1 e.g. Rodgers, B. N. on the case for ‘constructive descriptions’, in ‘Comparative Studies in Social Policy and Administration’, Foundations of Social Administration, ed. Heisler, H., London, Macmillan, 1977, p. 200.Google Scholar

2 Unlike Munday, I do not count Lorenz’s work ( Lorenz, W. Social Work in a Changing Europe, London, Routledge, 1994 Google Scholar) as either framework‐or model‐building.

3 Article 117 confirmed the agreement of member states over ‘the need to promote improved working conditions and an improved standard of living for workers, so as to make possible their harmonisation while the improvement is being maintained’. As quoted in Hantrais, p. 19.

4 European Commission, Final Report from the Commission to the Council on the first programme of pilot schemes and studies to combat poverty, COM(81)769, 1981, Brussels.

5 e.g. Spicker, P., ‘Social policy in a Federal Europe’, Social Policy & Administration, Vol. 30 No. 4, 1996, p. 316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Room 1996, pp. 5–6.

7 e. g. the book was seemingly neither in stock nor on order (by the summer of 1996) in any bookshop in Oxford.

8 cf for instance the self‐selection of academics and students who took up social administration in Britain (‘the welfare state subject’) from the 1950s.

9 Ross, G., ‘Assessing the Delors Era and Social Policy’ in Leibfried and Pierson (eds), European Social Policy, pp. 357–8.Google Scholar

10 Not to mention ‘pork barrel politics’, though this is not specifically referred to here.

11 See for instance Geve, Bent ‘Indications of social policy convergence in Europe’, Social Policy and Administration, Vol. 30 No. 4, 12. 1996 Google Scholar (Special issue on social policy in Europe), pp. 366–85.

12 i.e. including Ireland.