First published in 1998, this volume describes and analyses organizations of social security claimants and their position in the field of force of the national welfare state in six European countries: representing a diversity of welfare state regimes. The authors analyse these organizations, and their strengths and weaknesses, from a variety of theoretical perspectives: such as the opportunity structures of welfare states and national political relations, the fragmentation of the social movements of social security claimants along ideological and categorical lines, the (im)possibilities of organizing socially highly marginalized groups etc. The volume also contains an introduction and an epilogue, as well as a chapter dealing with the relations between collective and individual forms of social resistance.