Publisher's Synopsis
In the last two decades, an impressive number of social scientific studies and publications on social policy and the welfare state saw the light of day. However, these studies and publications do not deal with the interest organizations of the recipients of social security. - - This volume describes and analyzes organizations of social security claimants and their position in the field of force of the national welfare state in six European countries; representing a diversity of welfare state regimes. The authors analyze these organizations and their strengths and weaknesses, from a variety of theoretical perspectives; such as the opportunity structures of welfare states and national political relations, the fragmentation of the social movements of social security claimants along ideological and categorical lines, the (im)possibilities of organizing socially highly marginalized groups etc. The volume also contains an introduction and an epilogue, as well as a chapter dealing with the relations between collective and individual forms of social resistance.
