This chapter maps empirical studies of unemployment and activation policies based on concepts deriving from Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s model of orders of worth. It illustrates how core concepts are applied to study the normative content of reforms transforming social and labor market policies in the last three decades. The chapter shows that studies differ from each other in two important dimensions. First, they differ in terms of their distance or proximity to the actual effects of activation. Some studies remain at a distance to such effects, whereas others are located in their close proximity. Second, they differ in terms of the actors analyzed, whereas some studies focus on ordinary persons, others have a distinct focus on institutions or actors in executive or expert roles. Studies are classified along the two dimensions dividing them into four groups with separate research inquiries, study objects and scholarly contributions. They are classified as studies of ideology (distant studies of executive actors), culture (distant studies of ordinary actors), administration (proximate studies of executive actors), and lived experiences (proximate studies of ordinary actors). By mapping and classifying existing studies, the chapter provides an overview of the substantially different ways in which concepts from Boltanski and Thévenot’s work has hitherto been put to work to analyze activation hereby contributing to different strands of literature.