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.     

Spins of (Dis)Integration: What Might "Reformers" in Canada Learn from the "Social Dimension" of the European Union?

Viewed superficially, Canada and the European Union are both multi-tiered systems with a social identity problem, albeit one arrived at via different routes. This paper examines the extent to which Canada and Canadians might or might not be able to profit from the experience of the EU in respect of social policy development. First, the paper offers an outline review of where the "social dimension and social policy are at" in the EU. This it does with reference to the workings of three distinct processes: attempts at (a) positive activist social reform; (b) negative reform arising from the European Court of Justice's imposition of market compatibility requirements; (c) indirect, de facto pressures towards integration resulting from the demands of adapting to a single market and single currency area. The paper then goes on to review the two main schools of proposals for restructuring Canada politically—"reversing the founding process" (a Québécois/separatist perspective), as against replacing Canada's federal system with a "pure interstate compact"—in the light of this EU experience. In neither set of cases, as it turns out, does the experience and example of the EU offer promising pointers of relevance to Canada.     

Social assistance and minimum income benefits in old and new EU democracies

Nelson K. Social assistance and minimum income benefits in old and new EU democracies Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 367–378 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. In this article, social assistance developments are analysed in a large number of European Union (EU) member states, including European transition countries and the new democracies of southern Europe. The empirical analysis is based on the unique and recently established SaMip Dataset, which provides social assistance benefit levels for 27 countries from 1990 to 2005. It is shown that social assistance benefits have had a less favourable development than that of unemployment provision. Hardly any of the investigated countries provide social assistance benefits above the EU near‐poverty threshold. Social assistance benefit levels have not converged in Europe. Instead, divergence can be observed, which is due mainly to lagging developments in eastern and southern Europe.     

The European flexicurity concept and the Dutch and Danish flexicurity models: How have they managed the Great Recession?

In the mid‐2000s, the flexicurity concept was developed into a key EU policy concept. It drew its inspiration from the Danish and Dutch practices to combine labor market flexibility and security. However, the crisis' focus on bringing down national deficits and debts left little room to advance the concept. Lately, more emphasis has been placed on the need to take into consideration the social aspect of economic policy‐making. Current EU level documents see flexicurity as a guidance for structural reforms. However, the European flexicurity initiatives seem never to have had much impact in Denmark and the Netherlands. There are few accounts of the recent adjustment to the flexicurity models, be it at the EU or at national levels. Therefore, this article assesses the fate of flexicurity by scrutinizing its (adjusted) use as a political concept as well as a socio‐economic model. Although the Danish flexicurity model resembles the European flexicurity concept to a large extent, recent reforms have, overall, weakened rather than strengthened the flexicurity model. The Dutch flexicurity model has a narrower focus on normalizing atypical work, while recent reforms support this narrow flexicurity model. Meanwhile, the EU level concept has been changing every year, encompassing a growing number of issues.     

Introduction: Open Markets versus Welfare Citizenship: Conflicting Approaches to Policy Convergence in Europe

Few would have predicted the rapid progress of the EU in developing common economic institutions 20 or 30 years ago, although many commentators might have foreseen the relatively slow development of convergent social policies. This paper sets the European debate in the context of the path‐breaking work of Polanyi and Schumpeter at the end of the Second World War. It argues that the economic institutions of the EU are at least as important as the social policy institutions in understanding current developments, and suggests that a commitment to a broadly liberal market agenda at the economic level constrains and moulds social policies.     

Intercultural relations in the European Union: Economic convergences verses social mobility

The purpose of this paper is to analyze intercultural relations within the European Union, with the 10 new members that have joined in 2004. We define intercultural relations in terms of the difference between the benefits of economic convergence versus the problems of social mobility issues implied by the economic convergence in the European Union, especially with regard to the labor market. This analysis has implications for any region that is experiencing rapid globalization.     

东亚模式与莱茵模式的部分结合:希腊宏观经济的结构特征及其形成机制

希腊在冷战时代融入美国主导的全球体系,使其经济出现了对外向型、市场化、全球化的"路径依赖",但因其人口结构所限,而无法走上出口导向型的道路。此后,希腊积极融入欧洲一体化进程,借助欧盟的内部整合政策和内部援助体制,实现了高负债与高赤字背景下的经济持续高速增长,结果使高负债和高赤字长期延续而形成惯性。在国内国际两方面因素的综合作用下,希腊宏观经济可视为半个"东亚模式"与半个"莱茵模式"的结合体。     

Financial frictions and indebtedness of Balkan firms: A comparison with Mediterranean and Central European countries

Using a large database of financial data for non-financial corporations, we study the process of debt accumulation and its influence on liquidity through the boom-bust-recovery regimes (2006–2010) in the Balkan countries and benchmark this against the Mediterranean and Central European countries. The domestic amplification effects (through the financial accelerator and collateral pricing) of both the capital surge from developed EU countries at the onset of the crisis and the capital reversal afterwards are the focus of the analysis. We show that domestic generators and amplificators of the crisis have much larger effects in the Balkan countries than in the Mediterranean countries, not to mention the countries of Central Europe. In the boom period, the financial accelerator was several times stronger in the Balkan countries than in the Mediterranean and Central European countries. In the bust and recovery periods, however, the direct effects of the financial accelerator declined, but the indirect effects increased considerably due to liquidity squeezes and contagion, especially strong were corresponding intercompany debt effects. In the Balkan countries, these effects in the bust and recovery periods were at least 50% larger than in the Mediterranean and Central European countries. Higher crisis costs in the Balkan countries, relative to the benchmark regions, could be attributed to the late integration of these economies into international financial and trade flows, weak institutions of financial intermediation, and inexperienced regulators; however, the importance of the contribution of misguided EU convergence doctrine cannot be ignored. Lessons for improving macromanagement in EU periphery countries are suggested.     

The Swing of the Regulatory Pendulum in Europe: From Precautionary Principle to (Regulatory) Impact Analysis

Regulation in Europe is currently driven by three distinct, yet not entirely unrelated factors. These are competitiveness, sustainable development and governance. Increasingly these factors influence both the need for, and concepts of, what the European Commission (the Commission) refers to as “better regulation.” To ensure better regulation, two regulatory philosophies have been put forward, namely the precautionary principle and impact assessment.^1,2 In this paper, I first briefly describe the current drivers of better regulation. Then I examine the use of these two regulatory philosophies in helping to achieve better regulation. In the final section I offer some speculations on the future development of European Union (EU) regulation. Will elements of the Commission and the EU member states operate in an even more precautionary environment, or will the implementation of the precautionary principle be seen as too costly, forcing regulators to resort to an even greater use of impact analysis?     

How does BREXIT affect production patterns of multinational enterprises?

This paper explores how the British exit from the European Union (EU) potentially affects the United Kingdom (UK) economy and the production patterns of multinational enterprises that choose the UK as either a destination market or a gateway to the EU market. Utilizing an extended version of the knowledge-capital model, which includes six types of firms and four countries grouped into market and non-market, simulation analysis reveals that efforts to enhance attractiveness of the UK as a destination market to increase horizontal-type inward foreign direct investment would be a solution to cover losses from reduction in the number of export-platforms.     

The impact of adverse initial conditions and the resulting speed and sequence of reforms in determining the delayed EU membership of Bulgaria

The subject of the paper is the analysis of the speed, sequence and path of a formerly centrally administered economy, Bulgaria, to a market economy. Comparing the macroeconomic developments and transition reforms of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, Bulgaria is lagging behind. It is concluded that the stop-and-go nature of the conducted Bulgarian reforms and the lack of commitment to deep-seated reforms by successive governments were due to the adverse initial economic conditions that the country experienced during transition, as well as the intense external shocks the country endured. These factors were the main barriers to attaining sustained growth, and contributed to Bulgaria's delayed entrance to the EU.     

Fostering inter-European cooperation: Technological collaboration among nations of the European Union

This article examines the reasons for the technology gap between Europe and its Japanese and U.S. counterparts, and assesses the EU's effort towards reducing this gap. The EU considers technological collaboration the best way to reduce the gap, and we assess it for technologies: (1) High Definition Television (HDTV) and (2) telecommunications. These catch up efforts have been only partly successful. The HDTV program did not make much progress, and the worldwide switch from analogue to digital technology has hobbled the European attempt. Telecom manufacturers have cleverly adapted to a number of niche markets, such as Nokia in portable telephones, but the industry remains fragmented and poorly equipped to compete against global rivals such as AT&T. Application of pure research to industrial and commercial uses has been spotty, only half-heartedly been implemented by European states or the EU Commission. Even so, the EU Commission continues to promote a wider European perspective. Future technology policies could usefully promote greater entrepreneurial activity and national technical specialization.     

A Social-symbiotic Approach? EU Industrial Policy and the Pharmaceutical Industry in the EU

The purpose of this paper is to develop the debate about a symbiotic approach to industrial policy with respect to the pharmaceutical industry in the EU. The EU has an increasingly important role to play in European markets but it seems, at best, to be following a fragmented industrial strategy. There is a real and growing danger that this strategy becomes worse for everyone than no strategy at all. Thus the EU can either go for a comprehensive and comprehensible strategy or let the industry fend for itself amongst disparate health care systems amongst member states. Alternatively it can continue to stumble along with a pastiche of policies. There are signs of some debate about a more holistic approach to industry. In the European Union for example DG (Directorate General) V and DG III produced a communication arguing that “the [European Union] Community policy in favour of the pharmaceutical industry must take notice of [the] twofold context of public health and social security” (Com(93)718:3). This paper identifies current fragments of EU pharmaceutical industrial policy and indicates what a social-symbiotic approach is. Whether or not the industry in the EU continues to decline with respect to the industry elsewhere Asia and America in particular, the sick people of the EU will still need medication: a symbiotic approach to industrial policy can help stem the relative decline in the EU and indeed could reverse it.     

Lessons from the American federal-state unemployment insurance system for a European unemployment benefits system

This article reviews practices in the United States (US) federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system regarding applicant eligibility, benefit generosity, benefit financing and emergency measures with the aim of revealing lessons for a possible European unemployment benefit system (EUBS) for European Union (EU) Member States. We overview the US system for UI and examine important areas of federal leadership. While the US system offers some good ideas for setting up an EUBS, there are also lessons in some shortcomings of the US experience. We overview existing national UI systems in the EU and review the debate on an EUBS in the EU. We identify areas of risk for individual and institutional moral hazard in a multi-tiered UI system and give examples of monitoring methods and incentives to ameliorate such risks. We suggest approaches for gradual system development, encouraging lower-tier behaviour, benefit financing, and responses to regional and system-wide labour market crises.     

Strategic contextualisation: free movement,labour migration policies and the governance of foreign workers in Europe

Heightened levels of internal labour mobility since the European Union (EU)'s Eastern enlargements in 2004 and 2007 have shifted the context for member state policies geared towards the admission of non-EU workers. This article contends that the strategic use of the internal mobility regime by member states, as a justification for selective recruitment of labour from outside the EU, deserves more analytical attention. This contribution examines how labour migration policies (LMP) in the United Kingdom, France and Germany make use of the EU free-movement framework in current legislation, and how associated policy rationales are justified. In an interpretive policy analysis of legislative documents and decision-makers' meaning-making, as related in semi-structured interviews, the article identifies the logics, tools and rationales which link LMP to EU free movement. These links are shown to be highly selective and they serve common as well as nationally distinct governance goals. Across all three cases LMPs ascribe various degrees of relevance to EU internal labour supply, depending on the different skill levels of migrants targeted in respective policies. This shared pattern of economic coordination of LMP by skill level – in which the EU common labour market plays the role of delimiting additional migration in the skilled and especially low-skilled segments – is conflated with national migration control agendas. Member states draw on EU free movement to justify migration restrictions targeted at specific sending countries. As a result, the governance of the foreign workforce produces skills- and origin-based privileges rather than granting rights to mobile migrant workers in Europe.     

现实发展与想象建构——欧盟文化政策解析

自1992年法律地位确立以来,欧盟文化政策取得了显著成就,同时也越来越显现出一些制度性缺憾和问题。那么这些文化政策的发展究竟给一体化进程中的欧洲联盟政体带来什么样的影响,文化政策对欧洲意识的塑造又具有怎样的意义,本文试图针对以上问题进行详细剖析。     

Reducing Inequality in Childcare Service Use across European Countries: What (if any) Is the role of Social Spending?

Childcare services are increasingly put forward as one of the most important policy levers to combat poverty and inequality. However, higher income families use childcare services to a much larger extent than lower income families. Almost all European countries increased expenditures on childcare over the past years, but has an ever‐increasing public spending on childcare provision led to more equality in its use? In this article, the relationship between spending and childcare use as well as between spending and inequality in childcare use over the period 2006–12 is empirically analyzed using a random effects model drawing on country‐level panel data (n = 156), derived from the EU‐SILC and OECD SOCX databases. Since governments can spend money in different ways, it is discussed whether a public or a market‐based strategy to subsidize childcare provision is related to more equality. The results suggest that more spending leads to higher levels of childcare use, but not directly to lower levels of inequality. For achieving equity in childcare use, government investment should lead to an expansion of childcare places across the income distribution. The findings allow the formulation of new hypotheses regarding the role of the private market in childcare services provision.     

Employment relations and dismissal regulations: Does employment legislation protect the health of workers?

Sociologists have long acknowledged that being in a precarious labour market position, whether employed or unemployed, can harm peoples' health. However, scholars have yet to fully investigate the possible contextual, institutional determinants of this relationship. Two institutions that were overlooked in previous empirical studies are the regulations that set minimum compensation for dismissal, severance payments, and entitlements to a period of notice before dismissal, notice periods. These institutions may be important for workers' health as they influence the degree of insecurity that workers are exposed to. Here, we test this hypothesis by examining whether longer notice periods and greater severance payments protect the health of labour market participants, both employed and unemployed. We constructed two cohorts of panel data before and during the European recession using data from 22 countries in the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (person years = 338,000). We find more generous severance payments significantly reduce the probability that labour market participants, especially the unemployed, will experience declines in self‐reported health, with a slightly weaker relationship for longer notice periods.     

The Uncertain Convergence of Disability Policies in Western Europe

In the last decades disability has emerged as a key area for European social policy. So far there have been few indications of a general trend towards greater similarity in the disability policies of member states. This paper argues that attempts to promote common approaches and patterns of effort between member states are more likely to succeed in “vacant” sub‐areas of disability policy than in more “crowded” ones. Existing redistributive provisions within income maintenance, employment and independent living are examples of crowded sub‐areas. By contrast, the emerging anti‐discrimination legislation and other forms of market regulation recently introduced by the EU may point towards more vacant policy areas within member states.     

R&D in a post centrally-planned economy: The macroeconomic effects in Poland

Half a century of centrally planned policy in the Central and Eastern European countries resulted in outdated technologies, inefficient allocation of resources and low productivity. Following the end of communism there was a fifteen year process of transition which ended in 2004 with eight post-communist countries joining the European Union (EU) of which Poland was the largest. As part of the EU these countries now face the challenge of the common EU strategy Europe 2020, which has set the target of achieving R&D expenditure to GDP ratio (called the R&D intensity) of 3% by 2020 for the Union as a whole in an effort to increase the competitiveness of the region. Poland, like the other post-communist countries, faces a lower target of R&D intensity, set at 1.7%. Nevertheless, the challenge is immense, since the country is still at only half that level and has little experience in developing policies to help achieve it. In this paper we tested two possible policy options to achieve the target: (1) to increase government expenditures on R&D and; (2) to provide tax relief on R&D to businesses. The method applied to assess the options is a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for Poland with an explicit link between productivity and R&D stock. The results show that achieving the R&D intensity target via the use of tax relief is 2.5 times more costly to the government budget, but it has a greater impact on the economy in terms of a higher GDP growth. Tax relief proved efficient in the short run while in the long run the government expenditure policy provides better value for money.