Social Security in America, Guaranteed Annual Income: An Integrated Approach, Social Security and Society and The Impact of Reform Movements on Social Policy Change

The relationship between nationalism and public policy remains largely unexplored. Focusing on the link between sub-state nationalism and social policy, this article formulates three main arguments. The first is that social policy is likely to factor into processes of identity- and nation-building spearheaded by sub-state nationalism, and that nationalist movements typically trigger pressures for the decentralization of social policy. The second is that recognizing the importance of this connection should not lead to hasty conclusions about the impact of societal and institutional pressures on public policy. Nationalism is not only a societal force; it is also a political construction that reflects broad institutional legacies. The third is that the historical sequence of nationalism and policy development may create institutional forces preventing the congruence between policies and ethno-linguistic boundaries, in spite of pressures emanating from nationalist movements. The analysis of Social Security politics in contemporary Belgium provides ground to these claims.

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Political Parties and Social Policy Responses to Global Economic Crises: Constrained Partisanship in Mature Welfare States

Journal of Social Policy ◽

10.1017/s0047279413000986 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 43 (2) ◽

pp. 225-246 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

PETER STARKE ◽

ALEXANDRA KAASCH ◽

FRANCA VAN HOOREN

Keyword(s):

Social Policy ◽

Political Parties ◽

Welfare State ◽

Policy Change ◽

Welfare States ◽

Economic Crises ◽

Policy Responses ◽

Party Composition ◽

The Impact ◽

Generous Welfare

AbstractBased on empirical findings from a comparative study on welfare state responses to the four major economic shocks (the 1970s oil shocks, the early 1990s recession, the 2008 financial crisis) in four OECD countries, this article demonstrates that, in contrast to conventional wisdom, policy responses to global economic crises vary significantly across countries. What explains the cross-national and within-case variation in responses to crises? We discuss several potential causes of this pattern and argue that political parties and the party composition of governments can play a key role in shaping crisis responses, albeit in ways that go beyond traditional partisan theory. We show that the partisan conflict and the impact of parties are conditioned by existing welfare state configurations. In less generous welfare states, the party composition of governments plays a decisive role in shaping the direction of social policy change. By contrast, in more generous welfare states, i.e., those with highly developed automatic stabilisers, the overall direction of policy change is regularly not subject to debate. Political conflict in these welfare states rather concerns the extent to which expansion or retrenchment is necessary. Therefore, a clear-cut partisan impact can often not be shown.

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Banking crises and social policy: the case of Latin America and the Caribbean

Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy ◽

10.1080/21699763.2015.1069206 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 31 (3) ◽

pp. 209-233 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Rana S. Gautam

Keyword(s):

Social Policy ◽

Social Security ◽

Latin American ◽

Banking Crises ◽

Social Welfare Policy ◽

Social Expenditure ◽

Negative Effect ◽

Distributional Conflicts ◽

Social Security Benefits ◽

The Impact

This paper examines the social policy consequences of systemic banking crises or financial crises in 13 Latin American and Caribbean countries between 1990 and 2010. It takes a rationalist approach to political economy to analyse the effect of these crises on aggregate social policy spending and on four distinct social welfare policy programmes – education, health, housing, and social security – benefits of which vary across social groups. The results indicate that banking crises have a statistically strong negative effect on aggregate social expenditure, but the impact is not uniform across the four programmes. While social security spending increases during the course of crises, health and education expenditures decrease in the same period. The results reinforce the view that distributional conflicts overshadow governments’ response and the burden of crises is unevenly shared in a heterogeneous society. These findings are robust to alternative specifications.

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