Active labour market policy (ALMP) has emerged as a major topic of inquiry among comparative scholars in recent decades, alongside other social investments. However, few conclusive results have been produced regarding the political explanations of these policies, and not least the role of partisan politics. To help remedy this problem, this article proposes a new understanding of ALMP as a profoundly versatile set of ‘multi-purpose tools’ that policymakers across the political spectrum can use as a means to very different distributional ends. Specifically, it highlights how ALMP programmes vary in terms of 1) their target groups, 2) their intended labour market outcomes, and 3) their modes of production in politically salient ways. Informed by the new framework and by recent research, the article then develops a refined theory about how governments with different left–right placement, operating under economic and institutional constraints, affect ALMP development in different directions.

近几十年来，与其他社会投资一样，积极的劳动力市场政策（ALMP）已成为比较学者研究的主要课题。然而，关于这些政策的政治解释，尤其是党派政治的作用，几乎没有得出结论性的结果。为了帮助解决这个问题，本文提出了对 ALMP 的新理解，它是一套功能多样的“多用途工具”，各个政治领域的政策制定者可以将其用作实现不同分配目的的手段。具体来说，它强调了 ALMP 计划在 1) 目标群体、2) 预期的劳动力市场结果和 3) 其生产方式在政治上的显着方式是如何变化的。根据新框架和最近的研究，