World of welfare Flashcards
Decommodification
The level to which citizens are freed from the compulsion to work.
the extent to which an individual’s welfare is reliant upon the market, particularly in terms of pensions, unemployment benefit and sickness insurance
Corporatism
is a political system of interest representation and policymaking whereby corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, come together on and negotiate contracts or policy on the basis of their common interests.- in some welfare states, organized labor and employers’ associations may have a formal role in administering social insurance programs or negotiating welfare reforms with the government.
etatism
state intervention to address social issues and maintain social order. Control of state over citizens and the economy- a belief in the supremacy and intervention of the state in economic and social affair. Bismarck’s welfare policies were not driven by altruism but rather by pragmatic concerns to co-opt the working class and undermine the appeal of socialist and liberal movements. By providing social protections, Bismarck aimed to stabilize society, promote national unity, and preserve the conservative order.
Social insurance
a form of welfare provision that aims to protect individuals and families against economic risks and uncertainties, such as illness, disability, unemployment, old age, and maternity. Unlike means-tested assistance programs that are based on financial need, social insurance programs are typically contributory schemes where individuals and employers make regular payments into a fund, and in return, they are entitled to specific benefits when they face qualifying events or circumstances.
Defamilisation
refers to the process by which individuals and families become less reliant on the family as a primary source of economic and social support, and more dependent on formal institutions and mechanisms provided by the state or other organizations. – often a prerequisite for women entering the workforce and becoming commodified
Regime
unifying logic to it. More than the sum of parts, unifying logic that unifies values and political economy. Unifying, historically embedded construct
why is typifying useful
Why is typifying useful- simplifies it to create a simple understanding, explanatory value – independent variable- does regime type matter for analysis? Can we use it to explain? And finally, does it paint a picture of reality in some way? – most would argue for the former two but say it falls short when painting a picture of reality.
- Keiser – empirical consistency to how regimes are classified and so it does paint an accurate picture of reality
Esping-Anderson- welfare regimes as historically relevant
, welfare regimes are the product of past political battles
o One cannot understand changes in the welfare state without theorizing the way its existing structure provides key actors - and the state itself - differing capacities and power.
o rejects the idea that welfare states are an automatic by-product of either capitalist needs or economically determined democratic demands, breaking with Marixist and “logic of industrialism” theses. However, welfare states are also not an undifferentiated product of strong labour movements; rather, the welfare state follows from the way in which labour and social democratic movements join (or fail to join) with other social actors (i.e. it rests on the historic alignment of societal groups)
Esping-Anderson- state market institutions and the welfare state
once established, state-market institutions themselves conditioned their own differential trajectory via two key political mechanisms: they shaped the structure of electoral support for the state, and they shaped the structural power of the Left (organized labor and Social Democratic parties).
Esping -Anderson - consequences of different regimes
o He argues that the broad encompassing structure of Social Democratic welfare regimes should breed public support for the state and defuse class conflict, thus perpetuating their generous structures, while Liberal welfare states generate lower levels of support and more extensive conflict across groups.
Liberal regimes
decommodification low, stratification high
Interference creates elitism and paternalism, therefore avoids all interference.
modest, means-tested assistance, and targeted at low-income, usually working-class recipients.
o the poor are the only people who rely on them. The middle classes rely on social insurance. The upper classes rely on the market.
Their strict entitlement rules are often associated with stigma- narrow definition of who is eligible
Adheres to a more narrow conception of what risks are social eg lack of universal healthcare in USA
encourages market solutions to social problems— either passively, by guaranteeing only a minimum, or actively, by directly subsidising private welfare schemes. – believe the free market is the best path to reducing inequality
forces those in need to look for work- doesn’t want to disrupt the market. Welfare as a last resort.
Liberals cannot purely oppose decommodification as non-workers and those with the potential to work must be cared for.
Liberal welfare regime states
Australia, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, USA
Conservative regimes
decommodification moderate, stratification high
typically shaped by traditional family values and tend to encourage family-based assistance dynamics.
Social insurance in this model typically excludes non-working wives, and family benefits encourage motherhood.
the belief that central authority should not do what could be done on a local level.
State assistance will typically only step in when the family’s capacity to aid its members is exhausted.
Corporatism prevents the expansion and consolidation of the welfare state. This leads to services such as healthcare having as many as 1,200 different funds in Germany.
Like in Liberal regimes, welfare is a last resort, but for the purpose of failing families not bad risks or market failures
As in liberal states, conservative states do little to interfere with the employment market. Gives strong protection for male breadwinners in employment. In conservative states the answer to this is family support or reduction of labour supply by moving women out of the workforce
Conservative regime states
Austria, Belgium, France, Germany Italy
Social Democratic regimes
High decommodification and low stratification
universalistic systems that promote an equality of high standards, rather than an equality of minimal needs. - Rights are attached to citizenship not need or contribution
decommodifying welfare services, to reduce the division introduced by market-based access to welfare services, as well as preemptively socializing the costs of caring for children, the aged, and the helpless, instead of then waiting until the family’s capacity to support them is depleted.
results in a commitment to a heavy social service burden, which introduces an imperative to minimize social problems, thereby aligning the system’s goals with the welfare and emancipation (typically via full employment policies) of those it supports.
use welfare to strengthen the working class, rather than appeasing them.
Gets involved in labour market- creates public jobs for those without them
Countries that belong to this type of welfare state regime are generally dedicated to full employment. Only by making sure that as many people as possible have a job is it possible to maintain such a high-level solidaristic welfare system
States that are social democratic regimes
Denmark, Finland, Netherland, Norway, Sweden
who argued that there is value to Esping Anderson even though there are hybrids
Arts and Gelissen
pure welfare regimes are not empirical truth
- Contrary to the ideal world of welfare states, the real world is likely to exhibit hybrid forms. There are no one-dimensional nations in the sense of a pure case. Today, every country presents a system mix.
Esping -Anderson on value despite hybrids
- Esping-Andersen (1997: 171) argues that despite this it is fruitful to construct ideal- types … see the forest rather than the myriad of unique trees. However, he warns of the danger that the resulting forest may bear little resemblance to reality.
- By comparing an impure welfare state with an ideal- typical one – both considered as a whole – the deviations of the former from the latter are thrown into relief. It is the simultaneous knowledge of both the ideal-type and the real- type that enables holistic ideal-types to be used ‘as conceptual instruments for comparison with and measurement of reality’
welfare regimes as enforcing
- Esping-Andersen views welfare state regime types (liberal, conservative, social democratic) not only as outcomes (dependent variables) shaped by various factors but also as factors themselves (independent variables) that influence other outcomes. In this context, welfare state regimes can both be influenced by and influence cross-national variations in social behavior and attitudes.
- Esping-Andersen uses the typology to explain how existing welfare state arrangements can create positive feedback loops. This means that once a particular welfare regime is established and its policies are in place, they can reinforce certain behaviors, attitudes, and policy directions, making it difficult to change or deviate from that path.
trajectories of welfare states
- Esping Anderson says If you look at the history of so-called welfare states you find three ideal- typical trajectories, a liberal, a conservative and a social-democratic one. This framework can be seen as a way to transcend or complement the historical determinism emphasized by Esping-Andersen by focusing on the underlying principles, values, and social dynamics that drive welfare state development and differentiation across countries
Arts and Gelissen against Esping -Anersens historical approach
you don’t need to go back in history you just need to classify them according to
1. The degree of decommodification, i.e. the degree to which a (social) service is rendered as a matter of right, and the degree to which a person can maintain a livelihood without reliance on the market.
2. The kind of social stratification and solidarities, i.e. which social stratification system is promoted by social policy and does the welfare state build narrow or broad solidarities?
feminist critique of Esping Anderson
de-commodification doesn’t make sense for women as their labour is often unpaid and in the home.
- no serious treatment of the degree to which women are excluded from or included in the labour market:
reflection of gender in Esping Anderson- between regimes
- Gornick and Jacobs (1998) found that Esping-Andersen’s regime-types do capture important distinctions among contemporary welfare states. Their results showed that the size of the public sector, the extent of the public-sector earnings premium and the impact of the public sector on gender differentials in wages all varied more across regimes than within them. In this way, they showed the fruitfulness of emphasizing the gender perspective in Esping-Andersen’s classification of welfare states.