Susan Blum
Biographic Data
| ID | 86665 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Susan Blum |
| GIVEN NAMES | Susan |
| FAMILY NAME | Blum |
| SIGNATURE | BLUM S |
| AFFILIATIONS | FernUniversität in Hagen |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7989-7217 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 213 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
How Do Policy Narratives Evoke Emotions? An Appraisal‐Theoretic Approach
Research on policy narratives acknowledges the crucial role that emotions play within communication and sense‐making. Especially the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has placed emotion at the center of attention and stressed that affect‐imbued stories are key for how individuals make sense of the world and navigate through the policy process. Still, narrative scholars have only recently started to investigate emotions more thoroughly, and a syste…
Energized? How German and Italian Party Actors Used Emotions in Energy Policy Narratives During the 2024 EU Elections
Energy transitions pose wicked policy problems that trigger strong public responses, shaped by how emotions are used in policy communication. Within the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), policy actors leverage emotionally charged narratives to influence public opinion and policy processes. This article explores the emotional dimensions of policy communication during the 2024 European Parliament elections, a critical period for energy policy. Amid…
‘Family policy change’ and the dependent variable problem: A systematic review of theories, conceptualisations, and measurements
The ‘dependent variable problem’ remains a persistent challenge in the analysis of welfare state change, for which family policy is a prime case: it combines heterogeneous policy instruments spanning cash benefits, time-related entitlements, and services, each consisting of multiple design elements and underlying logics, making analyses of policy change sensitive to conceptual and measurement choices. Moreover, over the past two decades, as famil…
Political emotions: A New Policy Science for Tackling the Climate Crisis
The climate crisis and the policy measures intended to address it have become deeply polarized, reflecting broader political divisions. While emotions are increasingly acknowledged as central to policymaking, they are still often framed in policy debates as obstacles to rational decision-making. This persists despite substantial scholarship in political psychology showing that emotions are integral to rationality. This research note introduces th…
What defines deservingness? Specifying the criteria for target groups constructions in public policy
As policies are rarely enacted universally for the entire population, an essential part of policy design is to decide which target groups are addressed by policy benefits or burdens, and which are not. For this, next to the power position of different groups, their ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ construction has proven to be essential – famously captured in the Schneider/Ingram typology of target populations (advantaged, contenders, dependents, deviant…
How does the use of evidence in policy narratives change during crises? A comparative study of New York City's pandemic school shutdowns
Narratives play an essential role in fast-paced policy making that occurs during crises. The COVID-19 pandemic brought numerous disruptions of normality, including school closures, which were intensely debated in narratives by many policy actors. Two shutdowns of New York City's public school system affected over 1.1 million students. This article investigates how scientific evidence was used in the narratives surrounding the school shutdowns in …
Policy advisory bodies during crises: A scoping review of the Covid-19 literature in Europe
Background: The COVID-19 policy context was characterised by high levels of uncertainty, imperfect knowledge and the need for immediate action. Therefore, governments in Europe tended to rely on expertise provided by advisory bodies to design their crisis response. Advisory bodies played a fundamental part in policy making during the crisis to optimise policy formulation. Aims and objectives: During the COVID-19 crisis, the literature on policy a…
There, across the border – political scientists and their boundary-crossing work
Scholars may be diversely engaged in boundary-crossing work, either staying more confined in academic settings, or reaching out to the policy world. Despite growing theoretical attention, there is little empirical knowledge on the extent to which scholars indeed engage in boundary-crossing activities, and the conditions that foster or jeopardize this. We use original survey data from European political scientists to investigate how frequently the…
Sorry, we’re closed’: A fuzzy-set ideal-type analysis of pandemic childcare-policy responses in 28 European countries
Based on an original data set of early childhood education and care/school closures and reopenings, this article presents a fuzzy-set ideal-type analysis of pandemic childcare-policy responses in 28 European countries and explores the complex empirical variety of these policies across Europe. The analysis shows that European countries cluster into five models, comprising not only the opposite poles of strict closures (public-health approach) or a…
Out of the ivory tower: An explanation of the policy advisory roles of political scientists in Europe
The relevance and impact of political scientists’ professional activities outside of universities has become the focus of public attention, partly due to growing expectations that research should help address society’s grand challenges. One type of such activity is policy advising. However, little attention has been devoted to understanding the extent and type of policy advising activities political scientists engage in. This paper addresses this…
Research Handbook on Leave Policy: Parenting and Social Inequalities in a Global Perspective
status: Published
Setting the Stage for the Sun: Interrogations of performance of flicker
Flicker is a coordinated beat which can be superimposed on the brain’s alpha rhythm, through a flickering light source, and is associated with hallucinatory or visionary states of mind. In this experimental piece, I weave ideas and performance into a poetic image and text piece proposing some hypotheses and questions surrounding the relationship of moving bodies, the sun, and eureka moments of visions and dreams of new worlds
Failure to Perceive Change: From Neurons to Social Networks
How are evidence and policy conceptualised, and how do they connect? A qualitative systematic review of public policy literature
Background: While current public policy scholarship can take advantage of a decades-long accumulated knowledge base on the relationship between evidence and policy, it is hard to keep the overview across different literatures. Over time, the ever more differentiated branches of public policy research have developed their own perspectives, languages, and conceptualisations of ‘evidence’ and ‘policy’, as well as their connections. Aims and objectiv…
Academic policy advice in consensus-seeking countries: The cases of Belgium and Germany
Research on policy-advisory systems worldwide has shown that historically dominant sources of advice traditionally located in-house to the government have been increasingly supplemented by other actors and outside knowledge. However, the vast majority of research has concentrated on the anglophone context. Yet, countries with a consensus-seeking, neo-corporatist tradition provide a special case in terms of policy advice and merit more scholarly a…
Sozialpolitische Erzählungen – Ein Vergleich narrativer Strategien in der Finanzkrise und der Corona-Krise
Wohlfahrtsstaaten gleichen ökonomische Ungleichheiten nicht nur aus: Sie schaffen diese auch, indem sie stratifizierend wirken und verschiedenen Bevölkerungsgruppen unterschiedliche soziale Rechte gewähren. Durch Reformen werden neue soziale Rechte geschaffen oder bestehende modifiziert; es werden Gruppen neue soziale Rechte gewährt oder soziale Rechte entzogen. Für die Legitimierung sozialpolitischer Reformen – und damit einhergehend: die Reduzi…
Narrative plots for regulatory, distributive, and redistributive policies
The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has ignited a remarkably active research community, one of its main contributions being distinct narrative elements—including settings, characters, and plots. Yet, while the plot constitutes a core element of narrativity, it has received less attention vis‐à‐vis other narrative components. Existing classifications of plots have been proven to possess a great ability to capture “universal” policy stories, but n…
The lesson learned from Covid-19 and the climate crisis is not to let experts decide on policies: A response to Robert C. Schmidt
This is a response to the commentary by Robert C. Schmidt in this journal, in which the author suggests that for specific problems such as climate change or the current pandemic, decisions on policies should be made by scientific experts rather than by politicians. We argue that such ideas, which were brought up in the late 1960s and reconsidered more recently, do not take sufficient account of the nature of science politics, and their interactio…
The Inclusiveness of Social Rights: The Case of Leave Policies
This thematic issue aims to deepen the theoretical as well as empirical knowledge on the inclusiveness of social rights, focussing on the revelatory case of parenting‐related leave policies. This editorial defines (leave) inclusiveness and discusses extant research on varying entitlements and eligibility criteria in the field of parenting leaves. It summarises the conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions made by the articles in the…
Childcare-policy responses in the Covid-19 pandemic: Unpacking cross-country variation
Blum S, Dobrotić I. Childcare policy responses in the COVID-19 pandemic. Unpacking cross-country variation. European Societies . 2021;23(1):545-563
Social Investment in an Age of Austerity: A Comparison of Family Policy Reforms in Four European Countries
The focus of this article is on family policy reforms in four European countries – Austria, Finland, Portugal, and Slovenia – between 2008 and 2015. These years were marked by the ‘Great Recession’, and by the rise of the social-investment perspective. Social investment is an umbrella concept, though, and it is also somewhat ambiguous. This article distinguishes between different social-investment variants, which emerge from a focus on its intera…
A social right? Access to leave and its relation to parents’ labour market position
There is limited knowledge about eligibility for leave in general, and about leave rights of parents less securely attached to the labour market in particular. Consequently, social inequalities in access to leave rights remain hidden, which may be particularly pronounced in countries where stable employment is a principal condition to exercise leave rights. In this chapter, we develop an innovative conceptual framework based on the social rights …
Routledge Handbook of European Welfare Systems
"Published ten years after the first edition, this new handbook offers topical, and comprehensive information on the welfare systems of all twenty-eight EU member states and their recent reforms, giving the reader an invaluable introduction and basis for comparative welfare research. Additional chapters provide detailed information on EU social policy, as well as comparative analyses of European welfare systems and their reform pathways. For this…
Stories of how to give or take – towards a typology of social policy reform narratives
Narrative stories are crucial to policy change, as they decisively contribute to how policy problems and policies are defined. While this seems to apply for social policy in particular, narrative stories have remained under-researched and not systematically compared for this area. In this article, we theorise on narratives in social policy by focusing on how similarities and differences between narratives in old- and new-social-risks policy refor…
Reform narratives and argumentative coupling in German pension policy: Constructing the ‘deserving retiree’
German pension policy experienced a shift in the early 2000s, when public pensions were cut back, the retirement age raised, and private, publicly subsidized pension provision stipulated. Within a coherent reform narrative, those reforms were grounded on arguments of a ‘demographic time bomb’, a no-longer-affordable public pension scheme, and the return potential of private pension funds. Yet this narrative was delegitimized quickly with zero-rat…
Invited Forum: "Bridging the "Language Gap
This Forum provides a range of voices on the Language Gap, as our aim is to shed light on the need for more critical dialogue to accompany the proliferation of political initiatives, policymaking, educational programs, and media coverage. We highlight some relevant background on the Language Gap and describe some of the research used to support the concept. The diverse slate of Forum contributions that we have assembled approach the Language Gap …
Inclusiveness of Parental-Leave Benefits in Twenty-One European Countries: Measuring Social and Gender Inequalities in Leave Eligibility
This article analyzes eligibility for parental-leave benefits in twenty-one European countries. It distinguishes four ideal-type approaches to how leave-related benefits are granted (in-)dependent of parents’ labor market position: universal parenthood model, selective parenthood model, universal adult-worker model, and selective adult-worker model. An eligibility index is created to measure the inclusiveness of parental-leave benefits, alongside…
Narrative plots for regulatory, distributive, and redistributive policies
The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has ignited a remarkably active research community, one of its main contributions being distinct narrative elements—including settings, characters, and plots. Yet, while the plot constitutes a core element of narrativity, it has received less attention vis‐à‐vis other narrative components. Existing classifications of plots have been proven to possess a great ability to capture “universal” policy stories, but n…
Childcare-policy responses in the Covid-19 pandemic: Unpacking cross-country variation
Blum S, Dobrotić I. Childcare policy responses in the COVID-19 pandemic. Unpacking cross-country variation. European Societies . 2021;23(1):545-563
Stories of how to give or take – towards a typology of social policy reform narratives
Narrative stories are crucial to policy change, as they decisively contribute to how policy problems and policies are defined. While this seems to apply for social policy in particular, narrative stories have remained under-researched and not systematically compared for this area. In this article, we theorise on narratives in social policy by focusing on how similarities and differences between narratives in old- and new-social-risks policy refor…
Academic policy advice in consensus-seeking countries: The cases of Belgium and Germany
Research on policy-advisory systems worldwide has shown that historically dominant sources of advice traditionally located in-house to the government have been increasingly supplemented by other actors and outside knowledge. However, the vast majority of research has concentrated on the anglophone context. Yet, countries with a consensus-seeking, neo-corporatist tradition provide a special case in terms of policy advice and merit more scholarly a…
The Multiple‐Streams Framework and Knowledge Utilization: Argumentative Couplings of Problem, Policy, and Politics Issues
Two problems are discussed in the—surprisingly unconnected—literatures on the multiple‐streams framework ( MSF ) and on knowledge utilization. In the MSF , the concept of coupling has been overlooked, namely the mechanisms of linking between the problem, policy, and politics streams. In the knowledge‐utilization literature, it is discussed whether political–strategic issues are the preserve of policy‐makers, or also considered by scientific exper…
Family Policies in ‘Hybrid’ Welfare States after the Crisis: Pathways between Policy Expansion and Retrenchment
The economic crisis has significantly challenged national welfare states and has often led to retrenchment. The question arises how countries have reacted to the crisis in the area of family policy – not directly connected to rising unemployment and also not as demanding for state spending as for example the pension system. This article analyzes family policy reforms during the crisis in three small European welfare states – A ustria, the C zech …
No need to reinvent the wheel: Family policy transfers in Germany and Austria
Family policies have recently been raised high on the political agendas for action in many welfare states and have constituted a major reform area. This is especially the case in Germany and in Austria, where the literature has identified surprisingly far-reaching reforms, particularly in the fields of parental leave and childcare services. This article addresses the observation that there has not only been an intensive exchange between these two…
How does the use of evidence in policy narratives change during crises? A comparative study of New York City's pandemic school shutdowns
Narratives play an essential role in fast-paced policy making that occurs during crises. The COVID-19 pandemic brought numerous disruptions of normality, including school closures, which were intensely debated in narratives by many policy actors. Two shutdowns of New York City's public school system affected over 1.1 million students. This article investigates how scientific evidence was used in the narratives surrounding the school shutdowns in …
How are evidence and policy conceptualised, and how do they connect? A qualitative systematic review of public policy literature
Background: While current public policy scholarship can take advantage of a decades-long accumulated knowledge base on the relationship between evidence and policy, it is hard to keep the overview across different literatures. Over time, the ever more differentiated branches of public policy research have developed their own perspectives, languages, and conceptualisations of ‘evidence’ and ‘policy’, as well as their connections. Aims and objectiv…
What defines deservingness? Specifying the criteria for target groups constructions in public policy
As policies are rarely enacted universally for the entire population, an essential part of policy design is to decide which target groups are addressed by policy benefits or burdens, and which are not. For this, next to the power position of different groups, their ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ construction has proven to be essential – famously captured in the Schneider/Ingram typology of target populations (advantaged, contenders, dependents, deviant…
Sorry, we’re closed’: A fuzzy-set ideal-type analysis of pandemic childcare-policy responses in 28 European countries
Based on an original data set of early childhood education and care/school closures and reopenings, this article presents a fuzzy-set ideal-type analysis of pandemic childcare-policy responses in 28 European countries and explores the complex empirical variety of these policies across Europe. The analysis shows that European countries cluster into five models, comprising not only the opposite poles of strict closures (public-health approach) or a…
Reform narratives and argumentative coupling in German pension policy: Constructing the ‘deserving retiree’
German pension policy experienced a shift in the early 2000s, when public pensions were cut back, the retirement age raised, and private, publicly subsidized pension provision stipulated. Within a coherent reform narrative, those reforms were grounded on arguments of a ‘demographic time bomb’, a no-longer-affordable public pension scheme, and the return potential of private pension funds. Yet this narrative was delegitimized quickly with zero-rat…
Radical Reform Or Piecemeal Adjustments? The Case of Finnish Family Policy Reforms
Since the economic crisis, many welfare states reformed their social security systems to cut social expenditure, even in policy fields protecting the most vulnerable, such as family policy. Using qualitative content analysis, this article systematically examines reforms pursued in Finnish family policy 2007–2017, and establishes the direction and magnitude of these reforms. The result show that these fields were frequently reformed, containing bo…
Political emotions: A New Policy Science for Tackling the Climate Crisis
The climate crisis and the policy measures intended to address it have become deeply polarized, reflecting broader political divisions. While emotions are increasingly acknowledged as central to policymaking, they are still often framed in policy debates as obstacles to rational decision-making. This persists despite substantial scholarship in political psychology showing that emotions are integral to rationality. This research note introduces th…
Sozialpolitische Erzählungen – Ein Vergleich narrativer Strategien in der Finanzkrise und der Corona-Krise
Wohlfahrtsstaaten gleichen ökonomische Ungleichheiten nicht nur aus: Sie schaffen diese auch, indem sie stratifizierend wirken und verschiedenen Bevölkerungsgruppen unterschiedliche soziale Rechte gewähren. Durch Reformen werden neue soziale Rechte geschaffen oder bestehende modifiziert; es werden Gruppen neue soziale Rechte gewährt oder soziale Rechte entzogen. Für die Legitimierung sozialpolitischer Reformen – und damit einhergehend: die Reduzi…
There, across the border – political scientists and their boundary-crossing work
Scholars may be diversely engaged in boundary-crossing work, either staying more confined in academic settings, or reaching out to the policy world. Despite growing theoretical attention, there is little empirical knowledge on the extent to which scholars indeed engage in boundary-crossing activities, and the conditions that foster or jeopardize this. We use original survey data from European political scientists to investigate how frequently the…
The Inclusiveness of Social Rights: The Case of Leave Policies
This thematic issue aims to deepen the theoretical as well as empirical knowledge on the inclusiveness of social rights, focussing on the revelatory case of parenting‐related leave policies. This editorial defines (leave) inclusiveness and discusses extant research on varying entitlements and eligibility criteria in the field of parenting leaves. It summarises the conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions made by the articles in the…
Social Investment in an Age of Austerity: A Comparison of Family Policy Reforms in Four European Countries
The focus of this article is on family policy reforms in four European countries – Austria, Finland, Portugal, and Slovenia – between 2008 and 2015. These years were marked by the ‘Great Recession’, and by the rise of the social-investment perspective. Social investment is an umbrella concept, though, and it is also somewhat ambiguous. This article distinguishes between different social-investment variants, which emerge from a focus on its intera…
The role of discourse in family policy reform: The case of Finland
Since 2010 and the onset of the economic crisis, Finnish governments have pressed for structural reforms, including unpopular cuts to family benefits and services. This article analyses the government discourse used for legitimating some of these reforms: the cutbacks in child benefit and the restriction of full-time childcare. It also assesses whether this discourse bore the hallmarks of a neoliberal austerity discourse, which could suggest that…
Wer hat Zugang zu Elterngeld? Soziale Rechte und Anspruchsbedingungen in vergleichender Perspektive
Die vergleichende Forschung hat sich bislang mit den Anspruchsbedingungen für Elterngeldleistungen, v. a. aber mit den Rechtsansprüchen von Eltern mit geringerer Arbeitsmarktbindung, wenig auseinandergesetzt. Hierdurch blieben soziale Ungleichheiten beim Zugang zu Elterngeld weitgehend unerforscht. Sie sind insbesondere in denjenigen Ländern von Bedeutung, in denen Elterngeldansprüche an eine bestimmte Form oder Dauer des Beschäftigungsverhältnis…
The Handbook of European Welfare Systems
Familienpolitik als Reformprozess: Deutschland und Österreich im Vergleich
Die Familienpolitik stellte während der letzten Jahre sowohl in Deutschland als auch in Österreich eines der Politikfelder mit der höchsten Reformtätigkeit dar. Für die vergleichende Wohlfahrtsstaatsforschung kam dies überraschend, war doch regelmäßig auf die Reformunfähigkeit der sogenannten konservativen, familialistischen Wohlfahrtsstaaten v.a. im Bereich neuer sozialer Risiken wie der Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf hingewiesen worden. Wi…
Family Policies in ‘Hybrid’ Welfare States after the Crisis: Pathways between Policy Expansion and Retrenchment
The economic crisis has significantly challenged national welfare states and has often led to retrenchment. The question arises how countries have reacted to the crisis in the area of family policy – not directly connected to rising unemployment and also not as demanding for state spending as for example the pension system. This article analyzes family policy reforms during the crisis in three small European welfare states – A ustria, the C zech …
No need to reinvent the wheel: Family policy transfers in Germany and Austria
Family policies have recently been raised high on the political agendas for action in many welfare states and have constituted a major reform area. This is especially the case in Germany and in Austria, where the literature has identified surprisingly far-reaching reforms, particularly in the fields of parental leave and childcare services. This article addresses the observation that there has not only been an intensive exchange between these two…
Invited Forum: "Bridging the "Language Gap
This Forum provides a range of voices on the Language Gap, as our aim is to shed light on the need for more critical dialogue to accompany the proliferation of political initiatives, policymaking, educational programs, and media coverage. We highlight some relevant background on the Language Gap and describe some of the research used to support the concept. The diverse slate of Forum contributions that we have assembled approach the Language Gap …
Opening Up Opportunities and Risks? Retrenchment, Activation and Targeting as Main Trends of Recent Welfare State Reforms Across Europe
Crisis? What Crisis? Restructuring the German Welfare System in Times of Unexpected Prosperity
Familienpolitik
The Multiple‐Streams Framework and Knowledge Utilization: Argumentative Couplings of Problem, Policy, and Politics Issues
Two problems are discussed in the—surprisingly unconnected—literatures on the multiple‐streams framework ( MSF ) and on knowledge utilization. In the MSF , the concept of coupling has been overlooked, namely the mechanisms of linking between the problem, policy, and politics streams. In the knowledge‐utilization literature, it is discussed whether political–strategic issues are the preserve of policy‐makers, or also considered by scientific exper…
Radical Reform Or Piecemeal Adjustments? The Case of Finnish Family Policy Reforms
Since the economic crisis, many welfare states reformed their social security systems to cut social expenditure, even in policy fields protecting the most vulnerable, such as family policy. Using qualitative content analysis, this article systematically examines reforms pursued in Finnish family policy 2007–2017, and establishes the direction and magnitude of these reforms. The result show that these fields were frequently reformed, containing bo…
The role of discourse in family policy reform: The case of Finland
Since 2010 and the onset of the economic crisis, Finnish governments have pressed for structural reforms, including unpopular cuts to family benefits and services. This article analyses the government discourse used for legitimating some of these reforms: the cutbacks in child benefit and the restriction of full-time childcare. It also assesses whether this discourse bore the hallmarks of a neoliberal austerity discourse, which could suggest that…
Wer hat Zugang zu Elterngeld? Soziale Rechte und Anspruchsbedingungen in vergleichender Perspektive
Die vergleichende Forschung hat sich bislang mit den Anspruchsbedingungen für Elterngeldleistungen, v. a. aber mit den Rechtsansprüchen von Eltern mit geringerer Arbeitsmarktbindung, wenig auseinandergesetzt. Hierdurch blieben soziale Ungleichheiten beim Zugang zu Elterngeld weitgehend unerforscht. Sie sind insbesondere in denjenigen Ländern von Bedeutung, in denen Elterngeldansprüche an eine bestimmte Form oder Dauer des Beschäftigungsverhältnis…
A social right? Access to leave and its relation to parents’ labour market position
There is limited knowledge about eligibility for leave in general, and about leave rights of parents less securely attached to the labour market in particular. Consequently, social inequalities in access to leave rights remain hidden, which may be particularly pronounced in countries where stable employment is a principal condition to exercise leave rights. In this chapter, we develop an innovative conceptual framework based on the social rights …
Routledge Handbook of European Welfare Systems
"Published ten years after the first edition, this new handbook offers topical, and comprehensive information on the welfare systems of all twenty-eight EU member states and their recent reforms, giving the reader an invaluable introduction and basis for comparative welfare research. Additional chapters provide detailed information on EU social policy, as well as comparative analyses of European welfare systems and their reform pathways. For this…
Stories of how to give or take – towards a typology of social policy reform narratives
Narrative stories are crucial to policy change, as they decisively contribute to how policy problems and policies are defined. While this seems to apply for social policy in particular, narrative stories have remained under-researched and not systematically compared for this area. In this article, we theorise on narratives in social policy by focusing on how similarities and differences between narratives in old- and new-social-risks policy refor…
Reform narratives and argumentative coupling in German pension policy: Constructing the ‘deserving retiree’
German pension policy experienced a shift in the early 2000s, when public pensions were cut back, the retirement age raised, and private, publicly subsidized pension provision stipulated. Within a coherent reform narrative, those reforms were grounded on arguments of a ‘demographic time bomb’, a no-longer-affordable public pension scheme, and the return potential of private pension funds. Yet this narrative was delegitimized quickly with zero-rat…
Inclusiveness of Parental-Leave Benefits in Twenty-One European Countries: Measuring Social and Gender Inequalities in Leave Eligibility
This article analyzes eligibility for parental-leave benefits in twenty-one European countries. It distinguishes four ideal-type approaches to how leave-related benefits are granted (in-)dependent of parents’ labor market position: universal parenthood model, selective parenthood model, universal adult-worker model, and selective adult-worker model. An eligibility index is created to measure the inclusiveness of parental-leave benefits, alongside…
Childcare-policy responses in the Covid-19 pandemic: Unpacking cross-country variation
Blum S, Dobrotić I. Childcare policy responses in the COVID-19 pandemic. Unpacking cross-country variation. European Societies . 2021;23(1):545-563
Social Investment in an Age of Austerity: A Comparison of Family Policy Reforms in Four European Countries
The focus of this article is on family policy reforms in four European countries – Austria, Finland, Portugal, and Slovenia – between 2008 and 2015. These years were marked by the ‘Great Recession’, and by the rise of the social-investment perspective. Social investment is an umbrella concept, though, and it is also somewhat ambiguous. This article distinguishes between different social-investment variants, which emerge from a focus on its intera…
Narrative plots for regulatory, distributive, and redistributive policies
The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has ignited a remarkably active research community, one of its main contributions being distinct narrative elements—including settings, characters, and plots. Yet, while the plot constitutes a core element of narrativity, it has received less attention vis‐à‐vis other narrative components. Existing classifications of plots have been proven to possess a great ability to capture “universal” policy stories, but n…
The lesson learned from Covid-19 and the climate crisis is not to let experts decide on policies: A response to Robert C. Schmidt
This is a response to the commentary by Robert C. Schmidt in this journal, in which the author suggests that for specific problems such as climate change or the current pandemic, decisions on policies should be made by scientific experts rather than by politicians. We argue that such ideas, which were brought up in the late 1960s and reconsidered more recently, do not take sufficient account of the nature of science politics, and their interactio…
The Inclusiveness of Social Rights: The Case of Leave Policies
This thematic issue aims to deepen the theoretical as well as empirical knowledge on the inclusiveness of social rights, focussing on the revelatory case of parenting‐related leave policies. This editorial defines (leave) inclusiveness and discusses extant research on varying entitlements and eligibility criteria in the field of parenting leaves. It summarises the conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions made by the articles in the…
Research Handbook on Leave Policy: Parenting and Social Inequalities in a Global Perspective
status: Published
Setting the Stage for the Sun: Interrogations of performance of flicker
Flicker is a coordinated beat which can be superimposed on the brain’s alpha rhythm, through a flickering light source, and is associated with hallucinatory or visionary states of mind. In this experimental piece, I weave ideas and performance into a poetic image and text piece proposing some hypotheses and questions surrounding the relationship of moving bodies, the sun, and eureka moments of visions and dreams of new worlds
Failure to Perceive Change: From Neurons to Social Networks
Political science (31 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (22 works) · Economics (21 works) · Law (19 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Policy Transfer and Learning (11 works) · Public Administration (11 works) · Welfare (11 works) · Politics (10 works)