The shift towards an eco-welfare state: growing stronger together

Hasanaj, Valon

doi:10.1017/ics.2023.2

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 65 publications

(110 reference statements)

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“…From an institutional perspective, a relatively recent academic debate has focused on the connections between the welfare state – defined as a state that aims to provide ‘decommodification’ and ‘destratification’, hence guaranteeing socially acceptable standards of living and (re)distributing resources and opportunities equally among the population (Esping-Andersen, 1990) - and the environmental (or eco) state – defined as ‘a state that possesses a significant set of institutions and practices dedicated to the management of the environment and societal–environmental interactions’ (Duit et al, 2015: 5). Besides studies highlighting their similarities and differences (Gough, 2016; Meadowcroft, 2005), some scholars have attempted to juxtapose the performance of the eco and welfare states, mapping so-called ‘worlds of eco-welfare states’ (Hasanaj, 2023; Zimmermann and Graziano, 2020). While some of these contributions (Koch and Fritz, 2014; Zimmermann and Graziano, 2020) found evidence to confirm a ‘synergy hypothesis’, whereby strong social-democratic welfare models should also perform strongly with respect to environmental protection (Dryzek et al, 2003), others instead rejected this idea (García-García et al, 2022).…”

Section: The State Of the Art: A Largely Uncharted Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Harnessing welfare state theories to explain the emergence of eco-social policies

Mandelli

2023

European Journal of Social Security

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As complex challenges such as climate change and social inequality become more and more politically salient, eco-social policies are emerging as suitable public policy tools to pursue integrated environmental and social objectives. In spite of this, the sustainable welfare literature has been, at least until now, dominated by prescriptive studies, paying little attention to the politico-institutional conditions required for these policies to emerge. Against this background, this article aims to help filling this gap, by proposing a set of four theoretical expectations pointing to possible causal drivers and mechanisms behind the adoption of this particular kind of policies. It does so by harnessing the most established welfare state theories and reflecting on their potential and limitations when applied to the study of eco-social policies. Selected theoretical strands – functionalism, historical institutionalism, interest-based and ideas-based theories – are first reviewed and then applied to the specific object of the study, with a view to deriving the four expectations by deduction. The ultimate aim is to generate a politico-institutional theory of eco-social policies, which can guide future empirical research. The article argues that eco-social policies can be expected to emerge in strong environmental states and/or in weak welfare states, in which equally powerful labour and green interests engage in political exchanges, or where advocacy coalitions form around ambiguous ideas, such as ‘just transition’. The article concludes by arguing that only an actor-centred approach based on empirically observable policy preferences can help us to craft minimally sufficient causal inferences about the emergence of eco-social policies.

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Section: The State Of the Art: A Largely Uncharted Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Harnessing welfare state theories to explain the emergence of eco-social policies

Mandelli

2023

European Journal of Social Security

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“…Eversberg and Fritz, 2022; Otto and Gugushvili, 2020), the interconnectedness of welfare and environmental states (e.g. García-García et al, 2022; Hasanaj, 2023; Zimmermann and Graziano, 2020) and the growth dependency of current welfare systems (e.g. Büchs, 2021; Corlet Walker et al, 2021).…”

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confidence: 99%

Mapping the social dimension of the European Green Deal

Zimmermann,

Gengnagel

2023

European Journal of Social Security

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The European Green Deal calls for various economic reforms that will deeply disrupt the social order of European societies. As the European Commission makes very clear in its communications on the EGD, societal support for the profound changes that will inevitably accompany a ‘green transition’ hinges on social inclusion of stakeholders and social groups. This article aims to identify the social policy instruments proposed by the EGD to address the social implications of its ‘green transition’, and to explore how they relate to societal expectations. Analytically, it distinguishes between protective (redistributive) and productive (economy-oriented) social policy and argues that democratic social inclusion – which the European Commission strives to achieve – requires protective social policy. Empirically, the paper analyzes a) the socio-political instruments set out in the EGD and b) public statements made by a range of European-level actors who participated in the debates on the EGD. Our findings show that productive social policy prevails in the EGD's proposed instruments and in stakeholders’ demands, but that there are also vague indications of a more nuanced concept of social inclusion that acknowledges social conflict.

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