In a world, where skills increasingly matter, enhancing our understanding of the role of skills policy in reaching core and notable competing European integration objectives such as competitiveness and cohesion is imperative. The European Parliament and Member States agreed to launch the “European Year of Skills” in May 2023. The unprecedented attention at EU-level towards the issue of skills shortage and to the fostering of citizens’ skills for a resilient and green economy makes it all the more necessary to assess the rationales and instruments of EU skills policy. Over the course of European integration, the role of individuals and their skills has not only gained importance for joint policies, but skills have also served different purposes. After a social policy-based approach to people’s skills throughout the past century, knowledge has been coined a condition for economic competitiveness in the EU’s Lisbon Strategy. Since then, skills policy has become a distinguishable area of Union action. More recently, skills have not only been connected to the Single Market and its sustained resilience after Covid-19, but also to the digital and green transitions, where social considerations re-surface. The paper asks: How do skills and EU skills policy relate to the fulfilment of European integration objectives? The analysis shows how skills and skills policy (ought to) contribute to the realization of core aims of the European project, notably competitiveness, cohesion and resilience. For that purpose, first, the relationship between the European project and people’s skills is unravelled through narrative analysis of (archival) documents. From here, the paper analyses the emergence of selected skills policy instruments through interviews conducted with EU skills policy stakeholders. The paper reveals contrasting understandings of skills in EU policymaking, which have resulted in unresolved tensions or reconciliation attempts.

Like many European states, Sweden has built its welfare system upon economic growth, with orthodox policy assumptions requiring ongoing economic growth to support continued welfare provision. However, such assumptions have come under attack in recent years: ecological economists question the possibility and desirability of continued economic growth on a finite planet, and neoliberalism has undermined commitment to the provision of high levels of public welfare by public actors. Economic growth is now a shared policy area between all four political levels within Swedish politics (municipal, regional, national, and the EU). The ecological issue is addressed at best indirectly: each region must develop a Regional Development Plan which privileges economic growth. Moreover, the rules according to which this must take place are primarily set at EU and national levels, and each plan is focused on a given region, with no mechanism to manage competition between them as they all seek to maximise their economic development. This paper asks whether and how it is possible for all Swedish regions to gain from such a structural shift, and if not, what are the implications for the provision of public welfare? In a neoliberal economy, can all regions be ‘winners’? Or will one, or some, of them find that their ‘victory’ in economic development requires the failure of other regions in the country?

How do social, political and state actors resist policy dismantling? The dismantlement of public policies has received growing attention, especially in democracies led by far-right leaders. While the literature offers a framework to understand politicians' strategies to weaken and terminate policies, how the state itself and society resist these changes is yet to be fully understood. Aiming to contribute to the debate, this work focuses on the dismantling of social policies in Brazil, with Bolsa Família, and in Italy, regarding the Reddito di Cittadinanza, both governed by far-right leaders, but with different social, political and transnational relations environments. With a qualitative approach using documents, news articles and in-depth interviews, we explore how bureaucratic actors, opposition parties and social actors organize to resist the government's dismantling actions. This research contributes to advancing the policy dismantling debate since it helps uncover the role of actors still under-examined.

In the realm of territorial politics, the allocation of distributive politics shapes local welfare and policy provision. Yet the focus has primarily been on the supply side. In this paper, I aim to shift the spotlight to the demand side by analysing how brokers (local intermediaries) mediate the needs and preferences of the electorate in distributive politics. Despite congresspeople's awareness of the number of votes they cast in the districts, they lack information on individual or group needs within their jurisdictions. This gap is bridged by brokers, who act as channels between voters and legislators. To tackle this problem, I propose an analysis that triangulates qualitative and quantitative approaches to test this relationship by comparing two distinct political contexts: England and Brazil. These different institutional structures, particularly regarding territorial decentralisation and the political systems within the lower house, allow a nuanced exploration of the territorial dynamics of distributive politics. Quantitatively, I combine data on voting behaviour, political alignment, ideology, and socioeconomic features of constituencies to understand the dynamics of multilevel actos while the qualitative approach involves in-depth interviews with brokers in each country, providing insights into how the electorate's desires are organized, processed, and transmitted to legislators. By examining the demand side of distributive politics through the lens of brokers, this research aims to contribute valuable insights into understanding the mechanisms through which local needs are met and shed light on the evolving role of brokers in shaping distributive policies across diverse territorial landscapes.