scholarly journals The Sources of Business Interest in Social Insurance: Sectoral versus National Differences

2003 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabela Mares
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
State Development ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Business Interest ◽  
Profit Maximizing

When and why have employers supported the development of institutions of social insurance that provide benefits to workers during various employment-related risks? The analysis developed in this article challenges the dominant explanations of welfare state development, which are premised on the assumption that business opposes social insurance. The article examines the conditions under which self-interested, profit-maximizing firms support the introduction of a new social policy, and it specifies the most significant variables explaining the variation in employers' social policy preferences. The model is tested in three political episodes of welfare state development in France and Germany, using policy documents submitted by various employers' associations to bureaucratic and parliamentary commissions.

scholarly journals The Impact of War on Welfare State Development in Germany

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Starke
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
World War ◽  
State Development ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
The Impact

The world wars were important ‘pacemakers’ of welfare state development in Germany—first and foremost via special wartime or post-war benefit regimes. Veterans’ pensions and reinsertion after World War I and compensation of various war victims after World War II massively increased social spending for decades. Whenever war did have a significant impact on the core welfare state programmes (i.e. the big social insurance schemes), it was through indirect and long-term rather than direct, short-term dynamics. Labour mobilization via the involvement of trade unions and the significant expansion of wartime social assistance and social services during World War I, for example, paved the way for the expansion of the welfare state in the Weimar Republic (such as unemployment insurance in 1927). Social policy during World War II targeted benefits towards soldiers’ families and ethnic German victims, but it was far from the ‘dictatorship of favours’ Götz Aly describes.

scholarly journals Business, labour and the costs of welfare state development

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-33
Author(s):  
Dennie Oude Nijhuis
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
State Development ◽  
Labour Unions ◽  
State Expansion ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Social Wage

This article presents a novel explanation for instances of business support for welfare state expansion. It emphasizes the importance of cost considerations in shaping business preferences and argues that their willingness to support and ability to oppose demands for increases in the generosity of social insurance programmes depends primarily on the extent to which labour unions accept that these increases are to be financed by workers themselves. Based on a comparative-historical analysis of postwar welfare state development in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the article shows that this willingness among others depended on the type of labour market risk, the margin for pay increases, and the extent to which social welfare initiatives were perceived as actual improvements to the social wage by labour unions.

Diverging Paths

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Luyten
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
National Level ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
State Development ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
The Impact

For the Netherlands and Belgium in the twentieth century, occupation is a key concept to understand the impact of the war on welfare state development. The occupation shifted the balance of power between domestic social forces: this was more decisive for welfare state development than the action of the occupier in itself. War and occupation did not result exclusively in more cooperation between social classes: some interest groups saw the war as a window of opportunity to develop strategies resulting in more social conflict. Class cooperation was often part of a political strategy to gain control over social groups or to legitimate social reforms. The world wars changed the scale of organization of social protection, from the local to the national level: after World War II social policy became a mission for the national state. For both countries, war endings had more lasting effects for welfare state development than the occupation itself.

Italy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio Ferrera
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
State Compensation ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Comprehensive Reform ◽  
Veteran Benefits ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
War Mobilization

Wars have had a clearly recognizable impact on Italy’s social policy since unification. The independence and early colonial wars prompted the introduction of veteran benefits and other forms of state compensation. The two world wars marked key turning points, creating the conditions for introducing compulsory social insurance and then extending its scope and coverage. The pronatalist policies introduced by Fascism were in their turn closely linked to the regime’s war mobilization strategy. In comparative perspective, a distinctive feature of Italian developments was the elaboration of very ambitious and comprehensive reform plans after both world wars, largely motivated by the wish to forge broad cross-class coalitions and safeguard democratic stability. Even if initially unsuccessful, such plans left an ideational legacy which contributed to inspire welfare state developments well throughout the so-called Golden Age.

Measuring is Believing! Improving Conventional Indicators of Welfare State Development

2009 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri ◽  
Ricardo Aláez-Aller ◽  
Pablo Díaz-de-Basurto
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
State Development ◽  
Welfare State Development
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