Religion and the Western Welfare State – The Theoretical Context

Abstract

Most comparativists who study welfare state development agree that religion has played a role in the development of modern social protection systems. The early protagonists of the power resources approach, however, had only stressed the causal impact of Socialist working-class mobilization on modern social policy (see Esping-Andersen and van Kersbergen 1992). In their view, it was the working class and its Socialist organizations that had been the driving force behind the 'social democratization' of capitalism via the welfare state. To them, it came as a surprise that both Social Democracy and (social) Catholicism promoted welfare state development. John D. Stephens (1979: 100), one of the leading spokesmen of this approach, put it in prudent terms when he argued that 'it seemed possible that anti-capitalist aspects of catholic ideology-such as notions of fair wage or prohibitions of usury-as well as the generally positive attitude of the catholic church towards welfare for the poor might encourage government welfare spending.' Similarly, Schmidt (1980, 1982) asserted that Social Democracy and Christian Democracy were functionally equivalent for welfare state expansion, at least during periods of economic prosperity. Wilensky (1981) argued that the two movements overlapped considerably in ideological terms and that Catholicism indeed constituted an even more important determinant of We are grateful for extremely helpful comments by Thomas Ertman,

Support for Redistribution in Western Europe: Assessing the role of religion

“…Besides those micro-level analyses, scholars using a macro-comparative perspective note the impact of religion on the behavior and strategies of elites during the formative years of Western welfare states (e.g. Castles 1994a, b;Manow and Kersbergen 2008) as well as the distinct impact of Catholic and Protestant traditions on timing and generosity of modern welfare policies (Manow 2002;Kahl 2005;Hicks 2006). …”

“…Esping-Andersen 1990;Kersbergen 1995;Manow 2002;Manow and Kersbergen 2008). This suggests that Catholics may be less opposed to state redistribution than Protestants (Kahl 2005;van Oorschot 2010: 22).…”

Religion, politics and social assistance in Turkey: The rise of religiously motivated associations

“…The role of institutional and political factors in determining the end products of neo-liberalization in single countries has been underscored by various scholars of political economy (Schmidt, 2009;Streeck, 2011;Streeck and Kathleen, 2005) and social policy (Beland, 2009;Ebbinghaus and Manow, 2001;Palier, 2010). The role political parties play in shaping welfare states has also been acknowledged by scholars who claim that political parties, as organized expressions of social fault lines, have different logics of redistributive policies (Manow, 2009;Manow and Van Kersbergen, 2009). Following the framework of these literatures, I explain the contemporary rise of RMAs in Turkey as an outcome of the political climate since the 1980s.…”

From Private to Religious Patriarchy: Gendered Consequences of Faith-Based Welfare Provision in Germany

“…However, we should not only focus on the institutional regulation of church-state relations but also on the relationship between the welfare state and faith-based welfare provision. The institutions of the welfare state can reinforce the effects of the ideational component of faith-based welfare provision, especially if, as van Kersbergen and Manow have shown, the welfare state itself is a product of patriarchic church doctrine (Manow and Van Kersbergen 2009;Van Kersbergen 1995;Manow 2004;Kahl 2009;Morgan 2002;Hien 2012). Hence, we have to account for the iterative relationship between welfare state institutions and ideas of faith-based welfare providers and how both co-evolve (Steinmo 2010).…”