorities. Regional programmes are placed under NSRF and national programmes. As a result, there is quite a strong alignment of the Scottish, Welsh and UK national government policy with EU policy on social cohesion.

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5. In France, three cities were studied: Bordeaux in Gironde (over-performing case), Tours in Indre-et-Loire (average case), and Montpellier in Herault (underperforming case). See Languin et al. (2013). 6. As underlined by many actors, some of these controls are set up at the national level as an umbrella strategy and, in this sense, this level can be perceived as adding futther obstacles. 7. Two recent reports of Europ'Act support this idea: as of 1 February 2013, only 36 per cent of the ESF has been paid; this rate is up to 38 per cent for the Regional Competitiveness and Employment objective. See DATAR (2012, 2013). 8. The German cases are three cities belonging respectively to the Saxony-Anhalt region (underperforming case), the Lower-Saxony region (average case) and the Bavaria region (over-performing). For reasons of anonymity, the names of the cities will be omitted in this report. See Zimmerman et al. (2013). 9. The Italian empirical analysis is based on a comparison of three local cases: Milan (Lombardy Region), Rome (Lazio Region) and Naples (Campania Region), which rep resent over, average and under-performing cases, respectively. See Catalano et al. (2013). 10. Campania, being a 'converging target', received almost €8 billion in EU structural funds in the period 2007-2013. Lazio and Lombardy received roughly €1.5 billion and €1.3 billion in the same period, respectively. 11. The analysis of Poland covers three Polish powiats: Cz�stochowa, Tormi and Slupsk. See Mandes (2013). 12. The PHARE programme, originally created in 1989, is one of three pre-accession instruments financed by the EU to assist the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe in their preparations for joining the European Union. 13. The analysis is based on qualitative interviews with practitioners and policy-makers in Nacka (over-performing city), Trollhättan (under-performing city) and Örebro (average performing city). See Jacobsson et al. (2013). 14. The table is based on an average evaluation of the three cities analysed in each national case.

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10. The national governance of integrated activation policies in Europe Thierry Berthet and Clara Bourgeois 10.1 INTRODUCTION Assisting vulnerable citizens requires not only traditional employment services but also social services such as child care, counselling and health support. However, national approaches towards integrating different policy fields under the header of activation vary greatly in Europe, not only in kind but also in degree. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the national governance of integrated activation policies in Europe, arguing that contemporary national policy agendas and service-delivery mecha nisms often still hinder rather than promote the integration of employment and social policies. As was discussed in Chapter 1, activation policies have been actively promoted across Europe by the European Commission and the OECD since the early 1990s. T his encompassed not only changes to welfare states' aims, norms and policies, but also new forms of governance and a rebalancing of collective and individual responsibilities. A central element of the activation agenda has been to extend labour market poli cies (LMPs) to vulnerable groups and enlarge the scope of welfare policies (Pochet et al. 2005). To this end, activation calls for an integration of for merly separate policy fields under the aegis of employment promotion as a key dimension of social cohesion and integration. Recently, there has been increasing attention in the academic literature to the question of how welfare states organize the challenge of inte grating employment and social policies under coordinated governance frameworks. As demonstrated by Van Berkel and Borghi (2008) and Van Berkel et al. (2011), new governance mechanisms such as individualization, marketization, decentralization and inter-agency cooperation have been used to pave the way for an integrated approach.1 At closer inspection, this implies that the 'activation turn' involves a paradox between more standardized and at the same time more individualized forms of service 211