Less generous welfare states end up needing more regulation to protect citizens from losing access to services

What does the state do to prevent consumers from losing access to basic services due to financial hardship, not least during the pandemic? Hanan Haber compares regulatory regimes that prevent loss of access to services in the UK, Sweden, Israel and the EU. He finds that more residual welfare regimes are associated with more social protection through regulation

How participatory regulation is changing the nature of policymaking

Regulators are often shielded from political pressures, with decisions made on the basis of technical expertise rather than public opinion. Yet as Hanan Haber and Eva Heims explain, recent years have seen a growing trend for ‘participatory regulation’ across Europe, where citizens actively participate in the decision-making process. Drawing on a new study, they argue we are increasingly seeing a move away from regulation based on expertise to regulatory decisions that try to capture a range of different viewpoints and interests

The regulatory welfare state in pension markets: mitigating high charges for low-income savers in the United Kingdom and Israel

How does the rising ‘regulatory welfare state’ address social policy concerns in pension markets? This study examines this question by comparing the regulatory responses to high charges paid by low-income workers in pension markets in the UK and Israel. In the UK, with the recognition that the market would not cater to low-income workers, the regulatory response was the creation of a publicly operated low-cost pension fund (NEST), a ‘public option’ within the market. This allowed low-income workers access to a low level of charges, previously reserved for high-income and organised workers. In Israel, regulation sought to empower consumers, while providing minimal social protection by capping pension charges at a relatively high level, thereby leaving most of the responsibility for reducing the charges with the individual saver. By comparing these two cases, the article develops an analytical framework for the study of the regulatory welfare state, making two contributions. First, it highlights different types of regulatory citizenship: minimal regulatory social protection as opposed to a more egalitarian approach. Second, it identifies an overlooked regulatory welfare state strategy: creating ‘public option’ arrangements, whereby a state-run (but not funded) service operates within the market

Liberalizing markets, liberalizing welfare? Economic reform and social regulation in the EU's electricity regime

This article argues that the European Union (EU) is promoting a liberal model of welfare through social regulation. Focusing on the liberalization and regulation of the electricity sector, the article asks how and for what reasons social protection of vulnerable consumers was introduced into this sector, and what kind of welfare policy this represents. This article shows that social measures grew substantially between the second and third directives on electricity sector liberalization (2005–2009), advanced by the European Parliament and reluctantly adopted by the Commission. This development runs counter to our understanding of electricity sector reform as focused primarily on liberalization, competition and efficiency. It is argued that the introduction of social protection advanced the process of economic reform, even when the measures introduced were in themselves inefficient. This social regulation, however, not only reflects a liberal, targeted and minimal understanding of welfare, but also pushes social policy in member states in this same direction

Welfare through regulatory means: eviction and repossession policies in Singapore*

The study and provision of welfare have long been synonymous with direct social spending. The provision of welfare through regulatory means poses a complementary perspective to the study of social policy. In this context, this paper focuses on policies aimed at preventing mortgage borrowers’ eviction and repossession in Singapore, a world leader in state-led owner occupancy but a welfare laggard in terms of social spending. The findings show a disparity between a high rate of arrears on housing credit, and a low level of eviction and repossession. We test several explanations for this disparity, and argue that it is the result of policy aiming to minimize eviction and repossessions. This policy is driven by institutional interdependencies within the state, which have tied citizens’ housing credit to other aspects of their individual welfare savings. The findings shed light on the central role of regulation in welfare

Regulating with the Masses? Mapping the Spread of Participatory Regulation

Stakeholder participation in regulatory processes has become increasingly common. The literature on citizen, customer and consumer participation in regulation shows a rise in these types of engagement, based primarily on individual case studies. However, we lack a solid empirical base for the discussion of this trend. This paper asks to what extent and why this rise in participation in regulatory policy-making occurs, creating a cross-sector, cross-country map of participatory regulation. The research is based on a quantitative, dictionary-based analysis of regulatory agencies' annual reports from 1998 to 2017 (n = 781). The findings show a rise in the use of terms related to participation over time, with the notable exceptions of financial and environmental regulators. These terms are most commonly used in EU level agencies, in Australia and France, while being rarely used in the German and Austrian cases. Our analysis shows that polity level variation is a key driver of how regulators use terms related to participation, and argues that such participation is less common in countries in which stakeholder participation is carried out at the national level through centralized corporatist institutions