Making it personal

Rik van Berkel and Ben Valkenburg are researchers of comparative social and labour market policies. They work at the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

"'Making it personal' provides a timely and authoritative engagement with debates about current transformations in social policy. The collaborative research on which it draws traces how such transformations are being experienced in different national policy contexts within the EU; and highlights some of the tensions that result. The authors - and editors - are to be commended for producing this important, engaging and critical study." Janet Newman, Professor of Social Policy, The Open University, UK

• Introduction: The individualisation of activation services in context ~ Rik van Berkel and Ben Valkenburg; Individualising activation services: thrashing out an ambiguous concept ~ Ben Valkenburg; A capability approach to individualised and tailor-made activation ~ Jean-Michel Bonvin and Nicholas Farvaque; Placing the individual 'at the forefront': Beck and individual approaches in activation ~ Håkan Johansson; User involvement in personal social services ~ Ilse Julkunen and Matti Heikkillä; Political production of individualised subjects in the paradoxical discourse of the EU institutions ~ Eduardo Crespo Suárez and Amparo Serrano Pascual; Reforming the public sector: personalised activation services in the UK ~ Bruce Stafford and Karen Kellard; Between universal policy and individualised practice: analysing activation policy in Finland ~ Elsa Keskitalo; Do we know where we are going? Active policies and individualisation in the Italian context ~ Vando Borghi; The individual approach in activation policy in the Czech Republic ~ Tomáš Sirovátka; Rushing towards employability-centred activation: the 'Hartz reforms' in Germany ~ Dirk Jacobi and Katrin Mohr; Individualised activation in the EU ~ Rik van Berkel.