Lost in activation? The governance of activation policies in Europe

Over the past two decades, activation has become a rather fashionable European trend for policies in the area of welfare and work, facilitating the job inclusion especially of the long‐term unemployed and other disadvantaged groups. The activation paradigm implies important challenges for related policy fields and the organisational provision of individualised, client‐centred training, skills development and counselling services. The main aim of this Supplement is to shed new light on the ways through which activation strategies have been translated in policies and new governance arrangements. More specifically, the five articles in this Supplement deal with two essential challenges of current activation policies: (i) the tightrope walk between cost‐effectiveness and comprehensive support; and (ii) the different facets and combinations of systemic coordination, collaboration, marketisation, decentralisation and individualisation.