Mapping Different Worlds of Eco-Welfare States

Katharina Zimmermann,Paolo Graziano

doi:10.3390/su12051819

Abstract

Attention towards topics such as environmental pollution, climate change, or biodiversity has strongly increased in the last years. The struggles to balance market powers and ecological sustainability somehow evoke memories of the early days of European welfare states, when social protection emerged as a means to prevent industrial capitalism from disruptive social tensions due to excessive social inequalities. In fact, social and environmental crises are inseparably intertwined, as ecological destruction is likely to be followed by social deprivation, and a lack of social security can be a crucial barrier for ecologically sustainable action. Our paper seeks to provide a step towards such an integrated perspective by studying problem pressure and public interventions in the area of green welfare, that is, in social and environmental protection. By using available data from Eurostat and Environmental Performance Index (EPI) databases, we contrast environmental and social performances to detect links between the social and the ecological dimension in these areas and unearth different configurations of green welfare among European countries. Our findings suggest that there are different “worlds of eco-welfare states” which only partially overlap with the more conventional “world of welfare states” but show how the Nordic countries are in the relatively-better performing cluster.

Highlights

Linking Ecological and Social WelfaresThe literature on the “worlds of welfare state” is almost forty years old and has developed an important framework for the analysis of similarities and differences in welfare states
Unlike welfare state policies which have a century-long history, environmental policies are relatively new in the world of public policy: As it is well known, beyond very few exceptions and after a debate that developed during the 1960s [7] it was only in the early 1970s, and especially with the first report of the Club of Rome entitled “The Limits of Growth” [8] that awareness on the “limits” in terms of development clearly emerged
The crucial role of trade unions and partisan politics in the question how different states organize social protection has been stated in different strands of literature [14,30], and it is exactly here where we find the above-mentioned statutory moderation between the economies and social outcomes

Summary

Introduction

The literature on the “worlds of welfare state” is almost forty years old and has developed an important framework for the analysis of similarities and differences in welfare states (especially in terms of outputs, governance mechanisms and political determinants). Unlike welfare state policies which have a century-long history, environmental policies are relatively new in the world of public policy: As it is well known, beyond very few exceptions (such as the 1956 Clean Air Act in the UK and the Air Pollution Control Act in the US) and after a debate that developed during the 1960s [7] it was only in the early 1970s, and especially with the first report of the Club of Rome entitled “The Limits of Growth” [8] that awareness on the “limits” in terms of development clearly emerged.

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Conclusion