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Course Description: This course discusses the development and structure of the welfare state from a comparative historical and political sociological perspective. Locating the welfare state within the broader context of the development of capitalism as a world systemic phenomenon, the course traces the scholarly discussions on the causes of the welfare state development and the functions of the welfare state. The course discusses the structural (economic or demographic) and political determinants of welfare state development, putting greater emphasis on the latter. As such, political legitimacy, electoral competition, political containment of unrest and political mobilization of popular support will be considered as critical factors shaping welfare policies. In a sense, the course is on the politics of welfare state. It will analyze the development of modern welfare states in the west and in developing countries, with a specific emphasis on so-called emerging markets. Welfare states in China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Indonesia and Turkey will be analyzed. In addition, the course will also pose more technical questions including the policy specific characteristics of existing welfare regimes.
Handbook of Comparative Politics, 2007
Over the last few decades of the twentieth century, the literature examining cross-national variation in the development of policies of social protection has been one of the most dynamic Welds of research in comparative politics. The sustained effort of sociologists, political scientists, and economists to understand the causes and consequences of different welfare states has generated a vast literature that is methodologically eclectic and theoretically vibrant. The accumulation of findings in this literature has fruitfully illuminated one of the most significant achievements of modern states: the ability to protect citizens from poverty in the event of sickness, old age, and unemployment. Advanced industrialized economies have been at the center of the empirical investigation of policies of social protection. This was a natural starting point, due to the magnitude and importance of the welfare state in these economies, which accounts for as much as 30 to 65 percent of GDP. Based on these cases, the literature developed important insights by noting that social policies clustered in distinct ‘‘families of nations’’ or ‘‘worlds of welfare capitalism’’ (Esping-Andersen 1990; Castles 1993; Huber and Stephens 2001). Nevertheless, important theoretical disagreement continues to exist about the relative importance of different political factors in explaining the diversity of observed policies and their distributional implications. In this essay, we argue that the most exciting research opportunities in the study of welfare states lie in examining the variation in policies of social protection in developing economies. Scholars of the welfare state need to broaden the scope of their analysis. In recent decades, policies of social protection in many developing economies have experienced a dramatic transformation. Two trends in the evolution of these policies require a systematic explanation. First, welfare states in developing countries have not unilaterally evolved towards a neo-liberal, residualistic model of social protection characterized by limited coverage and a private provision of benefits. While some Latin American countries have partially or fully privatized their old-age insurance programs, other economies — such as those of Taiwan or Korea — have enacted universal social insurance programs granting benefits to all citizens (Wong 2004). Second, we Wnd strong variation across policy areas in the evolution and distributional implications of these policies. In distributional terms, health care policies have been more progressive than have pension policies — an outcome that holds true for policy changes both in Latin America and in East Asia. These recent changes offer an important challenge to welfare state scholars. Are existing theories, based on the examples of advanced industrial economies, able to explain the recent transformations experienced by welfare states in developing countries? Which explanatory variables fare better than others and, if so, why? If existing explanations cannot account for the puzzling outcomes noted above, what should be the building blocks of explanations that can account for the divergence in social policy trajectories? This essay surveys the major approaches employed in study of the welfare state and evaluates the capacity of these theories to explain the bifurcated trajectory of reform experienced by social policies around the world.
Journal für Entwicklungspolitik
Journal of Social Policy, 2003
European Journal of Sociology, 2014
What, in fact,isthe Welfare State? This article traces the emergence of the welfare state as a specific mode of government, describing its distinctive rationality as well as its characteristic forms, functions and effects. It identifies five sectors of welfare governance, the relations between them, and the various forms these take in different times and places. It discusses the contradictory commitments that shape welfare state practices and the problems associated with these practices and contradictions. It situates welfare state government within a long-term account of the changing relations between the social and the economic spheres. And it argues that the welfare state ought to be understood as a “normal social fact”—an essential (though constantly contested) part of the social and economic organization of modern capitalist societies.
Social Service Review, 2002
We review the main theoretical conclusions from a quarter century of comparative studies of welfare states in the affluent democracies. We contrast early debates over the relative importance of industrialization, economic growth, and social classes for explaining welfare state differences with contemporary claims about the role of globalization, postindustrialism, and gender relations in shaping their futures. We evaluate the claims against recent empirical evidence with the aim of highlighting both important lessons from the past and promising directions for future analysis. Contemporary studies of the modern welfare state came of age in the 1970s. Historians, political scientists, and other social scientists had of course long since documented the origins and development of particular national social policies. The comparative focus of this new body of research was prefigured by a number of seminal studies written during the postwar decades (
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 2022
This paper presents an introduction to the special issue titled "Old and New Challenges for Welfare Regimes: A Global Perspective" Design/methodology/approach • The authors of the special issue combine case studies and comparative analysis across America, Asia, Africa and Europe. The authors were invited to develop their studies with a focus on one or more of three axes: (1) Institutional and governance challenges surrounding the implementation and expansion of social welfare programs; (2) State of the art and diversity across emerging welfare states; (3) Challenges associated with migration and demographic pressures. Findings • Articles in this special issue contribute to our understanding of recent challenges and transformations of welfare regimes, with special attention to the following policy areas: youthemancipation, the reduction of poverty and income inequality, social protection and taxation, the role of historical institutionalism to better understand social policy implementation and expansion, the lack of transformative social protection in 'New Right' governments, determinants of social equality and the transformative effect of migration into welfare states. Originality • To our knowledge, the existing publications on transformations and challenges of welfare regimes are still very much centered around a Western-European context. The global perspective and diversity of policy areas covered aims to shed light on the important lessons and policy implications from less traditional welfare states.
2016
Stefano Agnoletto, Brian J Griffith, and Cristina Palmieri, eds. "The Origins of the Welfare State: Global and Comparative Approaches" Zapruder World: An International Journal for the History of Social Conflict 3 (2016) ISSN: 2385-1171 View Volume: http://www.zapruderworld.org/volume-3/ "This volume of Zapruder World focuses on the global and comparative history of the welfare state. The articles in this third volume fit squarely into the philosophy of our action-oriented journal. They aim not only to interact with historiographical debates or to merely question aspects of mainstream literature on the topic, but they also seek to interrogate the welfare state in order to map the terrain with an eye to action and political alternatives. We all face the dominance of neoliberal ideologies in our daily lives, seeing the consequences of attacks against public programs in areas such as health, education, income-transfers, housing, etc. Moreover, as scholars, we aim to consciously denaturalize "liberal thought," which consistently downplays the role of welfare legislation and institutions. At the same time, we have sought to avoid any celebratory language regarding the welfare state in itself. By advocating for a critical appraisal of history as a space for conflict, this volume of Zapruder World challenges liberal-conciliatory descriptions of the past. We believe that an open debate on the origins of the welfare state, as well as a greater awareness of the transformations of both the notion of the welfare state and its material organization, provide the necessary standpoint to critically reconsider its role for the future. Finally, the articles in this volume challenge the dominant focus on the "crisis" of the welfare state, inviting scholars and activists to reflect on the many alternatives offered by the welfare state in responding to the needs of people in different geographical locations and at different historical periods."
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 2022
PurposeThis paper aims to present an introduction to the special issue titled “Old and New Challenges for Welfare Regimes: A Global Perspective.”Design/methodology/approachThe authors of the special issue combine case studies and comparative analysis across America, Asia, Africa and Europe. The authors were invited to develop the authors'ir studies with a focus on one or more of three axes: (1) institutional and governance challenges surrounding the implementation and expansion of social welfare programs,; (2) state of the art and diversity across emerging welfare states and; (3) challenges associated with migration and demographic pressures.FindingsArticles in this special issue contribute to the authors' understanding of recent challenges and transformations of welfare regimes, with special attention to the following policy areas: youth emancipation, the reduction of poverty and income inequality, social protection and taxation, the role of historical institutionalism to b...
Revue française de sociologie, 2002
Comparative research on the Welfare States has become a particularly fertile field for research in social sciences. Specifically, it has led to the combination of various scientific issues (gender theory, economic sociology, international comparison theory, sociology of international relations, neo-institutionalisms) that are usually juxtaposed elsewhere. Furthermore, the analyses carried out within the framework of this type of research enjoy an enviable level of integration into the political and social debates of the contemporary world. The aim of this article is to present and analyse some of the more significant contributions of the contemporary period. As it is not possible to develop an extensive analysis, this article will focus on three debates : the analysis of the various Welfare States and their possible classifications, the relation between globalisation and the evolution of the Welfare States, the new political configurations of the action within the Welfare States. At the same time, this analysis highlights the contribution of research to the development of a constantly evolving neo-institutionalist theory. The question of the evolution of the Welfare State has never been more topical than it is now, since the crisis of the Welfare State has been announced. This can be established by measuring just how far we have come. Up until the end of the seventies, very little was written on the subject. Not many comparative studies were carried out. The theoretical inspiration was mostly functionalist. The turning point in the seventies gave birth to a highly international field of research backed up by strong institutional support. The central issue is to discover the determining factors in the emergence and relative expansion of the Welfare States (Flora, 1986). The dominant theory very quickly became the school of the resources of power. The works of authors such as Stephens (1979), Korpi (1983), Esping-Andersen (1985) all attempt to demonstrate that the level of the mobilisation of labour and the access of left-wing political parties (social democracy) to power, are the main determining factors as regards the size and the more or less redistributive nature of the Welfare States. All of this research leads quite naturally to the hypothesis of the existence of several models of Welfare
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