Flexicurity and the dynamics of the welfare state adjustments

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-404
Author(s):  
Oldrich Bubak
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Economic Competitiveness ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
Differential Ability ◽  
The Welfare State

The disruptions of the recent global financial crisis intensified a number of industrial and economic challenges and brought forward a set of often contradictory solutions. Here, we focus on two alternative views on how to (re)establish economic competitiveness and enable growth – flexicurity and austerity. There is much to be learned about the future of these conflicting recipes across changing political economies, particularly considering the importance of the social partners in the development of flexicurity, and their differential ability to influence welfare state outcomes more broadly. Two questions emerge. Attentive to the role and capacity of the social partners, what can we learn about the dynamics of the ongoing welfare state adjustments? How do we make sense of labour market politics in this paradoxical environment? In order to help answer these, we visit the United Kingdom and Denmark – one state offering modest social and employment security, the other a paragon of flexicurity – and find their divergent philosophies, institutional development, and organisational interactions explain not only their respective choices in the aftermath of the crisis, but also their prospects for socially oriented labour policies.

scholarly journals Volte-Face on the Welfare State: Social Partners, Knowledge Economies, and the Expansion of Work-Family Policies

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232922110143
Author(s):  
Øyvind Søraas Skorge ◽  
Magnus Bergli Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Knowledge Economies ◽  
Work Family ◽  
The Welfare State

To what extent organized employers and trade unions support social policies is contested. This article examines the case of work-family policies (WFPs), which have surged to become a central part of the welfare state. In that expansion, the joint role of employers and unions has largely been disregarded in the comparative political economy literature. The article posits that the shift from Fordist to knowledge economies is the impetus for the social partners’ support for WFPs. If women make up an increasing share of high-skilled employees, employers start favoring WFPs to increase their labor supply. Similarly, unions favor WFPs if women constitute a significant part of their membership base. Yet the extent to which changes in preferences translate into policy depends on the presence of corporatist institutions. These claims are supported with statistical analyses of WFPs in eighteen advanced democracies across five decades and an in-depth case study of Norway. The article thus demonstrates that the trajectory of the new welfare state is decisively affected by the preferences and power of unions and employers.

Rethinking Retrenchment: North American Social Policy during the Early Clinton and Chrétien Years

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Bashevkin
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
State Expansion ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
State Evolution ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
The Welfare State

Since the mid–1990s, comparative research on welfare state evolution has contrasted the contours of postwar social policy expansion with the parameters of contemporary programme retrenchment. Paul Pierson's 1994 account of pension, housing and income support policies in the United Kingdom and the United States during the Thatcher and Reagan years proposed two core arguments with this literature: first, welfare state expansion and contraction were governed by fundamentally different dynamics; and second, even conservative, ideologically committed political executives found it hard to impose radical social policy changes. Because “the welfare state has proved to be far more resilient than other key components of national political economies.” Pierson has maintained, “retrenchment is a distinctive and difficult political enterprise.”

Public Opinion, Party Politics, and the Welfare State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Lindvall ◽  
David Rueda
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Party System ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter examines the long-run relationship between public opinion, party politics, and the welfare state. It argues that when large parties receive a clear signal concerning the median voter’s position on the welfare state, vote-seeking motivations dominate and the large parties in the party system converge on the position of the median voter. When the position of the median voter is more difficult to discern, however, policy-seeking motivations dominate, and party positions diverge. This argument implies that the effects of government partisanship on welfare state policy are more ambiguous than generally understood. The countries covered in the chapter are Denmark, France, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom (going back to the 1960s). The number of observations is (necessarily) limited, but the diverse cases illustrate a common electoral dynamic centered around the position of the median voter.

scholarly journals Social partners and the welfare state: Recalibration, privatization or collectivization of social risks?

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Johnston ◽  
Andreas Kornelakis ◽  
Costanza Rodriguez d’Acri
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
The Welfare State

scholarly journals Is there an opportunity to establish the social-capitalism in the post socialist transition?

2006 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-425
Author(s):  
Alpar Losonc
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
Social Capitalism

Recently Claus Offe has put the question that concerns the fate of the European model of social capitalism: Can the model of social capitalism survive the European integration in the context of certain contemporary tendencies? Offe has presupposed that the mentioned model is challenged by the processes of globalization and the integration of the post socialist countries into the European Union. The working hypothesis of the article is that there is an opportunity to provide a coherent answer to this question. The article consists of two parts. In the first part the author starts with the Polanyi's socio-economic theory and emphasizes the importance of this approach for the analyzing of the tendencies of capitalism in Western Europe and in the post socialist countries. The author argues that with the Polanyi's theory we are able to explicate the forms of the embedded liberalism in Western Europe after 1945 and the orientation of non-embedded neo-liberalism and the functioning of the workfare state after the crisis of the Keynesian welfare state. Despite the tendencies of the globalization projected by neo-liberalism, the central element of the social capitalism namely, the welfare state, remains with the dimensions of the continuity. In the next part the author points out that there is an asymmetrical structure between the Western-Europe and non-Western part of Europe concerning the socialization of capitalism. The neoliberalisation in accordance with the model of the transfer of ideal-type of capitalism is more strongly implemented in the countries of transition. In addition, the mentioned theoretical approach provides opportunities to explain the failures of implementing of neo-liberalism in the post socialist countries. On the basis of the endorsing of the socio-economic aspects we can address the issue pointed out by Offe.

scholarly journals Welfare State Policy Model as A Poverty Reduction Strategy in the West Sumatra Districts and Cities

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Azwar Azwar Azwar ◽  
Emeraldy Chatra ◽  
Zuldesni Zuldesni
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
State Model ◽  
The West ◽  
Policy Model ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Welfare State

Poverty is one of the social problems that the government can never completely solve. As a result, other, more significant social issues arise and cause social vulnerability, such as conflict and crime. As a province that is experiencing rapid growth in the last ten years, the West Sumatra find difficulty to overcome the number of poor people in several districts and cities.  The research outcomes are the models and forms of social policy made by West Sumatra regencies and cities governments in improving the welfare of poor communities. It is also covering the constraints or obstacles to the implementation of social policy and the selection of welfare state models for the poor in some districts and municipalities of West Sumatra. This research is conducted qualitatively with a sociological approach that uses social perspective on searching and explaining social facts that happened to needy groups. Based on research conducted that the social policy model adopted by the government in responding to social problems in the districts and cities of West Sumatra reflects the welfare state model given to the poor. There is a strong relationship between the welfare state model and the form of social policy made by the government.

scholarly journals REGULATIONS IN THE SOCIAL WELFARE STATE: NORDIC COUNTRIES AND TURKEY EXAMPLE

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nagihan Ozkanca Andic ◽  
Ekrem Karayilmazlar
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Welfare State

The Public Expenditure/GDP ratio is one of the most significant metrics that measure the state's share of the economy. It can be said that there is an interventionist state type in countries where this rate is high, or it can be argued that the share of the public sector in the economy is low in countries where this rate is low. It is also possible to argue that the countries' economic, sociological, and political factors play an essential role in determining this ratio. Regulations, which are the most important tools of the welfare state, may arise through economic controls as well as through social policies. This study aims to find an answer to the question of whether this situation is possible for a developing country such as Turkey while Nordic countries, which determine a system different from other welfare models, succeed in raising social welfare without giving up the principles such as equality and justice that they have despite the globalization effect. The data obtained by various methods were subjected to comparison using the Data Envelopment Analysis method in order to achieve this purpose. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0777/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document