***Apologies for cross-posting***
Dear colleagues,
Laura Seelkopf (Jacobs University, now University of Bremen) and I
are organizing a workshop at next year's ECPR Joint Sessions in
Warsaw (29 March - 2 April 2015, University of Warsaw). The topic
should be of interest for welfare state researchers from various
disciplines.
The deadline for paper proposals is 1 December 2014.
Abstracts must be submitted via the ECPR website.
Workshop Title: Social Policy by Other Means: Alternatives to
State Welfare for Redistribution and Insurance – Historical and
Comparative Perspectives (Workshop 13)
Abstract: Life can be “poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes). To
insure their citizens against the hardships of life, Western
European governments have since the 1880s introduced social policies
such as health insurance or pensions that constitute the core of
what we now understand as the modern welfare state. The strong focus
on these particular policies has served comparative welfare state
research well in analyzing the reduction of life-risks in advanced
democracies over the last century. Yet, increasingly, this focus is
too narrow. Especially outside the OECD, the old approach falls
short. Often, the nation state is not even the main provider of
social security. What is more, the political cleavages and
mechanisms shaping welfare policies in non-OECD countries are very
distinct. Urban-rural and ethnic conflicts tend to play a much
larger role for instance than the traditional capital-labor
relationship. Depending on the economic and political structure,
basic health care or agricultural policies matter more than, say,
pension reform. In a similar way, new ways of ensuring equity and
risk protection are gaining ground in industrialized countries as
well. Policies like consumer protection and the integration of
immigrants have at first sight little to do with classic welfare
state instruments. What are the political dynamics of such policies
and how do they relate to more traditional redistributive and safety
net measures? We invite papers that analyze ‘social policies by
other means’ in both OECD and non-OECD countries. We thereby aim at
a dialogue between traditional comparative welfare state research
and other sub-disciplines, theories, historical and geographical
lenses.
Participants: We encourage a broad range of participants to submit
papers, ranging from development and
international relations scholars through historians to comparative
welfare state researchers,
from country, policy or area experts to broad comparativists, and
from Ph.D. candidates to
established scholars. We especially strive to secure some funding to
support the participation
of scholars from non-OECD countries.
For more information, including a longer outline, please visit the ECPR
website.
General information about the 2015 Joint Sessions can be found here.
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact us: [log in to unmask]
& [log in to unmask]
We would be happy if you could forward the call to people you know
who may be interested.
Kind regards,
Peter
--
Peter Starke
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Public Management
Centre for Welfare State Research
https://www.facebook.com/WelfareStudies
Tel. +4565504307
Email [log in to unmask]
Web http://www.sam.sdu.dk/ansat/starke
Addr. Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN DENMARK
_______________________________________________________________
Campusvej 55 * DK-5230 * Odense M * Denmark * Tel. +45 6550 1000 * www.sdu.dk