The Salvation Army has been battling social problems in the Netherlands for more than 125 years. Over the course of this period, the Dutch Salvation Army has developed into a well-known faith-based organization as well as an important professional social service provider. These two characteristics: religious …

In 'active welfare states', labour participation is regarded essential for being part of and contributing to society. In the striving for an increase in labour participation of people who were considered (partly) disabled for work, not 'disabilities', but 'abilities' are put centre stage in vocational …

The main stream literature on social justice and European integration distinguishes between three models of providing social justice in Europe: the family, the market and the state. Markets have demonstrated their limitations in the current economic crises, and New Public Management quickly disappears …

The objective of this study is to contribute towards understanding how welfare and justice discourses become apparent in institutional conversations where social workers involved in child protection have dual professional identities: that of helper and of gatekeeper. In this article we analyse a specific …

The demographics of the homeless population in many countries are currently shifting, and this cannot be explained by the different welfare systems to be found in these countries. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that the homelessness policies of some countries are converging, and we observe a combination …

It is generally assumed that competition increases welfare. The main idea behind this assumption is that competition in a market is the best incentive mechanism to produce efficient market outcomes. This is good for social welfare and therefore stimulating competition is welfare increasing. According …

This final paper focuses on municipal international cooperation (MIC) with developing nations. MIC can be defined as international decentralised cooperation or the term "town twinning" (Boven, 2007, "what is town twinning" section). It is an agreement between two or more municipalities from different …

This text is structured as follows. Section 1 concerns the background to this public lecture: the fact that social participation is becoming increasingly important in our society. This is evident, for example, from the way we are evolving from a protective welfare state into an activational, participative …