The much-vaunted ‘post-war’ welfare state existed only for a relatively brief period in history. As early as the 1970s, the end of so-called full employment – at least for men in the core industrialized countries – heralded an era of deep transformation known under such catchphrases as ‘from welfare to work’, ‘from passive to active assistance’, or ‘from old to new welfare’. This transformation inspired a large and still growing body of research on the policy contents and societal implications of the active turn in social policy. By now, it has become established knowledge that activation policies take different shapes in different countries, covering a wide spectrum between workfarist, demanding policies and more human capital-oriented, enabling policies. In recent years, scholars have also begun to investigate how different activation ‘styles’ are put into practice, since different goals of activation pose rather distinct organizational, regulatory and financial challenges. Especially if vulnerable citizens are to be reintegrated into the labour market, differentiated services are needed (such as job-search advice, training, counselling or care assistance) that are often dispersed not only between organizations, but also between the public, private and third sector. Also the street-level of service provision is a vital factor in the activation formula, as the effectiveness of public support depends to a significant degree on choosing the right treatment for the right client.

In “Getting Welfare to Work: Street-Level Governance in Australia, the UK, and the Netherlands”, Mark Considine, Jenny M. Lewis, Siobhan O'Sullivan and Els Sol present an intriguing study on the inner workings of active welfare governance. Their book is quite unique on two accounts: first, it offers detailed survey data on the street-level implementation of activation policies in Australia, the UK and the Netherlands; and second, the longitudinal design of the survey allows us a unique glimpse at the continuities and changes of activation governance between 1998 and 2012 (2008 for the Netherlands). I was also very impressed by the introductory chapter which can be read as an ideational and political history of activation, and which features a depth and detail of analysis that is rare for texts on ‘fashionable’ policy concepts such as activation.

If I were to summarize the main lessons I have learned from the book, I would name at least three. First, the survey results in the book empirically confirm some conventional wisdoms on activation governance, such as that privatized service delivery does not always lead to more efficient service provision, that activation has served to discipline caseworkers as much as clients, or that activation tends to change the composition of the employment-sector workforce (in terms of work experience, education, etc.), albeit in different ways in different countries. A second lesson to be learned from the book is that New Public Management techniques such as performance targets and competition have become dominant steering mechanisms in employment offices across the board, although procedural governance seems to be experiencing a slow revival in Australia and the UK, possibly due to the costs associated with a ‘black box’ approach to privatized service delivery. Finally, it was striking to see that there is a common trend of diminished employer relations but increased relations with welfare agencies at the street-level across countries, but especially in Australia and the UK between 1998 and 2008/2012. The latter finding could either mean that the European Commission's “active inclusion” initiative targeting particularly vulnerable unemployed has been successful, or that caseworkers increasingly seek to access externally-funded service resources in an organizational context of fiscal constraint. The finding that employer relations have become less rather than more important at the frontline of service provision in the activation age is more worrying, however, as it hints towards a discrepancy between policy practice and a policy rhetoric in which service individualization and employer engagement are paramount.

As with any empirical study, a few aspects of the research design and the presentation of the research results could be criticized, although this does not put the book's valuable contribution to comparative social policy research into question. For example, the Dutch survey was not carried out in 2012 but there is no clue in the book as to why this was the case. Also, the presentation of the survey data differs somewhat between the three empirical country chapters, both in order and in style. This makes it difficult for the reader to jump back and forth between chapters to compare figures directly. A summary chapter on the three ‘street-level’ cases may have been useful here, possibly in the place of the comparative chapter on governance modes that is highly interesting but also unusually condensed and complex for a book chapter rather than article.

In spite of these minor criticisms, this is a very important book for scholars of activation governance, and I commend the authors for presenting a well-written, insightful, innovative and longitudinal study on this important subject. Both the policy and practice of activation is analysed in unusual richness and empirical detail in this book which opens up interesting new avenues for research, not least regarding such under-researched aspects as the network connections of employment counsellors.