Book Review: Social Inclusion and Social Protection in the EU: Interactions between Law and Policy, by Bea Cantillon, Herwig Verschueren and Paula Ploscar. (Cambridge: Intersentia, 2012)

This edited collection addresses a gap in interdisciplinary research. The editors’ short literature review is still current: in discussions of social policy at EU levels, either legal scholars combine forces, or scholars of social policy do so. The analysis can even be extended to criticize the fact that EU social policy research focuses overly on employment-related matters. (e.g. Barnard & Deakin, “Social policy and labour market regulation” in Jones, Menon & Weatherill, Oxford Handbook on European Union (2012)). Social inclusion and social policy receives less attention than employment policy (which is arguably a subsection of social inclusion) and labour rights in both disciplines. The book reviewed contributes to closing a gap in research in that it focuses on the neglected part of social policy research.