66710 - Political Economy Of Welfare Systems

Learning outcomes

The course is designed to explore the frontiers of interaction between politics and markets. At the end of the course, students will be able to understand the factors underlying cross national variation in economic performance and income inequality by investigating the ways in which the international economy affects state autonomy, the welfare state and the politics of income redistribution. Students will also be able to critically assess two questions: To what extent do differences in institutional settings shape fundamentally different models of democratic capitalism? What is the role of institutions, firms and labour unions in determining the different arrangements we find in capitalist countries?

Course contents

Political economy of welfare systems

2021-2022

This course examines cross-national evolution and variation in welfare states in industrialized countries and especially in Europe. The course is structured around three questions: How do we compare the political economy of welfare states? Why do countries differ in their welfare states models? To what extent do differences in institutional settings, coalition politics and economic systems shape fundamentally different models of welfare states? The methodology is comparative and the focus is on theoretical models.

Course Procedure

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (18 hours) introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Seminars (10 hours) centered on in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises. In the seminars, students will be divided into two groups according to their preferences and according to rules concerning the current pandemic emergency: one group will do the seminar A in classroom (10 hours) and another group will do the seminar B online (10 hours) on alternate days. Lectures and seminars add up to 28 hours for each student. Students should carefully read the required material before the lecture; during the seminars, active participation through presentations of existing scholarship and case studies will be expected. Regardless of the health-related conditions and the specific organization of the course, students will be able to follow the lessons of the entire course remotely on MS TEAMS.

Course Evaluation

Each student should read the 'required readings' for each class and seminar. ‘Further reading’ is intended to provide background introduction to the main readings. During the classes and seminars, every week students’ group should hand in one question for discussion.

Class participation 10% grade

Student presentation 25% grade

Written paper 65% grade. Deadline for written paper:15 January 2022

Paper: 5000 words maximum, inclusive of abstract and bibliography.

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student will be able to:

• Compare welfare states
• Understand the challenges to the welfare state
• Plan and write a research paper using the Luxembourg Income Study Dataset

Textbooks

Castles, F., Leibfried, S., Lewis, J., Obinger, H., Pierson, C. (eds.) 2010. The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, Oxford University Press (OHWS) (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Greve, B. (ed.) 2018. Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State, 2nd Edition

Pierson,C. Castles, F. and I.K.Naumann (eds.) 2014. The welfare state reader, Polity Press (and some chapters in 1st edition 2000).

Background reading

Garland, D. 2016. The Welfare State: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press.

Lecture topics

1. Historical foundations of the welfare state

   Required reading

   Briggs, A. Welfare State in Historical Perspective, in Reader, 2014. (originally published in European Journal of Sociology, Vol. 2, n. 2: 221-258, 1961 https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.unibo.it/stable/23987939 ).

   Further reading

   Ravallion, M. 2015. The Idea of Antipoverty Policy, in A.B.Atkinson and F.Bourguignon, eds. Handbook of Income Distribution, North Holland, Vol. 2B, chapter 22.

2. Comparing welfare states models

   Required reading

   Esping-Andersen, G. Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, in Reader, 2014.

   Arts, W. and Gelissen, J. 2010. Models of the Welfare State. In Castles, F.G. et al. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State. Oxford University Press, 569-583. (available on UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

   Further reading

   Alesina, A. Glaeser, E. and B. Sacerdote, 2001. Why Doesn’t the United States Have a European Style Welfare State? Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2,187-277.

   Mulè, R. 2016. The South European Welfare State in the New Millennium. Challenges, constraints and prospects for Europeanization, in World Economy and International Relations, 7, 25-36.

   Deacon, B. 2000. Eastern European welfare states: the impact of the politics of globalization, Journal of European Social Policy, 10, 146-161.

   Sotiropoulos D., Neamtu I., Stoyanova M. 2003. The Trajectory of Post-communist Welfare State Development: The Cases of Bulgaria and Romania, Social Policy and Administration, 37.

   Peng I. and J. Wong, East Asia, in OHWS

   Daly, M. (2019). Ireland: The Welfare State and the Crisis. In M. Daly, Welfare and the Great Recession (pp. 115–131). Oxford University Press.

3. Gender and the welfare state

   Required reading

   Orloff, A.S. Gender, in OHWS, chp. 17. (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

   Further reading

   Sainsbury, D. (ed). 1999. Gender and welfare state regimes, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

   Gornick, J. C., and J. A. Jacobs. 1998. Gender, The Welfare State, and Public Employment: A Comparative Study of Seven Industrialized Countries. American Sociological Review 63, 5: 688-710. (Originally Luxembourg Income Study Working Paper 168, 1997).

   Mulè, R. and O. Dubrovina, 2019. Gendering the costs of the political economy transition in Russia, Interdisciplinary Political Studies Vol. 5, 2: 285-317.

   Perugini, C., Žarković Rakić,J. and M. Vladisavljević. 2019. Austerity and gender inequalities in Europe in times of crisis, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 43, 3: 733–767.

   Daly, M. Gender inequality and welfare states in Europe, 2020, Elgar

4. Welfare state in Europe

Required reading

Ferrera, M. 2005. The Boundaries of Welfare: European Integration and the New Spatial Politics of Social Protection, Oxford University Press, chaps 4 and 6. (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Further reading

Kvist,J. and J. Saari, The Europeanization of Social Protection: Domestic Impacts and National Responses, in Reader 2014.

Scharpf, F. Negative Integration: States and the Loss of Boundary Control, in Reader 2000.

Troshkov, D. 2007. Transposition of EU social policy in the new member states. Journal of European Social Policy, 17, 335–348.

Leiber, S. 2007. Transposition of EU social policy in Poland: are there different ‘worlds of compliance’ in East and West? Journal of European Social Policy, 17, 349–360.

Scharpf, F. 2010.The Asymmetry of European Integration, or why the EU cannot be a ‘social market economy’. Socio-Economic Review, 8, 211-250.

Lendvai, N. and P.Stubbs 2015. Europeanization, Welfare and Variegated Austerity Capitalisms – Hungary and Croatia. Social Policy & Administration, 49, 445–465.

Seminars

1. Comparing welfare states models – case studies

The Nordic Countries, Kautto, M. in OHWS, chp 40.

Continental Western Europe, Palier, B. in OHWS, chp 41.

The South European Countries, Ferrera, M. in OHWS, chp. 42.

The English-Speaking Countries, Castles, F. in OHWS, chp. 43.

(available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

2. Comparing welfare states models II -case studies

Eastern Europe and Russia, Cook, L. in OHWS, chp. 46. (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Fenger, M. 2007. Welfare regimes in Central and Eastern Europe: Incorporating post-communist countries in a welfare regime typology. Contemporary Issues and Ideas in Social Sciences, 3, 2, 1-30.

Adascalitei, D. 2017. From Austerity to Austerity: The Political Economy of Public Pension Reforms in Romania and Bulgaria. Social Policy & Administration, 51, 464– 487.

3. Political, social and economic challenges to the welfare state

Electoral politics

Manow, P. Palier, B. and H. Schwander (eds.). 2018. Welfare Democracies and Party Politics. Explaining Electoral Dynamics in Times of Changing Welfare Capitalism [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/welfare-democracies-and-party-politics-9780198807971?q=manow%20palier%20schwander&lang=en&cc=fr], Oxford University Press. Conclusions.

(available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Abou-Chadi, T. and Immergut, E. M. 2018. Recalibrating social protection: electoral competition and the new partisan politics of the welfare state, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 53, 2 : 269–287.

Taylor-Gooby, P. 2017. Re-Doubling the Crises of the Welfare State: The impact of Brexit on UK welfare politics. Journal of Social Policy, Vol. 46, 4, pp. 815-835.

Wenzelburger, G., Jensen, C. Seonghui L. and C. Arndt. 2020. How governments strategically time welfare state reform legislation: empirical evidence from five European countries, West European Politics, Vol. 43, 6: 1285-1314.

Schakel, W. B. Burgoon, A. Hakhverdian,. 2020. Real but Unequal Representation in Welfare State Reform, Politics and Society, Vol. 48, 1: 131-163.

Migration

Castles, S. and Schierup, C-U., 2010. Migration, minorities and the welfare state, in OHWS.

(available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Morgan, K. 2018. Varieties of Electoral Dilemmas: Partisan Jousting over Welfare States and Immigration in a Changing Europe, in Manow, P. Palier, B. and H. Schwander (ed.). Welfare Democracies and Party Politics. Explaining Electoral Dynamics in Times of Changing Welfare Capitalism [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/welfare-democracies-and-party-politics-9780198807971?q=manow%20palier%20schwander&lang=en&cc=fr], Oxford University Press. (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

D. Sainsbury 2012. Welfare states and immigrant rights: the politics of inclusion and exclusion, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

(available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Globalization, financial crisis and welfare state sustainability

Vis, B., van Kersbergen, K. and Hylands, T. 2011. To What Extent Did the Financial Crisis Intensify the Pressure to Reform the Welfare State? Social Policy and Administration,45, 338-353.

Taylor-Gooby, P., Leruth, L. and H. Chung (eds.). 2017. After Austerity: Welfare State Transformation in Europe after the Great Recession, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Introduction. (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Rules for presentations:

Each student should present the topic in maximum 10 minutes. The presentation should end with a question for discussion.

Readings/Bibliography

Textbooks

Castles, F., Leibfried, S., Lewis, J., Obinger, H., Pierson, C. (eds.), 2010. The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, Oxford University Press (OHWS) (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Greve, B. (ed.) 2018. Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State, 2nd Edition

Pierson,C. Castles, F. and I.K.Naumann (eds.) 2014. The welfare state reader, Polity Press (and some chapters in 1st edition 2000).

Background reading

Garland, D. 2016. The Welfare State: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press.

Lecture topics

1. Historical foundations of the welfare state

   Required reading

   Briggs, A. Welfare State in Historical Perspective, in Reader, 2014. (originally published in European Journal of Sociology, Vol. 2, n. 2: 221-258, 1961 https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.unibo.it/stable/23987939 ).

   Further reading

   Ravallion, M. 2015. The Idea of Antipoverty Policy, in A.B.Atkinson and F.Bourguignon, eds. Handbook of Income Distribution, North Holland, Vol. 2B, chapter 22.

2. Comparing welfare states models

   Required reading

   Esping-Andersen, G. Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, in Reader, 2014.

   Arts, W. and Gelissen, J. 2010. Models of the Welfare State. In Castles, F.G. et al. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State. Oxford University Press, 569-583. (available on UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

   Further reading

   Alesina, A. Glaeser, E. and B. Sacerdote, 2001. Why Doesn’t the United States Have a European Style Welfare State? Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2,187-277.

   Mulè, R. 2016. The South European Welfare State in the New Millennium. Challenges, constraints and prospects for Europeanization, in World Economy and International Relations, 7, 25-36.

   Deacon, B. 2000. Eastern European welfare states: the impact of the politics of globalization, Journal of European Social Policy, 10, 146-161.

   Sotiropoulos D., Neamtu I., Stoyanova M. 2003. The Trajectory of Post-communist Welfare State Development: The Cases of Bulgaria and Romania, Social Policy and Administration, 37.

   East Asia, I. Peng and J. Wong, in OHWS

3. Gender and the welfare state

   Required reading

   Orloff, A.S. Gender, in OHWS, chp. 17. (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

   Further reading

   Sainsbury, D. (ed). 1999. Gender and welfare state regimes, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

   Gornick, J. C., and J. A. Jacobs. 1998. Gender, The Welfare State, and Public Employment: A Comparative Study of Seven Industrialized Countries. American Sociological Review 63, 5: 688-710. (Originally Luxembourg Income Study Working Paper 168, 1997).

   Mulè, R. and O. Dubrovina, 2019. Gendering the costs of the political economy transition in Russia, Interdisciplinary Political Studies Vol. 5, 2: 285-317.

   Perugini, C., Žarković Rakić,J. and M. Vladisavljević. 2019. Austerity and gender inequalities in Europe in times of crisis, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 43, 3: 733–767.

4. Welfare state in Europe

Required reading

Ferrera, M. 2005. The Boundaries of Welfare: European Integration and the New Spatial Politics of Social Protection, Oxford University Press, chaps 4 and 6. (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Further reading

Kvist,J. and J. Saari, The Europeanization of Social Protection: Domestic Impacts and National Responses, in Reader 2014.

Scharpf, F. Negative Integration: States and the Loss of Boundary Control, in Reader 2000.

Troshkov, D. 2007. Transposition of EU social policy in the new member states. Journal of European Social Policy, 17, 335–348.

Leiber, S. 2007. Transposition of EU social policy in Poland: are there different ‘worlds of compliance’ in East and West? Journal of European Social Policy, 17, 349–360.

Scharpf, F. 2010.The Asymmetry of European Integration, or why the EU cannot be a ‘social market economy’. Socio-Economic Review, 8, 211-250.

Lendvai, N. and P.Stubbs 2015. Europeanization, Welfare and Variegated Austerity Capitalisms – Hungary and Croatia. Social Policy & Administration, 49, 445–465.

Seminars

1. Comparing welfare states models – case studies

The Nordic Countries, Kautto, M. in OHWS, chp 40.

Continental Western Europe, Palier, B. in OHWS, chp 41.

The South European Countries, Ferrera, M. in OHWS, chp. 42.

The English-Speaking Countries, Castles, F. in OHWS, chp. 43.

(available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

2. Comparing welfare states models II -case studies

Eastern Europe and Russia, Cook, L. in OHWS, chp. 46. (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Fenger, M. 2007. Welfare regimes in Central and Eastern Europe: Incorporating post-communist countries in a welfare regime typology. Contemporary Issues and Ideas in Social Sciences, 3, 2, 1-30.

Adascalitei, D. 2017. From Austerity to Austerity: The Political Economy of Public Pension Reforms in Romania and Bulgaria. Social Policy & Administration, 51, 464– 487.

3. Political, social and economic challenges to the welfare state

Electoral politics

Manow, P. Palier, B. and H. Schwander (eds.). 2018. Welfare Democracies and Party Politics. Explaining Electoral Dynamics in Times of Changing Welfare Capitalism [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/welfare-democracies-and-party-politics-9780198807971?q=manow%20palier%20schwander&lang=en&cc=fr], Oxford University Press. Conclusions.

(available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Abou-Chadi, T. & Immergut, E. M. 2018. ‘Recalibrating social protection: electoral competition and the new partisan politics of the welfare state’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 53, 2 : 269–287.

Taylor-Gooby, P. 2017. Re-Doubling the Crises of the Welfare State: The impact of Brexit on UK welfare politics. Journal of Social Policy, Vol. 46, 4, pp. 815-835.

Wenzelburger, G., Jensen, C. Seonghui L.& C. Arndt. 2020. How governments strategically time welfare state reform legislation: empirical evidence from five European countries, West European Politics, Vol. 43, 6: 1285-1314.

Schakel, W. B. Burgoon, A. Hakhverdian,. 2020. Real but Unequal Representation in Welfare State Reform, Politics and Society, Vol. 48, 1: 131-163.

Migration

Castles, S. and Schierup, C-U., 2010. Migration, minorities and the welfare state, in OHWS.

(available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Morgan, K. 2018. Varieties of Electoral Dilemmas: Partisan Jousting over Welfare States and Immigration in a Changing Europe, in Manow, P. Palier, B. and H. Schwander (ed.). Welfare Democracies and Party Politics. Explaining Electoral Dynamics in Times of Changing Welfare Capitalism [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/welfare-democracies-and-party-politics-9780198807971?q=manow%20palier%20schwander&lang=en&cc=fr], Oxford University Press. (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Diane, S. 2012. Welfare states and immigrant rights: the politics of inclusion and exclusion, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

(available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Globalization, financial crisis and welfare state sustainability

Vis, B., van Kersbergen, K. and Hylands, T. 2011. To What Extent Did the Financial Crisis Intensify the Pressure to Reform the Welfare State? Social Policy and Administration,45, 338-353.

Taylor-Gooby, P., Leruth, L. and H. Chung (eds.). 2017. After Austerity: Welfare State Transformation in Europe after the Great Recession, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Introduction. (available on the UNIBO online library-Oxford online).

Teaching methods

Classes will involve lectures, presentations by guest speakers, and inter-active sessions in which students will have an opportunity to participate.

Assessment methods

Course Evaluation

Students not attending classes will be assesses with an oral exam

Course Evaluation

Each student should read the 'required readings' for each class and seminar. ‘Further reading’ is intended to provide background introduction to the main readings. During the classes and seminars, every week students’ group should hand in one question for discussion.

Class participation 10% grade

Student presentation 25% grade

Rules for presentations Each student should present the topic in maximum 10 minutes. The presentation should end with a question for discussion.

Written paper 65% grade. Deadline for written paper:15 January 2022

Paper: 5000 words maximum, inclusive of abstract and bibliography.

 

Teaching tools

Interactive classes, Lectures, Slides, hands-on lab on Luxembourg Income Study Dataset, documentaries

Office hours

See the website of Rosa Mulè

See the website of