Stefan Kühner

Towards productive welfare? A comparative analysis of 23 OECD countries

Numerous analysts have suggested that globalization and the emergence of more knowledge-based economies have encouraged high-income nations to shift towards a model of productive welfare focused on social investment, yet typologies of welfare are still largely drawn on the basis of measures of social protection rather than social investment. Here we develop a classification of welfare state types that incorporates both productive and protective elements of social policy. Using fuzzy set ideal type analysis we explore data for a sample of 23 OECD countries in three time points: 1994, 1998 and 2003. Our findings provide no more than very modest support for claims that welfare states are shifting from protective to productive modes of provision and, in many cases, we identify a shift in the alternative direction. In addition, we identify some nations that are clearly productive in their focus and others that manage to combine productive and protective features.

Country-level comparisons of welfare state change measures: another facet of the dependent variable problem within the comparative analysis of the welfare state?

The introduction of innovative macro-measures has been one of the preferred means to account for identified limitations of traditional quantitative approaches in comparative analyses of the welfare state. However, these state-of-the-art indicators are not powerful enough to account for the nuanced politics of ‘welfare state change’ across mature welfare states as they produce inconsistent - and in several cases contrary - findings on the country level, which also appear to be at odds with the established notion of ‘regime dependence’ in the historical, case-study literature. Touching upon the limitations of the relevant indicators, we argue that they can at best be seen as crude approximations; this is the root cause for the above asymmetries. The ‘dependent variable problem’ within the comparative analysis of the welfare state is a problem of data and operational definitions as much as it is a problem of theoretical conceptualization. While the combination of nuanced quantitative and historical findings has become the norm in the broader literature, the article stresses the potential of disaggregated analyses of individual social policy domains within nations and its combination with detailed case-study analyses of social policy making.

Beyond the Dependent Variable Problem: The Methodological Challenges of Capturing Productive and Protective Dimensions of Social Policy

The question of how best to account for the multidimensional character of welfare states has become an integral part of discussions on the so-called dependent variable problem within comparative welfare state research. In this paper, we discuss challenges from an attempt to capture productive and protective welfare state dimensions by means of several methodological techniques, namely Z-score standardisation, cluster analysis, factor analysis and fuzzy-set ideal type analysis. While we illustrate that a decision to use any one of these techniques has a substantial bearing on the produced findings, we specifically argue that fuzzy-set ideal type analysis offers considerable advantages over more traditional, statistically rooted approaches. This is particularly true if the observed dimensions are conceptually distinct and ‘antithetical’.

Between Ideas, Institutions and Interests: Analysing Third Way Welfare Reform Programmes in Germany and the United Kingdom

This article examines the policy detail of welfare state reform agendas in two countries in which self-proclaimed ‘Third Way’ governments have been in power – Germany and the United Kingdom – in order to explore the competing influences on social policy of an ostensibly common set of ideas and contrasting institutionalised policy legacies. In so doing, it assesses the analytic utility of Bevir and Rhodes’ ideationally rooted interpretive approach against institutionally rooted claims of path dependency. It concludes that while the interpretive approach rightly stresses the need for a stronger focus on ideas as an explanation for policy change, the detail of actual Third Way policy reforms can only be understood from within the two nations’ institutionalised policy legacies. In addition, it argues that policy networks have had a considerable influence on reform trajectories too. The article advocates a closer synthesis of perspectives centred around ideas, interests and institutions in order to further our understanding of processes of policy change.

Qualitative comparative analysis and applied public policy analysis : new applications of innovative methods

Abstract QCA based methods have grown in popularity in recent years. Standing between quantitative and qualitative research, in principle they help balance the breadth of analysis provided by quantitative data with the depth of case study knowledge provided by qualitative analysis. The challenge of mixing depth and breadth has always been a particularly acute one for policy based research. Proponents of QCA techniques suggest they are better placed to handle the diversity of policy provision found in different spatial entities than standard linear quantitative methods, while also able to allow for hypothesis testing based upon a fine grained analysis that is more systematic in approach than the techniques typically employed in standard qualitative analyses. The full potential of these methods for policy analysis has yet to be realised however. Partly this is because knowledge of these methods remains at the margins of the policy analysis community, particularly amongst practitioners undertaking applied policy analyses such as policy evaluations. In the introduction to this volume we first outline some of the key principles of QCA research before moving on to identify some of its key advantages. We round off by highlighting key themes explored by the papers included within the volume.

Productive Welfare, the East Asian ‘Model’ and Beyond: Placing Welfare Types in Greater China into Context

This article rounds off the themed section by reviewing broader debates within welfare state modelling relevant to Greater China. More specifically, it examines the now well-established literature around the East Asian ‘model’ of welfare, and related debates on the notion of a ‘productive welfare’ model. In so doing, it challenges simplistic classifications that present the region as representing a single model of welfare and, instead, highlights the diversity of welfare provision found within both Greater China and East Asia more generally. Building on the authors’ earlier published work comparing East Asian welfare systems with those found across the OECD, it also challenges claims that the region is home to a distinct ‘productive’ model of welfare. The article ends by highlighting some key drivers that will shape future debates.

The productive and protective dimensions of welfare in Asia and the Pacific: pathways towards human development and income equality?

This article draws on recent data provided by the Asian Development Banks Social Protection Index and uses Fuzzy Set Ideal Type Analysis to develop ideal types of welfare activity to which 29 countries in Asia and the Pacific can have varying degrees of membership. There is little evidence that the commitment to “productive” and “protective” welfare is oriented along broad geographical units or predetermined by economic affluence and the size of the informal economy. It also adds an explorative Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to test the effect of “productive” and “protective” welfare properties on human development and income equality. Here, it finds that the absence of strong income protection is most clearly linked to low human development at the macro-level; high education investment is linked to high income inequality if governments fail to invest in employment and income protection or employment protection and training, respectively.

Do Party Governments Matter After All? Executive Ideology, Constitutional Structures and their Combined Effect on Welfare State Change

Abstract This paper presents a series of innovative, pooled time-series, cross-section (TSCS) regression models for 18 OECD countries (1971–2001) to explore the impact of executive ideology alternation and constitutional structures on welfare state change. Unlike other approaches in comparative welfare state research, the models specified in this paper focus not on the content or direction, but on the extent of change. Interaction effects between executive ideology alternation and constitutional structures are emphasized. The paper suggests that the effect of party ideology is particularly strong in political systems that concentrate power in the executive. In these systems, ideological differences from one cabinet to another lead to considerable policy change. Contrarily, systems with considerable degrees of consensus-based policy making are not only characterized by lower levels of welfare state change, but ideological differences of successive cabinets are more likely to lead to policy gridlock.

Meeting emerging global policy challenges: positioning social policy between development and growth?

This special issue combines contributions to a series of collaborative workshops and conference symposia of the UK Social Policy Association, the UK Development Studies Association and the Indian Social Policy Initiative held at the University of Bath (26–27 April 2013), the University of Birmingham (16 November 2013), O.P. Jindal Global University (24–25 March 2014) and the University of Sheffield (14–16 July 2014) asking: What is the Role of Social Policies in Meeting Emerging Global Policy Challenges and What Can Social Policy and International Development Studies Learn from Each Other? The main starting point for these different activities was the recognition that researchers and practitioners from social policy and international development studies increasingly face similar emerging global policy challenges at conceptual, methodological, technical and practitioner levels. In a world that is rapidly changing, increasingly connected and uncertain, the need and opportunity for fruitful intellectual collaboration between the two academic fields of inquiry is greater than ever. This Special Issue intends to take this initiative forward by covering different perspectives and approaches that examine the intellectual distinction between social policy and international development studies and look to develop a shared theoretical framework for global applied policy analysis. More specifically, it aims to explore the role of productivist and protective welfare activities and provide new insights into the particularities of global (informal) welfare regimes and the cross-cultural complexities of policy-making in the post-2008 financial crisis era. There is a recognised link between social policy and international development and a growing awareness of the need to establish social policy studies at the forefront of growth agendas at national and international levels. Contributions to the development of social policies in action is particularly pressing in middle-income countries such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Thailand) where growth has been relatively strong but where social problems such as large-scale material poverty and inequality act as a brake on potential (see, e.g. Surender & Walker, 2013). The necessity to engage with the concerns of social policy internationally is evidenced further by the existence of trends that affect all countries including persistent and multidimensional barriers to well-being in richer countries leaving large proportions of their populations, particularly children, highly vulnerable, insecure and socially

Beyond indices: The potential of fuzzy set ideal type analysis for cross-national analysis of policy outcomes

Abstract League tables ranking performance outcomes within or between countries have become commonplace in most policy sectors in recent decades and there are numerous examples to be found in practice. UNICEFs 2007 Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries offered a comprehensive and widely cited comparative analysis of childrens well being in 21 of the richest countries of the world. Utilising an additive index the authors distilled a large amount of quantitative data relating to childrens well being and were able to provide the most comprehensive snapshot of outcomes to date. Whilst an advantage of the method — and certainly a key factor in generating media coverage — was the way it allowed for a ranking of nations, recent debates in the comparative policy analysis literature have pointed to the advantages of methods that aim to classify nations into qualitatively distinct types rather than ranking them in league tables. These debates have particular force when multiple components of analysis are conceptually distinct or cases have widely varying contexts. Fuzzy set ideal type analysis (FSITA) has become an increasingly popular alternative approach to the additive index, precisely because it addresses these concerns. In this paper we explore the potential for using FSITA for the comparative analysis of childrens well-being. Drawing on the same data and conceptual foundations as the 2007 UNICEF study we explore the potential advantages of utilising a diversity oriented method such as FSITA as tool for policy evaluation that eschews ranking in favour of classifying.