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The European crisis is the best case study for examining both the vulnerabilities of Europe's framework for economic governance and the very process of European integration itself. This statement is true for several reasons: first, because the European crisis is the most serious crisis the European Union has faced to date; second, because of the crisis, limits on the process of economic integration in Europe have been put to a real test; and third, because the main causes of the crisis are tied into the framework for economic governance that has been developed over the last few decades and therefore are connected to the very process of European unification itself. The primary aim of this paper is to demonstrate whether and to what extent the new framework for economic governance in Europe is largely a result of interstate bargaining and consequently whether national preferences continue to play an important role in the framework's general transformation. The economic crisis showed that important issues in economic policy concerning the change in economic governance and the role of the nation-state, which were ‘swept under the carpet’ in recent decades, must be resolved to make the European venture viable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the development of back-to-work support for non-employed sick and disabled people of working age in two European welfare states. Most countries have sought to improve the quantity and quality of such support in order to match the increased expectations of claimants to actively seek work. However, few studies have sought to examine the extent to which they have been able to do this and see the provision of support in a static way, whereas there is good reason to believe it is a highly changeable process, with the quality and quantity of support varying over time and place, according to a range of factors. A significant part of the period in which this has been a policy aim has been characterised by economic crisis and subsequent austerity, conditions which existing theory and evidence suggest could pose a challenge to improving such support. Thus, drawing on findings from a broader study of the development of active labour market policy for sick and disabled people, a cross-nationally comparative analysis of these developments in the UK and Denmark is pursued, looking at the extent the welfare settlement between welfare authorities and sick and disabled claimants has been reconfigured in recent years and at the extent to which this can be attributed to recession and austerity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]