Italy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio Ferrera
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
State Compensation ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Comprehensive Reform ◽  
Veteran Benefits ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
War Mobilization

Wars have had a clearly recognizable impact on Italy’s social policy since unification. The independence and early colonial wars prompted the introduction of veteran benefits and other forms of state compensation. The two world wars marked key turning points, creating the conditions for introducing compulsory social insurance and then extending its scope and coverage. The pronatalist policies introduced by Fascism were in their turn closely linked to the regime’s war mobilization strategy. In comparative perspective, a distinctive feature of Italian developments was the elaboration of very ambitious and comprehensive reform plans after both world wars, largely motivated by the wish to forge broad cross-class coalitions and safeguard democratic stability. Even if initially unsuccessful, such plans left an ideational legacy which contributed to inspire welfare state developments well throughout the so-called Golden Age.

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.

Fiscal welfare in Europe: Why should we care and what do we know so far?

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 549-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Morel ◽  
Chloé Touzet ◽  
Michaël Zemmour
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Public Expenditures ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Tax Expenditures ◽  
Strong Control

This article offers a reflection on how integrating fiscal welfare into welfare state research can shed light on some subtle, yet important, transformations of welfare states and social citizenship in Europe. We begin by clarifying the concepts of fiscal welfare and social tax expenditures (STEs), by reviewing and critically assessing the various related concepts found in the literature. We also map out the empirical knowledge currently available, highlighting the limitations in the available data. Then, drawing on both existing knowledge (developed especially in the context of the US welfare state) and the emerging literature on fiscal welfare in Europe, we identify a number of trends and set out some hypotheses as to why tax expenditures have become a privileged instrument in the field of social policy: not only do STEs appear as a useful instrument to build consensus across party lines in a context of budgetary austerity and strong control of public expenditures, they also enable the discreet privatization of social insurance schemes. Fiscal welfare also allows for a new mode of governing social policy through incentives, which entails a different mode of redistribution than traditional social policy instruments. Finally, we identify the remaining empirical and theoretical gaps to guide future research on the subject.

scholarly journals Exit Bismarck, Enter Dualism? Assessing Contemporary German Labour Market Policy

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 795-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOCHEN CLASEN ◽  
ALEXANDER GOERNE
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
The 1960S

AbstractBetween 2003 and 2005, German labour market policy was subjected to the most far-reaching reform since the 1960s. Some commentators have interpreted the changes introduced as signalling a departure from the traditional ‘Bismarckian’ paradigm in German social policy. For others, the new legislation has contributed and consolidated an ever-more pervasive trend of dualisation within the German welfare state. In this article, we contest both interpretations. First, we demonstrate that traditional social insurance principles remain a dominant element within unemployment protection. Second, we show that German labour market policy is less rather than more segmented today than it was a decade ago.

scholarly journals The Sources of Business Interest in Social Insurance: Sectoral versus National Differences

2003 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabela Mares
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
State Development ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Business Interest ◽  
Profit Maximizing

When and why have employers supported the development of institutions of social insurance that provide benefits to workers during various employment-related risks? The analysis developed in this article challenges the dominant explanations of welfare state development, which are premised on the assumption that business opposes social insurance. The article examines the conditions under which self-interested, profit-maximizing firms support the introduction of a new social policy, and it specifies the most significant variables explaining the variation in employers' social policy preferences. The model is tested in three political episodes of welfare state development in France and Germany, using policy documents submitted by various employers' associations to bureaucratic and parliamentary commissions.

scholarly journals Universalism in Welfare Policy: The Swedish Case beyond 1990

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-123
Author(s):  
Paula Blomqvist ◽  
Joakim Palme
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Multidimensional Approach ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
State Reform ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Welfare State Reform

Despite its broad usage, universalism as a concept is not always clearly defined. In this article, a multidimensional definition of universalism in social policy is developed, based on four policy characteristics: inclusion, financing, provision, and the adequacy of benefits. In the empirical part of the article, the feasibility of this definition is tested by an analysis of recent changes in the Swedish welfare state, which is typically described as universal but has undergone substantive reforms since 1990. Four social policy areas are examined: pensions, social insurance, health care, and family policy. The results indicate that Swedish welfare policies retain their universalistic character in some dimensions but have become less universalistic in others. This demonstrates that a multidimensional approach is best suited to capture in full the nature and implications of welfare state reform.

Political Institutions and U.S. Social Policy

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Amenta ◽  
Amber Celina Tierney
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Party System ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Administrative Authority ◽  
Social Insurance System

United States political institutions provide a compelling account of American exceptionalism in social policy: why the United States has a social insurance system that was late to develop and remains incomplete; spends relatively little on direct social policy; and relies on indirect and private social policy that is relatively ineffective in addressing poverty, insecurity, and inequality. Formal political institutions—including the tardiness of universal suffrage, many institutional veto points, federalism, the underdevelopment of domestic administrative authority, and a political party system founded on patronage and skewed to the right—go far to explain the formation of this unusual welfare state. Feedbacks from policies, political institutions themselves, help to explain why a few U.S. social programs, notably Social Security, remain strong, and why the U.S welfare state generally remains mired in the residual liberal model and is subject to drift. Feedbacks related to the world’s most extensive military and imprisonment policies also harm social policy.

The Semantics of Social Security

2019 ◽  
pp. 73-102
Author(s):  
Peter C. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Expansion ◽  
Domesticated Animals ◽  
Political Consensus ◽  
Comprehensive Reform ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Welfare State

The West German pensions reform bill of 1957 was the product of a decade-long discussion among German experts about the need for a comprehensive reform of social policy, elder poverty, and adequate pensions in a period of economic expansion. The ultimate bill maintained the income-linked Bismarckian pensions system, but increased payouts and linked them to the overall level of production in society, with the result of dramatically increasing pension levels. Despite harsh criticisms from the right, who argued that the new pensions system would create inflation, deform democracy, and make citizens into domesticated animals, the reform was passed overwhelmingly, forming one of the essential pillars of the West German welfare state. The successful bill was the product of an expert discussion that crossed party lines and pointed toward a new political consensus on the welfare state.

The Two World Wars and Social Policy in France

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy B. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
World War I ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Political Support ◽  
World War ◽  
Vichy Regime ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter traces the expansion of the French welfare state prompted by the two world wars. During World War I, local-level interventionism grew massively in areas such as hospitals, but also in unemployment assistance and housing. As pronatalism fuelled many reform efforts in the interwar years, national social policy became more important, closely connected to military motivations, and social insurance legislation was introduced with broad political support. The Vichy regime continued in a broadly expansionary direction, but it was only after liberation that a certain idea of statism, unique to France, was institutionalized. The Fourth Republic’s foundational myth revolved around the welfare state and social security coverage was extended, albeit in a fragmented manner.

Sozialpolitik für die Soziale Arbeit

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thilo Fehmel
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Assistance ◽  
Soziale Arbeit ◽  
Welfare Production

This volume provides an introduction to social policy and the system of social protection in Germany, focusing in particular on social work as a part of social policy. It explains the fundamental societal mechanisms of redistribution and social security, discusses welfare state theories and presents the development of German social policy. It focuses on providing a detailed description of the structure of the German welfare state, discussing both the different welfare state pillars (social insurance, social compensation, social assistance and social support) as well as the various levels of sociopolitical institutions. It also hones in on recent social policy developments (the transformation of welfare production) in terms of their respective significance for social work as a discipline and a profession.

War and Social Policy Development in Switzerland, 1870–1990

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthieu Leimgruber
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
State Building ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Public Private Mix

This chapter explores the trajectory of social policy development in Switzerland and its interactions with state-building and military conflict from the Franco-Prussian war of the early 1870s to the end of the Cold War. This analysis confirms that, despite the fact that Switzerland has remained untouched by war for more than 150 years, military preparation and the world wars have had a crucial impact in the shaping of the distinctive public–private mix that distinguishes the Swiss welfare state from its immediate neighbours. Periods of war thus coincided not only with an expansion of state social insurance but also witnessed the consolidation of existing private social provision. The chapter also highlights how Switzerland’s distinctive militia-based conscription contributed to forge a male-centred social citizenship that lasted for decades after 1945.

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