Documents welfare state 1 956 results

"Les Français ne voudraient plus travailler, les jeunes seraient de plus en plus flemmards, l'État-providence serait devenu trop coûteux, l'intelligence artificielle devrait faire disparaître des millions d'emplois... Autant d'idées reçues qui saturent le débat public, plombent la confiance des citoyens et nous empêchent d'engager nos sociétés dans les politiques essentielles à mettre en oeuvre pour faire face aux multiples crises qui les menacent. Dans des textes courts, vifs et pédagogiques, Dominique Méda montre comment nos sociétés peuvent organiser une reconversion écologique qui met au centre les plus modestes, accorde la plus grande attention aux conditions de travail, repense le rôle de l'entreprise dans la cité et voit dans l'égalité entre hommes et femmes un objectif majeur. Remaniées et enrichies d'une préface inédite, ces réflexions, qui dessinent une vision constructive de l'avenir, sont issues des chroniques de France Culture : "Le pourquoi du comment, économie et social"."

"Platform work has introduced a new dimension of precarity in the labor market, as platform workers face high labor market risks and have limited access to social protection. The expansion of this employment status raises the question of whether platform workers have distinct social policy preferences from workers with similar socioeconomic backgrounds who are not employed in the platform economy. This paper empirically examines how and under what circumstances the social policy preferences of platform workers differ from those of other workers. We find that platform workers are more likely to demand more compensatory labor market policies than regular workers. Also, they are more likely to demand more social investment-type policies than regular and atypical workers who do not engage in the platform economy. We also find evidence for contextual effects: whereas welfare state generosity is associated with weaker demand from platform workers for compensatory labor market policies, it is associated with higher support for social investment. Our results suggest that the expansion of platform work will fuel demands for welfare expansion, specifically focusing on social investment."

"Combining the key theoretical and empirical approaches of political economy and EU scholarship, this textbook is key reading for studying the European political economy.
Drawing on theoretical debates and recent policy case studies, a team of expert editors and contributors help students apply theories and methods to real life issues in European political economy. This textbook offers a clear analysis of some of the most pressing challenges confronting Europe, such as the political impact of rising inequality, the functioning and the effects of Economic and Monetary Union, the future of the 'European' social model, the ongoing impact of Brexit, Europe's role in a changing global economy, and Europe's response to the Covid-19 pandemic."

"This book primarily explores the welfare-policy responses to the Great Recession, reform trajectories that swept across Europe over the last decade, with a final chapter that focuses on Covid-19 welfare management. The 2008 crash marked a critical stress test for European welfare states with dramatic repercussions, including a massive surge in unemployment, a widening in wage and income disparities, and rising poverty. Hikes in fiscal deficits and public debt, required to pre-empt an economic meltdown, forced policymakers to make painful cuts in welfare services to shore up public finances, thereby jeopardizing welfare support for vulnerable groups. The overall scope of welfare-policy responses is heterogeneous, disparate, and uneven. In some cases, the response to the Great Recession was accompanied by deep social conflicts, while in others unpopular crisis-management measures received broad consent from opposition parties, trade unions, and employer organizations. Alongside serious retrenchments, there have been assertive attempts to rebuild social programmes and institutions, to accommodate policy repertoires-not merely domestically but also at the EU level-to the new realities of the knowledge economy and an ageing society. Overall, the long 2010s showed that the future of work and welfare is in our hands: it is perfectly possible to shape this future in such a way as to provide inclusive social security, achieve high employment, advance and maintain human capabilities across the life-course, and fight poverty and inequality."

"The article deals with the history of social Europe in its entirety and draws on the scattered research not only on the history of national welfare states in Europe but also on international social policy since the 1880s and on the social policy of the European Community and its successor, the European Union. It takes into account historical, sociological and political science research in English, French and German. It covers four topics: the general development of the welfare state in Europe, which often, but not always, contrasts sharply with global developments; the variations between European welfare states, which have changed considerably and decreased gradually after the Second World War; the transnational exchange on the welfare state, which was promoted by international organisations and carried by international experts, was by no means always free of tension; and finally, the social policy of the European Community and the European Union, respectively, whose beginnings date back to the period before the First World War and which has acquired its current, often underestimated significance since the 1980s."

"Radical right parties are no longer political challengers on the fringes of party systems; they have become part of the political mainstream across the Western world. This book shows how they have used their political power to reform economic and social policies in Continental Europe, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, and the USA. In doing so, it argues that the radical right's core ideology of nativism and authoritarianism informs their socio-economic policy preferences. However, diverse welfare state contexts mediate their socio-economic policy impacts along regime-specific lines, leading to variations of trade protectionism, economic nationalism, traditional familialism, labour market dualism, and welfare chauvinism.
The radical right has used the diverse policy instruments available within their political-economic arrangements to protect threatened labour market insiders and male breadwinners from decline, while creating a racialized and gendered precariat at the same time. This socio-economic agenda of selective status protection restores horizontal inequalities in terms of gender and ethnicity, without addressing vertical inequalities between the rich and the poor.
Combining insights from comparative politics, party politics, comparative political economy, and welfare state research, the book provides novel insights into how the radical right manufactures consent for authoritarian rule by taming the socially corrosive effects of globalised capitalism for key electoral groups, while aiming to exclude the rest from democratic participation."

"Freedom of movement in the EU is much more developed in terms of economic freedoms than in terms of social and welfare policies. Social insurance arrangements for mobile workers are handled within a reciprocity-based regulatory framework. This article analyses the intra-EU social insurance system from the point of view of highly mobile construction workers. Under the relevant legislation, these workers should receive social insurance either from their home country, if posted by their employer, or from the host country, if moving individually. The article shows, however, that employers often undermine the system to save on labour costs. For those in a weak labour market position, social insurance is unavailable, while those from wealthier welfare states rely on home-country social insurance, and those who are able to, negotiate and navigate complex systems themselves. Consequently, those most in need of social insurance are least able to access it."

"Comment accélérer la transition de nos économies et de nos sociétés vers le bien-être et la soutenabilité ? Alerter sur le «péril climatique» ne suffira pas : la peur paralyse davantage qu'elle n'incite à agir. Il faut proposer un récit commun positif, qui mobilise le principe de justice sociale. Car les crises écologiques renforcent les inégalités, tout comme les inégalités accroissent les dégâts environnementaux. Pour cela, nous disent les auteurs, il est nécessaire de redéfinir le progrès social à la lumière du défi écologique, en visant l'égalité, l'emploi et la protection sociale. Quels instruments de justice environnementale mettre en place ? Suffira-t-il de «verdir» le capitalisme ou faudra-t-il changer de paradigme économique ? Quel rôle pour les syndicats dans la transition ? Comment mutualiser les nouveaux risques pour en minimiser l'impact ? Ce livre avance dix propositions pour faire de la transition sociale-écologique un nouvel horizon démocratique."

"Changing Welfare States is is a major new examination of the wave of social reform that has swept across Europe over the past two decades. In a comparative fashion, it analyses reform trajectories and political destinations in an era of rapid socioeconomic restructuring, including the critical impact of the global financial crisis on welfare state futures. The book argues that the overall scope of social reform across the member states of the European Union varies widely. In some cases welfare state change has been accompanied by deep social conflicts, while in other instances unpopular social reforms received broad consent from opposition parties, trade unions and employer organizations. The analysis reveals trajectories of welfare reform in many countries that are more proactive and reconstructive than is often argued in academic research and the media. Alongside retrenchments, there have been deliberate attempts - often given impetus by intensified European (economic) integration - to rebuild social programs and institutions and thereby accommodate welfare policy repertoires to the new economic and social realities of the 21st century. Welfare state change is work in progress, leading to patchwork mixes of old and new policies and institutions, on the lookout, perhaps, for greater coherence. Unsurprisingly, that search process remains incomplete, resulting from the institutionally bounded and contingent adaptation to the challenges of economic globalization, fiscal austerity, family and gender change, adverse demography, and changing political cleavages."

"While an economy is always 'embedded' in society, the relationship between the two is undergoing profound changes in Europe, resulting in widespread instability which is emphasised by the current crisis. This book analyzes these changes, and in particular pressures of intensifying international competition, globalization and financialization within Europe.
Combining the perspectives of economic sociology, political economy and political science, the expert contributors offer an in-depth, multidisciplinary insight to the functioning of a number of institutional arenas around which European economies and societies are organized. Areas explored include the state and public policy at European national and regional level, the welfare state, industrial relations systems, education systems and the family.
This challenging and thought provoking book will be of great interest to a wide-ranging audience across a number of disciplines, including European studies, political science, comparative political economy, economic sociology, industrial relations and social policy."