Håkan Johansson is Professor in Social Work at Lund University, Sweden.Alexandru Panican is Associate Professor in Social Work at Lund University, Sweden.

• 1. A move towards the local? The relevance of a local welfare system approach; Håkan Johansson and Alexandru Panican 2. The local welfare system as a scale question; Simone Scarpa3. Conceptualising local welfare systems: exploring the role of actors and governance arrangements; Håkan Johansson and Max Koch4. Combating poverty through ‘active inclusion’? The European and national contexts; Daniel Clegg  5. Strategies against poverty and social exclusion in a corporatist–conservative local welfare system: The Dortmund consensus; Dorothee Spannagel 6. Anti-poverty activities in a liberal welfare model: Local levers and multi-level tensions in Glasgow, UK; Hayley Bennett7. Strategies against poverty in a Social democratic local welfare system: still the responsibility of public actors?; Alexandru Panican and Håkan Johansson 8. Active inclusion in a Southern European local welfare system: Combining fragmentation and public–private partnership in Turin; Franca Maino9. Poland’ active inclusion model - still in transition? The case of public agencies’ tensions and emerging role of CSOs in Radom; Julia Kubisa and Justyna Zielińska10. Worlds of active inclusion at the local level: a comparative analysis; Alexandru Panican and Anna Angelin11. Concluding remarks: Exploring the consequences of scale and place for local active inclusion strategies;

“In this fascinating book, Johansson and Panican, together with ten prominent scholars of social policy, social work, sociology, urban studies and political science, provide a multi-disciplinary review and analysis of how, in the last two decades, welfare systems and welfare provision have become more and more local, as opposed to national – that is to say, local authorities are seen as responsible for the planning and provision of welfare services.” (Avner De Shalit, Journal of Social Policy, Vol. 48 (1), January, 2019)