This volume represents the outcome of two years of intensive debate about the future of Europe. It aims to provide the European Union with a vision: one that will unite all of its citizens and help to create the democratic legitimacy that the EU currently lacks. It builds on the first book on social quality, The Social Quality of Europe, which introduced the concept and which has been enthusiastically received by both the scientific and policy communities. The book develops three crucial elements of social quality: the theoretical validity of the concept, its practical application, and its identity or `genetic code'. It establishes an independent identity for social quality, with a unique focus on the quality of the social, which enables it to act as the rationale for economic, social, and cultural policies and, therefore, an escape route from the dominance of narrow economic thinking in policy making.

This collection sets out the latest research on the concept of 'social quality', developing its theoretical foundations and applying it to pressing policy issues such as the future of the European Union and sustainable global development.

Improving wellbeing and sustainability are central goals of government, but are they in conflict? This engaging new book reviews that question and its implications for public policy through a focus on indicators. It highlights tensions on the one hand between various constructs of wellbeing and sustainable development, and on the other between current individual and societal notions of wellbeing. It recommends a clearer conceptual framework for policy makers regarding different wellbeing constructs which would facilitate more transparent discussions. Arguing against a win-win scenario of wellbeing and sustainability, it advocates an approach based on recognising and valuing conflicting views where notions of participation and power are central to discussions. Measuring Wellbeing is divided into two parts. The first part provides a critical review of the field, drawing widely on international research but contextualised within recent UK wellbeing policy discourses. The second part embeds the theory in a case study based on the author’s own experience of trying to develop quality of life indicators within a local authority, against the backdrop of increasing national policy interest in measuring ‘happiness’. This accessible and informative book, covering uniquely both practice and theory, will be of great appeal to students, academics and policy makers interested in wellbeing, sustainable development, indicators, public policy, community participation, power and discourse.

Two legitimate statements in search of legal doctrine: ?An employee must have a reasonable expectation of privacy.? ?The efficient operation of the company must be safeguarded.? As a lawyer considers each of these assertions, a significant region of incompatibility emerges. In the context of the use of information technology systems in the workplace, a collision of rights is exposed that has engendered a virtual battleground in the theory and practice of labour law. This remarkable and timely book draws together all the strands of law in this controversial area, both de facto and de jure. Its comprehensive coverage includes such eminently useful materials as the following: thirty actual company policies regarding on-line communications, from a wide variety of business sectors, with detailed analysis; texts of four company codes of practice; actual views of trade unions and employers? organizations; analysis of relevant existing laws on access, monitoring, liability, sanctions, and the rights of employee representatives; two proposed model codes of practice, one for the individual user and one for employee representatives; and, appendices including Belgium?s National Collective Agreement No. 81 and the regulatory bill and advisory opinions that led up to it. The authors? focus on practice is advantageous, as it brings the central issues and conflicts into high relief. The close analysis and investigation of how employers, trade unions, and legislative and advisory bodies are dealing with the essential matters?which include communications facilities at work, employer?s prerogative, the company?s rights of ownership and disposal, and the fundamental privacy rules of legitimate purpose, proportionality, and transparency?provide very valuable guidance to parties in any country concerned with developing a viable set of legal principles and rules for this challenging and unsettled area of labour law.

Modern Europe is a patchwork quilt in which a diverse array of national cultures have been pieced into one community. In Europe: A Heritage, a Challenge, a Promise, Jan Berting reckons with a continent at a turning point in its history, arguing that Europe must balance its urge to modernize with a respect for its shared legacy. As Europe struggles with the tension between its past and its future, Berting pinpoints challenges to modernization and proposes intriguing solutions. He addresses topics as varied as the rise of Islam, political liberalism, and individual freedoms in this comprehensive volume sure to interest all those invested in the future of Europe.

East-Central Europe is about to bring its welfare reforms to the European Union. Nevertheless, in the course of the Accession, one could hardly fix the European standards of social policy or examine to what degree the newcomers may have approached them. Evidently, there has always been a variety of welfare regimes in the EU. Moreover, today's experts in post-communist countries do not find stable policies and institutional arrangements in the West but rather another reform process, the "domestication" of the classical welfare states. True, the general trends are not dissimilar: partial retrenchment, decentralization, marketisation and privatisation of public welfare services, as well as an upsurge of the voluntary sector, are the main characteristic features of regulating welfare on both sides of the former Iron Curtain. These issues are addressed by the contributors of this volume, leading representatives of their professions, in an unprecedented way. In avoiding the convenient cliche

This important book brings together many of the leading contributors in the field and provides a compelling manifesto for change in social justice.

This book deals with ongoing processes of European cooperation and integration, processes that may have a potential to change the political organization of Europe. Based on ideas from 'the new institutionalism' the book offers a systematic perspective on institutional change and in particular the role of institutions in relation to four central and durable issues in the study of political life. These are: (1) the mediation between unity and diversity: what ties a society together and what keeps it apart. (2) The relations between citizens and their helpers: why the democratic deficit in the European Union can not be eliminated solely by making mechanisms of direct citizens participation and representation more efficient. Needed are also institutions that make direct participation redundant because they routinely work with integrity, generating expected and desired outcomes. (3) The relation between democratic design and historical drift: To what degree democracies are able to design and reform key institutions of governance so that their structures reflect popular will, understanding and control. (4) The co-existence of old and new political orders: How elements of a new order may supplement rather than replace elements of the old order, generating a 'mixed order' based on partly inconsistent principles and rules.

Social policy is widely accepted as scientific discipline – and this includes that it accepts for itself another meaning of this status, one which is usually not considered: the subject is disciplined, i.e. regimented. One important point in this context is that social policy is focused and thereby forgets systematic economic determinants and the historical perspective on its own existence. The present book recalls some fundamental issues – such as the partial liberation of human decision making from extramundane powers – and as well as topics that are being discussed in contemporary settings. The volume brings different dimensions together in an insightful way and is a stimulating read for those who are ready to engage with the complexity of political questions, are looking for instruments for an analysis that reaches beyond “yesterday’s solutions for the problems we don’t really know anyway”.

This book offers a timely guide to fuzzy methods applied to the analysis of socioeconomic systems. It provides readers with a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the algorithms, including the theory behind them, as well as practical considerations, current limitations and solutions. Each chapter focuses on a different economic problem, explaining step by step the process to approach it, using the corresponding fuzzy tools. The book covers elements of intuitionistic fuzzy logics, fuzzy entropy and the fuzzy DEMATEL method, a fuzzy approach to calculate the financial stability index. It also reports on some new models of social, financial and ecological security, and on a novel fuzzy method for evaluating the quality of development of information economy.