Social Policy by Other Means: Theorizing Unconventional Forms of Welfare Production

Abstract

The goal of this special issue is to highlight the importance of unconventional social policies, theorize their development in comparison with traditional welfare state accounts and outline a new research agenda. In this introduction to the special issue, the editors present the concept of social policy by other means as encompassing two kinds of unconventional social policy (from the point of view of mainstream comparative research): First, functional equivalents to formal systems of social protection and, second, non-state provision of benefits. The concept builds upon a sizeable, but fragmented literature in comparative welfare state research. While numerous examples demonstrate that social policy by other means is more pervasive in both OECD and non-OECD countries than often acknowledged, a brief survey of the top 20 articles in the field reveals that this fact is not sufficiently reflected in the academic literature. With reference to both existing studies and the contributions to this special issue, the editors go on to explore (1) the different forms of social policy by other means, (2) explanatory theories and (3) their effectiveness in terms of social outcomes. They close by outlining a research agenda.

Keywords:

• social policy by other means
• comparative welfare state research
• social policy
• welfare state
• regulation
• forbearance
• state capacity

Acknowledgements

This special issue emerged out of a workshop at the 2015 ECPR Joint Sessions in Warsaw and was further developed at an authors’ workshop at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in 2016. We would like to thank all participants at these workshops for their contributions to the discussions and the Department of Political Science and Public Management at SDU for generous financial and organizational support. We are also grateful to Tim Dorlach and Daniel Beland for providing excellent in-depth feedback to drafts of this introduction at different points in the process. All remaining errors and misinterpretations are ours.

Notes

1. We exclude social policies that are exclusively provided and regulated by non-state actors. For an overview of private, welfare state substituting arrangements see for instance Cammett and MacLean (2014). This is part of the special issue “Social policy by other means: Theorizing unconventional forms of welfare production„ with guest editors Laura Seelkopf and Peter Starke.

2. We use the term “social policy” instead of “social protection” as it tends to have a wider definition which, for example, often includes education and social assistance.

3. Castles explicitly contrasted the Australasian strategy of “domestic defence” with “domestic compensation” found, for example, in some small, corporatist European countries such as Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden (Katzenstein 1985).

4. See Online Appendix. Our literature review is based on a Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) search from February 16, 2018 for the terms “Social Policy” or “Welfare State” in Political Science. We excluded review or method articles, primarily normative articles, articles that were obviously not on social policy-related themes as well as introductions to special issues.

5. Old age, survivors, incapacity-related, health, family, active labor market programs, unemployment, housing, other (mostly social assistance).

6. Note that this is almost true by definition given that the conventional welfare state literature focuses on policies in advanced democracies.

7. The idea of Big Society of the British Conservative‒Liberal Democrat coalition of 2010–2015 may also be seen in this light (Smith and Jones 2015). The Big Society agenda was, however, quickly abandoned and replaced by austerity (Woodhouse 2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura Seelkopf

Laura Seelkopf is Professor of Political Science (W1) at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany. She studies the comparative and international political economy of tax and social policy within and outside advanced economies. This research was conducted while she was postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bremen and the European University Institute.

Peter Starke

Peter Starke is Professor (mso) at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). He works at the Danish Centre for Welfare Studies (DaWS), where he studies the politics of welfare state change in comparative perspective, including the politics of retrenchment, globalization and policy convergence, and policy responses to war and economic crisis.