First published in 1998, this volume describes and analyses organizations of social security claimants and their position in the field of force of the national welfare state in six European countries: representing a diversity of welfare state regimes. The authors analyse these organizations, and their strengths and weaknesses, from a variety of theoretical perspectives: such as the opportunity structures of welfare states and national political relations, the fragmentation of the social movements of social security claimants along ideological and categorical lines, the (im)possibilities of...

Frist published in 1997, this book aims to answer if European `post-national' citizenship provide a practical opening and a conceptual challenge to cope with the diverse and close-circuiting crises of national European social models? What then might a new sphere of European social inclusion look like? This book also provided the first attempt to go well beyond `national gridlock'. Old solutions will no longer do. Is new land in sight? With monetary integration almost implemented this is a highly relevant exploration of a central complementary `common currency' in Europe's future.