Welfare user roles in a conservative welfare state. Are Germans citizens, consumers or co-producers?

Abstract

Many welfare states have embraced choice and market mechanisms since the 1990s. With respect to welfare users, it has been argued that this led to a change from citizens to consumers. This paper challenges this observation and discusses changes of welfare user roles in the German welfare state. The main argument rests on the assumption that user roles are much more complex and include claimants and co-producers in addition to citizens and consumers. Based on this heuristic model of multiple user roles, empirical evidence for user roles in pension insurance, health care and schools is presented. Indeed, we observe a shift towards consumers in many fields of welfare provision, but German users are still largely addressed as claimants and citizens. Moreover, they are acting as active co-producers, entitled claimants, subversive consumers and needy patients.

Making the user useful? How translation processes managerialize voice in public organizations

“…In German healthcare, policy discussions have increasingly focused on enabling patients in sharing their views on care quality (Blank, 2009; Ewert, 2011; Köppe et al., 2016; Newman & Kuhlmann, 2007). This shift is reflected in hospital management rhetoric as well, where one of the most prominent buzzwords has become “value‐based healthcare” (Porter & Guth, 2012), an approach to internal control that seeks to make patient experiences part of quality measurement.…”

“…Relationships between public sector organizations and public service users have changed quite a bit over the past several decades. With the rise of New Public Management (Hood, 1991; Hyndman & Lapsley, 2016), individuals have been increasingly addressed as knowledgeable consumers of public services, rather than as passive claimants (Arnaboldi, Lapsley, & Dal Molin, 2016; Köppe, Ewert, & Blank, 2016; Watkins & Arrington, 2007). Under a “user‐oriented” public management paradigm, the citizen has been idealized as a user with a view and a voice, someone whose opinions and experiences ought to be considered when assessing service provision (Pflueger, 2016).…”

“Free” and “unfree” money in German prisons: The role of accounting in educating public service users

“…The concept of citizenship has moved away from a mere status or entitlement to a combination of different characteristics, obligations, and responsibilities (Newman, ). Being a citizen has been described as going along with being a user (Barnes, ), a consumer, a co‐producer, a responsibilized agent (Fotaki, ), or a claimant, especially in social welfare systems in most Western countries (Köppe et al., ). In the context of NPM, citizens have been featured as users and customers of public services, for whom the services ought to be optimized or who may choose different service options on quasi‐markets (ibid.).…”

“…Extant literature has also discussed how neoliberal ideas and programs address individual citizens as users, customers, and co‐producers of public services (Köppe, Ewert, & Blank, ). The increased interest in the economic agency of citizens has highlighted the relevance of accounting as a means of governing individuals (Miller & O'Leary, ; Miller & Rose, ; Rose, ).…”

The state of the German social insurance state: Reform and resilience

“…In contrast to the pension insurance, real competition was introduced into the statutory health insurance system, to the extent that that statutory health insurance funds can go into insolvency. From the point of view of the insured, “choice” was established, contributing to a shift from citizens to consumers (Köppe, Ewert, & Blank, ). Since 1996, members can choose funds and are not insured with a specific fund according to their occupation any more, which “deprived the funds of their implicit guarantee of existence” (Gerlinger/Schmucker, , p. 7).…”