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Authors:Sergiu Delcea Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. As one of the most potent hypothesis in political economy, the negative impact of ethnic diversity on the provision of public goods made the welfare state–nation state isomorphism seem a one-way connection. Against the grain of existing studies I argue, through a case-study of interwar Romania, that welfare states are constructed to proactively (re)build the nation, rather than retroactively emanate from it, once established. Rather than an ahistorical ethnolinguistic fractionalization, the article takes nationhood as historically fluid and contested because through institutionalized action, elites can and do proactively revamp the political arena, redistributing coalitions of winners and losers based on exogenously given criteria. The article therefore shows that nation forgers typically internalize the global social question through the topoi of local socio-economic problems construed as a national question. Because elites can pick and choose who becomes part of the national compact, the politicization of the perception of incomplete nationhood provides a sufficient ideational thrust for welfare policymaking, irrespective of pre-existing national solidarities. Consequently, welfare policies are typically layered as remedial or compensatory policies designed to foster a specific social mobility, deemed in a top-down fashion to be completing the nation. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-10-08T11:42:24Z DOI: 10.1177/09589287211035700
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Authors:Dennie Oude Nijhuis Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. According to the conventional view of over three decades of research on the welfare state, the postwar success of solidaristic welfare reform depended on the left’s ability to ‘tailor’ to middle-class interests or at least ‘synthesize’ working- and middle-class demands. This article offers a different perspective on the dynamics of postwar solidaristic welfare reform. It argues that key middle-class groups such as skilled wage earners often had a strong incentive to oppose such reform but were not always well-positioned to do so. The article distinguishes between two main avenues through which they could exert political influence and argues that their ability to mobilize against solidaristic welfare reform depended primarily on the structure of the labour union movement. The article illustrates its claims by contrasting the postwar success of solidaristic old-age pension reform in Belgium and the Netherlands with its failure in Britain and Germany. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-08-14T12:15:13Z DOI: 10.1177/09589287211035686
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Authors:Niccolo Durazzi, Leonard Geyer Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. This thematic review essay focuses on the relationship between social inclusion and collective skill formation systems. It briefly surveys foundational literature in comparative political economy and comparative social policy that documented and explained the traditionally socially inclusive nature of these systems. It reviews how the literature conceptualized the current challenges faced by collective skill formation systems in upholding their inclusive nature in the context of the transition to post-industrial societies. It then discusses in detail a recent strand of literature that investigates the policy responses that have been deployed across countries to deal with these challenges. It concludes by providing heuristics that may be useful for researchers who seek to advance the study of the policy and politics of social inclusion in collective skill formation systems. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-08-13T04:04:58Z DOI: 10.1177/09589287211035699
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Authors:Borbála Kovács Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. A decade of writing on the politics of flat-rate tax adoption and diffusion across post-socialist Europe and Asia has presented these reforms as revolutionary, but at least bold. However, in what ways they might have proven so and for whom has not been investigated. Based on a micro-level study of actual personal income tax rates for the 1991–2018 period, the article engages critically with the scope of the flat tax ‘revolution’ in three different flat tax nations, early adopter Lithuania, later-adopter Romania and recent-adopter Hungary. The analysis shows that the introduction of flat-rate tax in no way revolutionised actual tax burdens for the majority of earners, not even for high-income earners, whose tax burdens had been declining for at least a decade before the arrival of flat tax in both Romania and Hungary. The article also reveals the crucial role played by standard tax credits in shaping tax regime progressivity not only in flat tax regimes, but also progressive ones. The article suggests that the novelty of policy ideas cannot be assumed, but needs to rest on comparisons of outcomes. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-08-13T02:08:01Z DOI: 10.1177/09589287211035707
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Authors:Gianna Maria Eick, Christian Albrekt Larsen Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. The article theorises how covering social risks through cash transfers and in-kind services shapes public attitudes towards including/excluding immigrants from these programmes in Western European destination countries. The argument is that public attitudes are more restrictive of granting immigrants access to benefits than to services. This hypothesis is tested across ten social protection programmes using original survey data collected in Denmark, Germany and the UK in 2019. Across the three countries, representing respectively a social democratic, conservative and liberal welfare regime context, the article finds that the public does indeed have a preference for easier access for in-kind services than for cash benefits. The article also finds these results to be stable across programmes covering the same social risks; the examples are child benefits and childcare. The results are even stable across left-wing, mainstream and radical right-wing voters; with the partial exception of radical right-wing voters in the UK. Finally, the article finds only a moderate association between individual characteristics and attitudinal variation across cash benefits and in-kind services. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-07-06T09:46:10Z DOI: 10.1177/09589287211023047
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Authors:Patrik Vesan, Pamela Pansardi First page: 365 Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. This article presents an original analysis of the social policy discourse at the European Union level by focusing on the language used by European Commission Presidents when addressing social issues. Through an empirical analysis based on a semi-supervised machine learning approach, we consider the entire corpus of speeches made by Barroso and Juncker from 2010 to 2018 and we classify all sentences according to three possible variants of social policy language: social-retrenchment, social-investment and rights-based language. We argue that the focus on these languages allows us to understand whether the ‘fiscal consolidation discipline’ narrative, which dominated in the aftermath of the Great Recession, has been challenged over the years by the recourse to alternative ‘social policy images’. The results confirm a significant shift in the overall configuration of social policy discourse between Barroso and Juncker. This shift has been mainly characterized by an increase in the use of rights-based language and a decrease in the use of social-retrenchment language, which however has not been completely abandoned. Therefore, the recalibration of EC’s speeches on social policy has not been abrupt but has instead been incremental. The article concludes by discussing preliminary interpretations of the observed trends and their potential implications in terms of ‘discursive legacy’ in the post-pandemic era. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-04-15T10:12:29Z DOI: 10.1177/0958928721999596
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Authors:Dion Kramer, Anita Heindlmaier First page: 380 Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. How to determine whether mobile Union citizens have a right to social assistance' Research has shown how Western European Member States have made efforts to restrict Union citizens’ access to their welfare systems over the past decade, whereby lawful residence has increasingly become the linchpin for entitlement. Member States have responded strikingly differently, however, to the complex administrative puzzle of dealing with open borders, the ability to verify lawful residence and the right to social assistance over time. This article makes an analytical and empirical contribution to existing literature by asking how Member States adjust their welfare/migration administrations to fit the Union’s free movement regime and what implications this has for Union citizens. Based upon comparative case studies into the administration of social assistance rights in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, the article develops a typology of three different models of administering Union citizens’ access to the welfare state: the form, signal and delegation models. Demonstrating how bureaucratic design impacts the stratification of social rights in the Member States in different ways, the article concludes that studying alternative administrative models offers important insights into the functioning of territorial welfare states in open border regimes. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-04-12T07:25:19Z DOI: 10.1177/0958928721999612
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Authors:Frederic De Wispelaere, Gabriella Berki First page: 424 Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. In line with the genuine spirit of scientific research, notably cultivating discussion, we make some reflections on the article of Stan et al. The main purpose of our commentary is to nuance but also to refute some of their observations and conclusions. First, the original purpose of both the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) and of the European legal framework it forms part of seem to have been overlooked. Therefore, we argue that the assumption made by the authors, which served as the basis of the article, namely the European legislature’s promise the EHIC would contribute to European social integration, is erroneous. Second, we argue that there is insufficient evidence that the EHIC would amplify social inequalities across regions and classes. One could even argue that the EHIC is a visual symbol of the social dimension of the European Union. In practice, not only the EHIC but also the reimbursement principles as defined under the Coordination Regulations 883/2004 and 987/2009 are of great importance. Without these rules, there would be a major barrier for all EU citizens in terms of access and affordability of unplanned necessary cross-border healthcare, and consequently to the free movement of persons. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-07-02T01:14:08Z DOI: 10.1177/09589287211023046
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Authors:Sabina Stan, Roland Erne First page: 432 Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. We are pleased to discuss our study on the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) and the redistributive effects of EHIC-related east–west patient and payment flows across regions and social classes. Our critics confirm our key finding: EHIC patient outflows from Eastern European (EE) to Western European (WE) countries result in a much higher relative burden for the budgets of EE states than outflows from WE to EE do for WE countries. Starting from what they see as the true mission of social security coordination, however, they also tell us that we should never have studied the redistributive impact of EHIC patient and payment flows in the first place. In this response, we therefore explicate the differences between our empirical sociological perspective and our critics’ normative legal approach. This is important, especially when social facts contradict normative legal assumptions as in our case. The EU laws that govern EHIC patient and payment flows are indeed based on the free movement provisions of the EU’s internal market project, but our empirical findings show that the promise of ‘economic, social and territorial cohesion, and solidarity among Member States’ contained in Article 3.3 of the Treaty of the European Union is not realized in practice in the case of east–west EHIC payment flows and patient mobility. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-10-04T09:57:50Z DOI: 10.1177/09589287211031815
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Authors:Takayuki Sakamoto First page: 440 Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. Scholars and policymakers who call for social investment (SI) policies hope that SI policies reduce income inequality and poverty, among other policy goals. Meanwhile, some others point out potentially less pro-poor effects of SI policies. There are relatively few cross-national studies that empirically examine the distributional effects of SI policies. The current study seeks to fill the gap by investigating the effects of SI policies on income inequality in OECD countries. The empirical analysis finds mixed results. Parental leave benefits reduce market income inequality, but other family support policies do not lessen inequality, and family allowances and paid leave (the length of generous leave) even increase it. The effects of some family policies are partly context-specific. In contexts where there are a large number of single-mother households, parental leave benefits reduce market income inequality. There is no stable evidence that education and active labour market policy (ALMP) reduce market income inequality. Education and ALMP, however, reduce disposable income inequality (even after controlling for left governments and Nordic countries). The article suggests that in countries with high education and/or ALMP spending, the skills of workers towards the lower end of the income distribution may be relatively high (even though their pre-tax and transfer income may be low), and it may make their income salvageable with redistributive policies. In this sense, SI policies and conventional redistributive policies may be complementary in reducing disposable income inequality. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-07-16T09:35:16Z DOI: 10.1177/09589287211018146
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Authors:Zhen Jie Im, Kathrin Komp-Leukkunen First page: 457 Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. Automation has permeated workplaces and threatens labour in the production process. Concurrently, European governments have expanded workfare which imposes stringent conditions and sanctions on unemployed workers after the onset of austerity. We explore how automation risk affects workfare support. Recent research finds that most routine workers ‘survive’ in their routine jobs. Despite avoiding unemployment, routine workers may face the threat of status decline as automation erodes the value of routine work. They may respond by differentiating themselves from lower-ranked social groups such as unemployed workers. Such boundary drawing may manifest views that the unemployed are less deserving of welfare. We thus posit that routine workers may support workfare to assuage their fears of status decline. We further explore if worsening economic hardship, proxied as rising unemployment rates over time, increases their support for workfare. We conducted pooled and multilevel analyses using data from the European Social Survey. We find that routine workers significantly support workfare. We also find that routine workers support workfare when economic hardship worsens, but oppose it when conditions ameliorate. Findings suggest that status threat is an important channel by which automation risk may affect workfare support, but its impact depends on social context, hence yielding country-differences. Worsening economic hardship may exacerbate routine workers’ status decline fears, and intensify their harsh views against unemployed workers. Automation risk may thus have a greater impact on workfare support under such conditions. Policymakers can use these findings to assess how workfare may be publicly received and under various economic conditions. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-04-15T10:12:08Z DOI: 10.1177/09589287211002432
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Authors:Roos van der Zwan, Paul de Beer First page: 473 Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Ahead of Print. Across Europe, the labour market participation of persons with disabilities remains lower than that of persons without a disability. Our research examines this disability employment gap, looking specifically at its variation by country and gender. Additionally, we test the influence of labour market policies – testing both the social investment perspective and the welfare scepticism perspective – on the size of the gap, in an effort to determine whether a more generous welfare state raises or lowers the employment rate of people with disabilities. Using the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), we show that Southern European countries have the smallest disability employment gap. Whereas stricter employment protection legislation is found to be beneficial for people with disabilities on the labour market, other labour market policies specifically intended to benefit this group do not strongly affect their chances on the labour market. These findings support the social investment perspective and show that social policies can have a positive effect on the employment of people with disabilities. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2021-04-12T07:25:39Z DOI: 10.1177/09589287211002435
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Authors:Anna Simola, Sirpa Wrede Pages: 395 - 408 Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Volume 31, Issue 4, Page 395-408, October 2021. Young EU citizens are encouraged to enhance their ‘employability’ by taking advantage of intra-EU mobility, but, for many, moving to another EU country can instead generate disadvantages in the labour market. Drawing on a qualitative study on the experiences of university-educated young Nordics and southern Europeans working in precarious jobs in Brussels, we examine how their access to income support in the context of mobility shapes their access to financial independence. We argue that the variation in European welfare models regarding young peoples’ social entitlements impacts this access in multiple and complex ways. The article advances a tripartite approach that looks at the regulation and enforcement of conditionality of social entitlements on the levels of EU, their country of origin and their country of destination. The analysis shows how, in Belgium, precarious EU migrant citizens are denied access to income support due to the interplay between general welfare conditionality for all claimants and recently reinforced conditionality affecting EU migrant citizens in particular. In these situations, the de-familialising Nordic welfare models showed an aptitude for shielding their young citizens. The young southern Europeans, on the other hand, often had no access to income support in any country, which forced them to choose between family dependency and unfiltered exposure to precarity. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2020-09-10T06:13:13Z DOI: 10.1177/0958928720950625 Issue No:Vol. 31, No. 4 (2020)
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Authors:Sabina Stan, Roland Erne, Susan Gannon Pages: 409 - 423 Abstract: Journal of European Social Policy, Volume 31, Issue 4, Page 409-423, October 2021. Although the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) was meant to bring Europeans together, this study shows that it is amplifying social inequalities across regions and classes. First, we evaluate the effects of east–west EHIC mobility, and of Eastern Europeans’ participation in it, on the practice of EU social citizenship rights to access cross-border care along spatial (east–west) and social class divides. We then assess the impact of these mobilities on healthcare resources in Western and Eastern Europe. Our findings show that the EHIC reinforces rather than reduces the spatially and socially uneven access to social citizenship rights to cross-border care. Moreover, EHIC patient outflows from Eastern to Western Europe result in a much higher relative financial burden for the budgets of Eastern European states than outflows from Western to Eastern Europe do for Western European countries. As a result, east–west EHIC mobility is reproducing rather than reversing healthcare inequalities between the two regions. Hence, the EHIC does not fulfil its promise of European social integration – not, however, because it creates a burden on Western European welfare states as often argued in Eurosceptic tabloids, but because it increases social inequalities both inside and between richer and poorer EU member states. Citation: Journal of European Social Policy PubDate: 2020-12-07T07:03:19Z DOI: 10.1177/0958928720974188 Issue No:Vol. 31, No. 4 (2020)
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