scholarly journals Who Undermines the Welfare State? Austerity-Dogmatism and the U-Turn in Swedish Asylum Policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Scarpa ◽  
Carl-Ulrik Schierup
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Asylum Policy ◽  
System Breakdown ◽  
Dynamic Interplay ◽  
Generous Welfare ◽  
The Eu ◽  
The Welfare State

Within the EU, the so-called “refugee crisis” has been predominantly dealt with as an ill-timed and untenable financial burden. Since the 2007–08 financial crisis, the overarching objective of policy initiatives by EU-governments has been to keep public expenditure firmly under control. Thus, Sweden’s decision to grant permanent residence to all Syrians seeking asylum in 2013 seemed to represent a paradigmatic exception, pointing to the possibility of combining a humanitarian approach in the “long summer of migration” with generous welfare provisions. At the end of 2015, however, Sweden reversed its asylum policy, reducing its intake of refugees to the EU-mandated minimum. The main political parties embraced the mainstream view that an open-door refugee policy is not only detrimental to the welfare state, but could possibly trigger a “system breakdown”. In this article, we challenge this widely accepted narrative by arguing that the sustainability of the Swedish welfare state has not been undermined by refugee migration but rather by the Swedish government’s unbending adherence to austerity politics. Austerity politics have weakened the Swedish welfare state’s socially integrative functions and prevented the implementation of a more ambitious growth agenda, harvesting a potentially dynamic interplay of expansionary economic policies and a humanitarian asylum policy.

scholarly journals The Disassembly of the Greek Welfare State under the Troika

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-232
Author(s):  
Yianni Tsesmelis
Keyword(s):  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
High Water ◽  
Greek Population ◽  
Individual Member ◽  
Political Interaction ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu ◽  
The Welfare State

Having broken from half a century of binary political choice between Greece's two established political parties, SYRIZA's rise to power in the 2010s represented an opportunity for the country's welfare state to resist intrusions by European entities and institutions. This paper analyses Greece’s history and political interaction during this period, arguing that Greece has now, in folding to the EU, completed its transition from a relatively liberally-spending welfare state to what Wolfgang Streeck calls a “consolidation state.” Relevant to this analysis is a set of historical details leading up to the SYRIZA election and the 2015 referendum—seen as the high-water mark of opposition to austerity and cuts to the welfare state. In turn, the impact of austerity on the Greek population is quantified and substantiated, demonstrating that austerity measures predominately impacted the welfare state, more often than not resulting in direct reductions to pension and other monetary payments to the citizenry. Finally, these factual conditions are squared with theoretical descriptions and conceptualisations of the welfare state as existing under neoliberalism. Ultimately, what can be drawn from this research is that Europe's institutions are unyielding in their prioritisation of an ordoliberal, single-market ideology over individual Member States’ varying conceptions of locally implemented fiscal policy. Keywords: Austerity; Consolidation state; Neoliberalism; Ordoliberalism; Referendum; Welfare state; SYRIZA

The Family, the Welfare State and Community Care: Political Rhetoric and Public Attitudes

1984 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick West
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
New Right ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
The Family ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Family State ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACTWithin the political arena, most sharply articulated by the new Right, the family and welfare state have been counterposed as ideological opposites with implications for the relative responsibility each should be accorded in respect of a policy of community care. On the basis of evidence from a survey conducted in three locations in Scotland, this paper examines the extent to which the ideological positions of Left and Right are reflected in public attitudes towards these issues. The results show that with the exception of certain groups of ‘ideologues’, individual citizens tend not to structure their attitudes in accordance with overarching ideologies, nor are their attitudes in any consistent way organized along partisan lines. In respect of the family/state polarity, there is only a faint echo of the broad rhetoric of political parties and on more concrete issues like care for dependent persons none at all. The overall picture supports the view that the family and welfare state as they are confronted by people in their everyday lives are much less ideological opposites than intermeshed in an overlapping complex of values, needs and interests.

Abbau von Inflexibilitäten auf dem Arbeitsmarkt – Ist die Wirtschaftspolitik auf dem richtigen Weg?

2000 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-250
Author(s):  
Norbert Berthold
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Employment Protection ◽  
Economic Environment ◽  
Economic Damage ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
Protection Legislation ◽  
Generous Welfare ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract The situation on the German labour market is still a catastrophe. The institutional set-ups on the labour market and the welfare state obviously no longer fit the fundamentally changed economic environment. There is next to no competition on the labour market and unions and employers' associations use the generous welfare state to transfer the burden of adjustment to changes in the economic environment onto the public at large. Institutional mismatch is prevalent. The red-green coalition government has not only realized that persistently high unemployment inflicts tremendous economic damage but that it is also politically destabilizing. It has therefore announced that the performance on the labour market during its term of office shall be its own measure of success or failure. This paper discusses whether the regulatory steps taken by the red-green coalition government, like implementing stricter employment protection legislation, reintroducing full pay when sick, and changing the law concerning low-paid jobs, are suitable for reducing this institutional mismatch.

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

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-246 ◽  
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.

France at a Crossroads

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Leruth
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The World ◽  
Future Challenges ◽  
Generous Welfare ◽  
The Welfare State

France has established itself as one of the most ‘generous’ welfare states in the world. The Great Recession of 2007–8 confronted French social policy with escalating unemployment and deepening inequalities. Combined with major pension reforms, these led to strong levels of dissatisfaction across the country, exacerbated by tensions over immigration, Euroscepticism, and internal security problems. This chapter examines how these issues developed in political context and uses material from attitude surveys to analyse existing and future challenges for the welfare state in France. It assesses recent reforms: governments of right and left offered contrasting programmes but failed to win public trust. France now stands at a cross-roads, facing a strong presidential challenge from the anti-immigrant, anti-EU right.

Accelerator or Brake?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio Ferrera
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Grass Root ◽  
Grass Root Level ◽  
Domestic Level ◽  
The Eu ◽  
The Welfare State

Reorienting the welfare state towards social investment constitutes a complex and multidimensional challenge of policy recalibration and raises daunting political problems. The chapter analyses the strategy pursued by the EU, with a view to assessing its degree of ‘conduciveness’ to social investment recalibration at the domestic level. It is argued that the EU has indeed stimulated policy change, but that its potential as a social investment facilitator has been hamstrung by a number of weaknesses and shortcomings, especially on the discursive front. A more convinced and articulated endorsement of the social investment paradigm and a more focused attention to ‘capacity’ at the subnational and grass-root level should be the fronts to prioritize.

Innovation im Wohlfahrtsstaat

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Policy Advice ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Policy Area ◽  
Research Transfer ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Welfare State

Societies are constantly changing—and with them people’s needs. Politics has the task of accompanying and steering change. This volume brings together contributions from research on innovation and the welfare state, political parties and associations as well as policy advice, thus providing an overview of current developments in this field. In doing so, it provides an insight into the complexity of policy area analysis in research, transfer and consultancy. At the same time, the volume pays tribute to Josef Schmid, a scholar whose work has linked, advanced and significantly shaped theory and practice, consultancy and teaching in policy analysis and political economy. With contributions by Reinhard Bahnmüller, Nils C. Bandelow, Rasmus C. Beck, Susanne Blancke, Mathias Bucksteeg, Daniel Buhr, Roland Czada, Christoph Deutschmann, Charlotte Fechter, Rolf Frankenberger, Stewart Gold, Anke Hassel, Rolf G. Heinze, Sven Hilgers, Steffen Jenner, Markus Jox, Ricard Bellera Kirchhof, Ralf Kleinfeld, Harald Kohler, Wilhelm Kohler, Norbert Kreuzkamp, Chris Kühn, Susanne Lütz, Erika Mezger, Philipp Rehm, Manfred G. Schmidt, Werner Schmidt, Sebastian Schneider, Wolfgang Schroeder, Werner Sesselmeier, Ulrike Single, Christian Steffen, Volquart Stoy, Roland Sturm, Ansgar Thiel, Heinrich Tiemann, Ingeborg Tömmel, Ulrich von Alemann, Hans-Georg Wehling, Rosemarie Wehling, Dorian R. Woods and Udo Zolleis.

Welfare, Populism and Welfare Chauvinism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bent Greve
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Welfare State

In the wake of the financial crisis, and with increasing numbers of people in precarious and low paid jobs, there has been a surprising surge of support for populist right-wing political parties who often promote an anti-welfare message. Tougher approaches and welfare chauvinism is on the agenda in many countries, with policies which reduce the welfare state for those seen as undeserving and changes often disproportionally benefit the rich. Why are voters seemingly not concerned about growing inequality? Using a mixed methods approach and newly released data, this book aims to answer this question and to show possible ways forward for welfare states.

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