JESP symposium: Climate change and social policy

Gough, Ian; Meadowcroft, James; Dryzek, John S.; Gerhards, Jürgen; Lengfeld, Holger; Markandya, Anil; Ortiz, Ramón Arigoni

doi:10.1177/0958928708094890

Cited by 91 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Gough and Meadowcroft (see Gough et al, 2008), who -without excluding the possibility o f conflictive and contradictory relations between the two -expressed some hope in the ability o f social-democratic welfare regimes to develop the green dimension of the state more successfully than conservative and, especially, liberal welfare regimes, and, consequently, to perform better in terms o f ecological key indicators. We called this the synergy hypothesis, which we confronted with recent studies that question the compatibility o f GDP growth, welfare and sustainability (Victor, 2008;Jackson, 2009;Koch, 2013) and which we set out to empirically …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building the Eco-social State: Do Welfare Regimes Matter?

2014

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Authors such as Dryzek, Gough and Meadowcroft have indicated that social-democratic welfare states could be in a better position to deal with development of the ‘green’ or ‘eco’ state, and the intersection of social and environmental policies, than conservative or liberal welfare regimes (synergy hypothesis). However, this hypothesis has as yet not been examined in comparative empirical research. Based on comparative empirical data from EUROSTAT, the World Bank, the OECD, the Global Footprint Network and the International Social Survey Programme, we are carrying out two research operations: First, by applying correspondence analysis, we contrast the macro-structural welfare and sustainability indicators of thirty countries and ask whether clusters largely follow the synergy hypothesis. Second, we raise the issue of whether differences in the institutional and organisational capabilities of combining welfare with environmental policies are reflected in people's attitudes and opinions. With regard to the first issue, our results suggest that there is no ‘automatic’ development of the ecostate based on already existing advanced welfare institutions. Representatives of all welfare regimes are spread across established, deadlocked, failing, emerging and endangered ecostates. As for the second issue, the results are mixed. While responses to the statements ‘economic growth always harms the environment’ and ‘governments should pass laws to make ordinary people protect the environment, even if it interferes with people's rights to make their own decisions’ did not vary according to welfare regimes, people from social-democratic countries expressed more often than average their willingness to accept cuts in their standard of living in order to protect the environment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building the Eco-social State: Do Welfare Regimes Matter?

2014

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“…Hitherto, though, this debate has not impacted much on mainstream social policy debates (however, see Gough et al, 2008). This needs to change because climate policy will have an immediate impact on social policy through various channels, in particular redistribution effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Who bears the brunt? Distributional effects of climate change mitigation policies

Büchs

Bardsley

Duwe

2011

Critical Social Policy

112

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Climate change scholars generally urge that CO 2 emissions need to be cut rapidly if we are to avoid dangerous risks of climate change. However, climate change mitigation policies are widely perceived to have regressive effects -that is, putting a higher financial burden as a proportion of household income on poor than on rich households. This is one of several major barriers to the adoption of effective mitigation policies. They would also have considerable social justice implications requiring significant welfare state responses. We assess the claim that climate change policies have regressive effects by comparing different types of mitigation policies. We will argue that many of these are indeed likely to have regressive distributional implications but that there are several policy options to counteract regressive effects.

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“…On a conceptual level, both social and environmental policies reduce the externalization of social costs and overexploitation of human and ecological resources [8]. Welfare states shape societal provisioning systems and welfare regimes are said to differ in their ability to incorporate environmental goals [9,10]. Indeed different clusters of eco-social states have been identified, although a systematic relationship has not yet been found with welfare state regime types [11,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Money, Vouchers, Public Infrastructures? A Framework for Sustainable Welfare Benefits

Bohnenberger

2020

Sustainability

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While the social consequences of environmental policies are extensively evaluated in sustainability research, few studies exist on the ecological impact of social benefits and the welfare state. Sustainable welfare is a novel research field that seeks to close this knowledge gap and develop integrated eco-social policies. Within this, researchers are starting to ask how citizen’s needs can be guaranteed in an environmentally sustainable way and how their welfare benefits should be delivered. Should citizens receive a universal basic income, be given vouchers for ecologically beneficial or socially needed goods and services, or be provided with access to socio-ecological infrastructures and services? This article develops a framework for sustainable welfare benefits with six criteria of sustainable welfare and nine different types of welfare benefits that belong to the domains of universal basic income (UBI), universal basic services (UBS), and universal basic vouchers (UBV). Using this framework, existing policy proposals are categorized and evaluated. The advantages and disadvantages of the different types of welfare benefits are discussed and new application areas highlighted. The analysis shows that a successful policy will likely include all forms of welfare benefits, with certain types being more adequate for certain fields and societal circumstances. The framework for sustainable welfare benefits can serve as a starting point for further research on integrated policy design and inform policymakers on the selection of eco-social policies.

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JESP symposium: Climate change and social policy

Cited by 91 publications

References 39 publications

Building the Eco-social State: Do Welfare Regimes Matter?

Building the Eco-social State: Do Welfare Regimes Matter?

Who bears the brunt? Distributional effects of climate change mitigation policies

Money, Vouchers, Public Infrastructures? A Framework for Sustainable Welfare Benefits

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