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The purpose of this introduction to the special issue is to give an overview of the key aspects of the governance of activation policies as discussed in the existing literature. It explains the focus and contribution of this special issue and provides a brief summary of the main findings in the individual articles.

In this special issue the comparative analysis of the key aspects of governance of activation policies like centralization/decentralization, new public management, marketization and network governance is covered, accompanied by an assessment of the role of implementation conditions in shaping the real trends of governance reforms of activation policies. Further, the effects of governance reforms and the influence of EU governance on the dynamics of national activation policies are discussed. This comparative analysis leads to a typology of the “worlds of governance” of activation policies in Europe.

All the countries show certain comparable converging trends in the reforms of governance of activation, although a closer look helps us determine the shape of increasingly different patterns of governance in several respects. In spite of this variety, another general finding is the common discrepancy between aims and effects: the key explanation involves implementation failures. Three governance regimes may be distinguished in the EU countries: committed marketizers, modernizers and slow modernizers.

This paper suggests a new typology of governance regimes.

This editorial aims to introduce the first of a set of two special issues on New modes of governance in activation policies.

The article explores the concept of governance, distinguishing a broad and more narrow use of the concept. Then, it argues that issues of governance should be an integral part of studies of welfare state transformations. Not in the last instance, because governance reforms do have an impact on the content of social policies and social services such as activation. The article continues by discussing three models of the provision of social services.

The article states that the development of the modes of governance in activation in various countries reveals that a mix of service provision models is being used.

The article introduces the articles of the special issue.

This article aims to discuss the individualisation trend in the provision of social services, focusing on activation services specifically.

The individualisation trend in the provision of activation services is analysed against the background of public sector as well as social sector as well as social policy reforms: the introduction of new modes of governance and the rise of the active welfare state respectively.

Concrete manifestations of individualised service provision are often based on various interpretations of individualisation and reflect different meanings of citizens’ participation, and refer to different modes – or rather, mixes of different modes – of governance. The general argument of the article is illustrated and elaborated by analysing three national case studies of individualised service provision in the context of activation: the UK, The Netherlands and Finland.

The trend that is analysed in the article – individualised service provision – is very clearly present in welfare state reforms, but has thus far not received much attention in academic literature.

The first part of the paper aimed to interpret the changes addressed by the concepts of governance and activation in their context, in order to grasp the larger picture of the societal transformation underlying them: the starting point is the assumption that new modes of governance in activation policies are a fruitful entry point for effectively understanding deep waves of change of contemporary society. The second part aims to briefly introduce the papers included in this issue.

The paper insists on a perspective according to which there are two main dimension characterising the context of addressed transformations: the paradoxical torsion of the historical process of individualisation in the new spirit of capitalism; the profound redesign of the institutional programme, implying a new horizon for the instances of publicness.

Different and contradictory trends are pointed out in the actual pursuing of objectives of governance and activation, as far as the process of individualisation and the redesign of publicness are concerned. The impossibility of finding an abstract and universal evaluation of these transformations and the necessity of situated empirical inquiries are stressed.

The paper demonstrates the relevance of deepening the normative underlying dimensions (with regard to individualisation and publicness) of social processes for a better understanding of concrete transformations (specifically: operational and substantive changes introduced by new modes of governance in activation policies).

The purpose of this article is to assess the emergence of New Public Management in the governance of activation policies in nine European countries. In the light of considerable diversity in the implementation of New Public Management in the different countries, the article tries to identify common patterns.

For the identification of patterns, fuzzy set theory is applied. Fuzzy sets are used to define ideal types and to measure the degree of membership in the different ideal types for every country.

It is possible to show that despite the substantial diversity of New Public Management approaches in the governance of activation policies, common patterns exist. The article identifies four ideal types of New Public Management within the nine countries involved in the analysis. At the same time it is shown that most countries do not represent pure models but unify different tendencies within one dominant type.

The identification of common patterns in the emergence of New Public Management in the governance of activation can provide a useful framework for discussion and further research on the implications of different forms of governance on the content and delivery of activation services in Europe.

The purpose of this article is to examine the governance of activation in relation to the decentralization and centralization of activation for social assistance recipients in Sweden, The Netherlands and the UK.

This paper outlines broad trends in the governance of activation policies in Europe, focusing on processes of decentralization and centralization in Sweden (characterized by a context of shifting national and local level governance of policies, cultivated within a strong tradition of active labour market policies); The Netherlands (where there has been a deliberate shift in governance towards the local level); and the UK (typified by highly centralized decision making in policy design but local variation in delivery).

The comparison identified different paths of decentralization and examines how these processes interact and overlap with modes of centralization/coordination of policies. Finally, the paper demonstrates the interface between the modes of decentralization and centralization.

The investigation of vertical changes in the governance of activation in three country case studies provides an original in‐depth analysis of types and paths of decentralization and centralization.

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between the emerging European activation policies and the evolution of domestic activation policies and its governance. Drawing on the emerging Europeanization debate and comparative literature on activation, the crucial research question will be the following: is there a European Union (EU)‐induced convergence in domestic activation policies in the EU?

Following Bonoli's work, the article unpacks activation in two dimensions (human capital investment and employment market orientation) and looks at the trajectories of seven Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries using OECD active labour market policy (ALMP) expenditure data.

The article argues that there is only limited EU‐induced convergence towards the employment assistance component of the EU hybrid model and similarly limited convergence can be seen with respect to the governance of activation policies. Although fully‐fledged explanations of such limited convergence go beyond the scope of this article, the paper puts forward two tentative explanations which should be tested with further research: first, the lack of convergence may lie primarily in the overall “softness” of the European Employment Strategy (which means, among other things, limited resources), but the lack of convergence may also lie in the lack of administrative capacities enabling member state governments to fully implement innovative activation policies.

The paper is innovative since it empirically tests the role of European policies and ideas in shaping domestic reforms of activation policies. Contrary to other findings, the article shows that there is a limited degree of convergence and that the role is particularly negligible with respect to implementation capacities of reformed activation strategies.

The purpose of this article is to analyse the diversity of markets for the provision of activation services.

The article is based on the outcomes of a project involving nine European countries. The project investigated changing forms of governance of income protection schemes and activation services for unemployed people. Diversity is investigated by focusing on five dimensions of diversity derived from the quasi‐market concept as developed by Le Grand: the purchasers, the providers, the customers, the purchaser‐provider split and the purchaser‐customer split.

The paper finds considerable diversity in the design of markets for the provision of activation. Diversity is visible in all dimensions involved in the analysis. One interesting finding is that a full split between purchasers and providers hardly exists, although some countries have introduced a stricter split than others. Another finding concerns the voice and choice of service consumers, which seems hardly affected by the introduction of market mechanisms in the provision of activation. Finally, marketisation does not seem to be an irreversible project, as de‐marketisation processes were identified as well.

Most current research into activation markets and their effects pays little attention to the issue of diversity in the design and functioning of markets. This article argues in favour of more systematic research of market diversity and of the variety of effects of various market models. Rather than comparing marketised with public service provision, a stronger focus on various market models may strengthen our insight into how service provision models affect the effectiveness of activation services.

The aim of this paper is to make a preliminary assessment of the impacts of the decentralisation of Dutch social assistance.

Even though decentralisation is often promoted as a new governance instrument, balancing centralised and decentralised aspects has been a feature of Social Assistance systems for a long time. This article describes how processes of decentralisation in Dutch Social Assistance in the context of activating the Dutch welfare state are determined by two core objectives: on the one hand, to give local authorities more autonomy in designing and delivering activation services; on the other hand, to ensure that national social policy objectives are implemented at the local level. Specific attention is paid to the most recent decentralisation development which made municipalities financially responsible for social assistance expenditure. Building on the results of some preliminary evaluation and effect studies, this article assesses the impact of decentralisation.

The findings show that decentralising financial responsibility has had a clear impact on local policies: preventing social assistance dependency and promoting social assistance exit have become major concerns of many Dutch municipalities.

As the latest decentralisation reform is recent, research results are preliminary at this stage. Future evaluation research should focus on a broader set of success criteria than the reduction of social assistance expenditure only.

The article discusses some fundamental issues often neglected by those advocating decentralisation: how do local social policies influence labour‐market developments? To what degree does inter‐municipal variation reflect different local needs? What is the impact of decentralisation on equality and equal treatment? Decentralisation may be necessary in order to make social services more effective and tailor made, but it certainly is not free from risks.

The paper contributes to the debate on the risks and opportunities of decentralisation of social assistance on the basis of empirical evidence and practical experiences.