About Us and this Site
For whom is the site intended?
Our target audience is not so much the social policy expert and scholar but rather the interested lay person. While we cannot provide exhaustive or definitive resources, we hope to provide useful commentary and important background information about the resources and literature available on the European welfare state. We also want to point students to relevant compilations of materials and data. The site features a conceptual overview, selected case studies, a sample undergraduate and graduate course on the topic of European welfare states and European Union social policy. This site also includes an annotated bibliography, annotated links to other resources, and brief analyses of recent developments in European/EU social policy.
We are a study group at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown with an interest in European and European Union politics. Most of the credit for this specific project goes to six undergraduate students in political science at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown who, together with their instructor, have collaborated to put this web-site together. One of our objectives is to introduce the European Union (formerly European Community) to an American audience. A considerable part of this site deals therefore with the European Union (EU) and its interaction with the various member states. Particularly, we are interested in how developments at the European level are shaping the national welfare states and vice versa. In this context, we wish to acknowledge the generous financial support by the European Community Studies Association (ECSA) and the logistical support by European Union Center and Center for West European Studies located at the University of Pittsburgh. Moreover, we need to thank the Division of Social Science at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown for supporting this project.
