Hybridization instead of Clustering: Transformation Processes of Welfare Policies in Central and Eastern Europe

Welfare state theories tend to use concepts of clustering for defining the affiliation of national social security systems to overarching worlds of welfare. A closer look at the transformation processes of welfare policies in Central and Eastern Europe shows a great variability among those countries in approximating their welfare states to Western European standards. In the design of their pension systems, their health care provision and their unemployment protection, Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) follow different reform paths. Welfare clusters in Western Europe are used as reference models, but no single example applies to all sectors of social security. Thus, a generalizing picture of welfare provision cannot be drawn for Central and Eastern Europe. Instead of constituting a new individual type of welfare arrangement, a hybridization process is observable.     

Analysing the Welfare State in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia: An Ideal-Typical Perspective

This article applies ideal-typical welfare state theory in analysing the recent transition and the current position of welfare state systems in Eastern Central Europe, taking the cases of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia. The article argues that Eastern Central European welfare state systems have returned to their historical and cultural roots of welfare state formation and development, to the time before the onset of state socialism in Soviet times. First, social security policies and social and labour laws were established when the vast bulk of Eastern Central European countries were member states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, sharing the same political economy, legal system and culture. Over the last 20 years, the socialist system of employment-based social services and benefits has been replaced with Bismarckian-type social security policy and systems. While there are major alterations here and there – in ideal-typical perspective – the four countries under scrutiny share all the major traits of Continental European (Christian Democratic) welfare regimes .     

The "Europeanization" of Spanish Social Policy

The principal features of Spanish social policy are examined since the transition to democracy in the mid-1970s. The period has been dominated by the four governments of the Socialists under Felipe Gonzalez. It will be argued that in terms of the reform of welfare goals and institutional arrangements, as well as welfare inputs and outputs, a significant degree of “Europeanization” has been achieved. This is especially true of the later period of Gonzalez's premiership in which this process, initiated during the Transition, was accelerated.     

Straddling Two Continents: Social Policy and Welfare Politics in Turkey

There has been an increasing academic interest in understanding the dynamics of social policy in the Middle East and developing a conceptual ‘model’ to account for the particular characteristics of welfare arrangements in the countries of the region. While part of this framework, Turkey represents an exceptional case due to the Europeanization processes the country is undergoing in various policy areas, including social policy. The influence of the European Union on the shape of Turkish social policy, as illustrated by the government's recent reforms in the labour market and social security domains, is hereby used to outline the position of Turkey vis‐à‐vis both the Southern European welfare regime and the Middle Eastern pattern. This article seeks to assess the dynamics of Turkish social policy in light of the country's political, and socio‐economic dynamics, as well as the external influence exerted by the EU and international financial institutions. The aim is to examine Turkish welfare arrangements in a comparative manner and consider its suitability with reference to either of the two models. Looking at major trends in social security and the labour market, the article argues for a Turkish ‘hybrid’ model embodying the characteristics of both. Subject to EU explicit pressures for reform absent elsewhere in the Middle East, the data nevertheless show that Turkey has yet to make the qualitative leap forward that could place it firmly within the Southern European welfare group.     

Concepts of poverty and exclusion in Europe

Using subjective materials, the article examines variation in the concepts of poverty and social exclusion in Europe, the aim being to examine both general and individual opinions. According to our first hypothesis, the higher the welfare expenditure is as a percentage of gross domestic product, the less subjective poverty and social exclusion there is. With the exception of Finland, subjective poverty did correlate inversely with social welfare expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product, thereby supporting our hypothesis. Higher social welfare spending does not seem to affect perceived exclusion as much as perceived poverty. Our second hypothesis was that people in countries with low welfare expenditure are more optimistic that both poverty and social exclusion can be reduced. According to the respondents, exclusion and poverty had increased least in the Mediterranean countries and most in countries with high welfare expenditure. The same trend would appear to continue in the expectations for the future.     

The advantages and disadvantages of different social welfare strategies

This paper presents a framework for consideration of change in or reform of social welfare systems. The author describes characteristics of the approaches to providing social welfare most commonly used in North America and western Europe. These include social insurance, employer mandates, individual mandates, voluntary arrangements (tax expenditures), means-tested programmes, and universal programmes (demogrants). He then evaluates each of the approaches in terms of its ability to achieve a set of social and economic objectives. The social protection objectives include treating people with dignity and respect, assuring complete coverage, equitably distributing costs and benefits, and operating efficiently to lower overhead. The objectives important to promoting a healthy economic environment include encouraging individual saving and work effort, fostering government fiscal responsibility, and facilitating smooth market functioning. The author concludes that there is no one correct way to organize social welfare systems, that each approach has strengths and weaknesses, and that different societies will attach different priorities to different objectives. Thus, as social goals change, we may expect that the particular mix of approaches used will also evolve and change over time.     

美国工作福利制度评估

美国社会救助制度,经历着一个从福利救济发展到工作福利制的过程。1996年,克林顿宣称要"终结福利",提出"工作第一"战略,欲以就业取代福利救助;一时,工作福利制度大行其道。本文主要对美国工作福利制度的绩效作一简要评估。     

Balancing informality and need – policy responses to informal East-West migration in Austria,the Netherlands and Sweden

The article provides an analysis of policy responses to mobile EU citizens without legal residence in the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden. A comparative case study design uses qualitative survey and interview data to identify national and local policy responses to the implications of EU citizens from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) living without legal residence in the aforementioned countries. The theoretical framework specifies how the institutional logic of welfare regimes is likely to generate policy responses that address need, sanction informality or do both. The choice indicates the priority given to redistributive outcomes, administrative procedures, or both. The results reveal similar responses to those implications relating to the labour market, but slightly different approaches to the implications in the social domain. Policy responses to labour market implications have predominantly focused on sanctioning informality. Swedish and Austrian policy responses in the social domain have focused on addressing need. Dutch policy responses to social issues instead focused on sanctioning informality, prioritizing procedure. The results indicate that local and national policy responses to implications of informal intra-EU migration may be fruitfully understood through the prism of welfare regimes and related approaches to need and informality.     

Social policy and poverty in post-totalitarian Europe

This article attempts to compare the social policy models of the west with social policies in post-totalitarian central and eastern Europe. It is argued that historical roots as well as recent developments make post-Communist social policy similar to the two major models in the west: the institutional redistributive model and the industrial achievement or performance model. The present problems of mass unemployment and growing poverty cannot be solved without a major reform of social policy, including state intervention and control. The residual social safety net and a strong market orientation are unlikely to be able to reduce poverty and unemployment. However, it is also argued that the strong role of the state and organized labour in both of these European welfare systems creates an obstacle to the future of social policy in the countries of central and eastern Europe. The state is viewed with great scepticism and organized mass social movements are weak in most of these countries. It will take time to develop such agents that can support the development of state social policy, and it may not even be accepted that the route of interventionist state welfare characteristic of western Europe is desirable.     

Role of social welfare in European suicide prevention

Yur'yev A, Värnik A, Värnik P, Sisask M, Leppik L. Role of social welfare in European suicide prevention The aims of this study were to assess the relationship between suicide mortality and social expenditure in 26 European countries, explore attitudes towards welfare systems and their relationship with suicide mortality, and compare attitudes towards welfare provision in Eastern and Western Europe. The World Health Organization suicide data and Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development social expenditure data for 1980–2005 were used. Data on attitudes towards welfare systems were taken from the European Social Survey. Differences between mean scores for attitudes in Western and Eastern European countries were calculated. Correlations between social expenditure and suicide trends were negative in most countries for both genders. Inverse correlations between attitudes towards welfare provision and suicide mortality rates were demonstrated for males only. Differences in attitudes were found between Eastern and Western European countries; for example, confidence in the welfare system was found to be stronger in Western Europe. Higher social expenditure and greater confidence in welfare provision appear to have suicide‐preventive effects.     

瑞典社会保障制度改革及其对我国的启示

1950～1960年代,福利国家在西欧和北欧得到了充分地发展。其中,瑞典以其福利最广泛和最优厚而闻名于世,获得了＂福利国家橱窗＂的称号。1970年代后期,以瑞典为代表的福利国家出现了过度福利的问题,相继进入＂福利国家危机时代＂。经过一系列的改革,瑞典取得了积极的成效。我国国情与瑞典不同决定了我们不可能建立一个完全瑞典模式的社会保障体系,但是瑞典的一些经验和做法对于完善我国的社会保障制度有着重要的借鉴意义。     

The social welfare reform during the progressive regimes of South Korea: Theoretical implications

This study assesses the social welfare reform during the progressive regimes of South Korea (hereafter Korea) led by President Kim Dae-Jung (1998-2003) and President Roh Moo-Hyun (2003-2008), and considers its theoretical implications. Analysis of the social welfare reform under the two progressive governments has indicated that the reform did not produce the anticipated results. Although the Korean economy has grown rapidly along with a considerable increase in the national income per capita in comparison with that in the past, the country's social welfare system still remains significantly underdeveloped in all respects, relative to that of all the other OECD countries with similar economic power, let alone the advanced welfare states in Western Europe. This study maintains that the key reason for the inertia or status quo despite the significant efforts of both the governments to expand social welfare is explained in the Korean growth-first doctrine, which inherently considers that distribution hinders growth and that social policy is secondary to economic policy, thus limiting the choices of the country's decision makers, as has been the case all along since the developmental period. Given that the growth-first doctrine inherently regarded the relationship between growth and welfare as mutually exclusive, it was perhaps natural that the influence of the doctrine upon the social welfare policy of both the progressive governments would not be so positive. This suggests that path dependence is active in the case of the Korean social welfare policy, thus substantiating the validity of path-dependence theory.     

A comparative analysis of pension reforms and challenges in Ghana and Nigeria

Ghana and Nigeria recently joined a number of countries that have incorporated fully‐funded defined contribution pension programmes into their national social security arrangements. Contemporary analyses of pension reforms, however, continue to focus on middle‐income countries in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe, as well as on Member States of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, thereby marginalizing recent pension policy reforms in sub‐Saharan African countries. This article examines the complete and partial shifts to defined contribution pension programmes in Nigeria and Ghana respectively, and points to a number of contextual and contingency factors that challenge the use of defined contribution schemes as a means to address problems of benefit adequacy in the sub‐Saharan African context.     

Indications of Social Policy Convergence in Europe

This paper explores the extent to which, and the ways in which, it might be justified in talking of a movement towards convergence of social policy within Europe. It reviews definitions and typologies of the welfare state as a prelude to discussion of the different theoretical types and possibilities of social policy integration, which itself leads into consideration of supranational EU developments. The empirical data presented in respect of “social protection” expenditures (and taxation regimes) in general and of “active” and “passive” labour market expenditures in particular, lend support to the notion not merely that the welfare state is not yet over in Europe, but that forms of social policy convergence are in evidence already.     

The welfare state in liquidation?

This paper is about the most recent reforms of cash benefit systems and the sociopolitical debate in eight European countries. The welfare state and the social security system rank high on the political agenda. After many years of economic crisis, with increasingly widespread unemployment and changed family patterns, the welfare system that developed in most western European countries since the end of the Second World War is the focus of attention. In a world of increasing international trade, with competition from countries — in eastern Europe and Asia as well as the United States — which have not developed such comprehensive systems of social security, one of the main issues in the debate is whether western Europe can afford to maintain welfare at the existing level, or whether it is necessary to make fundamental changes. But the discussion also centres on what can be called the welfare state's own internal problems.     

The Welfare State and the Life Course: Examining the Interrelationship between Welfare Arrangements and Inequality Dynamics

The transformation of welfare state arrangements in European countries during the last two decades can not only be described as realizing an activating welfare state, but also as centred on specific life course transitions which are considered as critical. A number of new welfare arrangements have been set up or older ones have been modified taking into account the critical phases of the life course. These new welfare arrangements attribute new rights over resources to well‐specified groups in terms of their life course events. The article first presents a selective overview of new welfare arrangements which are (in explicit or implicit ways) linked to specific phases and transitions of the life course in the different European countries; and, second, it analyzes the consequences of these new welfare arrangements on inequality. These arrangements establish (mostly implicitly) norms, which appear to define a role of an active, responsible and ‘able’ employee and citizen for everybody. However, the general starting positions of various groups of the population (such as women) and the existing welfare provisions constitute an obstacle to providing equal starting positions and an equal opportunity for pursuing one's life course according to the established norms. Therefore, the effects of these new welfare arrangements can have significant impacts on outcomes, and can therefore transform substantially the existing picture of inequalities.     

Value orientations of social welfare policy structures

Substantial literature exists around the variation of welfare policy development in liberal democracies. The contrast of the American welfare state to those in Europe has sparked significant analytical literature about which factors are most significant in the variation. The literature extensively examines many of these factors but has neglected the significance of social values. This article discusses values and policy development as a foundation for further studies linking specific values to policy and institutional development. First, I discuss theorists who have identified value orientation as significant to welfare state variation; second, I review the major comparative welfare state literature. Finally, I discuss the major variation categories through the lens of social values by identifying the significant value orientation of sample policy structures. Comparative welfare state literature benefits from elucidating the values orientation of welfare policies that define the welfare state typological categories. Including the role of social values in welfare state comparisons promotes greater understanding of the origins and trajectory of current policy. Key Practitioner Message: ● Increase understanding of welfare state variation factors; ● Frame questions about social values reflected in social policy.     

Overcoming City Limits: Vertical and Horizontal Models of Local Redistributive Policy Making*

Objectives. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Census data show a substantial local role in providing health, housing, and public welfare services. I evaluate two models to explain local social welfare: an intergovernmental model, based on federal and state funds, and an interjurisdictional model, based on measures of local monopoly power. Methods. I estimate a panel data model of local redistributive expenditures from 1992–2002 to test between these alternative explanations for local redistribution. Results. I find that vertical arrangements tend to drive local redistributive spending. Conclusions. Intergovernmental factors drive local social welfare policy and suppress the local welfare race to the bottom.     

Resources for Social Policy

The paper attempts the difficult task of identifying and exploring key resource factors which may influence social policy in the next millennium. It begins by critically examining the impact of demographic trends upon finance and demand for welfare in Europe. The possible impact of this is then examined in relation to the role of the family as a primary welfare resource and upon the supply of professional services. The implications of diminishing environmental resources are then examined and green social policy proposals are briefly outlined. However, the paper argues that the key resource is public goodwill and support for a range of social policy interventions. "The public" has been regarded as homogeneous in many surveys, but this paper argues that trends in middle-class welfare support and welfare activity pose concerns for the future of welfare provision.     

‘Let the King Save the Poor’: The Discursive Mechanism Underlying the Under‐exercise of Social Rights in South Korea

This study was prompted by discrepancies observed between the quantitative expansion and the qualitative stalemate in social policy in South Korea. Despite a revamped social security system, changes in South Korean social policies have not led to significant coverage expansion or improved income and poverty distribution. The frequent appearance of the Korean proverb that ‘even the King cannot save the poor’ in policy participants' narratives reflects a lack of confidence in the Government's ability to address persistent social disadvantages and the prevalence of a fatalistic policy perspective. This proverb has a conceptual affinity with an individualistic approach and has effectively functioned as a governance tool to oppress the progress of welfare rights. This research shows that an expenditure‐based model could lead to actual policy situations being misrepresented. Further, institutional policy arrangements may not be a sufficient condition for improving policy performance. It is suggested that a rights‐based approach should be adopted for both theorization of the transition of the welfare regimes and discursive practice for a policy paradigm change.