Policy instruments and welfare state reform

A core, but so far untested, proposition of the new politics perspective, originally introduced by Paul Pierson, is that welfare state cutbacks will be implemented using so-called ‘invisible’ policy instruments, for example, a change in indexation rules. Expansion should, by implication, mainly happen using ‘visible’ policy instruments, for example, a change in nominal benefits. We have coded 1030 legislative reforms of old-age pensions and unemployment protection in Britain, Denmark, Finland and Germany from 1974 to 2014. With this unique data at hand, we find substantial support for this crucial new politics proposition

Social and cultural origins of motivations to volunteer a comparison of university students in six countries

Although participation in volunteering and motivations to volunteer (MTV) have received substantial attention on the national level, particularly in the US, few studies have compared and explained these issues across cultural and political contexts. This study compares how two theoretical perspectives, social origins theory and signalling theory, explain variations in MTV across different countries. The study analyses responses from a sample of 5794 students from six countries representing distinct institutional contexts. The findings provide strong support for signalling theory but less so for social origins theory. The article concludes that volunteering is a personal decision and thus is influenced more at the individual level but is also impacted to some degree by macro-level societal forces

"It's making contacts" : notions of social capital and implications for widening access to medical education

Acknowledgements Our thanks to the Medical Schools Council (MSC) of the UK for funding Study A; REACH Scotland for funding Study B; and Queen Mary University of London, and to the medical school applicants and students who gave their time to be interviewed. Our thanks also to Dr Sean Zhou and Dr Sally Curtis, and Manjul Medhi, for their help with data collection for studies A and B respectively. Our thanks also to Dr Lara Varpio, Uniformed Services University of the USA, for her advice and guidance on collating data sets and her comments on the draft manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Access for All?:Sozialinvestitionen in der frühkindlichen Bildung und Betreuung im europäischen Vergleich

Die Investition in kindbezogene Sozialpolitik ist heute ein zentrales Anliegen europäischer Wohlfahrtsstaaten. Frühkindlicher Bildung und Betreuung kommt die Schlüsselrolle zu, Bildungserfolg und Elternerwerbstätigkeit zu fördern zwecks Chancengleichheit und Armutsbekämpfung. Der international verbreitete Sozialinvestitionsdiskurs lenkt leicht davon ab, dass große Unterschiede in den nationalen Systemen frühkindlicher Bildung und Betreuung bestehen, und diese unterschiedlich in die nationalen Wohlfahrtsstaatsregime eingebettet sind. Am Beispiel Schwedens, Deutschlands und Großbritanniens werden verschiedene Kinderbetreuungssysteme einer kritischen Analyse unterzogen mit Hinblick auf ihr „Sozialinvestitionspotenzial“. Die Untersuchung zeigt, dass frühkindliche Bildungsangebote nicht als Allheilmittel zur Vorbeugung sozialer Ungleichheit fungieren können. Falls nicht mit weiteren, auf Gleichheit ausgerichtete Maßnahmen im Bildungs- und sozialen Sicherungsbereich kombiniert, ist zu erwarten, dass sich eine gegenteilige Wirkungslogik der Sozialinvestitionsstrategie entfaltet, die herkunftsbezogene Bildungsungleichheit noch verstärkt.The importance of investing in early childhood is widely acknowledged in policy circles. Particularly formal Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is seen as key to creating equal opportunities and combating poverty by increasing educational achievement of children and supporting parental employment. This social investment perspective has in recent decades supported the rapid development and expansion of ECEC in most European countries. However, the international social investment discourse masks fundamental differences in European ECEC systems and detracts attention from the way ECEC is embedded in the wider welfare regime of a country. This paper critically examines the ‘social investment potential’ of ECEC systems by comparing an early social investment country, Sweden, with two ‘late movers’, the UK and Germany. It argues that investing in ECEC is not per se a panacea for social inclusion. To the contrary, if not combined with other, partly ‘traditional’ equality measures both in education and social protection, ECEC investment may have the opposite effect of increasing social inequality

Deregulation, Privatisation and Marketisation of Nordic Comprehensive Education : Social Changes Reflected in Schooling

Peer reviewe

The Relationship Between Financial Distress and Life-Course Socioeconomic Inequalities in Well-Being:Cross-National Analysis of European Welfare States

Objectives. We investigated to what extent current financial distress explains the relationship between life-course socioeconomic position and well-being in Southern, Scandinavian, Postcommunist, and Bismarckian welfare regimes. Methods. We analyzed individuals (n = 18 324) aged 50 to 75 years in the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe, 2006–2009. Well-being was measured with CASP-12 (which stands for control, autonomy, self-realization, and pleasure) and life satisfaction. We generated a life-course socioeconomic index from 8 variables and calculated multilevel regression models (containing individuals nested within 13 countries), as well as stratified single-level models by welfare regime. Results. Life-course socioeconomic advantage was related to higher well-being; the difference in life satisfaction between the most and least advantaged was 2.09 (95% confidence interval = 1.87, 2.31) among women and 1.65 (95% confidence interval = 1.43, 1.87) among men. The weakest associations were found among Scandinavian countries. Financial distress was associated with lower well-being and attenuated the relationship between life-course socioeconomic position and well-being in all regimes (ranging from 34.26% in Postcommunist to 72.22% in Scandinavian countries). Conclusions. We found narrower inequalities in well-being in the Scandinavian regime. Reducing financial distress may help improve well-being and reduce inequalities

Towards a Critical Sociology of Dominant Ideologies: An Unexpected Reunion between Pierre Bourdieu and Luc Boltanski

This article aims to demonstrate the enduring relevance of Pierre Bourdieu and Luc Boltanski’s ‘La production de l’idéologie dominante’ [‘The production of the dominant ideology’], which was originally published in Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales in 1976. More than three decades later, in 2008, a re-edited version of this study was printed in book format as La production de l’idéologie dominante, which was accompanied by a detailed commentary, written by Luc Boltanski and entitled Rendre la réalité inacceptable. À propos de « La production de l’idéologie dominante » [Making Reality Unacceptable. Comments on ‘The production of the dominant ideology’]. In addition to containing revealing personal anecdotes and providing important sociological insights, this commentary offers an insider account of the genesis of one of the most seminal pieces Boltanski co-wrote with his intellectual father, Bourdieu. In the Anglophone literature on contemporary French sociology, however, the theoretical contributions made both in the original study and in Boltanski’s commentary have received little – if any – serious attention. This article aims to fill this gap in the literature, arguing that these two texts can be regarded not only as forceful reminders of the fact that the ‘dominant ideology thesis’ is far from obsolete but also as essential for understanding both the personal and the intellectual underpinnings of the tension-laden relationship between Bourdieu and Boltanski. Furthermore, this article offers a critical overview of the extent to which the unexpected, and partly posthumous, reunion between ‘the master’ (Bourdieu) and his ‘dissident disciple’ (Boltanski) equips us with powerful conceptual tools, which, whilst illustrating the continuing centrality of ‘ideology critique’, permit us to shed new light on key concerns in contemporary sociology and social theory. Finally, the article seeks to push the debate forward by reflecting upon several issues that are not given sufficient attention by Bourdieu and Boltanski in their otherwise original and insightful enquiry into the complexities characterizing the daily production of ideology

Not saying, not doing: Convergences, contingencies and causal mechanisms of state reform and decentralisation in Hollande’s France

Are States in contemporary Europe subject to new forms of convergence under the impact of economic crisis, enhanced European steering and international monitoring? Or is the evolution of governance (national and sub-national) driven fundamentally by diverging, mainly domestic pressures? Drawing on extensive new data, the article combines analysis of the State Modernisation and Decentralisation reform programmes of the Hollande–Ayrault administration, drawing comparisons where appropriate with the previous Sarkozy regime. The limits of President Hollande’s anti-Sarkozy method were demonstrated in the first 2 years; framing state reform and decentralisation in negative terms prevented the emergence of a coherent legitimising discourse. The empirical data is interpreted with reference to a comparative ‘States of Convergence’ framework, which is conceptualised as a heuristic device for analysing variation between places, countries and policy fields. The article concludes that the forces of hard convergence are gaining ground, as economic, epistemic and European pressures continually challenge the forces of institutional inertia

Parental Leave policies, gender equity and family well being in Europe: a comparative perspective

Leave policies and the protection of working parents' rights have changed significantly in Europe during the last few decades. While policies introduced immediately after World War II were largely based on a male-breadwinner model, the post-1970s policies have recognised the increase in maternal employment, the growing diversity of work/family arrangements and working parents' needs for state support in caring for young children. Paid maternity leave and paid or unpaid parental leave are now available throughout Europe - Western, Central and Eastern - and policy developments have encouraged more gender-neutral leaves and longer periods of paid leave (Deven and Moss 2005)