‘Frozen Landscapes’ Revisited: Path Creation in the European Social Model

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Lessenich
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Model ◽  
Short Account ◽  
European Social Model ◽  
Path Creation ◽  
European Welfare State ◽  
European Social Policy

The institutional paralysis of Continental European social policy has become common wisdom in comparative welfare state research. The article seeks to challenge the all too simplistic picture of an inherently immovable and inflexible ‘conservative’ world of welfare capitalism. In confronting ‘path dependence’ theory with the concept of ‘path creation’, it is argued that there are – typically inconspicuous or even hidden – paths out of ‘path dependence’ precisely in those welfare states that most obviously embody the institutional heritage of what may be called the ‘European Social Model’. The fundamental ambivalence of Continental European welfare state institutions opens a permanent window of opportunity for ‘institutional entrepreneurs’ pursuing welfare state change. A short account of the recent transformation of social insurance institutions in Germany is presented as a first illustration of this thesis.

How do welfare states change? Institutions and their impact on the politics of welfare state reform in Western Europe

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuliano Bonoli ◽  
Bruno Palier
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Unemployment Compensation ◽  
European Social Policy ◽  
Overall Resistance ◽  
The Uk

In the 1980s and 1990s West European welfare states were exposed to strong pressures to ‘renovate’, to retrench. However, the European social policy landscape today looks as varied as it did at any time during the 20th century. ‘New institutionalism’ seems particularly helpful to account for the divergent outcomes observed, and it explains the resistance of different structures to change through past commitments, the political weight of welfare constituencies and the inertia of institutional arrangements – in short, through ‘path dependency’. Welfare state institutions play a special role in framing the politics of social reform and can explain trajectories and forms of policy change. The institutional shape of the existing social policy landscape poses a significant constraint on the degree and the direction of change. This approach is applied to welfare state developments in the UK and France, comparing reforms of unemployment compensation, old-age pensions and health care. Both countries have developed welfare states, although with extremely different institutional features. Two institutional effects in particular emerge: schemes that mainly redistribute horizontally and protect the middle classes well are likely to be more resistant against cuts. Their support base is larger and more influential compared with schemes that are targeted on the poor or are so parsimonious as to be insignificant for most of the electorate. The contrast between the overall resistance of French social insurance against cuts and the withering away of its British counterpart is telling. In addition, the involvement of the social partners, and particularly of the labour movement in managing the schemes, seems to provide an obstacle for government sponsored retrenchment exercises.

scholarly journals Comparing Fundamental Social Rights in the European and the Indian Union

2018 ◽  
pp. 279-301
Author(s):  
Jörg Luther
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Social Model ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
European Social Model ◽  
European Welfare State

This chapter offers a comparative study of social rights in the European and Indian Union. After making an attempt to outline the concept of social rights in Europe that could be compared with the Indian case, the chapter looks at the state of social rights within the European Union, specially the European Social Model and the ways of Europeanization of social policies and their interaction with changing European welfare state systems. It then compares the European Social Charter with the SAARC Social Charter and explores the further opportunities of social rights protection. The chapter suggests that both the regions have something to learn from each other with regard to protection of social rights.

Kryzys w Unii Europejskiej a tożsamość europejska

2016 ◽  
pp. 110-136
Author(s):  
Zbigniew B. Rudnicki
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Model ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Social Model ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
Internal Relations ◽  
International Identity

The aim of this article is to show what impact the crisis in the European Union, along with the crisis in the euro zone at the forefront, had on European identity, interwoven with the identity of the European Union to such an extent that these terms are often handled as equivalent. Developments and crises situations which exert an influence on European identity were presented with respect to areas of particular importance that affect the way the European Union is identified within the community and abroad. Following issues were discussed: implications of the crisis for the European Union’s international identity, for the European social model (welfare state), for transnational identity (in internal relations) and for unity and solidarity in the European Union. In the conclusion, it is stated that the economic, political and social crises had undermined the gradual development of European / European Union identity among citizens and had an impact on its image in international relations.

The European Social Policy Model: Progress since the Early 1980s

2002 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 299-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis G. Castles
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Statistical Technique ◽  
Social Model ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
Social Expenditure ◽  
Policy Model ◽  
European Social Model ◽  
Northern European ◽  
European Social Policy ◽  
The Eu

This article uses a simple statistical technique to examine whether there is a distinct European social policy model and whether such a model has consolidated during the 1980s and 1990s. In terms of total social expenditure and its major aggregates, it shows that Europe as a whole, and the countries presently constituting the EU, are somewhat more similar to each other than are the countries constituting a wider OECD grouping, but that this similarity is probably insufficient to warrant the label of European social policy model. In respect of individual programmes like pensions, health and unemployment benefits differences between Europe and the wider OECD are even less distinct. Over time, there is a general tendency for there to be greater coherence in total spending levels and in levels of expenditure on poverty alleviation and health care, but less coherence in respect of levels of social security spending. While the evidence for any kind of encompassing European social model is weak, the article does identify a Northern European grouping of countries, which, in several respects, manifests an expenditure profile quite distinct from OECD nations in general.

scholarly journals Social protections in Slovak Republic in the first decade of the 21st century

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
Zuzana Macková
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Social Model ◽  
European Social Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Actual Content ◽  
Major Reform

The article is a critical analysis of neoliberal approach to system of social protection in Slovakia, especially after the year of 2004, when a major reform of the Social Security Law and social policy took place. The focus is on specific sub-systems of the social protection – i.e. the system of social insurance, the system of state support and the system of social assistance – in the light of the constitutional and fundamental principles of law (liberty, equality, justice and solidarity), the actual content of the abovementioned systems of social protection and values and principles of the European social model of welfare state – and leads to author’s overview of major flaws and spaces for improvement.

scholarly journals THE EUROPEAN WELFARE STATE REGIMES: QUESTIONING THE TYPOLOGY DURING THE CRISIS

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kosta JOSIFIDIS ◽  
John B. HALL ◽  
Novica SUPIC ◽  
Emilija BEKER PUCAR
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
European Welfare State ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Welfare State Regimes ◽  
The Eu

This paper examines the nature of changes within the EU–15 welfare states affected by the 2008 crisis. We try to answer the question of whether the differences that exist among different welfare state regimes, according to prevailing welfare state typologies, lead to different responses to the consequences of the crisis. Welfare state regimes are the result of different institutional perceptions of social risks hence it is realistic to expect specific responses to the effects of crisis among different welfare state regimes, and similar responses among the countries that belong to the same welfare state regimes. In order to recognize convergent vs. divergent processes, we perform a comparative analysis of the dynamics of the key welfare state determinants of the EU–15 countries, grouping according to welfare state regimes, in the pre-crisis and crisis periods. The results indicate that institutional rigidity and inherent inertia has remained a key factor of convergent welfare state processes in countries that belong to the Social Democratic and Corporatist welfare state regimes. Deviations from such a course are the most evident in the Mediterranean welfare state regimes, especially in Greece and Portugal where austerity measures have been formulated under the strong influence of the Troika.

Breaking the Mold

2019 ◽  
pp. 92-173
Author(s):  
Jason Beckfield
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Political Inequality ◽  
European Welfare State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Distribution Of Income

This chapter describes how the resources generated by the integrated European economy have been distributed as social rights of citizenship. As the European economy has developed, have European welfare states expanded, stabilized, or retrenched? These trends and effects matter because they reveal the changing structure of political inequality in Europe, and because the European welfare state has a strong effect on the distribution of income across European households. The first part of the chapter addresses the question of whether the development of the integrated European economy contributed to expansion of the social rights of citizenship, which would be a sign of reduced political inequality within European nations. The second part addresses the subject of political inequality in Europe as an integrating whole more directly by engaging with the convergence debate: with respect to citizenship rights, does it now matter more or less which national political economy one inhabits?

The Beginnings of the Nordic Welfare States: Similarities and Differences

1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 9-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stein Kuhnle
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
Compulsory Insurance ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Welfare State

The beginning of our present stage in the development of the welfare state can be traced to Bismarck's large-scale social insurance schemes of the 1880s. The article compares various political and economic macro-characteristics of the Nordic countries at that time, and proposes hypotheses about the timing of legislation in the Nordic nations, and about the likelihood for Nordic imitations of the principle of compulsory insurance. The article discusses why Denmark was expected to become, and in fact became, a forerunner in the Nordic context, and why the principle of compulsory insurance stood a better chance of gaining acceptance in Norway than in Denmark and Sweden.

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