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We are delighted to announce that we have signed a book contract with Oxford University Press. The Politics of Welfare Reform in 21st Century Western Europe: Inclusion or Segmentation, authored by Prof. Dr. Silja Häusermann, Dr. Macarena Ares, Dr. Matthias Enggist and Dr. Michael Pinggera, is expected to be published by Oxford University Press in 2023.

The economic, political and social changes that Western European democracies have undergone in the 21st century pose major challenges for European social policy and its welfare states. An ageing society, precarious employment, social inequality and polarization over social (dis)integration are just some of the challenges that have distributive implications. The Politics of Welfare Reform in 21st Century Western Europe: Inclusion or Segmentation takes up these issues and asks two central questions:

  1. What are the policy options for adapting European welfare states to the structural and political challenges of the 21st century?
  2. And to what extent are these options conditioned by political alignments and coalitions between parties and citizens?

We are looking forward to the publication of the book and thank Oxford University Press for this opportunity and the good cooperation.

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In previous surveys, we have already been able to find out how social policy preferences are distributed among the participating respondents. Another survey is now planned for the fall of 2022 that will look at the mechanisms behind these preferences. More specifically, the aim is to understand how the distributional effects of social policy reforms are perceived by the respondents. On the one hand, it is therefore of interest to find out which social policy reforms are generally perceived as effective in achieving goals such as social and economic equality. On the other hand, we also want to find out how effective social policy reforms are perceived to be in achieving these desired goals with respect to specific socioeconomic groups. This will bring us closer to answering the question of why certain individuals support certain social policy reforms and others do not.

The survey institute Bilendi will conduct the survey between October and November 2022. In the process, 1500 people will be surveyed in each of Sweden, Denmark, Gemrany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Bilendi for the good and constructive cooperation.

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We are currently working on an analysis of the introduction of the Grundrente in Germany, which came into force on 01.01.2021. The reform was first mentioned in the coalition treaty between the Union and the SPD in March 2018 and was finally passed on the second of July, 2020. The aim of the law is to grant supplementary pension to employees who have paid into the pension fund for more than 33 years and still receive a below-average pension. Over 70% of all benefit recipients are women – so this is a welfare reform that primarily benefits a politically weak group. By analyzing this specific reform, we hope to answer the question of the conditions under which solidaristic welfare reforms occur in an (welfare state) environment characterized by retrenchment rather than expansion, especially when such a reform benefits politically less influential groups.

With the help of Factiva, the team around Prof. Dr. Silja Häusermann hand-coded a total of 580 articles on the reform from 6 different German newspapers. All articles were published between January 2018, when the first newspapers reported on the planning of a Grundrente, and July 2020, when the introduction of the welfare reform was decided. Specifically, we were interested in what various political actors, whether parties, representatives of those parties, or government officials, had to say about the reform. These were statements regarding the generosity, implementation, eligibility and financing of this welfare reform. However, it was just as important for us to find out which frames these political actors used to justify their positions on the reform.

In addition, we also hand-coded the parliamentary debates on the bill in the Bundestag.  On the one hand, we also wanted to pick up the positions and frames of the opposition parties, which were less strongly represented in the newspapers studied. On the other hand, this is a more qualitative assessment of the parties’ positions on this welfare reform.

We look forward to sharing the results with you in the foreseeable future.

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We are happy to announce that several project-related papers and panels have been admitted to the following conferences:

Annual Congress of the Swiss Political Science Association (SPSA), VIRTUAL EVENT, February 3-4, 2022:

  • Thursday, February 3rd, 14:00-15:30:
    "The Immigration and Populism Challenges to the Welfare
    State – Divides, Coalition Potentials and Reform Opportunities", Matthias Enggist & Silja Häusermann

EPCI Seminar, Université Paris I Sorbonne, Paris, March 11th, 2022:

  • “Class and Welfare Politics in a Transforming European Party System”, presentation given by Silja Häuserman

European University Institute, Florence, May 25th, 2022:

  • “Inclusion or Segmentation – The Politics of Welfare Reform in 21st Century Western Europe”, presentation of the book project by Silja Häusermann 

28th International Conference of Europeanists (CES), Lisbon, June 29-July 1, 2022:

  • Wednesday, June 29th, 11:00-12:45:
    "Welfare Priorities and Vote Choice: Why and How Socio-economic Attitudes Continue to Affect Electoral Behavior", Michael Pinggera
  • Thursday, June 30st, 9:00-10:45:
    "Economic Redistribution or Social Inclusion? How Party Competition Affects Welfare Reform Opportunities in Western Europe", Silja Häusermann, Macarena Ares, Reto Bürgisser, Matthias Enggist & Michael Pinggera

Workshop on Party Politics and Comparative Political Economy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, December 8th and 9th, 2022:

  • “Inclusion or Segmentation – The Politics of Welfare Reform in 21st Century Western Europe”, presentation of the book project by Silja Häusermann 

(... to be updated)

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Between January and March 2021, we conducted another voter survey as part of our project. The survey had the overarching goal of deepening the findings of the first survey on (social) policy preferences. In addition to providing deeper insights into respondents' social policy preferences, this survey also focused on the perceived positions of national political parties. Namely, how respondents evaluate their national parties' positions on social policy reforms. Likewise, conjoint surveys allowed for an in-depth country-specific analysis of social policy reform preferences. A total of 9037 people from four countries, namely the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Spain, participated.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to all respondents for taking the time to participate in our survey and to the survey institute Bilendi for the efficient execution of the survey and the good cooperation.

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We are happy to announce that several project-related papers and panels have been admitted to the following conferences:

Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Munich, January 19th, 2021:

  • “Class and Welfare Politics in a Transforming European Party System”, presentation given by Silja Häusermann

Humboldt University, Berlin, May 10th, 2021:

  • “Welfare Reform in Europe”, Invited Research Talk by Silja Häusermann

Frankfurt University, Frankfurt, June 14th, 2021:

  • “Welfare Reform in Europe”, Invited Research Talk by Silja Häusermann

Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft (DVPW) Kongress, VIRTUAL EVENT, September 15th, 2021:

  • “Die Covid Krise und der Sozialstaat”, DVPW Plenary Panel, Online Input presentation by Silja Häusermann

Keynote lecture for the Closing PII Scientific Conference, London School of Economics and Social Science, London, September 22nd, 2021:

  • “Class and Welfare Politics in a Transforming European Party System”, presentation given by Silja Häusermann

Sidney Verba Lecture in Politics, Harvard Government Department, November 2nd, 2021:

  • “Class and Welfare Politics in a Transforming European Party System”, presentation given by Silja Häusermann

Annual Congress of the Swiss Political Science Association (SPSA), VIRTUAL EVENT, February 4-5, 2021:

  • Friday, February 5th, 8:30-10:00:
    "The COVID-crisis as a chance for welfare recalibration? Panel-data evidence on the effect of the COVID-crisis on welfare preferences in Spain, Germany, and Sweden", Matthias Enggist, Silja Häusermann, and Michael Pinggera
  • Friday, February 5th, 15:15-16:45:
    "Place and Policy Preferences – Attitudes Towards Social and Labour Market Policies in Left Behind Regions", Michael Pinggera
  • Friday, February 5th, 15:15-16:45:
    "The Salience of Immigration and its Effects on Welfare Priorities", Matthias Enggist

27th International Conference of Europeanists (CES), VIRTUAL EVENT, June 21-25, 2021:

  • "Fiscal constraint perceptions and how they depress solidarity", Silja Häusermann, Matthias Enggist, Macarena Ares, and Michael Pinggera
  • "Place and Policy Preferences – Attitudes Towards Social and Labour Market Policies in Left Behind Regions", Michael Pinggera
  • "Public Opinion and Long-Term Investment – Under What Conditions Do Citizens Support Future-oriented (Welfare) Reforms?", Julian Garritzmann, Silja Häusermann, and Michael Pinggera

(... to be updated)

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The Covid-19 pandemic thwarted our plan to field a proper follow-up public opinion survey in spring 2020. We have postponed this undertaking until (presumably) autumn 2020. However, while being an obstacle to fielding one survey, the Covid crisis and debates on how its implications might affect needs for and demands towards the welfare state, have inspired us to field an unscheduled Corona survey. Among other things, this survey includes questions on personal affectedness by the crisis, questions on how solidarity is perceived to be affected by Corona as well as questions on specific social policy preferences and more general political attitudes.

This Corona survey was fielded between June 4th and June 19th by the survey company Bilendi in Germany, Spain and Sweden. We exclusively targeted respondents who had already participated in our first public opinion survey in 2018, acquiring a total of 2188 re-contacts. We are excited to analyze the data and to explore how the experiences of the crisis and the drastic measures ensuing from it have changed people’s attitudes.

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We are happy to announce that several project-related papers and panels have been admitted to the following conferences:

Annual Congress of the Swiss Political Science Association (SPSA), Lucerne, February 3-4, 2020:

27th International Conference of Europeanists (CES), VIRTUAL EVENT, June 22, 2020:

  • Monday, June 22nd, 14:00-18:00,
    "Public Opinion and Long-Term Investments – Under What Conditions Do Citizens Support Future-oriented Reforms?", Julian Garritzmann, Silja Häusermann, and Michael Pinggera

14th General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), VIRTUAL EVENT, August 24-26, 2020:
>> more information

  • Monday, August 24th, 14:45-16:30, Panel P108,
    "Radical Right Parties and their Welfare State Stances - Not so blurry after all?", Matthias Enggist and Michael Pinggera
  • Tuesday, August 25th, 10:00-11:45, Panel P325,
    "Place and Policy Preferences – Attitudes Towards Social and Labour Market Policies in Left Behind Regions", Michael Pinggera
  • Thursday, August 27th, 11:45-13:30, Panel P450,
    "Public Opinion and Long-Term Investments – Under What Conditions Do Citizens Support Future-oriented Reforms?", Julian Garritzmann, Silja Häusermann, and Michael Pinggera
  • Friday, August 28th, 12:15-14:00, Panel P470,
    "The Salience of Immigration and its Effects on Welfare Priorities", Matthias Enggist

(... to be updated)

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For the past two days we were happy to host a joint workshop of our ERC project together with the ERC project "Unequal Democracies" led by Prof. Dr. Jonas Pontusson at the University of Geneva. We have informed each other about the goals and the progress of the two projects, discussed papers and identified potential avenues for collaboration.

We would like to thank all participants for fruitful and stimulating discussions.

Here you can find a presentation about the goals and the current state of the "Welfarepriorities" project.

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We are happy to announce that several project-related papers and panels have been admitted to the following conferences:

26th International Conference of Europeanists (CES), Madrid, June 20-22, 2019:

9th Annual Conference of the European Political Science Association (EPSA), Belfast, June 20-22, 2019:

115th American Political Science Assiciation's Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Washington DC, August 29-September 1, 2019:

17th Annual ESPAnet Conference, Stockholm, September 5-7, 2019:

Please do not hesitate to approach us for additional information.

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Today, Prof. Silja Häusermann holds a talk at the University of Cologne. Her presentation titled "Rethinking social policy conflict as politics
of priorities" introduces the general argument of the welfare priorities project saying that welfare state growth and cultural realignment have transformed welfare politics. Analysing actors' priorities rather than only positions reveals new divides, such as investment-consumption and welfare chauvinism, in today's welfare politics.

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We have started elite interviews with German political parties and social partners. We aim to gather information about their welfare positions and priorities in order to understand what political parties and social partners think about how social policy should be reformed and to whose needs it should respond in times of increasing demands and finite resources. We are very grateful to each representative who devotes time to our survey and shares his/her point of view with us.

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Silja Häusermann has been interviewed for the German Newspaper "Tagesspiegel". She talked about social democracy, the new middle class, and multidimensional welfare politics:

"Es gibt einen neuen Konflikt über die Prioritäten des Sozialstaates, der aber weniger ökonomisch, sondern vielmehr gesellschaftspolitisch bedeutsam ist. Es geht nicht einfach um mehr oder weniger Sozialstaat, sondern um die Form des Sozialstaates, um die Frage, welche Gesellschaft von diesem Sozialstaat unterstützt und auch gestaltet werden soll."

>> read interview (in German)

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Prof. Silja Häusermann was invited to hold a talk at the University of Vienna this week. Her presentation titled "Rethinking social policy conflict as politics
of priorities" introduced the general argument of the welfare priorities project saying that welfare state growth and cultural realignment have transformed welfare politics. Analysing actors' priorities rather than only positions reveals new divides, such as investment-consumption and welfare chauvinism, in today's welfare politics.

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Silja Häusermann today had the chance to present her research and the first findings from the project in the Tuesday Colloquium workshop at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (WIKO). Currently staying at WIKO as a fellow, she has held a talk on “The Transformation of Welfare Politics in Western Europe”. Find an abstract of the talk and more information about Silja Häusermann at the Wissenschaftskolleg here.

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Matthias Enggist and Michael Pinggera presented their papers "Who Prioritizes Welfare Entitlements for Immigrants?" and "Which Policies to Emphasise? Partisan Welfare Politics in Advanced Capitalism" at the Conference of the Research Section „Comparative Politics“ of the German Political Science Association in Munich last week.

Both would like to thank their discussants Eva-Maria Euchner (discussing Matthias' paper) and Mikko Kuisma (discussing Michael's paper) for the excellent comments. The papers will benefit greatly from the inputs they received.

March 22, 14h00, Panel 10: European Welfare States after Crisis: Actor Centred Approaches to the Politics of Exclusive Solidarity, Room H.003:
"The importance of welfare chauvinism", Matthias Enggist

March 22, 15h45, Panel 10: European Welfare States after Crisis: Actor Centred Approaches to the Politics of Exclusive Solidarity, Room H.003:
"Which Policies to Emphasise? Partisan Welfare Politics in Advanced Capitalism", Michael Pinggera

View conference Information

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We are happy to announce that several project-related papers and panels have been admitted to the following conferences:

  • 26th International Conference of Europeanists (CES), Madrid, June 20-22, 2019
  • 9th Annual Conference of the European Political Science Association (EPSA), Belfast, June 20-22, 2019
  • 115th American Political Science Assiciation's Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Washington DC, August 29-September 1, 2019

We will keep you updated about the exact day and time of our presentations. Please do not hesitate to approach us for additional information.

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Today, Prof. Silja Häusermann has held a talk at the Berlin Social Science Center. Under the title "Rethinking social policy conflict as politics of priorities" she presented the general argument of the welfare priorities project and talked about the politics of welfare reform today and particularly about the 2nd dimension politics of welfare and the implications for social democratic parties.

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We are happy to announce that our papers "Class and social policy in the knowledge society" and "Who Prioritizes Welfare Entitlements for Immigrants?" have been admitted to the SPSA annual conference in Zurich.

February 15, 10h30, Session 3: Priorities and Preferences towards Fiscal Policies and the Welfare State in the Aftermath of the Great Recession, Room HG D 7.2:
"Class and social policy in the knowledge society", Silja Häusermann, Michael Pinggera, Macarena Ares, and Matthias Enggist

February 15, 14h30, Session 4a: Politics, Media and Class Voting, Room HG D 3.2:
"Who Prioritizes Welfare Entitlements for Immigrants?", Matthias Enggist

View conference information

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Our public opinion survey, which is one of the main data sources in this project, is completed now. After having fielded our survey in Germany and the UK in October 2018, we continued in Spain, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands in November and December 2018. We have obtained replies from about 1’500 respondents in each of our eight countries leaving us with a total sample of 12’506 observations.
We would like to thank the survey company “bilendi” and its staff for an efficient and uncomplicated collaboration.
Now, we are very excited to delve into our data, to explore the welfare priorities of Western European publics and to run some first analyses.

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Today we have sent out an invitation to all MPs of the Danish Folketing to take part in our survey of parliamentarians. We ask MPs about their welfare positions and priorities in order to understand what policy-makers and different political parties think about how social policy should be reformed and to whose needs it should respond in times of increasing demands and finite resources. Furthermore, we are also interested in how MPs evaluate the welfare priorities of their voters.
We hope for an active participation of the MPs and are very grateful to each parliamentarian who devotes time to our survey and shares his/her point of view with us.

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The two PhD candidates within the project, Michael Pinggera and Matthias Enggist, have successfully presented their respective proposals for their PhD projects in the PhD Colloquium jointly organized by the Department of Political Science (University of Zürich) and the Center for Comparative and International Studies (ETH Zürich).

...continue reading "Two PhD Projects Successfully Presented"

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Our project had the chance to participate at the Fifth International Meeting on Experimental and Behavioral Social Sciences (IMEBESS 2018) in Florence this week. We presented a paper on the measurement of citizens’ social policy priorities (read here) and could benefit greatly from feedback and discussion. Especially, we would like to thank Juan Fernández for his very helpful comments.