Martin Seeleib‐kaiser
Biographic Data
| ID | 4381853 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Martin Seeleib‐kaiser |
| GIVEN NAMES | Martin |
| FAMILY NAME | Seeleib‐kaiser |
| SIGNATURE | KAISER M S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9589-7206 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 51 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 630 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 51 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Introduction: Bridging the transatlantic divide in social policy research
This introduction to the Special Issue explores the historical and contemporary relationship between European and North American social policy research and development, tracing the evolution of policy influence and scholarly exchanges across the Atlantic. It highlights early mutual policy learning between Europe and North America, with particular attention to the impact of key reforms like the New Deal. Furthermore, it points to the gradual emerg…
Agency, institutions, and welfare chauvinism: Tracing the exclusion of European Union migrant citizens from social assistance in Germany
What explains welfare chauvinistic policy reform, that is, targeted exclusion of non-citizens from welfare? Existing research suggest that contextual factors like far-right party success, perceived immigration pressures, party ideologies and institutions could spur such reform, but the processes behind reforms remain understudied. This article draws on public policy literature to call attention the critical role of agency and institutions in welf…
The end of welfare states as we know them? A multidimensional perspective
This article highlights the limitations of unidimensional analyses in the comparative welfare state literature and emphasises the need for a more holistic, multidimensional approach incorporating social spending, welfare state outputs and outcomes. To illustrate the utility of a multidimensional approach, we examine the long‐term welfare state trajectories of Sweden and Germany, prototypical social‐democratic and conservative welfare states, resp…
Enforcing outsiders' rights: Seasonal agricultural workers and institutionalised exploitation in the EU
Enforcement is a crucial aspect for understanding labour market hierarchies in Europe and exploitation of mobile and migrant EU workers. Whereas most literature on intra-EU mobility and enforcement has focused on posted workers, this paper sheds light on enforcement in seasonal agriculture and forestry where posted work is very uncommon yet mobile workers overrepresented. In the EU, enforcement highly depends on Member States’ capacities. Therefo…
Regulating the Poor through Internal Borders: The EU in Historical and International Perspectives
Tensions surrounding internal migrants’ access to welfare and the associated politicisations about who should shoulder the ‘fiscal burden’ are not unique to the European Union (EU). Based on a Most Different Systems Design and following an institutionalist approach, this article analyses the developments associated with freedom of movement and access to poor relief/social assistance in four economically and politically diverse jurisdictions. It a…
The Covid ‐19 crisis and policy responses by continental European welfare states
Social protection in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands share Bismarckian roots. Over time, these welfare states were however in constant flux and incorporated to a greater or lesser extend elements of both the Anglo‐Saxon and Nordic models. While the Netherlands has from the beginning deviated from the Bismarckian model, in recent years this welfare state has undergone important reforms that have made it increasingly evolve into a “Bismarck cu…
Social citizenship in federations: Free movement and social assistance rights in the EU and beyond
When and how have free movement and social citizenship been reconciled in federal settings characterised by devolved welfare responsibilities and extensive internal diversity? The EU fails to guarantee minimum social protection rights for EU citizens migrating within the Union, as access to social assistance in countries of destination is highly conditional. This situation is very similar to historical experiences in other federations, where fear…
Migration, social policy, and power in historical perspective
Migration and social policy have become fiercely contested issues in Europe and North America. In this article, I highlight how mobility and migration, on one hand, and social policy, on the other hand, have historically been closely interwoven and shaped by power relations. It is argued that European states actively assisted their poor to leave ‘home’ and settle in far-away places. I will elaborate some of the tensions between freedom of movemen…
Family policies and the weakening of the male-breadwinner model
Family policies within the OECD world have undergone significant transformations. While family allowances, parental leave and childcare continue to vary significantly from country to country, policy change has followed a common trajectory, moving away from support for the male breadwinner and towards the dual-earner household and to reconcile tensions between work and family. The chapter identifies early adopters and laggards of policy change amo…
Mythen der vergleichenden Sozialpolitikforschung? Permanente Austerität und wohlfahrtsstaatliches Retrenchment
Globalisierung und Neoliberalismus werden häufig als Gründe für wohlfahrtsstaatlichen Wandel identifiziert. Wir analysieren wohlfahrtsstaatliche Entwicklungen in OECD-Ländern seit 1980 mittels einer deskriptiv-quantitativen Analyse von Generosität sowie Sozialstaatsausgaben und qualitativ anhand von vier crucial cases (Deutschland, Italien, Schweden und USA). Grosso modo diagnostizieren wir eine stabile Entwicklung, die als “ growth to limits “ v…
Comparing occupational welfare in Europe: The case of occupational pensions
The article provides an assessment to what extent reforms of occupational pensions (OP) have fostered a “risk shift” or increased social protection dualism across countries. The essay focuses on workers, whilst previous research primarily analyzed provision for current pensioners. The empirical analysis confirms that in countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden, increased private pension or (OP) provision does not necessarily lead towards soci…
Sixty years after Titmuss: New findings on occupational welfare in Europe
Following the seminal work of Richard Titmuss, who coined the term occupational welfare (OW) 60 years ago, the article approaches OW provision in Europe today. We first define OW as the sum of extra‐statutory social benefits and services provided by employers and/or trade unions as a result of employment. We then look at its recent evolution: OW expenditure and coverage have been increasing significantly in Europe since the 1990s. While pensions …
Stratified Social Rights Limiting EU Citizenship
Differences in Member States' economic development and national social protection systems can translate into significant differences in the substantive social rights of EU migrant citizens. The substantive rights of economically inactive EU migrant citizens are dependent on the ‘export’ of social rights from their country of origin to the Member State of destination, in particular during the initial phase of their residence in a new Member State …
The End of the Conservative German Welfare State Model
This article investigates change and continuity of the German welfare state at the institutional as well as at the outcome level in the domains of family, pension and unemployment policies. It shows that seemingly path‐dependent policy adaptations – largely through drift, layering and recalibration – have led to a paradigmatic and indeed transformational adjustment of welfare state arrangements. The unsettling of institutional arrangements and fu…
Social Rights of EU Migrant Citizens: Britain and Germany Compared
European migrant citizens and their social rights are strongly contested in British political debate. This article seeks to challenge some common concerns and perceptions regarding the exceptionality of the British welfare state and the alleged ‘costs’ to it from intra-EU migration. The article first provides a brief overview of the foundations for EU citizenship and associated social rights, highlighting the semi-sovereign nature of welfare stat…
Solidarity against All Odds: Trade Unions and the Privatization of Pensions in the Age of Dualization
In an era of fiscal austerity and dualization of social protection, has organized labor become increasingly split along skill and industry lines? Against recent political science accounts of trade union involvement in social policymaking, this paper argues that, in the specific area of pensions, unions representing high-skilled workers and the core industrial sectors of the economy have paradoxically been led to increase their cooperation with un…
The Four Worlds of ‘Welfare Reality’ – Social Risks and Outcomes in Europe
After three decades of welfare state crisis, change and transformation can we still speak of welfare state regimes when looking at their outcomes? The analysis of outcomes provides a picture of ‘the real worlds of welfare’ and is of considerable importance to understanding political legitimacy across countries. We use aggregate longitudinal data for West European countries in order to map welfare outcomes and cluster countries. The cluster result…
Determinants of a Silent (R)evolution: Understanding the Expansion of Family Policy in Rich OECD Countries
This paper contributes to the comparative social policy literature in two ways. First, we use multiple correspondence analysis in order to assess the different directions and the degree of (employment-oriented) family policy change over the past three decades in 18 rich Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Second, we perform a series of correlations to identify the core drivers of these developments. Our main f…
Amerikanische Sozialpolitik: Politische Diskussion und Entscheidungen der Reagan-Ära
Sozial- und Wirtschaftspolitik Unter Rot-Grün
Unemployment Protection and Family Policy at the Turn of the 21st Century: A Dynamic Approach to Welfare Regime Theory
This article contributes to the welfare state regime literature from a substantive and methodological perspective. At a very abstract level we confirm the relevance of the welfare state regime theory and stability for the period from 1971 to the end of the 1990s. However, by analyzing family policy and unemployment protection, we observe a dual transformation of the welfare state, consisting of a trend towards a ‘socialization’ of family policies…
Welfare Systems in Europe and the United States: Conservative Germany Converging toward the Liberal US Model
This article demonstrates how the Conservative system of social protection in Germany has been converging toward the Liberal American model during the past two decades, focusing on social protection for the unemployed and pensioners. In addition to public/statutory provisions, occupational welfare is also covered. Despite an overall process of convergence, we continue to witness stark dissimilarities in the arrangements for social protection outs…
How Rich Countries Cope with Deindustrialization
This conclusive chapter reviews the comparative evidence accumulated throughout the book on the new, widening and deepening divides between insiders and outsiders. It answers two key questions: who are the outsiders? And what is driving dualization? Most importantly, the comparative evidence discussed in this chapter points to the crucial importance of political choice in shaping the social outcomes of deindustrialization. Hence, insider-outsider…
How we Grow Unequal
This chapter introduces the concept of dualization. Poverty, inequality, and social exclusion are back on the political agenda in many rich democracies of Western Europe and North America, not only as a consequence of the Great Recession that hit the global economy in 2008. It argues that the translation of structural pressures into policies and outcomes has to be understood as a political process. Dualization is a political process that is chara…
Shifting the Public-Private Mix: A New Dualization of Welfare?1
Welfare dualism has always been a part of social protection arrangements in Liberal and Conservative welfare systems. Whereas Liberal welfare systems relied predominantly on means-tested policies for the poor and a combination of public and occupational welfare for the middle class, Conservative welfare systems provided social insurance benefits for workers and means-tested benefits for the poor. Although institutional welfare dualism was particu…
Thematic Review: Welfare regime debate: past, present, futures
The seminal work by Esping-Andersen (1990) has transformed and inspired social policy research over the past two decades. Various contributions have confirmed his typology, while others have challenged, and expanded, it from substantive and methodological perspectives. This article contributes to this debate in two ways. First, it provides a comprehensive analysis of the different typologies proposed in the literature, employing the concept of 'i…
Economic Globalization and the Welfare State in Affluent Democracies, 1975-2001
Previous scholarship is sharply divided over how or if globalization influences welfare states. The effects of globalization may be positive causing expansion, negative triggering crisis and reduction, curvilinear contributing to convergence, or insignificant. We bring new evidence to bear on this debate with an analysis of three welfare state measures and a comprehensive array of economic globalization indicators for 17 affluent democracies from…
Stratified Social Rights Limiting EU Citizenship
Differences in Member States' economic development and national social protection systems can translate into significant differences in the substantive social rights of EU migrant citizens. The substantive rights of economically inactive EU migrant citizens are dependent on the ‘export’ of social rights from their country of origin to the Member State of destination, in particular during the initial phase of their residence in a new Member State …
Determinants of a Silent (R)evolution: Understanding the Expansion of Family Policy in Rich OECD Countries
This paper contributes to the comparative social policy literature in two ways. First, we use multiple correspondence analysis in order to assess the different directions and the degree of (employment-oriented) family policy change over the past three decades in 18 rich Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Second, we perform a series of correlations to identify the core drivers of these developments. Our main f…
The End of the Conservative German Welfare State Model
This article investigates change and continuity of the German welfare state at the institutional as well as at the outcome level in the domains of family, pension and unemployment policies. It shows that seemingly path‐dependent policy adaptations – largely through drift, layering and recalibration – have led to a paradigmatic and indeed transformational adjustment of welfare state arrangements. The unsettling of institutional arrangements and fu…
The Four Worlds of ‘Welfare Reality’ – Social Risks and Outcomes in Europe
After three decades of welfare state crisis, change and transformation can we still speak of welfare state regimes when looking at their outcomes? The analysis of outcomes provides a picture of ‘the real worlds of welfare’ and is of considerable importance to understanding political legitimacy across countries. We use aggregate longitudinal data for West European countries in order to map welfare outcomes and cluster countries. The cluster result…
The Dual Transformation of Social Protection and Human Capital: Comparing Britain and Germany
Britain and Germany have been experiencing significant changes in the nature of work and welfare since the 1990s. Although important differences have remained, there have been compelling indications of a dual transformation of welfare constituted not only by a far-reaching retrenchment in unemployment insurance but also by a remarkable expansion in family policy. These developments have their functional underpinnings in accelerating deindustriali…
Discourse, Learning and Welfare State Change: The Case of German Labour Market Reforms
In this article we argue that Germany has significantly changed its approach to labour market policies (LMPs) during the past decade; in many instances Britain has served as a model to learn from. In a first step, we identify the core institutional arrangements of the conservative approach to LMP in Germany and contrast them with the liberal approach, using the UK as an example. Secondly, we trace the development and nature of changes in German L…
Business, skills and the welfare state: The political economy of employment-oriented family policy in Britain and Germany
Family policies have been expanded in many OECD countries, whilst developments along other welfare state dimensions have been characterized by retrenchment. Although the contribution of gender analyses of the welfare state to a better understanding of family policies is widely acknowledged, the literature so far has largely failed to provide a comparative account explaining the recent expansions of employment-oriented family policies in countries…
A Dual Transformation of the German Welfare State
Contrary to the notion of a political blockade making comprehensive reform impossible, this article argues that we have, in fact, witnessed a dual transformation of the German welfare state during the past 25 years. Increasingly, the state reduces its commitment to securing the living standard of former wage earners, which had been the key normative principle of the German welfare state in the post-war era. At the same time, the state is expandin…
Socio-Economic Change, Party Competition and Intra-Party Conflict: The Family Policy of the Grand Coalition
The German welfare state has historically been characterised as a prototype of the 'strong male breadwinner model'. Although there have been incremental innovations and expansions of various family policies since the mid-1980s, which accelerated during the Red-Green government of the late 1990s and early 2000s, it is argued that paradigmatic change towards an employment-oriented family policy only came about during the Grand Coalition. This artic…
Solidarity against All Odds: Trade Unions and the Privatization of Pensions in the Age of Dualization
In an era of fiscal austerity and dualization of social protection, has organized labor become increasingly split along skill and industry lines? Against recent political science accounts of trade union involvement in social policymaking, this paper argues that, in the specific area of pensions, unions representing high-skilled workers and the core industrial sectors of the economy have paradoxically been led to increase their cooperation with un…
The Covid ‐19 crisis and policy responses by continental European welfare states
Social protection in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands share Bismarckian roots. Over time, these welfare states were however in constant flux and incorporated to a greater or lesser extend elements of both the Anglo‐Saxon and Nordic models. While the Netherlands has from the beginning deviated from the Bismarckian model, in recent years this welfare state has undergone important reforms that have made it increasingly evolve into a “Bismarck cu…
Unemployment Protection and Family Policy at the Turn of the 21st Century: A Dynamic Approach to Welfare Regime Theory
This article contributes to the welfare state regime literature from a substantive and methodological perspective. At a very abstract level we confirm the relevance of the welfare state regime theory and stability for the period from 1971 to the end of the 1990s. However, by analyzing family policy and unemployment protection, we observe a dual transformation of the welfare state, consisting of a trend towards a ‘socialization’ of family policies…
Between Reforms and Birth Rates: Germany, Japan, and Family Policy Discourse
This paper examines the development of employment-oriented family policy in Germany and Japan, two countries united by conservative welfare legacies and very low birthrates, through a close analysis of discourse. Why have recent reforms in Germany moved well beyond those in Japan despite remarkably similar “human capital” discourses? The relative strength of interpretative patterns—in this case, discursive patterns that successfully frame family …
Social Rights of EU Migrant Citizens: Britain and Germany Compared
European migrant citizens and their social rights are strongly contested in British political debate. This article seeks to challenge some common concerns and perceptions regarding the exceptionality of the British welfare state and the alleged ‘costs’ to it from intra-EU migration. The article first provides a brief overview of the foundations for EU citizenship and associated social rights, highlighting the semi-sovereign nature of welfare stat…
Sixty years after Titmuss: New findings on occupational welfare in Europe
Following the seminal work of Richard Titmuss, who coined the term occupational welfare (OW) 60 years ago, the article approaches OW provision in Europe today. We first define OW as the sum of extra‐statutory social benefits and services provided by employers and/or trade unions as a result of employment. We then look at its recent evolution: OW expenditure and coverage have been increasing significantly in Europe since the 1990s. While pensions …
What Do Parties Want? An Analysis of Programmatic Social Policy Aims in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands
Comparative welfare state research has argued for some time that whether Social Democrats or Christian Democrats are in government makes a difference with regard to specific welfare state design. The theory is based on the fact that, historically, the social policy aims of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats have differed. Can these policy differences still be assumed after almost three decades, which have been characterised by a discourse a…
Social citizenship in federations: Free movement and social assistance rights in the EU and beyond
When and how have free movement and social citizenship been reconciled in federal settings characterised by devolved welfare responsibilities and extensive internal diversity? The EU fails to guarantee minimum social protection rights for EU citizens migrating within the Union, as access to social assistance in countries of destination is highly conditional. This situation is very similar to historical experiences in other federations, where fear…
Comparing occupational welfare in Europe: The case of occupational pensions
The article provides an assessment to what extent reforms of occupational pensions (OP) have fostered a “risk shift” or increased social protection dualism across countries. The essay focuses on workers, whilst previous research primarily analyzed provision for current pensioners. The empirical analysis confirms that in countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden, increased private pension or (OP) provision does not necessarily lead towards soci…
National Identity Issues in the New German Elites: A Study of German University Students
This empirical study treats German university students as a rising elite. After discussing the broader sociohistorical context of German national identity in recent decades, this study analyzes (a) students’ attitudes and perceptions on issues related to nationalism, national identity, and inclusion, and (b) the extent to which the “Wall in the Mind” as a psychological chasm persists in the new post-cold war generation of West and East Germans. S…
Enforcing outsiders' rights: Seasonal agricultural workers and institutionalised exploitation in the EU
Enforcement is a crucial aspect for understanding labour market hierarchies in Europe and exploitation of mobile and migrant EU workers. Whereas most literature on intra-EU mobility and enforcement has focused on posted workers, this paper sheds light on enforcement in seasonal agriculture and forestry where posted work is very uncommon yet mobile workers overrepresented. In the EU, enforcement highly depends on Member States’ capacities. Therefo…
Globalisation, Political Discourse, and Welfare Systems in a Comparative Perspective: Germany, Japan, and the USA
The welfare state in industrialised countries is being challenged by a number of developments: the globalisation or internationalisation of the economy, changing demographics, a transformation from industrial to post-industrial economies, as well as social and cultural changes. Although all of these variables are important, this paper addresses only the effects of globalisation on social policy arrangements in the Federal Republic of Germany, Jap…
Welfare Systems in Europe and the United States: Conservative Germany Converging toward the Liberal US Model
This article demonstrates how the Conservative system of social protection in Germany has been converging toward the Liberal American model during the past two decades, focusing on social protection for the unemployed and pensioners. In addition to public/statutory provisions, occupational welfare is also covered. Despite an overall process of convergence, we continue to witness stark dissimilarities in the arrangements for social protection outs…
Globalization and the German Social Transfer State
After briefly characterising the normative foundation of the German social transfer state, the article analyses if and how far the process of globalisation was linked to social policy changes within the political discourse over the last 25 years. It is argued that social policy in general is traditionally considered to be a precondition for successful globalisation through its pacifying potential. However, ever since the first oil crisis in the 1…
Amerikanische Sozialpolitik
The Development of Social Assistance and Unemployment Insurance in Germany and Japan
Both Japan and (West) Germany were subjected to foreign “Allied”Occupation from 1945. In this fiftieth anniversary year of the ending of World War Two and the commencement of these periods of Occupation, this paper assesses and compares the impact of the latter experience on social policy development in Germany and Japan. In particular, it focusses on social assistance and unemployment insurance, on the grounds that provision for “the able‐bodied…
Grenzen von Wohlfahrtssystemen unter Bedingungen der Globalisierung
Ausgangspunkt meines Vortrages ist die Hypothese, daß eine alleinige Fokus-sierung auf die Staatstätigkeit in der Sozialpolitik den Blick auf die verschiedenen Wohlfahrtsproduzenten verdeckt und hinsichtlich der möglichen Auswirkungen der Globalisierung1 auf sozialpolitische Arrangements mitunter zu verzerrten und irreführenden Befunden fuhrt. So begrenzt der Prozeß der Globalisierung nicht notwendigerweise die staatliche Sozialpolitik. Vielmehr …
Zum Wandel wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Sicherung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Zwischen Lohnarbeit und Familie
Die aktuellen Debatten zur wohlfahrtsstaatlichen Entwicklung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland stellen den Ausgangspunkt dieser Analyse dar. Wir argumentieren, daß wir weder Zeugen eines alleinigen wohlfahrtsstaatlichen Abbaus, basierend auf einer neoliberalen Ideologie, noch Zeugen einer politischen Blockade und eines damit einhergehenden sozialpolitischen Stillstandes sind. Vielmehr deuten unsere vorläufigen Ergebnisse auf einen Wandel hin, in …
Globalization and the German Social Transfer State
After briefly characterising the normative foundation of the German social transfer state, the article analyses if and how far the process of globalisation was linked to social policy changes within the political discourse over the last 25 years. It is argued that social policy in general is traditionally considered to be a precondition for successful globalisation through its pacifying potential. However, ever since the first oil crisis in the 1…
Neubeginn oder Ende der Sozialdemokratie?: Eine Untersuchung zur programmatischen Reform sozialdemokratischer Parteien und ihrer Auswirkung auf die Parteiendifferenzthese
The Social Policies of the Red-Green Alliance in Germany
The German state is often characterized as largely resistant to substantial policy changes. Moreover, policy changes are said to follow a path-dependent and incremental pattern despite necessary substantial changes. This article scrutinizes social policy development during the first five years of the Red-Green Alliance in office from a quantitative and qualitative perspective with a special focus on old-age insurance, unemployment insurance, and …
Globalisation, Political Discourse, and Welfare Systems in a Comparative Perspective: Germany, Japan, and the USA
The welfare state in industrialised countries is being challenged by a number of developments: the globalisation or internationalisation of the economy, changing demographics, a transformation from industrial to post-industrial economies, as well as social and cultural changes. Although all of these variables are important, this paper addresses only the effects of globalisation on social policy arrangements in the Federal Republic of Germany, Jap…
A Dual Transformation of the German Welfare State
Contrary to the notion of a political blockade making comprehensive reform impossible, this article argues that we have, in fact, witnessed a dual transformation of the German welfare state during the past 25 years. Increasingly, the state reduces its commitment to securing the living standard of former wage earners, which had been the key normative principle of the German welfare state in the post-war era. At the same time, the state is expandin…
National Identity Issues in the New German Elites: A Study of German University Students
This empirical study treats German university students as a rising elite. After discussing the broader sociohistorical context of German national identity in recent decades, this study analyzes (a) students’ attitudes and perceptions on issues related to nationalism, national identity, and inclusion, and (b) the extent to which the “Wall in the Mind” as a psychological chasm persists in the new post-cold war generation of West and East Germans. S…
The Dual Transformation of the German Welfare State
This book breaks new intellectual ground in the analysis of the German welfare state. Bleses and Seeleib-Kaiser argue that we are witnessing a dual transformation of the welfare state, which is caused
What Do Parties Want? An Analysis of Programmatic Social Policy Aims in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands
Comparative welfare state research has argued for some time that whether Social Democrats or Christian Democrats are in government makes a difference with regard to specific welfare state design. The theory is based on the fact that, historically, the social policy aims of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats have differed. Can these policy differences still be assumed after almost three decades, which have been characterised by a discourse a…
Economic Globalization and the Welfare State in Affluent Democracies, 1975-2001
Previous scholarship is sharply divided over how or if globalization influences welfare states. The effects of globalization may be positive causing expansion, negative triggering crisis and reduction, curvilinear contributing to convergence, or insignificant. We bring new evidence to bear on this debate with an analysis of three welfare state measures and a comprehensive array of economic globalization indicators for 17 affluent democracies from…
Discourse, Learning and Welfare State Change: The Case of German Labour Market Reforms
In this article we argue that Germany has significantly changed its approach to labour market policies (LMPs) during the past decade; in many instances Britain has served as a model to learn from. In a first step, we identify the core institutional arrangements of the conservative approach to LMP in Germany and contrast them with the liberal approach, using the UK as an example. Secondly, we trace the development and nature of changes in German L…
Social Democratic reforms of the welfare state: Germany and the UK compared
Social Democrats regained power in the UK and Germany in the late 1990s, after long periods spent in opposition. This chapter takes stock of welfare state reforms in both countries and aims to answer whether, and how far, 10 years of Social Democratic governments have left their modern imprints on the institutional set-up of the welfare state, based on Hall’s categorisations of change. It briefly sketches out the socioeconomic conditions and inst…
Party Politics and Social Welfare: Comparing Christian and Social Democracy in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands
Christian and Social Democratic parties have been the driving force behind welfare state developments post-WWII. This valuable book investigates whether continued party differences have contributed significantly to the design of social welfare in three conservative welfare states, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, since the mid-1970s.
Welfare State Transformations in Comparative Perspective: Shifting Boundaries of ‘Public’ and ‘Private’ Social Policy?
The dividing line between the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ is not fixed, but usually contested and constantly renegotiated (cf. Shonfield, 1965). During the so-called golden era of welfare state capitalism, direct public provision of social policy was perceived as the core element for the realization of ‘social citizenship’ (Marshall, 1950), social integration or the reduction of poverty by a majority of political actors and social scientists in We…
Welfare State Transformations: Comparative Perspectives
This edited volume provides new empirical evidence of far-reaching changes to welfare states globally, which have changed the boundaries of the 'public' and 'private' domain within the mixed economies
The Political Economy of Occupational Family Policies: Comparing Workplaces in Britain and Germany
With a shift in the political debate to more market‐driven social policy approaches during the past decade, politicians in a number of European countries have argued that employers should take on greater responsibilities in the provision of social policy. But why should employers get involved? After reviewing the relevant literature on firm‐level social policy, we analyse the conditions and causal pathways that lead to their provision. Our findin…
Socio-Economic Change, Party Competition and Intra-Party Conflict: The Family Policy of the Grand Coalition
The German welfare state has historically been characterised as a prototype of the 'strong male breadwinner model'. Although there have been incremental innovations and expansions of various family policies since the mid-1980s, which accelerated during the Red-Green government of the late 1990s and early 2000s, it is argued that paradigmatic change towards an employment-oriented family policy only came about during the Grand Coalition. This artic…
United in Diversity? Comparing Social Models in Europe and America – Edited by Jens Alber and Neil Gilbert
The Dual Transformation of Social Protection and Human Capital: Comparing Britain and Germany
Between Reforms and Birth Rates: Germany, Japan, and Family Policy Discourse
This paper examines the development of employment-oriented family policy in Germany and Japan, two countries united by conservative welfare legacies and very low birthrates, through a close analysis of discourse. Why have recent reforms in Germany moved well beyond those in Japan despite remarkably similar “human capital” discourses? The relative strength of interpretative patterns—in this case, discursive patterns that successfully frame family …
Business, skills and the welfare state: The political economy of employment-oriented family policy in Britain and Germany
Family policies have been expanded in many OECD countries, whilst developments along other welfare state dimensions have been characterized by retrenchment. Although the contribution of gender analyses of the welfare state to a better understanding of family policies is widely acknowledged, the literature so far has largely failed to provide a comparative account explaining the recent expansions of employment-oriented family policies in countries…
Thematic Review: Welfare regime debate: past, present, futures
The seminal work by Esping-Andersen (1990) has transformed and inspired social policy research over the past two decades. Various contributions have confirmed his typology, while others have challenged, and expanded, it from substantive and methodological perspectives. This article contributes to this debate in two ways. First, it provides a comprehensive analysis of the different typologies proposed in the literature, employing the concept of 'i…
Political science (50 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (46 works) · Economics (38 works) · Law (34 works) · Welfare state (26 works) · Politics (25 works) · Welfare (24 works) · Law (23 works) · Political economy (21 works) · Sociology (17 works)