The Fate of Social Rights in an Age of Austerity: Law and Legal Challenge within Europe

This collection of essays will offer a systematic examination of legal reforms of, and legal struggles over, social welfare rights (social security, housing, health assistance, etc.) in Europe, focusing on the period since the global economic crisis of 2008.
It will use five descriptive national case studies, representing the biggest European economies (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain), as a foundation for theoretical work on the fate of social rights in an age of austerity. This theory building will run along two complementary lines. First, there will be consideration of the promise and/or limits of public law rights, including fundamental rights, for social welfare in times of economic crisis. Second, there will be consideration of the particular significance of the European context for these articulations of, and struggles over social welfare rights.
This book, drawing on a range and depth of expertise across Europe, promises a timely and highly significant contribution to socio-legal scholarship about the character and resilience of social rights in our national and regional constitutional settings. A full outline of the contributors, theirs chapters (with summaries), is set out at the end of this document.