Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EUSOCIALCIT (The Future of European Social Citizenship)
Période du rapport: 2021-02-01 au 2022-07-31
The EUSocialCit project is developed for a call which centered upon the question of how to get a more social and fair Europe, speaking directly to the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR). Since its proclamation in 2017, the EPSR has become the backdrop for EU initiatives in the area of employment and social affairs, and, more recently, has been formally indicated as the Commission’s instrument to deliver on its fundamental social objectives in the Communication on ‘A strong Social Europe for just transitions’.
If promoting social rights in Europe is an explicit policy objective, it is necessary to address the enormous social differences between the EU member states as well. Having a more socially just Europe also implies a stronger focus on preventing major socio-economic shocks and a better protection of citizens when such shocks occur. Ultimately, building a more socially just Europe requires the development of a notion of what European citizenship means, but also a vision on the kind of society in which citizenship can flourish. The challenge, in short, is thus to integrate the social dimension into European policy as a whole and to connect it to a clear understanding of what European citizenship means.
The EUSocialCit project provides scientific analysis in support of this challenge, and analyses both the arguments in favour of developing European social rights and the expectation of people across Europe. The project is not purely a theoretical study, but also provides alternative policy scenarios to strengthen European social citizenship by comparing and contrasting concrete policy scenarios for reinforcing European social citizenship.
Overall, the EUSocialCit project pursues five objectives:
1) Synthesize the debate on the rationale for stronger EU social citizenship and develop a novel, resource-based, multilevel concept of social rights
2) Understand the current state of social rights and their relationship to social outcomes and gaps in their functioning.
3) Diagnose the shortcomings of the existing institutional structure that generates undesirable outcomes in terms of empowerment, fair working conditions, social inclusion and gender equality.
4) Understand the social and political demand for change among citizens, their attitudes and preferences, and the constraints and opportunities these demands, attitudes and preferences create for advancing the EU social agenda.
5) Develop alternative policy scenarios to strengthen social rights an EU social citizenship, in particular to support the implementation of the EPSR.
If promoting social rights in Europe is an explicit policy objective, it is necessary to address the enormous social differences between the EU member states as well. Having a more socially just Europe also implies a stronger focus on preventing major socio-economic shocks and a better protection of citizens when such shocks occur. Ultimately, building a more socially just Europe requires the development of a notion of what European citizenship means, but also a vision on the kind of society in which citizenship can flourish. The challenge, in short, is thus to integrate the social dimension into European policy as a whole and to connect it to a clear understanding of what European citizenship means.
The EUSocialCit project provides scientific analysis in support of this challenge, and analyses both the arguments in favour of developing European social rights and the expectation of people across Europe. The project is not purely a theoretical study, but also provides alternative policy scenarios to strengthen European social citizenship by comparing and contrasting concrete policy scenarios for reinforcing European social citizenship.
Overall, the EUSocialCit project pursues five objectives:
1) Synthesize the debate on the rationale for stronger EU social citizenship and develop a novel, resource-based, multilevel concept of social rights
2) Understand the current state of social rights and their relationship to social outcomes and gaps in their functioning.
3) Diagnose the shortcomings of the existing institutional structure that generates undesirable outcomes in terms of empowerment, fair working conditions, social inclusion and gender equality.
4) Understand the social and political demand for change among citizens, their attitudes and preferences, and the constraints and opportunities these demands, attitudes and preferences create for advancing the EU social agenda.
5) Develop alternative policy scenarios to strengthen social rights an EU social citizenship, in particular to support the implementation of the EPSR.
Work performed and main results achieved so far:
• Developing a resource-based multi-level concept/model of social rights that synthesizes the debate on the rationales for stronger EU social citizenship; and applying this concept/model to the areas of empowerment, fair working conditions and social inclusion.
• Testing the concept/model in project’s empirical work across various Work Packages, case studies and research settings, which led to adjustment and further development.
• Extensive, diversified empirical work on social rights conducted in various European countries and across numerous policy areas (social investment, social vulnerability, poverty, housing, platform work, life-work balance)
• Synchronizing attention to gender issues in case studies and reaching an agreement on the type of information the case studies will provide in the coming years as input into the project’s gender report.
• Setting up and developing the project’s newly-compiled Comparative Social Citizenship Dataset (CSCD), which brings together existing country-year macro data on policies, regulations, laws, social, economic and political conditions relevant to social rights.
• Producing a series of empirical working papers (available at https://www.eusocialcit.eu/news-views/
• Developing, updating and implementing the EuSocialCit Dissemination and Communication Plan; continued effort to raise awareness about the state of social rights in EU across various target audiences (incl. policy makers, civil society, stakeholders, general public).
• Continued cooperation with the Stakeholder Advisory Platform (SHARP) and Advisory Board to boost the impact of EuSocialCit.
• Developing a resource-based multi-level concept/model of social rights that synthesizes the debate on the rationales for stronger EU social citizenship; and applying this concept/model to the areas of empowerment, fair working conditions and social inclusion.
• Testing the concept/model in project’s empirical work across various Work Packages, case studies and research settings, which led to adjustment and further development.
• Extensive, diversified empirical work on social rights conducted in various European countries and across numerous policy areas (social investment, social vulnerability, poverty, housing, platform work, life-work balance)
• Synchronizing attention to gender issues in case studies and reaching an agreement on the type of information the case studies will provide in the coming years as input into the project’s gender report.
• Setting up and developing the project’s newly-compiled Comparative Social Citizenship Dataset (CSCD), which brings together existing country-year macro data on policies, regulations, laws, social, economic and political conditions relevant to social rights.
• Producing a series of empirical working papers (available at https://www.eusocialcit.eu/news-views/
• Developing, updating and implementing the EuSocialCit Dissemination and Communication Plan; continued effort to raise awareness about the state of social rights in EU across various target audiences (incl. policy makers, civil society, stakeholders, general public).
• Continued cooperation with the Stakeholder Advisory Platform (SHARP) and Advisory Board to boost the impact of EuSocialCit.
Since the start of the project, progress beyond the state of the art concerns the work done on the resource-based multi-level concept of social rights and the synthesis of the debates on the rationale for stronger EU social citizenship. The resource-based multi-level concept of social rights sees rights as a bundle of resources (normative, instrumental and enforcement resources), which empowers individuals to claim and receive material benefits in order to cope with a codified array of risks and needs. While recognizing the importance of the justiciability of rights, our conception invites a broader view: the concrete acquisition of rights, which hinges on a wide array of empowering factors, including the transformation of the legal content of rights into useful outputs (e.g. a monetary benefit transferred to the right-holder’s bank account, in line with the intention of pertinent legal provisions).
Also, it is not necessary for a single actor (e.g. state) to provide all three sets of power resources. We argue that several actors can be involved, formally or informally, in producing and conferring power resources: e.g. trade unions through collective bargaining or civil society associations through facilitating access. Likewise, social rights can be anchored to different levels of government, from the regional to the EU level. Our conception of European Social Citizenship then resembles a marble cake. In this marble cake social rights can be assembled through a mix of resources provided – in variable combinations – by the EU, national and local levels. Our conception enlarges the field of possible interventions in the sphere of social and employment rights, transcending the perimeter of bindingness and justiciability. In this way, our conception may open up new opportunities and modes of interventions through which the EU can positively impact the life chances of its citizens.
We also examine what justifies European intervention (and its possible extension) in the domain of social and employment rights. In this debate, there are four main approaches or justifications, which we discuss in detail. In the academic literature and in the policy debate, these approaches are often posed in contradiction with each other. We however do not endorse one particular normative approach but rather argue that the four groups of arguments jointly provide an array of reasons that seriously challenge the extant status quo and its implicit or explicit justifications. Such a challenge invites both intellectuals and policymakers to open a genuinely political discussion, with a view to reflectively identifying a basis of overlapping consensus, on which to build a reasonable agenda for the future.
Empirically, we produced new and innovative analyses on social investment, housing, the causal chains linking resources to outputs and to outcomes, the risk of social vulnerability at the old-age from a life-course perspective
During the course of its 4-years lifespan, the EUSocialCit consortium aims to significantly impact academic debate and to have the project leave its mark on future policy debates about European social rights and social citizenship.
Also, it is not necessary for a single actor (e.g. state) to provide all three sets of power resources. We argue that several actors can be involved, formally or informally, in producing and conferring power resources: e.g. trade unions through collective bargaining or civil society associations through facilitating access. Likewise, social rights can be anchored to different levels of government, from the regional to the EU level. Our conception of European Social Citizenship then resembles a marble cake. In this marble cake social rights can be assembled through a mix of resources provided – in variable combinations – by the EU, national and local levels. Our conception enlarges the field of possible interventions in the sphere of social and employment rights, transcending the perimeter of bindingness and justiciability. In this way, our conception may open up new opportunities and modes of interventions through which the EU can positively impact the life chances of its citizens.
We also examine what justifies European intervention (and its possible extension) in the domain of social and employment rights. In this debate, there are four main approaches or justifications, which we discuss in detail. In the academic literature and in the policy debate, these approaches are often posed in contradiction with each other. We however do not endorse one particular normative approach but rather argue that the four groups of arguments jointly provide an array of reasons that seriously challenge the extant status quo and its implicit or explicit justifications. Such a challenge invites both intellectuals and policymakers to open a genuinely political discussion, with a view to reflectively identifying a basis of overlapping consensus, on which to build a reasonable agenda for the future.
Empirically, we produced new and innovative analyses on social investment, housing, the causal chains linking resources to outputs and to outcomes, the risk of social vulnerability at the old-age from a life-course perspective
During the course of its 4-years lifespan, the EUSocialCit consortium aims to significantly impact academic debate and to have the project leave its mark on future policy debates about European social rights and social citizenship.