Aftershock: the post-crisis social investment welfare state in Europe

Diamond, Patrick; Liddle, R. William

doi:10.1332/policypress/9781847429247.003.0011

Cited by 13 publications

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“…By indicating whether a retrenchment measure cuts back or reverses a social investment policy (like childcare), we can also identify to what extent social investment as a strategy can weather the storm of the Great Recession. The enormous scale of the fiscal consolidation imperative may jeopardize the more recent and, therefore, vulnerable social investment turn in many countries (Diamond and Liddle : 293).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Great Recession and Welfare State Reform: Is Retrenchment Really the Only Game Left in Town?

2014

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By 2010, when the Greek sovereign debt crisis changed into an existential crisis of the euro, all developed democracies entered a phase in which they had to consolidate their budgets, typically implying a politics of austerity. The scholarly literature, as well as the popular press, suggests thatconsequently -welfare retrenchment and cost containment became the only games left in town. In this article, we study the welfare state reform measures taken between 2010 and 2012 in four countries characteristic of mature welfare state regimes (liberal, UK; conservative, Germany; social democratic, Denmark; and hybrid, the Netherlands) to examine empirically whether austerity has indeed become the only item left on the policy menu. Our analysis reveals that retrenchment features prominently on the agenda everywhere, but nowhere by itself. While compensation for income loss is rare since 2010, this still happens. More unexpectedly, reforms in line with a social investment agenda (like expansion of child care or active labour market policies) are still being pursued in all our four cases.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Great Recession and Welfare State Reform: Is Retrenchment Really the Only Game Left in Town?

2014

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“…at the municipal or districts level, since social services require proximity to their users. It is in this function that the state -in those countries where it had stepped in 15 -has most 'disengaged': from direct -and often soleprovider, it has evolved into a 'commissioner' of social services (Diamond and Liddle, 2012), in the case of outsourcing, or an 'enabler' of market mechanisms, in the case of cash-transfers. In the first instance, the state retains its role of coordinator, in the second it abdicates this role to the market.…”

Section: The Main Functions Involved In Public Social Service Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social services, welfare states and places: an overview

Martinelli¹

2017

Social Services Disrupted

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“…Positions are much more diverse concerning perspectives of SI and factors that cause national variations in adopting SI policies. A comprehensive account of structural and ideational aspects that facilitate or hold back the implementation of SI policies is still lacking (Diamond and Liddle ; Garritzmann et al . ).…”

Section: Ideas and Structures As Facilitators Of Social Investment Pomentioning

confidence: 99%

Varieties of Social Investment Policies on Two Sides of the Baltic Sea: Explaining Routes to Endurance

Toots

Lauri

2017

Soc Policy Adm

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By 2016, European countries have more or less recovered from the 2008 recession. However, the strategies for coping with the crisis have varied, and one of the main concerns is to which extent the social investment paradigm has survived. In this article, we first map the dynamics of social investment expenditures in 2004–12 in six low‐ and high‐spending welfare states in the Baltic Sea region – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Denmark and Sweden – and define countries which have managed to sustain the social investment ratio after recession. Second, by employing fuzzy‐set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, we explore the configurational routes of ideational and structural factors within various macroeconomic contexts associated with the endurance of social investment. The analysis revealed that two out of the six countries – Denmark and Lithuania – managed to increase or preserve the share of investment expenditures in their total welfare budgets. Stable economic growth and low government debt turned out to be necessary conditions regardless of the generosity of the welfare state. However, while in Baltic countries a strong economy has to be in conjunction with ideational contributors (such as a government coalition of liberals and social democrats, and strict employment protection), the Nordic route includes a strong economy in conjunction with a high share of service economy.

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Aftershock: the post-crisis social investment welfare state in Europe

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

The Great Recession and Welfare State Reform: Is Retrenchment Really the Only Game Left in Town?

The Great Recession and Welfare State Reform: Is Retrenchment Really the Only Game Left in Town?

Social services, welfare states and places: an overview

Varieties of Social Investment Policies on Two Sides of the Baltic Sea: Explaining Routes to Endurance

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