ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the consequences of focusing social policy on frauds and fraudsters, which leads to the curbing of social rights and perhaps paradoxically increases poverty even in traditional welfare states such as Finland and Sweden. The core principles of neoliberalism are 'less state, more market, more individual responsibility', and in relation to the reorganization of social services those principles are translated into demands for deregulation, privatization and flexibilization. The new government in Great Britain declared a real war on fraudsters. It has established surveillance teams that investigate frauds reported by the police, job centres or anonymous members of public. Fraud rhetoric is popular both in Eastern and in Western Europe, in new welfare states and old ones. Europe is a plural space with variations in its social policy; the European welfare model, European social policy and the like are generalizations that disregard minimal common characteristics shared by the countries in this region.
