Social Policy by Other Means: Theorizing Unconventional Forms of Welfare Production

Seelkopf, Laura; Starke, Peter

doi:10.1080/13876988.2019.1574089

Cited by 21 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…These risks are related to the normal life course in post-agrarian societies. "Social policy by other means" (Seelkopf & Starke, 2019), i.e., unconventional policy instruments that serve as functional equivalents of conventional welfare state policies, does not feature at all. Hence, countries with elaborate, but unconventional social security systems might not score high.…”

Section: The Welfare State As An Ensemble Of Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, countries with elaborate, but unconventional social security systems might not score high. Researchers argue that there is an affinity between low state capacity, high informality, and unconventional social policy (Seelkopf & Starke, 2019). Therefore, they likely play a bigger role in the Global South-although they are also found in the Global North.…”

Section: The Welfare State As An Ensemble Of Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Welfare State as Universal Social Security: A Global Analysis

Öktem

2020

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Over the past decades, the geography of comparative welfare state research has transformed. Whereas scholars used to focus on a limited number of advanced industrialised democracies, they now increasingly study developments in Europe’s periphery, East Asia, and Latin America. So, does this mean that the welfare state has spread around the world? To answer this question, we analyse different ways to measure welfare states and map their results. With the help of International Labour Organization and International Monetary Fund data, we explore measurements based on social expenditures, social rights, and social security legislations and show that each of them faces serious limitations in a global analysis of welfare states. For some measurements, we simply lack global data. For others, we risk misclassifying the extent and quality of some social protection systems. Finally, we present a measurement that is grounded in the idea that the welfare state is essentially about universalism. Relying on a conceptualisation of the welfare state as collective responsibility for the wellbeing of the entire population, we use universal social security as a yardstick. We measure this conceptualization through health and pension coverage and show that a growing number of countries have become welfare states by this definition. Yet, it is possible that at least some of these cases offer only basic levels of protection, we caution.

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Section: The Welfare State As An Ensemble Of Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Welfare State As An Ensemble Of Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Welfare State as Universal Social Security: A Global Analysis

Öktem

2020

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“…Contemporary scholars in social policy and IR have increased their focus on these matters, upgrading for instance the definition of occupational welfare, which presumes collective actors and might differ from company welfare, which is in the remit of single employers, either with or without a role for trade unions (Natali et al., 2018: 436). The connections between different types of welfare are discussed either in Titmuss’ terms (Natali et al., 2018) or by the broader concept of ‘social protection by other means’ (Seelkopf and Starke, 2018). The issue is highly relevant for the Italian case, where private forms of welfare are so far – comparatively speaking – underdeveloped (Ascoli et al., 2018) and, therefore, their growing relevance constitutes an unprecedented challenge.…”

Section: Reviewing Debating and Expanding Frames Of Referencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fundamentally, we contribute to academic conversations at the crossroad of IR and other social sciences in three ways. First, by reconstructing key events in terms of FoR, we identify how company welfare affects the reproduction of other forms of social protection (Titmuss, 1955): social welfare (provided by the state), fiscal welfare (as tax incentives for individuals and firms) and occupational welfare (based on employment status and, recently, related to collective actors) (Natali et al., 2018; Seelkopf and Starke, 2019). Second, by uncovering the unitarist drivers behind the growth of company welfare, we give credit to power-based welfare theory (Esping Andersen, 1985, 1990; Korpi, 1983) but reverse its core argument.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Framing work and welfare: Insights from the growing relevance of company welfare in Italy

Gasparri

2020

Journal of Industrial Relations

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This article applies the concept of frames of reference to contemporary work and welfare dynamics by focusing on the growing relevance of company welfare in Italy after the 2008 crisis. The analysis considers how this occurred along three phases: in the first, a path-breaking case, Luxottica, demonstrates the potential of company welfare; then, Renzi’s government promotes company welfare through tax breaks; finally, trade unions try to affect the diffusion of company welfare, displaying contrasting ideologies as well as pragmatic joint solutions in the process. Overall, two contiguous sub-frames – consultative unitarism and collaborative pluralism – offer the mainstream justification to the events and the policy debate around them, a debate in which the industrial relations scholarship played a key role. However, a critical interpretation is present too, suggesting that the relevance of company welfare is driven by the mobilisation of a political and economic elite and results in few cases of positive employment relations alongside broad social and economic imbalances.

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“…The contribution of this article is embedded in the idea of "social policy by other means", looking at the functional connections between social policies and other policy domains (Seelkopf and Starke 2018). More specifically, it links the growing literature connecting immigration, employment and welfare (Afonso and Devitt 2016), and the gendered dimension of social policy (Lewis 1992;Sainsbury 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migrant Workers or Working Women? Comparing Labour Supply Policies in Post-War Europe

Afonso

2018

Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice

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Why did some European countries choose migrant labour to expand their labour force in the decades that followed World War II, while others opted for measures to expand female employment via welfare expansion? The paper argues that gender norms and the political strength of the left were important structuring factors in these choices. Female employment required a substantial expansion of state intervention (e.g. childcare; paid maternity leave). Meanwhile, migrant recruitment required minimal public investments, at least in the short term, and preserved traditional gender roles. Using the contrasting cases of Sweden and Switzerland, the article argues that the combination of a weak left (labour unions and social democratic parties) and conservative gender norms fostered the massive expansion of foreign labour and a late development of female labour force participation in Switzerland. In contrast, more progressive gender norms and a strong labour movement put an early end to guest worker programmes in Sweden, and paved the way for policies to promote female labour force participation.

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Social Policy by Other Means: Theorizing Unconventional Forms of Welfare Production

Cited by 21 publications

References 62 publications

The Welfare State as Universal Social Security: A Global Analysis

The Welfare State as Universal Social Security: A Global Analysis

Framing work and welfare: Insights from the growing relevance of company welfare in Italy

Migrant Workers or Working Women? Comparing Labour Supply Policies in Post-War Europe

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