The interplay of actor-related strategies and political context: a fuzzy-set QCA analysis of structural reforms in continental welfare states

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabina Stiller
2021 ◽  
pp. 22-38
Author(s):  
Stuart White

This chapter seeks to clarify some of the core ethical arguments surrounding welfare states. The analysis focuses on three key values. First, we will consider the concept of need. What are basic needs? How do we conceptualize and measure them? Do citizens have rights to what they need? Second, we focus on principles of equality and, third, we look at arguments surrounding the implications of the welfare state for liberty. A final section concludes by noting some normative issues moving increasingly to the forefront of debate. A changing global political context raises new issues about the international salience of these issues, questions which national welfare states have found it difficult to address.


2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hudson ◽  
Stefan Kühner

The question of how best to account for the multidimensional character of welfare states has become an integral part of discussions on the so-called dependent variable problem within comparative welfare state research. In this paper, we discuss challenges from an attempt to capture productive and protective welfare state dimensions by means of several methodological techniques, namely Z-score standardisation, cluster analysis, factor analysis and fuzzy-set ideal type analysis. While we illustrate that a decision to use any one of these techniques has a substantial bearing on the produced findings, we specifically argue that fuzzy-set ideal type analysis offers considerable advantages over more traditional, statistically rooted approaches. This is particularly true if the observed dimensions are conceptually distinct and ‘antithetical’.


2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
LESLEY HUSTINX ◽  
BRAM VERSCHUERE ◽  
JORIS DE CORTE

AbstractAlthough mixed public–private provisions of welfare have always been a typical characteristic of continental welfare states, recent international scholarship has pointed to a historically new process of institutional hybridisation, with a more systematic intermingling of rationalities of the state, market and third sector within one and the same organisation. In this article, we address two limitations in the current knowledge: first, the absence of an indicator-model for exploring organisational hybridity empirically; second, the lack of sensitivity to cross-national variation depending on the welfare regime. We develop a multi-dimensional analytical framework that takes regime differences into account and empirically assess organisational hybridity in a (post-)corporatist welfare regime. Based on a survey of 255 third-sector organisations (TSOs) in Flanders (Belgium) and using latent class analysis, we find three clusters of TSOs that reflect different types of organisational hybridity. Contextualising our results further shows that the positioning of TSOs in our cluster model to a large extent results from the institutional context in which TSOs operate.


2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (119) ◽  
pp. 301-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raimund Feld

There was an impact of neoliberalism on the Swedish model over the past twenty years. Its main political driving force was the social democratic party. It is argued that neoliberalism had a major impact first on the level of discourse and then, from 1990 onwards, on the policy level as well. As a result, the gap between the Swedish model and continental welfare states is found to be narrowing, the universalism of the model itself being undermined as those who can afford to do so more and more frequently choose to pay for better services on the market while others are relegated to means-tested social assistance and social services increasingly starved of resources.


1978 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 319-320
Author(s):  
LEWIS WOLFGANG BRANDT
Keyword(s):  

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