Karin Heitzmann

The Adjustment Path of the Austrian Welfare State: Back to Bismarck?

Esping-Andersen (1990; 1999) was interested in identifying the similarities between countries within the three categories of welfare states that he distinguished: the by now familiar types of ‘Scandinavian’ or ‘social democratic’, the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ or ‘liberal’, and the ‘continental’ or ‘conservative’ welfare states. Scharpf and Schmidt (2000a; 2000b) went further and took a closer look at differences within these categories. They studied how countries reacted to common challenges of internationalization, and found quite a few variations between countries – even within the same welfare regime. They argue that policy responses have been influenced by three sets of factors: (a) the nature and intensity of policy challenges; (b) governance institutions defining actor constellations and their modes of interaction; and (c) perceptions and preferences of the actors involved (Scharpf and Schmidt, 2000a: 1–20). This implies that the affiliation to a welfare state regime cannot alone explain or predict the modes of adaptation and reform countries choose when confronted with problems of internationalization. Does this make EspingAndersen’s typology less useful or even obsolete? Not quite. The type of welfare state, that is the manner in which it provides income to its citizens – by general taxes, by insurance, or work and residual poverty protection – and the way in which it provides services (broadly public, by the family or by subsidizing private schemes) is still a major explanatory variable of reforms. It was typical for all conservative welfare states, for example, first to try to shift the increasing unemployment problem away from the labour market, either by sending people into early retirement, into invalidity, into motherhood or into longer training, whereas it was typical for liberal welfare states to create flexible employment patterns and lower wages. Scandinavian countries had developed active labour market policies very early and, therefore, faced labour market problems later and less dramatically than most conservative welfare states. Though Esping-Andersen’s typology of welfare state families is still useful, it seems worthwhile to analyse them in more depth in order to understand the reforms and performance of welfare states when faced with challenges of internationalization. The present paper deals with EspingAndersen’s ‘continental’, ‘conservative’ and strongly ‘corporatist’ family of welfare states, made up of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. These welfare states are rooted in the ideas of Bismarck and von Taffe (Esping-Andersen, 1990: 24). They are dominated by a system of social insurance which implies that social entitlements are derived from employment rather than citizenship (contrary to the social-democratic model) or proven needs (as in the liberal model), and which is committed to a preservation of status differentials. Social protection tends to be differentiated by occupational classes. Benefits mirror status and earnings rather than redistributive ambitions (Esping-Andersen, 1990:

Where There's a Will, There's a Way? Civic Participation and Social Inequality

Given that the quality and solidity of civil society depend on the amount of civic engagement, the question why some groups engage while others do not becomes a major issue for research. This paper aims to identify factors that might explain whether or not citizens participate in civil society. In terms of theory, we refer to both Bourdieus concept of ‘capitals’ as resources for civic participation and Putnams viewpoint, which argues that civic participation is particularly motivated by trust, norms and networks. In the empirical part of the paper, we use data from the European Social Survey for Austria to identify potential factors that might explain civic participation. Based on regression and CHAID analyses, two indicators appear to be particularly important in explaining differences in the civic participation of individuals, i.e. citizenship values and social networks and activities. These variables are the strongest predictors regarding all types of participation analysed (donating money, volunteering and entering a membership association).

Lange Traditionen und neue Herausforderungen: Das österreichische Wohlfahrtssystem

Die europaischen Wohlfahrtsstaaten stehen vor gro\en sozialen, okonomischen und politischen Herausforderungen. osterreich stellt dabei keine Ausnahme dar. Im Hinblick auf das Ausgabenvolumen ist der osterreichische Wohlfahrtsstaat vergleichsweise gro\zugig dimensioniert. osterreich rangiert bei den Sozialausgaben als Anteil am Bruttoinlandsprodukt an sechster Stelle innerhalb der EU-25 (29,5% des BIP im Jahr 2003), in absoluten Zahlen gemessen sogar an vierter Stelle (7700 Kaufkraftparitaten pro Kopf). Neben den soziodemographischen Entwicklungen und einem veranderten polit-okonomischen Umfeld, ist nicht zuletzt dieses hohe Ausgabenniveau Ausloser und Kern vielfaltiger Debatten zur Zukunft des osterreichischen Wohlfahrtsstaates. In diesem Beitrag sollen die historischen Entwicklungen, die wesentlichen Charakteristika des osterreichischen Wohlfahrtsstaates sowie aktuelle Trends aufgezeigt und analysiert werden. Kapitel 1 widmet sich zunachst der Entstehungsgeschichte des osterreichischen Wohlfahrtsstaates, der dann im Rahmen der vergleichenden Wohlfahrtsstaatsliteratur verortet wird. Zudem wird die Rolle und Bedeutung von offentlichen und privaten Tragern in der Wohlfahrtsproduktion verdeutlicht. Nach einer kurzen Charakterisierung von aus quantitativen Informationen ablesbaren Prioritaten des osterreichischen Wohlfahrtsstaates, werden die zentralen Sozialpolitikbereiche in Kapitel 2 im Detail prasentiert. In der Folge werden in Kapitel 3 dann ausgewahlte Gestaltungsprinzipien und Ergebnisse der Wohlfahrtspolitik politikfeldubergreifend untersucht. Abschlie\end wird in Kapitel 4 ein kurzer Ausblick auf die Entwicklungsperspektiven des osterreichischen Wohlfahrtsstaates gegeben.

From Corporatist Security to Civil Society Creativity: The Nonprofit Sector in Austria

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) play an important role in Austrian society and in the economy. Nonetheless, nonprofit sector research in this country — and in continental Europe in general — is a relatively new academic discipline (Badelt, 2002a).1 This is contrary to many Anglo-American countries, where — based on the work of de Tocqueville (Tocqueville, 1978) — communitarian concepts like Etzioni’s have a long tradition (Etzioni, 1973). There, NPOs were mainly established to compete with for-profit organizations, and — in the context of neo-liberal movements — were analyzed in terms of this competition. In Europe, NPOs were rather viewed in reference to the development of the welfare state, and thus with regard to their relationship to the state. Indeed, many NPOs in Austria were and are highly entangled with the public sector. The theoretical interest was therefore based on questions of the legitimacy of private NPOs that fulfilled public agendas and on potential dangers with regard to the sovereignty of the state (Seibel, 1992: 34). However, alongside the crisis of the welfare state in the 1980s, the role of the nonprofit sector in continental Europe has changed, and NPOs are faced with high expectations. Governments have begun to reduce their budget deficits, and NPOs have been expected to alleviate public expenditure cuts by expanding their service provision.

Over-indebtedness in Europe: The relevance of country-level variables for the over-indebtedness of private households

So far, research on the causes of over-indebtedness in Europe has predominantly focused on the characteristics of individuals or households. This article investigates to what extent country-level factors are associated with a European household’s risk of being over-indebted. We examine variables that reflect policies aimed at combating over-indebtedness (the average level of economic literacy prevalent within a country and its classification into a specific debt-discharge regime) and variables that reflect other welfare-state policies (a country’s affiliation to a specific employment regime and a summary measure referring to the net replacement rate in the case of long-term unemployment). The results, which are based on multilevel logistic regression analyses of European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data for 27 European countries, suggest that all four country-level factors matter. This particularly applies to the variables reflecting other welfare-state policies, thus underlining the relevance of the design of social policy in fighting over-indebtedness.

Reforming the Austrian Welfare System: Facing Demographic and Economic Challenges in a Federal Welfare State

Across Europe, the economic and fiscal crisis has deeply shaken the economy and created enormous challenges lasting up until today. Austria is no exception, but that did not lead to fundamental changes in social policies. The development of the Austrian welfare system in the past two decades is characterised by continuity rather than paradigmatic change—despite economic, fiscal and demographic challenges. Concepts that moved to the centre of welfare debates in many other countries, such as a stronger workfare orientation or the social investment state, had a smaller impact in this country than in many others. Also, welfare retrenchment played a weaker role. This is the consequence of multiple factors including a comparatively favourable economic development up until 2013, a relatively strong consensus orientation in the Austrian political system (and the population), or the complex mix of national and provincial roles in social policy making, i.e. circumstances that also tend to limit scope for more innovative or even path-breaking changes to the Austria welfare system.

Book Review: The Future of the Welfare State: Crisis Myths and Crisis Realities

This book tries to grasp some of the recent changes in European welfare states by simultaneously using comparative, supranational and national perspectives on transformations in Europe. The setting is a distinction between the ‘old’ risks of the welfare states with the new risks. Old risks are described as needs not covered by the market such as retirement, unemployment, sickness, but also health care and education. New risks, however, are defined as those arising from the transition towards a post-industrial state. Besides the opening chapter, the book contains overviews of changes in Germany, the UK, the Nordic welfare states, France, Spain and Switzerland (which seems to be an outlier in the book). The book also includes a very stimulating chapter on the impact of the EU – including the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) – on welfare; and a concluding chapter. Country-specific chapters might have been difficult to cope with in a comparative perspective, but the author has succeeded in maintaining a strict structure and coherent framework for these national papers. They are rich in information on recent changes in relation to active labourmarket policies, care facilities for children and elderly people. In this way the book is an important resource for analytical information on these central welfare-state areas. I am not convinced, however, by the arguments about what are new and what are old risks. The old risks are still in play for many persons in the various welfare states. Unemployment and lack of resources when retiring remain extremely important. One could argue instead – which is also, perhaps, what the concluding chapter indirectly does – that the transformation processes, which have been present ever since the beginning of the welfare state, are just adaptations of changing options and possibilities. Furthermore, the new risks are perhaps not so new – especially when viewed from a Nordic perspective where care facilities have long been seen as an investment and as a prerequisite for a higher degree of gender equality. I found the chapter on the EU’s role stimulating as well. It suggests that EU social policy is present to a greater extent in the new areas where member states do not have the same long-standing tradition. But at the same time the European Union’s role in social policy is rather limited, and the impact of the OMC on member states’ social policy is still open for debate. As is argued in the book (p. 200), the increasing role of active labour-market policy is to a large degree dependent on national circumstances and national traditions. So despite the rhetoric at the supranational level, changes in national welfare policies are dependent on national initiatives and acceptance. The book left with me with the uneasy feeling that European convergence is moving in the direction of a more liberal welfare state, as this seems to be the main way to cope with the challenges posed by change in demography and globalization. To end: the book is stimulating, well written and hugely detailed. It is a shame that at £55.00 the price will be a hindrance to sales.