Religion and inequality: the lasting impact of religious traditions and institutions on welfare state development

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Income Distributions ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Western Democracies

A strong correlation exists between inequality and religion, such that societies marked by high inequality are more religious than those with more egalitarian income distributions. What explains this correlation? Insecurity theory argues that high inequality generates intense insecurities, leading the poor to seek shelter in religion for both psychological and material comfort. This article develops an alternative perspective that reverses the chain of causality. It argues that religious institutions and movements frequently resist both the centralization of state power and socialist efforts to organize the working class. As a result, powerful religious movements constrain state-led efforts to provide social protection, increasing income inequality. Analysis of the historical record and contemporary data from 19 Western democracies reveals strong evidence that past periods of church-state conflict shaped the size and structure of welfare state institutions and, by extension, contemporary patterns of inequality.

Diverging Paths

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Luyten
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
National Level ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
State Development ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
The Impact

For the Netherlands and Belgium in the twentieth century, occupation is a key concept to understand the impact of the war on welfare state development. The occupation shifted the balance of power between domestic social forces: this was more decisive for welfare state development than the action of the occupier in itself. War and occupation did not result exclusively in more cooperation between social classes: some interest groups saw the war as a window of opportunity to develop strategies resulting in more social conflict. Class cooperation was often part of a political strategy to gain control over social groups or to legitimate social reforms. The world wars changed the scale of organization of social protection, from the local to the national level: after World War II social policy became a mission for the national state. For both countries, war endings had more lasting effects for welfare state development than the occupation itself.

scholarly journals Business and Welfare State Development: Why Did Employers Accept Social Reforms?

2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Paster
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Development ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
State Expansion ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Business Support ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Changes Over Time

In recent years, employer-centered explanations of welfare state development have begun to challenge conventional labor-centered and state-centered explanations. These new explanations suggest that sector-specific business interests and cross-class alliances propelled the adoption and expansion of social programs (the business interests thesis). This article presents a novel explanation of differences in business support for welfare state expansion based on a diachronic analysis of the German case and shadow case studies of Sweden and the United States. The article suggests that when looking at changes in employers’ positions across time rather than across sectors, political constraints turn out to be the central factor explaining variation in employers’ support for social reforms (the political accommodation thesis). The article identifies two goals of business intervention in welfare state development: pacification and containment. In the case of pacification, business interests propel social policy expansion; in the case of containment, they constrain it. Business chooses pacification when revolutionary forces challenge capitalism and political stabilization thus becomes a priority. Business chooses containment when reformist forces appear likely to succeed in expanding social protection and no revolutionary challenge exists. The article shows that changes over time in the type of political challenges that business interests confront best explain the variation in business support for labor-friendly social reforms.

Push, Pull, and Fusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel L. Einwohner ◽  
Reid J. Leamaster ◽  
Benjamin Pratt
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Skills ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Organizational Skills ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Politics And Education ◽  
The Military

Women’s activism has focused not only on state institutions, such as the military, electoral politics, and education, but also on religious institutions. At the same time, participation in organized religion has helped women develop organizational and leadership skills that they can then draw on for their activism, both in movements directed toward religious institutions and in other, non-religious movements. Further, religion provides cultural frames that can be used in making sense of activism and in recruiting others for various causes. This chapter presents an overview of research on women’s activism and religious institutions, with a focus on U.S. activism. It discusses research on the ways in which participation in religious institutions provides resources for women’s activism, including organizational skills and resonant framings. Finally, it notes how women’s activism may exist in tension with religious institutions and identities, but that these tensions may be addressed by what the authors call “fusion.”

Social Expenditure and Welfare State Financing

2021 ◽  
pp. 452-472
Author(s):  
Herbert Obinger
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Social Expenditure ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
State Financing ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
Cross National ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter focuses on both the expenditures and the revenues of the welfare state. Using the latest data available, it depicts and analyses major developments in social spending and public revenues in twenty-one advanced Western democracies since 1980. The entry discusses measurement issues, depicts the determinants of cross-national differences in spending and revenue levels identified in the literature, and sheds light on the impact of social spending and taxation on social outcomes, such as income inequality. It is argued that spending and revenue figures, irrespective of several shortcomings, provide important indicators of both the logic and pattern of welfare state development.

scholarly journals ‘Governance transitions’ and minority nationalist parties’ pressure for welfare state change: Evidence from Welsh and Scottish elections – And the UK’s ‘Brexit’ referendum

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Chaney
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Central Government ◽  
State Change ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Welfare Change ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
State Models ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Nationalist Parties

This study is concerned with welfare state development and the intersection between the twin global phenomena of sub-state nationalism and ‘governance transitions’. Specifically, how minority nationalist parties (MNPs) use discourse to exert pressure for welfare change. Accordingly, here, we explore their discourse in Scottish and Welsh elections, and the UK ‘Brexit’ referendum on European Union membership. The findings reveal how pressure for welfare change is framed using key tropes including nation-building, extending social protection and resistance to central government programmes. The wider significance to understanding global social policy lies in the following: (1) revealing the discursive processes associated with multi-level welfare state dynamics, (2) demonstrating how MNPs and governance transitions combine to pressure for welfare state change, and (3) showing how the resultant territorialisation of policy discourse advances ‘sub-state’ models of social citizenship.

21. The welfare state

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kees van Kersbergen ◽  
Philip Manow
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Christian Democracy ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Social Doctrine ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Functionalist Approach ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter examines the emergence, expansion, variation, and transformation of the welfare state. It first considers the meaning of the welfare state before discussing three perspectives that explain the emergence of the welfare state: functionalist approach, class mobilization approach, and a literature emphasizing the impact of state institutions and the relative autonomy of bureaucratic elites. It then describes the expansion of the welfare state, taking into account the impact of social democracy, neocorporatism and the international economy, risk redistribution, Christian democracy and Catholic social doctrine, and secular trends. It also explores variations among developed welfare states as well as the effects of the welfare state and concludes with an analysis of the challenges and dynamics of contemporary welfare states. The chapter shows that the welfare state is a democratic state that guarantees social protection as a right attached to citizenship.

From a dualized labor market to a dualized welfare state: Employment insecurity and welfare state development in South Korea

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-93
Author(s):  
Hyun Kyoung Kim
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Employment Protection ◽  
State Development ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
State Employment ◽  
Welfare State Development

What explains South Korea’s underdeveloped welfare system and recent departure from it? The existing scholarship fails to offer a compelling theory that accounts for the trajectory of the Korean welfare state. Finding dominant theories stressing variables such as regime type or globalization inadequate, this article argues that Korea’s dualized labor market has been a critical factor in shaping institutions of social protection. Its labor markets are characterized by segmentation between insiders who benefit from strong employment protection and outsiders who are exposed to a greater degree of labor market risk. Korea’s welfare system, which is built on the provision of welfare benefits to insiders, has replicated this labor market dualism. The recent expansion of social protection also reflects the insider–outsider division, with the interest of insiders being key variables. The weakening of employment protection, or the prospect of it, led this key group to develop an interest in more broad-based social protection programs. Based on this political logic, this article provides an analysis of Korea’s welfare state development.

Warfare and Welfare

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Western World ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
State Development ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact

This book is concerned with the nexus between warfare and welfare. The relationship between war and welfare states is contested. While some scholars consider war a pacemaker of the welfare state, others have emphasized a sharp trade-off between ‘guns and butter’ and highlighted the negative impacts of war on social protection. However, many of these findings only focus on social spending or are based on studies of individual national cases. From a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, this book addresses the question of whether and how both world wars have influenced the development of advanced welfare states. Distinguishing between three different phases (war preparation, wartime mobilization, and the post-war period), the volume provides the first systematic comparative analysis of the impact of war on welfare state development in the Western world. The chapters, written by leading scholars in this field, examine both short-term responses to and long-term effects of war in fourteen belligerent, occupied, and neutral countries in the age of mass warfare stretching over the period from c.1860 to 1960. The findings clearly show that war is essential for understanding several aspects of welfare state development and welfare state patterns in advanced democracies.

21. The Welfare State

2020 ◽  
pp. 376-394
Author(s):  
Kees van Kersbergen ◽  
Philip Manow
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Christian Democracy ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Social Doctrine ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Functionalist Approach ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter examines the emergence, expansion, variation, and transformation of the welfare state. It first considers the meaning of the welfare state, before discussing three perspectives that explain the emergence of the welfare state: the functionalist approach, the class mobilization approach, and a literature emphasizing the impact of state institutions and the relative autonomy of bureaucratic elites. It then describes the expansion of the welfare state, taking into account the impact of social democracy, neocorporatism and the international economy, risk redistribution, Christian democracy and Catholic social doctrine, and secular trends. It also explores variations among developed welfare states, as well as the effects of the welfare state, and concludes with an analysis of the challenges and dynamics of contemporary welfare states. The chapter shows that the welfare state is a democratic state that guarantees social protection as a right attached to citizenship.

Dialogue or Confrontation?

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ringo Ringvee
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Neoliberal Governance ◽  
Religious Associations ◽  
Liberal Attitude

The article focuses on the relations between the state , mainstream religions and new religious movements in Estonia from the early 1990s until today. Estonia has been known as one of highly secular and religiously liberal countries. During the last twenty years Estonian religious scene has become considerably more pluralist, and there are many different religious traditions represented in Estonia. The governmental attitude toward new religious movements has been rather neutral, and the practice of multi-tier recognition of religious associations has not been introduced. As Estonia has been following neoliberal governance also in the field of religion, the idea that the religious market should regulate itself has been considered valid. Despite of the occasional conflicts between the parties in the early 1990s when the religious market was created the tensions did decrease in the following years. The article argues that one of the fundamental reasons for the liberal attitude towards different religious associations by the state and neutral coexistence of different traditions in society is that Estonian national identity does not overlap with any particular religious identity.

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