Jean-Michel Bonvin, HES-SO, Lausanne Venice, 10 April 2008

1. CAP-TLM WorkshopGoverning Social Policy in Europe: the Promotion of Capabilities and Transitional Labour Markets Jean-Michel Bonvin, HES-SO, Lausanne Venice, 10 April 2008

2. The capability approach • Two sides of the approach: the capacity to act (empowerment) AND the freedom to choose (cf. Sen: “Without the substantive freedom and capability to do something, a person cannot be responsible for doing it”) • Means to act: cash resources, public policies, available opportunities (key dimensions: a) equality, b) balance between individual and collective responsibility) • Freedom to choose: central/local, institution/individual (key dimensions: a) incompleteness and b) reflexivity)

3. Cash resources What resources available (and by whom): • for individual recipients (what conception of activation: the more resources, the less capacity to act [dependency trap] OR the more resources, the more capacity to act; what conditions: definition of target groups, eligibility conditions [ex ante and during the period of entitlement], etc.) • for local agents (conception of activation and conditionalities: how is performance assessed? with what consequences?, etc.) • for other local actors (single or multiple funding sources; what conditionalities, etc.)

4. Activation programmes • what objectives (employment, employability, occupation, capability, integrability or autonomy, etc.)? • what available programmes (in-work programmes, placement, training, job creation, occupational programmes, subsidised jobs, etc.)? For what target groups (are there any gender or other discriminations)? • what rhythm (short-term or long-term)? • what division of competencies (between central, local agents, other local actors and beneficiaries)? Or what complementarity between the various actors involved?

5. Opportunities What available opportunities for professional or social integration (cf. work restructuring): • by whom (market actors, public sector, secondary labour market, third sector, etc.)? And what complementarity between them? • for whom? what degree of selectivity (or segmentation of the labour market), esp. with regard to women or to the most disadvantaged groups? • what quantity? • what quality (what wages, what working conditions, what type of contract [durability], etc.)?

6. Central/local Various ways to organise the central/local relationship: • management by objectives (provision agreements with fixed budgets, timetables, objectives and indicators of performance) • quasi-markets (competition between service providers to promote efficiency) • networks between local independent actors (concerted action) or fragmentation between them (cf. roundabout effects) In terms of CA, 3 configurations: hierarchical (loyalty, high financial dependency due to revisability of contracts), marketised (exit option), and capability-friendly (exit, voice and loyalty)

7. Institution (public or private)/individual In terms of CA, the same three configurations: • hierarchical: strict conditionalities that determine access to predefined programmes (loyalty option); local agents as driving belts • marketised (e.g. vouchers or freely disposable income): freedom framed in terms of consumer choice (exit option) • capability-friendly: possibility (but no duty) to be involved in the definition and implementation of the activation programme (agent vs. passive recipient – cf. active security) = voice option (beneficiaries as informational sources) beside the loyalty and the exit option Role of the state: no more a provider, a guarantor and a monitoring body (rights vs. performance) NB. Balance between institutional and individual responsibility

8. Conclusion: situated public action and the CA • Empowerment for all: sufficient resources, adequate opportunities (collective interventions envisaged as necessary for fostering individual responsibility, and not as factors producing dependence and irresponsibility), broad definitions of activation • freedom to choose: opportunity offered to all involved actors to take an active part in the design and implementation of ALMPs and to make their voice heard NB. comparative (yardstick for comparative assessment of situated public action) vs. transcendental (impracticable ideal) perspective