Timo Fleckenstein

Business, skills and the welfare state: the political economy of employment-oriented family policy in Britain and Germany

Family policies have been expanded in many OECD countries, whilst developments along other welfare state dimensions have been characterized by retrenchment. Although the contribution of gender analyses of the welfare state to a better understanding of family policies is widely acknowledged, the literature so far has largely failed to provide a comparative account explaining the recent expansions of employment-oriented family policies in countries that were previously categorized as pursuing policies in accordance with the strong male breadwinner model. This article aims to make a contribution to the comparative literature by investigating the socioeconomic conditions and politics of employment-oriented family policy expansions in Britain and Germany since the 1990s. We pay special attention to processes of post-industrialisation and especially changed skill compositions as well as the role of key policy actors, with a special focus on organized business.

The Dual Transformation of Social Protection and Human Capital: Comparing Britain and Germany

Britain and Germany have been experiencing significant changes in the nature of work and welfare since the 1990s. Although important differences have remained, there have been compelling indications of a dual transformation of welfare constituted not only by a far-reaching retrenchment in unemployment insurance but also by a remarkable expansion in family policy. These developments have their functional underpinnings in accelerating de-industrialization with a declining proportion of the male workforce with specific skills as well as in service sector growth and rising female labor market participation characterized by an increase in general skills. As the aggregate effect of economic fluctuations in industrial production has diminished over time, the relative incidence of work disruptions which have arisen from maternity and child-rearing has increased substantially. This dual transformation in welfare and employment patterns suggests that the process of de-industrialization has initiated significant path adjustments unanticipated in the existing comparative political economy literature.

Filling in the Gaps: European Governance, the Open Method of Coordination and the European Commission

The article addresses the way in which EU policy‐making operates, explains the relevance of ‘lifelong learning’ for the European Commission and analyses the mechanisms by which the Commission has advanced policy‐making in education and training since the Lisbon Summit. The article reviews in particular the alleged lack of effectiveness of the Open Method of Coordination in education and, second, the notion that the EU advances ‘slowly and persistently’ in its acquisition of competences in this area.

The Politics of Postindustrial Social Policy: Family Policy Reforms in Britain, Germany, South Korea, and Sweden

Recent welfare reforms across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have sought to make social policies more “employment friendly.” Although “old” social policies of the Golden Age (namely, unemployment protection and old-age security, which were typically geared toward the male breadwinner model) were subject to comprehensive retrenchment, “new” social policies, especially family policies facilitating work–family reconciliation and female employment participation, experienced substantial expansion. Following the Swedish “pioneer,” strong male breadwinner countries have expanded employment-oriented family policies since the late 1990s. Against the case of early family policy expansion in Sweden (typically associated with social democracy and an organized women’s movement), they examine whether the drivers of employment-oriented family policy have changed since the end of the Golden Age. The authors highlight party competition as key political driver in policy expansion in “latecomer” countries, whereas postindustrialization (in particular the rise of the new social risk of work–family conflicts, as well as wider changes in the skills profile and needs of postindustrial economies) provides the functional underpinnings for these policies.

The Politics of Labour Market Reforms and Social Citizenship in Germany

Since the second half of the 1990s, German labour market policy has experienced paradigmatic changes, undermining the conservative ideal of preserving social status and maintaining achieved living standards. Reforms carried out by the conservative–liberal government of the 1990s focused largely on workfare measures. This development had its roots in the progressive disintegration of the cross-class alliance of organised business and trade unions that had previously supported Bismarckian unemployment protection. The withdrawal of employers from the conservative welfare state can be related to far-reaching socio-economic changes which were thought to undermine the functional feasibility of the social dimension of the ‘German Model’. Instead of pursuing ‘social democratic’ activation, the Red–Green government (1998–2005) not only continued on the reform trajectory of its predecessor, but accelerated the departure from the established policy path. Understanding the revision of social democratic labour market policy requires scrutiny of both shifts in power and policy learning.

Europeanisation of German labour market policy?: the European employment strategy scrutinised

Considerable policy change has been initiated with the recent labour market reforms in Germany. Discussing these reforms, commentators focused on the national factors driving these changes, while the ‘European’ dimension of labour market policy-making was largely neglected. By contrast, in the literature on European social policy, the capacity of the European Employment Strategy (EES) to contribute to domestic policy change is much discussed. Accordingly, this article asks whether the neglect of the EES in the labour market policy literature results in incomplete explanations of policy change; or, put differently, did the EES possess the capacity to effectively Europeanise German labour market policy? It is concluded that the EES did not possess the capacity to Europeanise German labour market policy to any significant extent. Thus, its neglect appears to reflect the insignificance of the EES so far.

The politics of labor market reform in coordinated welfare capitalism: comparing Sweden, Germany, and South Korea

Coordinated welfare capitalism has been subject to comprehensive change since the 1990s, with workfare measures and the deregulation of employment protection at the heart of labor market reforms. Developments in Sweden, Germany, and South Korea challenge not only the assumption of relative stability that is commonly associated with the study of coordinated market economies, but also the assertion that this stability is associated with the persistence of established political coalitions. The authors contend that a collapse of longstanding welfare state coalitions is the key political driver of labor market reform, with the withdrawal of employers from previous welfare settlements at the center of this development.

Caught up in the past? Social inclusion, skills, and vocational education and training policy in England

Abstract Since the mid-1990s, governments of different political persuasion have tried to reform VET policy to address problems in skills formation and social inclusion. Despite considerable policy activism, success has been somewhat limited, and England failed to overcome the problems associated with its liberal training regime. This article assesses the failure in vocational skills formation as a political economy and a public policy problem. It challenges the determinism in the political economy literature, points to poor public policy-making, and outlines possible policy levers.

Democratization, post-industrialization, and East Asian welfare capitalism: the politics of welfare state reform in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan

This review article provides an overview of the scholarship on the establishment and reform of East Asian welfare capitalism. The developmental welfare state theory and the related productivist welfare regime approach have dominated the study of welfare states in the region. This essay, however, shows that a growing body of research challenges the dominant literature. We identify two key driving factors of welfare reform in East Asia, namely democratization and post-industrialization; and discuss how these two drivers have undermined the political and functional underpinnings of the post-war equilibrium of the East Asian welfare/production regime. Its unfolding transformation and the new politics of social policy in the region challenge the notion of “East Asian exceptionalism”, and we suggest that recent welfare reforms call for a better integration of the region into the literature of advanced political economies to allow for cross-fertilization between Eastern and Western literatures.

Institutions, Ideas and Learning

By paraphrasing Richard Nixon, ‘we are institutionalists now’, Pierson (2003: 1) indicates, with some polemic, the popularity the new institutionalist approach has experienced since its (re-)appearance on the agenda of social sciences in the second half of the 1980s. In this chapter, new institutionalism – and especially historical institutionalism with its path dependence theorem – is reviewed (Section 1). The prevalent stability bias of this literature is addressed by emphasising institutional incoherence and diversity, the discretion of agency and the structuring impact of ideas in policymaking as endogenous sources for transformative institutional change, which can be linked with policy learning as a mechanism for knowledge-based institutional change (Section 2). This will be followed by introducing the concept of policy learning, before briefly outlining an institutional approach towards learning, which is ascribed the capacity for integration into new institutionalism (Section 3).