** Apologies for cross-posting **

Call for Papers: Workshop on the New Politics of Welfare in Emerging Markets
by Emerging Welfare Project
Koç University, Department of Sociology, Istanbul
(March 15-16 2018)

We invite scholars to the “The New Politics of Welfare in Emerging Market Economies” workshop, organized by the the ERC-funded “Emerging Welfare” project in the Department of Sociology at Koç University, İstanbul (see emw.ku.edu.tr). In emerging markets, a new world of welfare with unique programs (particularly very large social assistance programs), services, budgets and huge coverage is in the formation. For example, the five largest social safety assistance program in the world are provided by China, India and Brazil to cover 486 million people, a figure almost equal to the European population. Other emerging markets such as South Africa, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, Russia have recently developed extensive social safety net programs, as well. 
The main question of this workshop is: what are the political factors driving this new welfare state expansion in emerging markets? Neither the “old” theories of the development of the welfare state, nor contemporary structuralist theories can explain this case of emerging markets, where there seem to be new, mostly political, dynamics at play to shape welfare state development. We invite scholars, who analyze and explore the politics of welfare state development in emerging markets, to help account for this ongoing welfare state expansion. These papers and analyses may focus on party politics, electoral dynamics, social movements, protest events, political (in)stability, ethnic, racial, religious, ideological or other political determinants of welfare.

In case we receive a significant number of high quality paper proposals, we plan to apply to the Journal of European Social Policy’s call for a special issue (http://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/ESP/CallForProposals2017_Revised.pdf ). With this possibility in mind, we invite scholars who already have a working paper or at least some analyses at this initial stage. In other words, we invite papers that are “beyond the stage of first ideas”, as requested by the JESP.
The workshop will be hosted by Koç University, Istanbul and travel and accommodation expenses of participants will be covered by the Emerging Welfare research project.  The deadline for applications is September 30. Please send your one-page application, which includes an abstract, a description of the current state of the paper (whether it is a working paper or existing data analysis etc.) and a short bio to the principal investigator of the project, Dr. Erdem Yörük ([log in to unmask]).
We look forward to your applications.

Please visit project's web site for further information: https://emw.ku.edu.tr/