Moral economies of the welfare state: A qualitative comparative study

Abstract

This paper uses innovative democratic forums carried out in Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom to examine people's ideas about welfare-state priorities and future prospects. We use a moral economy framework in the context of regime differences and the move towards neo-liberalism across Europe. Broadly speaking, attitudes reflect regime differences, with distinctive emphasis on reciprocity and the value of work in Germany, inclusion and equality in Norway, and individual responsibility and the work-ethic in the UK. Neo-liberal market-centred ideas appear to have made little headway in regard to popular attitudes, except in the already liberal-leaning UK. There is also a striking assumption by UK participants that welfare is threatened externally by immigrants who take jobs from established workers and internally by the work-shy who undermine the work-ethic. A key role of the welfare state is repressive rather than enabling: to protect against threats to well-being rather than provide

Examining Attitudes towards Welfare in an In/Security Regime: Evidence from Ghana

“…Research shows a connection between welfare regimes and public attitudes (Svallfors, 2010). A recent analysis of welfare attitudes in the UK, Norway and Germany shows strong and continuing support for social investment expansion but based on different reasons consistent with the respective regime philosophies (Taylor-Gooby et al, 2019). Likewise, an earlier study of twenty countries argued that the nature of a welfare regime in which people find themselves informs their views on redistribution (Arts and Gelissen, 2001).…”

The Moral Economy of Neoliberalism: How Voters Use Neoliberal Ideology to (De)Legitimate Undocumented Worker Access to Labor Markets

“…In contemporary scholarship, “moral economy” refers to the “shared moral dispositions, assumptions, beliefs, rationales, and norms” (Kissane :190) in which market action is embedded (Taylor‐Gooby et al. ). A moral economy is then a consensus about moral principles used by actors to legitimate market action (Kissane ; Mau ; Sachweh ; Svallfors ; Taylor‐Gooby et al.…”

“…This term was coined by Thompson (1971), who argued that eighteenth-century English bread riots were caused by popular outrage over the British government's permittance of merchants to sell flour well above normative prices-thus violating the popular consensus that everyone had the right to subsistence. In contemporary scholarship, "moral economy" refers to the "shared moral dispositions, assumptions, beliefs, rationales, and norms" (Kissane 2012:190) in which market action is embedded (Taylor-Gooby et al 2018). A moral economy is then a consensus about moral principles used by actors to legitimate market action (Kissane 2012;Mau 2003;Sachweh 2012;Svallfors 2006;Taylor-Gooby et al 2018;Thompson 1971;Western and Rosenfeld 2011).…”

“…In contemporary scholarship, "moral economy" refers to the "shared moral dispositions, assumptions, beliefs, rationales, and norms" (Kissane 2012:190) in which market action is embedded (Taylor-Gooby et al 2018). A moral economy is then a consensus about moral principles used by actors to legitimate market action (Kissane 2012;Mau 2003;Sachweh 2012;Svallfors 2006;Taylor-Gooby et al 2018;Thompson 1971;Western and Rosenfeld 2011). The argument is that a consensus about "moral" market and state action-often conceptualized in terms of "fairness"-shapes individual or institutional "repertories" (Sachweh 2012;Swidler 2001)-thereby influencing actors' economic beliefs, evaluations, legitimations, and potential actions.…”

Social Class and Child Welfare: Intertwining Issues of Redistribution and Recognition

“…Favorable economic conditions have made it possible to succeed in reaching these goals. Employing active social and economic policies, the Nordic welfare model has proven to be successful in producing social equality (Gooby-Taylor et al 2018).…”