International organizations play an important role in framing the debate about how new technologies transform global labour markets. Merging insights from the recent scholarship on technology and society with academic debates on global social policy, we look at policy reports from international organizations to see how they discuss the debate for middle-income countries. We focus on these countries because they are very much affected by technological change, but often less discussed. Contrasting the reports against discussions of academics and policy experts, we find that the overall tone of these reports tends to be more positive than underlying sources, even if there are discernible multiple differences between organizations. We also find that frames about cash transfers are much more present than discussions about labour standards or the regulation of technology, and important aspects such as workplace surveillance are almost absent. Our findings imply that most international organizations exhibit a conditional solutionist mindset – ‘technological change is good, if . . . ’– thereby excluding important dimensions of the debate. This casts a shadow on how policy responses towards technological disruption in these countries will look like.

Crisis opens up opportunities for international organisations (IOs) to change institutional settings, providing a moment for them to make choices to take on a new path or reinforce their original path. This article proposes a new framework for analysing crisis-induced change in IOs’ policy outputs, elaborating on path-departing and path-dependent changes through six sub-types based on the unit of alterations (idea vs policy) and the scope of alterations (moderate vs radical). Deriving from these two dimensions, the framework yields six analytically distinct sub-types: absolute, consistent, and inconsistent variations of path departure and path dependency. Applying this framework, the article evaluates the extent to which the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) health policy outputs changed during the COVID-19 crisis. The main finding highlights that, despite the surprising focus shift from the long-lasting call for maximising efficiency to the novel agenda of building resilience, the OECD exhibits consistent path dependency, pointing to moderate changes at both ideational and policy levels. This case study demonstrates that IOs may appear to engage in a path-departing transformation, while substantively maintaining existing paths. By offering a more nuanced typology of crisis-induced variations in IOs’ policy outputs, this article advances the scholarly understanding of institutional continuity and change in global governance.

This study develops a pandemic-specific typology of welfare regimes to analyze how welfare states adapted to the COVID-19 crisis. Using hierarchical cluster analysis, 32 welfare states are categorized into 4 typologies—High-Performance, Selective-Strength, Transitional, and Low-Performance—based on economic support, healthcare capacity, and public health measures. To assess the impact of these typologies, multivariate analysis of covariance examines differences in social and economic outcomes, including poverty, unemployment, income inequality, COVID-19 morality, mental health disorders, life satisfaction, and government effectiveness. The findings reveal that High-Performance regimes demonstrated the most balanced crisis responses, integrating robust economic interventions, strong healthcare infrastructures, and proactive public health policies. In contrast, Low-Performance regimes faced significant challenges due to weaker institutional capacity, limited economic support, and fragmented healthcare systems. The study also highlights the hybridization of welfare states, where traditional welfare principles were adapted through crisis-management strategies to enhance responsiveness. By bridging traditional welfare state theory with crisis adaptability, this study contributes to the theoretical and policy discourse on welfare state resilience. The results underscore the importance of institutional coordination, adaptive governance, and hybrid welfare models that balance long-term stability with short-term adaptability. These insights provide a foundation for strengthening welfare state preparedness in the face of future global crises beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.