Themed Section on The Governance of Activation

The themed section of this issue of the Journal of Social Policy and Society focuses on the topic of the governance of activation. As will be elaborated below, this refers to the new ways in which the delivery of activation programmes and services is being organised in countries engaged in a process of ‘activating’ their welfare states. In this introduction article, we intend to introduce this topic, as well as the articles in this themed section. First, we will briefly elaborate the concepts of governance and activation. Then, we will argue that the new models for the provision of activation services – which is the way in which we define ‘governance’ for the purpose of this themed section – are an important research area for social policy scholars. Finally, the articles in this themed section will be presented, against the background of a short introduction of the aspects of new service provision models that these articles focus on.