New geographies and forms of work and unemployment and public policy innovation in Europe

Since the mid 1970s the political economy of Europe has been characterised by growing unemployment and by significant changes in forms of employment and in the social composition of the workforce, a consequence of changes in both corporate and state policies. There were marked changes in intra‐European geographies of labour markets, with increasing differentiation at subnational scales at the same time as previous national differences in forms of political economy, labour market regulation and the welfare state were narrowed. These labour market changes raised important policy questions for national states and the European Union. Seeking to encourage labour market flexibility as a route to increased competitiveness entailed creating a contingent labour force alongside growing long‐term unemployment. This in turn generated pressures for new forms of public policy – which can be summarised as ‘Third Sector’ approaches – to tackle social exclusion and promote social inclusion and integration and were typically linked to moves to ‘localise’ both problems of social exclusion and ‘Third Sector’ solutions to them.