| Die Keure
Website

De wisselwerking tussen het mededingingsrecht en het recht op kwaliteitsvolle zorg van de patiënt 
(The interaction between competition law and the patient’s right to quality care)
 
Diego Fornaciari (2011), die Keure, 315 p.
 
This book, in Dutch, assesses to what extent competition law is applicable to actors in the Belgian health care field, and in particular to health care providers: what might be the potential consequences thereof, and to what extent can competition law take into account the patient’s interests, especially his right to quality care. The study compares the application of competition law in health care in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the US and makes an in depth analysis of how competition law applies to practices such as hospital mergers, agreements between hospitals and hospital doctors and collaborations between hospitals. The author then analyses how the patients’ right to quality care is protected when applying competition law.

 | Palgrave Macmillan Website

The State and Healthcare. Comparing OECD Countries
 
Heinz Rothgang, Mirella Cacace, Lorraine Frisina, Simone Grimmeisen, Achim Schmid, Claus Wendt (2010)
Palgrave Macmillan
 
The six authors of this book on the developments of health care system financing as well as on the offer of health care services, are coming from three main fields: economy of health systems, sociology of health and health policies. The first part reviews the development, during the last 30 years, of the role of the state in the management of health systems, through a cross-sectional analysis in 23 OECD countries. This analysis reveals how health systems resisted to economic constraints and continue to provide satisfactory health services. Following suit, the book provides impressive in-depth country studies for Germany, the UK and the US. In the concluding section the authors discuss the surprising convergence of these systems towards hybrid models.

| Oxford University Press Website

Promoting solidarity in the European Union
 
Malcolm Ross and Yuri Borgmann-Prebil (eds.) (2010)
Oxford University Press

The book explores the different implications and current relevance of the idea of solidarity in the European integration, which is increasingly invocated in political discourses and outcomes. It analyzes the theorization of this concept, its political and constitutional implications, its link to the citizenship and its importance with regard to the governance in the EU. Through 12 chapters, different authors from varied disciplines analyze the solidarity in the European Union from different perspectives and different degrees of optimism or pessimism about its actual importance. Authors’ positions vary between the certainty about its utility and a clear skepticism.  >> More

| Cambridge University Press Website

International Health and Aid Policies. The Need for Alternatives
 
By Jean-Pierre Unger (2010)
Cambridge University Press 

This book is the result of more than ten years of in-depth research into international health policies. The six sections, including 20 chapters, address the six principle concerns regarding the failure to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Aid and international policies in the field of health care are shaped by the United Nations (WHO, World Bank, etc.) and the European Union, both of which advocate health policies qualified as neoliberal by the authors. They denounce the division between health care services (its allocation to the private sector) and disease control. They demonstrate the failure of such policies; specific diseases (typically malaria, HIV and tuberculosis) and targeted populations must be integrated into health care services. However, due to privatization, only a small range of the population in low and middle income countries has access to health services. The two last sections propose integrated, social and democratic strategies for aid and international health policies. They suggest alternatives for policy planning and strategic toolkits. The critiques are evidence-based,and the authors provide a wide range of examples from around the world. This complete analysis contributes to a global understanding of the current global health challenge, at a time when international agencies are examining their achievements a decade after the first MDGs and acknowledging failure.

| Edward Elgar Publishing Website

The Role of International Organizations in Social Policy: Ideas, Actors and Impact
 
Rune Ervik, Nanna Kildal & Even Nilssen (eds) (2009)
Edward Elgar Publishing  

The volume, edited by Rune Ervik, Nanna Kildal and Even Nilssen (Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies, University of Bergen, Norway), is a welcome and highly relevant contribution to the literature on social policy development in a 21st century, globalized world. It analyzes the role of actors (i.e., international organizations) in fostering and diffusing ideas, including how they interact and influence each other, while taking into account the institutional constraints and opportunities that define the landscape in which ideas and interactions operate on international and national levels. Nine chapters treat a wide range of policy fields (social inclusion, employment, health, pensions, and family policy), feature in-depth case studies from Norway, Germany, Denmark, the UK, and the EU-15, and examine the “soft” or ideational influence of the foremost global actors in social policy, i.e., the EU, the OECD, World Bank, IMF, ILO, WTO, and WHO.  >> More

| Download the Study 
(PDF)

| United Nations
Website

Analysing and Measuring Social Inclusion in a Global Context

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2010

Prepared by two independent experts at the request of the United Nations (UNDESA), this study demonstrates the analytical and operational relevance of "measuring social inclusion” as a practical tool with which to assess the impact and monitor the progress of social inclusion interventions at the local, regional, national and global levels. While the study offers examples drawn from around the world, it focuses particularly on the experience of the EU in constructing social indicators and in actually using them in the policy process (in the context of the so-called Social Open Method of Coordination); it also seeks to provide important insights and lessons relevant to a global application. >> More

| Cambridge University Press Website

Health Systems Governance in Europe: the Role of European Union Law and Policy

Mossialos, E., Permanand, G., Baeten, R., Hervey, T. (eds.) (2010), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

This book, a co-publication by the OSE and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, was funded by the Belgian federal health authorities (SPF Santé Publique) and the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (NIHDI/INAMI). It offers a state of the art of academic discussion on a number of current and emerging governance issues in EU healthcare policy, including regulatory, legal, ‘new governance’ and policy-making dynamics. In a first chapter the editors provide an initial snapshot of the current status of health (care) policy in the EU before examining specific challenges facing policy-makers. >> More

| Website Bruylant

Entrepreneuriat et Insertion 

Brasseur, M. (dir), (2010)
Bruylant, Brussels. 

The volume comprises a number of articles dedicated to the question of professional inclusion by means of entrepreneurship. The intentions of the editors was to capture and scrutinise numerous angles of the « alternative way of reaching social and professional inclusion » and employability , so the study touches upon different aspects, from the importance of microcredit till the affirmation of entrepreneurship as a destiny. Specific questions such as problems faced by disabled entrepreneurs or discrimination by sexual orientation are considered in the research as well. Thirty three experienced authors present their different views on efficiency of entrepreneurship as a source of inclusion. In clear and effective writings the authors support their thesis by numerous data and schemas. The book is useful for those involved in research, business, HR. For students a number of concrete questions and situations on the entrepreneurship and inclusion are attached which allow them to deepen the understanding.

| Website Peter Lang

European Integration from Rome to Berlin: 1957-2007, History, Law and Politics

Baquero Cruz, J., Closa Montero, C. (eds.) (2009)
P.I.E. Peter Lang, Brussels.

This edited volume is an interdisciplinary analysis of the past, present and future of the European Union. It addresses the lessons of EU history, its current challenges and its future perspectives. Areas examined include the evolution of the law of integration, Europe’s influence on political transitions, economic governance, social governance, the system of Treaty reform and its limits, the future role of the Court of Justice, enlargement and the vexed question of Turkish accession. One of the most striking conclusions of this book is that European integration through law has reached its limits (power has “broken free from the bounds of law”, as demonstrated by phenomena such as the Open Method of Coordination, discussed in several chapters of the book). 

|  Website Cambridge University (Order)

|  Website TMC Asser Press

The Changing Legal Framework for Services of General Interest in Europe
Between Competition and Solidarity

Krajewski, M., Neergaard, U., Van de Gronden, J. (eds.) (2009), TMC Asser Press, The Hague. 

This edited volume examines the impact of internal market, competition, state aid and public procurement law on the provision of services of general interest, in particular health services, social services and local public services. It consists of thirteen horizontal chapters taking into account the most recent ECJ case law, complete with ten country case studies covering both old and new Member States. 

| Website Kluwer

Calidad del trabajo en la Unión Europea. Concepto, tensiones, dimensiones

by Roger Blanpain (editor) (2009), Bulletin of Comparative Labour Relations, N° 69, Kluwer Law International BV, The Netherlands

Two recent decisions of the European Court of Justice – Laval and Viking Line – have ignited a politically explosive controversy over the role of collective labour actions in the European industrial market. Far from settling a long-standing contentious issue, it appears that the Court has brought opposing interests into sharper conflict, in the process also exacerbating tensions between ‘old’ and ‘new’ Member States. Although the ultimate impact of the two decisions on national labour law regimes is unpredictable, the need for a summing-up of trends so far is clearly advantageous to all concerned parties. To this end, in this book nineteen labour law scholars present country reports detailing challenges and consequences of the rulings evident in twelve EU Member States, as well as in Norway and Russia.