What makes transition policies effective? What makes them fail? And what are the criteria for success and failure? Who defines them and from which perspective? These are the main questions addressed by this volume. After the presentation of findings of European research on the changes of transitions, the mechanisms of social integration and exclusion, and especially on recent trends in the effects of transition policies, the third and final part of the book reflects on some general contradictions and dilemmas that have appeared across the various chapters. First, the general contours of Parts One and Two of the book on the increasing discrepancies between state policies addressing the risks of social exclusion in transitions to work and the life perspectives of young men and women themselves are summarised. The second section confronts researchers’ analysis with the views of national and European policy makers who have commented on some of the presented study reports. Here a number of general policy dilemmas are introduced that can be identified as lying at the heart of the efficiency problems. Some of these will be dealt with in depth in the remaining chapters of the book. Section three advances the theoretical interpretation that the difficult relationship between changing transitions and current policies is a principal consequence of the structures of ‘late modernity’ or ‘reflexive modernisation’ (Giddens, 1990; Beck, 1992). The rising awareness of ‘the informal’ with regard to learning as well as to social support may be one (yet ambiguous) key to these challenges. The concluding section suggests that in order to find ways out of such dilemmas transition policies need to adopt a new communicative approach towards the assessment and the compensation of risk between individuals and society.

The gap between young people and transition policies

In the context of this book, transition policies have been conceptualised as the set of policies dealing with young people's transitions from education to work. This means, in particular, education and training, labour market policies, welfare and youth policies. Different policies refer to different aspects of youth transitions and at the same time youth transitions are only one part of their task. These different policies do not always act in a coordinated or integrated manner, therefore, but in a segmented and fragmented way which in the individual case may have unintended, even contradictory effects.