The historical fragility of Dutch corporatism : a dissertation overview

"April, 1990."Includes bibliographical referenc

Social investment returns over the life course

Hervorming Sociale Regelgevin

Austerity: Neoliberal dreams come true?

The 2008 global economic crisis paved the way for the construction of a new, elitedriven, capitalcentric, shrunken welfare state project founded on ideology disguised as pragmatism and objective ‘truths’. Today, welfare states exist in a context in which a new politics of austerity sets the parameters of the debate. Austerity incorporates the neoliberal desire to shrink the (social welfare) state, deregulate labour markets and emphasise private markets as the drivers of growth, enabling a reconfiguration of the interests of capital, the needs of people and the role of the state. The new politics of austerity looks like a ‘dream come true’ for neoliberals. Or is it? There is also a powerful counternarrative that suggests that the global crisis exposed the fundamental weaknesses and limitations of neoliberalism and forced policy makers to question core principles and change direction. Focusing on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), perhaps the preeminent global neoliberal interlocutor, and using quantitative textual analysis, the article locates some evidence of movement, but little to suggest that the fundamental assumptions of neoliberalism have been displaced

The capacity of social policies to combat poverty among new social risk groups

This paper considers groups who are most likely to be vulnerable to new social risks and tests the effects of social policies on their poverty levels. Specifically, the paper conducts multi-level regression analyses across 18 OECD countries near the year 2004, analyzing the effects of social policies on the likelihood of being poor of low-skilled young women and men aged 18-30, and of those at risk of possessing obsolete skills, namely low-educated men aged 55-64. The analyses are conducted by combining both macro-level policy data and household-and person-level micro-data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) cross-national database. The central question asks which policies - active labor market policies (ALMP), passive labor market policies (PLMP), employment protection legislation (EPL), family policies, government daycare spending - are effective at combating new social risks. In addition to analyzing social policies, the paper also considers union density and representation of women in national parliaments as two measures that depict agents who are most intent on combating old and new social risks, respectively. The findings show that active labor market policies (ALMP) are the most important predictor of a decrease in poverty levels among the low skilled. The negative effect of passive labor market policies (PLMP) on poverty is only significant for the older male group. Family policies are related to a reduction in poverty for both low-skilled young women and men. Union density is significant in reducing the odds of poverty of the older male group, while it is insignificant for both younger males and females - thereby reflecting a measure of prevention against old, but not new, social risks. Additionally, the paper's findings support the hypothesis that the greater the representation of women in national parliaments, the greater the chances of having policies that are associated with a reduction of poverty across age levels. Lastly, gross public social spending as a measure of overall welfare generosity is found to be associated with a reduction in poverty only of the older male group, but not that of the younger groups. The paper's analyses suggest that some social policies remain geared toward older segments of society, leaving the younger population at greater financial and therefore social risk

The Sub-State Politics of Welfare in Italy: Assessing the Effect of Territorial Mobilization on the Development of Region-Specific Social Governance

This article demonstrates that the political mobilization of regional identities through the creation of regionalist parties has positively impacted on the development of region-specific models of welfare governance in Italy. This means that, in a decentralized country, the ‘centre-periphery’ cleavage may significantly influence the sub-state politics of welfare

Contesting European Regions

The research on which this paper is based was conducted under an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Professorial Fellowship [grant number RES-051-27-0302].Peer reviewedPublisher PD