Hakan Johansson – författare

This volume provides a novel and relational sociological approach to the study of EU civil society. It focuses on the interactions and interrelations between civil society actors and the forms of capital that structure the fields and sub-fields of EU civil society, through new and important empirical studies on organized EU civil society.

This book analyzes national anti-poverty measures at a local level via a set of unique and up-to-date empirical studies of minimum income support schemes and activation measures in five European cities. In examining this ''local welfare system'' approach, it investigates the role that civil society organizations play, and the governance arrangements that prevail in contacts between public and civil society actors in local anti-poverty strategies. The current financial and economic crisis has caused increasing levels of poverty and unemployment, and put national minimum income protection schemes under severe strain. Combating Poverty in Local Welfare Systems therefore represents a timely and important intervention in the political and scientific debates as to whether more ‘local welfare’ is the solution to the challenges facing European welfare states.

Nothing tends so much to the advancement of knowledge as the application of a new instrument. - Sir Humphry Davy, 1778-1829 Neuroscience has become a rapidly expanding endeavor that relies on a number of other sciences, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, computer sci­ ence, general biology and medicine, genetics etc. In fact, many of its recent success­ es result from the application of ideas and methods borrowed from these fields. In­ sofar, it is a true interdisciplinary undertaking. This convergence of influences ac­ counts for part of its enormous attractiveness and fascination to students and re­ searchers from diverse walks of life, or science, for that matter. It is probably fair to say that a great number of neuroscience''s most creative and productive proponents have been lured into this field not only by the excitement about the possibility to un­ mask the secrets of the human mind, but also by the appeal of a vast unknown land needing cultivation and tools to cultivate it. Danger may arise for any science if it is dominated by methods and techniques of investigation rather than by problems to be solved and concepts to be developed. This might concentrate efforts onto the technically feasible and doable, rather than On the real issues. But, On the other hand, especially the young and growing sciences are heavily dependent on the development and application of methods, often even before a problem relying on these methods may become apparent.