Authors Flashcards
Wilkensky/Kerr
The logic of industrialisation. Welfare to serve the needs of capitalism: need a healthy workforce, and urbanisation breaks down traditional ways of providing welfare (in the village). Sees union and left as fairly passive, but industrial proletariat does organise into TU s and unions)
EA’s criticism of the industrialisation thesis
Has a degree of inevitability about it, fails to explain cross-national variation in regimes, first WS bismarck happened before democracy.
Kersbergen and Manow
Power resources theorists have neglected role of religion. They say it delayed development, but it has been claimed catholicism as big a force for SocDem as left power. This is because religion:
1- religious doctrines influence principles of social policy
2- the religious cleavage is present via parties of religious defence (most significant)
Esping Andersen 1990
History and politics matter. Power resources theory.the actions of the labour movement are crucial at historically decisive turning points
- > nature and levels of power mobilisation (formation of a socialist class identity and mobilising is Not inevitable
- > patterns of political coalition formation (what classes?)
Unique historical context important.
Then path dependency, worlds of welfare crystallise.
EAs 3 worlds of welfare: conservative
Con - best factor explaining is influence of Catholicism and absolutism. Tend to provide only a bare minimum; private insurance preferable and safety net for those without, tough eligibility criteria and promote traditional family
EAs 3 worlds of welfare: liberal
Left party power mobilisation and gdp offer best model of development. Mix of state and private provision. Contributory based social insurance scheme.
EAs 3 worlds of welfare: soc dem
Left party power mobilisation is a precondition for development, usually coalition between working class and petty bourgeoise. Universal systems, state provision, funded by tax
EAs 3 indicators
Decommodification
Public-private mix
Extent of status and class differentiation and inequality
Therborn 2004
Europe developed welfare states as family system in western europe unique: nuclear, neo-local (married children move out) household with weaker kinship ties than other bits of world, which gave more importance to occupational associations.
Heclo
State centred theories of welfare state development. Strategy used by elites to suppress revolution.
Immergut
Cross national variations in welfare regimes are down to differing amounts of veto points.
Fligstein
Basic globalisation-> retrenchment thesis. Capital flight, less autonomy. More pressure to lower welfare costs and taxes.
Swank 2002
More nuanced that simple globalisation -> retrenchment
Institutional structure of polity shapes reaction and response to capital flight threat. Globalisation makes little difference to generous regimes (which has a system that favours lobbying) and retrenches tight ones more. No convergence due to globalisation.
Pierson (globalisation?)
Convergence due to globalisation often cited. Many social and economic changes have pressured welfare regimes, shift to service sector most important. Others include slower economic growth, women working, ageing population.
Francis Castles
Rejects crisis of welfare states. Context of countries is important, any changes will not effect every one the same. No general and consistent trend of retrenchment, and no race to bottom caused by globalisation. No convergence to european model.
Expenditure changes in recent decades can be explained by developments domestically not internationally. Agrees with EAs families of nations typology.
Alesina and Glaeser (3 things)
The greater the belief that luck determines income, the higher social welfare spending is.
The more proportional an electoral system is, the higher £ on welfare is
could it be that left wing govts spend more on welfare and introduce PR?
The more racial fractionalisation there is, the lower social welfare spending is. Ethnic,linguistic or religious diversity bad for high spending. Perhaps why US has such a limited regime
Lindquist and Ostling
The more political polarisation, the smaller the welfare state.
As harder to form coalitions, and more veto points
but poor countries have higher levels, need study which takes economic development into account too
Soss and Schram
Policies themselves can be causal. They can set agendas, shape identities, influence beliefs about what is possible and normal and desirable. Can alter conceptions of citizenship and status. Can define or arouse constituencies.
Eg -ww2 employer health insurance thwarted health reform (hacker)
Pierson welfare constituencies 1994
Welfare state programmes generate constituencies with incentives to protect their benefits. Attitudinal and behavioural effect with base in self interest.
How? Affects levels of resources, feelings towards political engagement and likelihood of political participation.
*pro welfare attitudes welfare state policies
Campbell explains how it works.
Campbell on welfare constituencies
How?
1) giving people resources of time or money
2) enhancing levels of political interest and efficacy by tying their well being to a govt programme
3) creates a political identity based on program reciepency, thus providing an incentive for interest groups to mobilise them
- size of benefits
- visibility and traceability of benefits (mettler on benefits over tax credits)
- program administration
but changes in programs do not massively alter attitudes
Ebbinghaus
Declining levels of union membership will hamper defence of social rights
Religious and ethnic and occupation cleavages will divide working class and union movement.
Huber and stephens
The number of years left wing parties have been in govt, the higher % of gdp spent on social expenditure.
The more veto points (direct democracy lots), the lower social expenditure
Baldwin and Huber
Only thing that matters for racial diversity and welfare is whether there is between group inequality, if lots then lower levels of public goods provision. Cultural and language diffs no impact.
Lupu and Pontusson
Social affinity and ability to form class coalitions depends on gap between classes. Bigger gap between middle and working than middle and upper means lower and less generous social spending. In the absence of cross cutting cleavages like rsce, middle class will empathise with poor if distance is small.
Korpi and Palme
The paradox of redistribution: the more we target benefits only at the poor, the less likely we are to reduce poverty and inequality.
They consider how money £ has been spent on welfare since 80s, and find a falling level of wage replacement (extent to which benefits replace wages) even though level of £ same.
