New challenges of welfare states are often defined through the topical concept of social exclusion. Addressing social exclusion through social policies is related to a country’s welfare regime. This paper uses Esping-Andersen’s typology, which divides countries’ regimes into liberal, conservative and social democratic, based on which of the main principles they use: the principle of need (means-tested), the principle of merit, and the principle of universality. The research question focuses on the differences among countries in their policies addressing social exclusion and in the values underlying the documents addressing social exclusion. This is actualised through three hypotheses testing the presence of neoliberal trends, Europeanisation and the three mentioned principles in the analysed countries’ documents. The theoretical part conceptualises social exclusion and welfare state, and the empirical part features an analysis of ESS variables and the countries’ documents created as a part of the European Semester and Youth Guarantee. Based on these, the approaches of Sweden, Germany and United Kingdom are critically evaluated, but the main contribution is an analysis of Slovenia’s approach. The theoretical principles are very much reflected in empirical examples. In general, countries are more focused on economic aspects of social exclusion than social ones. Europeanisation is noticeable to a certain extent, especially in emphasising active employment policies and the paradigm of social investment instead of social security, but also in the focus on the same vulnerable groups. Especially interesting are the neoliberal trends that were found in all of the analysed countries, although with different intensity and argumentation.
|
