The welfare states are from mid 70's onwards faced with financial and moral crisis. Finding the lost balance between the (economic) effectiveness and (social) security has recently turned to emphasising the participation in the labour market. Work is deemed to have the only power to ensure active participation of individuals in the society. Principle of activation has been introduced and has become the central element within the turn from 'passive' to 'active' social policy. It has changed the basic concepts of (social) security and their relation with the labour market, which in turn has important influence on the position of individuals and social categories. Introduced changes are paradigmatic, leading towards new phase in the development of social policy, so-called 'activational' social policy. On the level of political discourse activation presents a uniform response, which is implemented differently within different welfare state regimes. As all reforms, activation is a path-dependent.
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