scholarly journals Female spouses at the doors of fortress Europe

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maybritt Jill Alpes
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Regulatory Dynamics ◽  
Fortress Europe ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract This article will focus on marriage related forms of migration in Cameroon and will reconsider the gendered nature of fortress Europe by critically questioning how regulatory technologies at consulate offices grant or withhold access to Europe to both men and women. In their daily work, consulate officers construct some visa applicants and family members as deviant criminals, while others are framed as in need of protection and rescue. Wanting to go away from a statist driven security agenda on migration, I set out to do an ethnography of the regulatory framework of emigration within which people in Cameroon are obliged to try to achieve their ambitions of mobility ‐ amongst others to achieve ‘security’ for the future of their families. I will draw on observations of marriage visa interviews at the French consulate service in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Regulatory dynamics at the French consulate office are driven by fears and accusations that visa applicants might be committing fraud ‐ often with respect to the welfare state ‐ for their selfish personal purposes. I argue that aspiring migrant women are seen as security threats precisely because consulate officers and aspiring migrant women distribute care needs and social risks differently between state, family, and individual.

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 Social innovation as a policy response to restructure the welfare state

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 269-276
Author(s):  
Doğa Başar Sariipek ◽  
Gökçe Cerev ◽  
Bora Yenihan
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The State ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Welfare State

The focus of this paper is the interaction between social innovation and restructuring welfare state. Modern welfare states have been reconfiguring their welfare mixes through social innovation. This includes a productive integration of formal and informal actors with support and leading role of the state. This collaboration becomes significantly important since it means the integration of not only the actors, but also their capabilities and resources in today’s world where new social risks and new social challenges have emerged and no actor can overcome these by its own. Therefore, social innovation is a useful tool in the new role sharing within the welfare mix in order to reach higher levels of satisfaction and success in welfare provision. The main point here is that this is not a zero-sum competition; gaining more power of the actors other than the state – the market, civil society organisations and the family – does not necessarily mean that the state lost its leading role and power. This is rather a new type of cooperation among actors and their capabilities as well as their resources in welfare provision. In this sense, social innovation may contribute well to the debates over the financial crisis of the welfare state since it may lead to the more wisely use of existing resources of welfare actors. Thanks to social innovative programs, not only the NGOs, but also market forces as well as citizens are more active to access welfare provisions and social protection in the broadest sense. Thus, social innovative strategies are definitely a solid step taken towards “enabling” or “active” welfare state.

scholarly journals The development of the Welfare State in Portugal: trends in social expenditure between 1938 and 2003

2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Fernando Carolo ◽  
José António Pereirinha
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Data Series ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Social Expenditure ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Risk Protection ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractThis paper presents a data series on social expenditure in Portugal for the period 1938-2003. The series was built with the aim of identifying and characterizing the most significant phases in the process leading up to the current welfare state system in this country. The establishment of a social insurance (Previdência) in 1935 was one of the founding pillars of the Estado Novo (New State). Reforms to Social Welfare (Previdência Social) in 1962, while in the full throes of the New State, policy measures taken after the revolution of 1974 and a new orientation for social policy following the accession of Portugal to the European Economic Community (EEC) in the mid-1980s brought about significant transformations in the institutional organizational structure that provided welfare and conferred social rights in Portugal. To understand this process, knowledge is needed of the transformations to the institutional structures governing the organizations that provided welfare, welfare coverage in terms of the type of benefit and the population entitled to social risk protection, the magnitude of spending on benefits associated with these risks, as well as how benefits were allocated between the institutions. We built a data series for the period 1938-1980, which can then be matched to data already published in the OECD Social Expenditure Database from 1980 onwards. As a result, a consistent series for social expenditure from 1938 to 2003 was obtained. The methodology used to create the series enabled us to measure the impact of the variation in population coverage for social risks and the average generosity of benefits on the relative share of social expenditure in GDP. We present an interpretive reading for the full period, covering the New State and the Democracy from 1974, of the process of building the welfare state in Portugal.

A Cross-National Perspective on the American Welfare State

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Lynch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Eligibility Criterion ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Social Goods ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Welfare State

The welfare system in the United States is not simply “small,”“residualist,” or “laggard.” It is true that protection against standard social risks is generally less comprehensive and less generous in the United States than in other rich democracies, but there are other important differences as well: The U. S. welfare state is unusual in its extensive reliance on private markets to produce public social goods; its geographic variability; its insistence on deservingness as an eligibility criterion; and its orientation toward benefits for the elderly rather than children and working-age adults. Nevertheless, the U.S. welfare state is not sui generis. The actors involved in the construction of the U.S. welfare state, the institutions created in response to social problems, and the contemporary pressures confronting the welfare state all have parallels in other countries. The markets that provide so many social goods in the United States are the products of state action and state regulation, and hence should really be thought of as part of the welfare “state.” Even recent expansions to the welfare state in the United States have, with the partial exception of health-care reform, reinforced old patterns of elderly oriented spending and benefits for worthy (working) adults. In order for the U.S. welfare state to adjust successfully to ensure against new social risks, it must focus more on underdeveloped program areas like health care, child care, early childhood education, and vocational training.

The Welfare State and the Gender Dissimilarity Index in Homelessness: A Comparison of Norway, Belgium and Poland

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-23
Author(s):  
Magdalena Mostowska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Homeless Population ◽  
Similar Distribution ◽  
Dissimilarity Index ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Male Breadwinner ◽  
The Welfare State

This article investigates the structural underpinnings of gender dissimilarities in homelessness from a comparative perspective. The Gender Dissimilarity Index is introduced as a simple measure for quantifying the unevenness of the distribution of men and women across the ETHOS-light categories. Three gendered aspects of the welfare state are considered and compared for Norway, Belgium, and Poland: employment and childcare, housing, and homelessness policies. Based on available data, it appears that the most uneven distribution of genders may indicate a combination of the promotion of the male breadwinner model and relatively broad support for people who are homeless, but also the shortage of affordable housing. A more gender-balanced homeless population may be the result of a combination of housing-led approaches and degenderising policies. However, a similar distribution may be attributed to states with implicitly genderising policies coupled with ‘traditional’ attitudes towards gender roles and a lack of adequate responses to women’s needs.

Wohlfahrtsstaat und Interessenorganisationen im Wandel

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Labour Unions ◽  
Interest Representation ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Welfare State

Interest groups within the context of changing welfare states have gained widespread attention within the social sciences. Welfare states and interest groups are being faced with new challenges (e.g. in the context of several changes, such as new social risks). Schwache Interessen (weak interests) (such as poorly qualified ones) are also gaining more attention. This book discusses several different fields of interest representation in the welfare state. It analyses in what way constellations of interest representation have changed in modified welfare state environments. Several different organisations are analysed, including labour unions, the employers’ association and political parties. Moreover, the book also takes umbrella organisations of municipalities, social courts and educational policymakers into account. Until now, they have gained little attention from scholars. With contributions by: Lena Brüsewitz, Imke Friedrich, Sascha Kristin Futh, Tanja Klenk, Ulrike A.C. Müller, Frank Nullmeier, Sabine Ruß-Sattar, Friedbert Rüb, Wolfgang Schroeder, Benedikt Schreiter, Michaela Schulze, Florian Steinmüller, Christoph Strünck, Felix Welti

scholarly journals The Welfare State and Risk Perceptions: The Novel Coronavirus Pandemic and Public Concern in 70 Countries

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nate Breznau
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Individual Risk ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Intervention Measures ◽  
Standard Deviation Range ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
The Welfare State

The novel coronavirus pandemic led individuals to experience heightened social risks, particularly financial and health related. The strength of a welfare state shapes individual risk perceptions under normal circumstances. My research question is whether it also shapes risk perceptions in abnormal disaster scenarios, for example amidst the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. I test this using the data from the global COVIDiSTRESS survey to compare 70 countries in April of 2020, a month where deaths resulting from Covid-19 affected three-quarters of the world’s societies. Controlling for local timing and severity of the pandemic, welfare state strength predicts lower risk perceptions. However, this it is not a universal effect as I expected. The welfare state impact depends on how quickly a government introduced strong ‘lock down’ measures. The longer it took a government to respond the more the welfare state reduces risk perceptions. Governments that took lock down measures in advance of the virus show no variation in risk perceptions, whereas governments that took 30 days to respond have up to a 1.5 standard deviation range of risk perceptions depending on the strength of the welfare state. I conclude that the welfare state matters very much when governments fail to take effective intervention measures in a global emergency.

Explaining the welfare state: power resources vs. the Quality of Government

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Rothstein ◽  
Marcus Samanni ◽  
Jan Teorell
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Wage Earners ◽  
Power Resource Theory ◽  
The Welfare State

The hitherto most successful theory explaining why similar industrialized market economies have developed such varying systems for social protection is the Power Resource Theory (PRT), according to which the generosity of the welfare state is a function of working class mobilization. In this paper, we argue that there is an under-theorized link in the micro-foundations for PRT, namely why wage earners trying to cope with social risks and demand for redistribution would turn to the state for a solution. Our approach, the Quality of Government (QoG) theory, stresses the importance of trustworthy, impartial, and uncorrupted government institutions as a precondition for citizens’ willingness to support policies for social insurance. Drawing on data on 18 OECD countries during 1984–2000, we find (a) that QoG positively affects the size and generosity of the welfare state, and (b) that the effect of working class mobilization on welfare state generosity increases with the level of QoG.

scholarly journals Immigrant Presence, Group Boundaries and Support for the Welfare State in Western European Societies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nate Breznau ◽  
Maureen A. Eger
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

The intersection of group dynamics and socioeconomic status theories is applied as a framework for the puzzling relationship of immigration and support for the welfare state in Western Europe. Group dynamics theories suggest that how individuals define their group boundaries moderates the impact of immigration on support for the welfare state. Immigrant presence should have the strongest effects for those with exclusive national group boundaries; weaker for those with conditionally inclusive boundaries based on reciprocity; and weakest or non-existent for those with inclusive group boundaries. Group boundaries should interact with material self-interest leading individuals with less material security who are more likely to face social risks to be more supportive of the welfare state. Using data from the 4th European Social Survey linked to regional and national data we find that group boundary salience plays a large moderating role in the relationship of immigration and native support for the welfare state, and that this role is intricately linked to material self-interest. Group dynamics should therefore be viewed in conjunction with existing structural welfare state theories as opposed to an alternative or isolated mechanism.

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