Comparative Social Research Research Articles

Comparative Measurement of Citizens’ Perceptions of Local Policies: A 3MC (Multinational, Multicultural, Multiregional) Approach

Comparative social policy research continues to face considerable methodological challenges. Scholars particularly struggle to capture sub-national policy variation in comparatively reliable ways, including subjective perceptions of local policies. Local-level variation increases the need for conceptual and methodological attention to comparability across differing national, cultural, and linguistic settings. The article outlines a conceptually grounded approach relying on the 3MC (multinational, multicultural, multiregional) method to measure and compare individual perceptions of local policies cross-nationally. Often applied in cross-national survey research, a 3MC approach can help address methodological challenges inherent in comparative policy research and improve cross-national studies of local policy differences.

Boundaries of the built environment: defining the significance of the material presence of spatial morphology in social life.

Settled societies inhabit environments shaped by building activity. Geographic data in social scientific and geographical research are generally composed of architectural and social categories derived from commonplace lived experience and societal knowledge, thus carrying socio-culturally specific meaning. The mundane pragmatism of such categories conflate spaces and buildings with their use and may obstruct effective comparison. Here I introduce a set of formally redescriptive ontological concepts for built environments that operates on the basis of how differentiation and subdivision constitute distinct occupiable spaces through boundaries. An ontology of the inhabited built environment arises from the application of these socio-spatial and material concepts called 'Boundary Line Types' (BLT). I present and photographically illustrate the definitions of the BLTs, which are conceived on a critical realist basis and rooted in a multidisciplinary body of theory concerning the development and inhabitation of built space. Considering inhabited built environments through BLTs foregrounds the emergent logic by which spaces are divided and connected, creating configurations of boundaries as material frames that afford everyday social life. Since BLTs offer transferrable empirical principles from which these material frames emerge, they also enable diachronic and cross-cultural comparative social research. My proposition to approach social scientific built environment research through constitutive material boundaries offers a comparative complement to commonplace and socio-culturally specific spatial categories that compose most geographic data, enabling formal thick redescriptions and the potential for quantitative spatial analysis.

Financial burden of medicines in five Northern European countries: A decommodification perspective

Affordable access to healthcare including medicines is a key social policy goal in Europe. However, it has rarely been addressed in comparative social policy research. Although the concept of decommodification has already been used in the context of healthcare and sickness benefits, we argue that the scope of such studies should be expanded to medicines to understand how welfare states protect their citizens from market forces in case of illness. We examine and compare the relationship between income, other characteristics, and subjective financial burden of medicines (FBM) across five countries with universal health systems pursuing egalitarian aims (Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden). Analyses using 2017 EU-SILC microdata and linear probability models showed large differences in the level of FBM across countries, with the highest income quintile in Finland reporting FBM more frequently than the lowest income quintile in Denmark. Finland differed from the rest by increasing probability of FBM with age. In other countries, middle-aged adults tended to be the most affected, and older adults were well-protected. The association between income and FBM was strongest in the Netherlands; however, the higher probability of FBM was skewed towards the lower quintiles in all countries. FBM and financial burden of medical care were strongly associated although FBM tended to be more common. Unmet needs for medical examination were rare and lacked sensitivity in capturing manifestations of market risk. Decommodification literature has focused healthcare services as proxy of access; nevertheless, our study shows that further functions, and broader outcomes should be examined to capture market risk. Our evidence further highlights that important differences can be found even in countries with relatively similar health policy aims. The cost of medicines should be considered in comparative studies of health and welfare states.

Crime and violence on the margins of society: How justice‐based power vacuums create deprived neighbourhoods

AbstractHow have crime, conflict, and violence shaped the social structure of neighbourhoods across diverse spatial and temporal landscapes in marginalised urban communities? To address to this central question, this study examines the socio‐political dynamics of New York City and Palermo, as well as the role of authoritarian actors, by juxtaposing different historical periods and contrasting the influences of political institutions with extra‐legal entities such as gangs and mafias. Utilising visual images, archival documents, and geographical mapping, the study introduces the concept of ‘justice‐based power vacuums’. This novel theoretical concept elucidates the mechanisms through which coercive power fosters social environments susceptible to extra‐legal domination, effectively entrapping vulnerable groups, be they ethnic or racial minorities or economically disadvantaged groups. I argue that while crime, conflict, and violence, especially under the auspices of gangs and mafias, often become the focal point, it is the obscured role of political authorities that stands as the genesis of such complex social problems. The present comparative historical social research indicates that recognising and addressing these obscured political influences is essential for a holistic understanding and subsequent mitigation of the structural challenges in urban social life that create deprived neighbourhoods across time and space similarly and perpetuate marginalisation in these communities.

Outsider From Within, Insider From Without: Negotiating Researcher Positionality in Comparative Social Research

Researchers conducting fieldwork, especially in comparative social research, face the complex issue of conceptualizing and practicing positionality. How we position ourselves affects the research approach, the interpretation of the data and, therefore, the whole research process. This paper discusses my own in-between or ‘in-out-sider’ positionality during my fieldwork studying the experience of youths in social movements in Thailand and Myanmar in 2020 and 2021. Drawing on data from a visit to Thailand and interviews with 40 Myanmar and Thai youths who participated in the movements, this article documents my experience of the subtle nuances of multiple positionalities and how I navigated through the fieldwork as an in-out-sider researcher. In this comparative context, especially, I believe that my in-out-sider positionality facilitated the research process, from interviewing participants to conducting the field visit. The discussion of this contextually situated positionality challenges the typical explanations of the insider/outsider dichotomy, suggesting the need for a rethinking of certain aspects of this explanation, such as the background and experience of the researcher, and the context in which the researcher and the researched interact. This paper therefore contributes to knowledge around this subject and its application, particularly in the context of comparative social research which studies specific groups of youth activists or protestors.

Use of vignettes in an international comparative social work research

The aim of this article is to reflect on the strengths and challenges in qualitative comparative research on personal social services. The specific methodological approach that these reflections emerge from is the application of case vignettes in focus group interviews with social workers, working in different welfare regimes. We describe the process of vignette construction and implementation in focus group interviews, and relate this to findings in a large international project with researchers and data from Chile, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Ireland and the UK. Findings reveal that some globally spread professional norms prevail when they are applied locally, while others are more formed through welfare systems with strong contextual norms and legal and socio-economic barriers. Furthermore, the project showed that to use case vignettes and focus groups, in order to compare ‘social work’ in its totality between countries, is really difficult. It appears more fruitful to use such research methods to compare subsectors and sub-disciplines instead of social work as a whole. The strength of the data retrieved from the study is that it makes it possible to separate information on actual practice from information on principles and system norms, thus providing in-practice and on-practice reflections.

Trends and Determinants of Intergenerational Educational Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa for Birth Cohorts 1974 to 2003

This article expands the scope of comparative social stratification research in education to rapidly developing, largely low-income sub-Saharan Africa. First, we investigate trends in the association between parental socioeconomic status (SES) and children’s chances to attend and complete primary education, exploring whether and where educational expansion of the early twenty-first century led to equalization of educational opportunities. Drawing on data from 153 Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (1990–2017) from 40 countries, findings indicate that inequality in attendance declined, but inequality in completing six grades largely persisted. Cross-country analyses reveal a large variation in inequality levels and trends. We explore the role of national contextual factors and find that underweight prevalence, fertility rates, school fees, public spending on education, and the ratio of pupils to teaching staff systematically explain variation in SES gaps across countries and cohorts. Findings underline the importance of absolute material deprivation and school teaching resources in the stratification of educational opportunities in this region.

Boundaries of the built environment: defining the significance of the material presence of spatial morphology in social life

Settled societies inhabit environments shaped by building activity. Geographic data in social scientific and geographical research are generally composed of architectural and social categories derived from commonplace lived experience and societal knowledge, thus carrying socio-culturally specific meaning. The mundane pragmatism of such categories conflate spaces and buildings with their use and may obstruct effective comparison. Here I introduce a formal redescriptive ontology for built environments that operates on the basis of how differentiation and subdivision constitute distinct occupiable spaces through boundaries. The ontology consists of formally redescriptive socio-spatial and material concepts called ‘Boundary Line Types’ (BLT). I present and photographically illustrate the definitions of the BLTs, which are formulated on a critical realist basis and rooted in a multidisciplinary body of theory concerning the development and inhabitation of built space. Considering inhabited built environments through this ontology foregrounds the emergent logic by which spaces are divided and connected, creating configurations of boundaries as material frames that afford everyday social life. Since BLTs offer transferrable empirical principles from which these material frames emerge, they also enable diachronic and cross-cultural comparative social research. My proposition to approach social scientific built environment research through constitutive material boundaries offers a comparative complement to commonplace and socio-culturally specific spatial categories that compose most geographic data, enabling formal thick redescriptions and the potential for quantitative spatial analysis.

Editors’ introduction: 10 years of the Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy (2013–2022) – taking stock and charting a route forward

Over the last 10 years, to no small degree, thanks to the work of the outgoing editors Zoë Irving and Kevin Farnsworth, the Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy (hereafter: the Journal) has positioned itself among the leading outlets for international and comparative social policy research.

Moral culture and social tension

The article analyzes the influence of the moral culture of the Russian population on social tension. Moral culture is considered as a system of interpersonal attitudes that characterize the ability of members of a social community to maintain relationships of mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual assistance. The empirical basis of the study is the data of the AllRussian surveys conducted by the Institute for Comparative Social Research (CESSI) within the framework of the Russian Social Research under the European Social Research Program in 2006 and 2018. As indicators of moral culture are used variables that reflect the cautious or trusting attitude of respondents to most people; an assessment of the self-serving or honest attitude of most people to respondents; an assessment by respondents of the ratio of people focused on caring only for themselves or helping others. Variables that reflect negative assessments by respondents of the state of economic, social, political etc., as well as negative assessments of the impact of immigrants on the different spheres of life in countries are considered as indicators of social tension. Based on the use of statistical methods of data analysis, it was found that negative assessments of the state of spheres of life and the influence of immigrants on these spheres are less characteristic of respondents who trust the majority of people, are confident in the honesty of most people and their desire to help each other. A comparative analysis of changes in indicators of moral culture and social tension in the period from 2006 to 2018 in the country as a whole and in individual federal districts of the country shows that an increase of the value of moral culture indicators is accompanied by a decrease in the value of the social tension considered indicators.

Precarious but popular? The German mini-job scheme in comparative research on work and welfare

AbstractThis review paper critically examines a range of analytical frameworks used to analyse the German mini-job scheme in comparative research on work and welfare. The approaches examined include labour market dualisation in comparative political economy research and welfare-to-work policies in comparative social policy research. The paper claims that using stylized facts instead of a thorough understanding of the broader context of national employment and social systems leads to misinterpretations in terms of policy learning. By describing the institutional context and main drivers of the evolution of mini-jobs over time, based on variety of data sources, statistics and empirical studies, the paper addresses the critical role of this specific employment scheme for gender equality, largely ignored in the comparative literature.

Ethics Audits in Cross-National Research: Experiences from Correspondence Study Field Experiments with National Politicians in Four European Democracies

This essay contemplates experiences from four national ethics audits designed to facilitate correspondence study field experiments with national politicians in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom. The experimental study aims to reveal possible biases in legislators’ responsiveness to distinct types of constituents such as non-partisans, lower-class constituents, ethnic minorities, and women, and to unveil possible unsubstantiated fears or misperceptions in this regard. The national research teams proposed the same experimental design but received three different ethical evaluations. Specifically, the relevant Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) in the UK and Denmark asked for two different de-briefing procedures. In the Danish case, this led to withdrawal of the experiment due to severe costs with regard to research quality. In the UK case, it led to increased risk of backlash. Our experiences imply a need for more consistent ethics regimes in the European research community designed to facilitate comparative social science research.

Wages of politics or last-mile welfare? The case of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)

ABSTRACT Using official statistics, bureaucratic registers and ethnographic material collected from the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) from six districts across six Indian states, the article explains under what conditions the capacity of last-mile bureaucracy matters for the performance of pro-poor welfare programmes in the Indian federal polity. In seeking to address the presence of heterogenous welfare outcomes in the districts of India, the article underscores the salience of last-mile bureaucrats and the extent to which the politicization of redistributive struggles might contribute to local state capacity to deliver welfare services, a hitherto under-researched aspect in comparative social development research. Challenging the conventional thesis that only a strong autonomous state succeeds in implementing welfare programmes, the article further argues that effective policy implementation can occur within the peculiar environment of relatively low-capacity last-mile bureaucracies even in the face of adverse socioeconomic circumstances. In short, the article shifts attention to the understudied relationship between the capacity of last-mile bureaucracy and welfare outcomes in India.

Pioneering anti-poverty policies in Brazil and Mexico: ambiguities and disagreements on conditional cash transfer programs

PurposeFocusing on the conditional cash transfers (CCTs) first created and implemented in Brazil and Mexico, this article takes a new look at the factors facilitating the creation of these innovative policies. In order to shed light on the continuous struggles that are faced when pioneering, formulating and adopting these anti-poverty policies, the authors analyze three types of ambiguities: axiological, partisan and electoral.Design/methodology/approachBased on a gradual institutional change approach within the advocacy coalition framework, the authors conduct a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews, official public administration archives and newspapers.FindingsThis article demonstrates that advocacy coalitions (for human capital, basic income and food security) and the quest for electoral gains are viable contexts for exploring the complex processes involved in setting up CCTs, of which Brazil's Bolsa-Família and Mexico's Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) provide emblematic examples.Originality/valueThe findings contribute to comparative social policy research and institutional change analysis. The coalitions and ambiguous consensuses studied here expand the perspectives with a more detailed understanding of the chaotic processes involved in developing social policies.

Environmental Movement Interventions in Tourism and Energy Development in the North Atlantic

This article compares environmental movement engagement in energy and tourism development in Norway and Iceland by bridging the social movement societies (SMSoc) and the players and arenas perspectives. Results are based on field observation and interviews, as well as web-based textual analysis and a preliminary online survey. Results show that Norway is an institutionalized and multi-level social movement society with a mix of professionalized and grassroots local, national, and international organization. Iceland, by contrast, is a national and episodic social movement society where movement players operate at a national scale and engage in project-specific collaboration or opposition in tourism or energy development arenas. This analysis demonstrates the value of bridging the SMSoc and players and arenas perspectives for international comparative social movements research.

Revisiting Global Welfare Regimes: Gender, (In)formal Employment and Care

Gender critiques of comparative welfare state research have so far predominantly focused on OECD countries but less so in countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Existing comparative social policy research in these regions often cites the importance of informal networks and family for social protection but less attention is paid into gender relations and their importance for the social reproduction of these welfare regimes. The article comparatively analyses gender differences in the sphere of production (captured by the gender gap in formal and informal employment) and social reproduction (captured by time spent on unpaid domestic work). The article identifies regional patterns and explores implications for women’s ability to access welfare and the labour market. Additionally, it shows that informal activities (employment, domestic work) are extensive among many African, Asian, Latin American, but also specific OECD, welfare regimes. The article contributes first by incorporating gender in the analysis of global welfare regime and second by highlighting the importance of informal relationships for the analysis of welfare regimes.

Exploring the relationship between global Twitter campaigns and domestic law: methodological challenges and solutions

ABSTRACT This study uses nearly one million Tweets from eight campaigns targeting seven countries to explore the relationship between social media and domestic legal change, specifically in the area of women’s rights. The research is underpinned by a critique of the spiral model of human rights change and second wave normative scholarship. The study focuses on quantifying contextual, independent (online behaviours), and dependent (legal change) variables in order to model the effectiveness of the campaigns. Using the space of social media presents a wide range of opportunities as well as threats. It may be that these campaigns are indeed leading to the change sought after by domestic women and girls, and that, as many posit, the weight of the international attention leads to positive outcomes. Equally, it may be that the campaigns are ineffective or, worse, lead to harmful government backlashes. This research seeks to understand these outcomes in depth, using empirical data to model the effectiveness of campaigns. This article in particular focusses on the methodological challenges and solutions with this kind of large-scale comparative social media research.

Межпоколенческие различия в удовлетворенности жизнью и чувстве счастья в России (на материалах Европейского социального исследования)

Проводится дифференциация опыта социализации в молодости четырех условных поколений, а также разделение эффектов социализации, связанных с принадлежностью к определенной совокупности возрастных групп и факторов исторического периода. Используются наиболее полные по сравнению с другими исследованиями эмпирические данные о показателях счастья и удовлетворенности жизнью в России из Европейского социального исследования — сравнительного межстранового мониторинга. К ним применяются количественные методы регрессионного анализа пространственно-временных выборок. Полученные результаты сопоставляются с итогами исследования субъективного благополучия и счастья, проведенного Лабораторией сравнительных социальных исследований НИУ ВШЭ на основе данных Всемирного мониторинга ценностей; а также с итогами Российского мониторинга экономического положения и здоровья населения НИУ ВШЭ; данными ВЦИОМ и других исследований, что повышает надежность полученных результатов. Поколения Х (кризисная социализация) и Y (вторичная социализация в 2000—2014 гг.), а также предположительно формирующееся поколение Z (молодежь, вторичная социализация которой приходится на политически знаменательный 2014 г. и последующие) взрослеют в разных социальных, экономических и политических условиях, что влияет на различия между ними в показателях счастья и удовлетворенности жизнью. Раскрыта и проиллюстрирована связь состояния счастья как с социально-статусными признаками респондентов (уровень образования, доход, семья), так и с принадлежностью к условному поколению. На фоне более высоких показателей счастья молодежи, чем у старших возрастных групп, ее неудовлетворенность от не вполне реализованных социальных ожиданий возрастает. Обоснован вывод о том, что чувство недовольства в российском обществе будет нарастать.
 Благодарность. Статья подготовлена в рамках проекта Российского научного фонда № 19-18-00246 «Вызовы трансформации социального государства в России: институциональные изменения, социальное инвестирование, цифровизация социальных услуг».

Between welfare state and (state-organised) charity

PurposeOver the last four decades, Turkey has built an elaborate social assistance regime, which provides extensive coverage of the poor but lacks some of the key characteristics of European minimum income protection systems. The purpose of this paper is to explore what ideational roots underlie the regime and how these ideas and paradigms historically shaped the structure of the regime. The paper focuses on two central social assistance legislations: the social pensions law of 1976 and the Law that established the Fund for the Encouragement of Social Cooperation and Solidarity in 1986.Design/methodology/approachBased on a discursive institutionalist approach, the paper combines a qualitative content analysis of parliamentary debates and official reports with a policy analysis of social assistance legislations in Turkey.FindingsThe paper shows that two competing policy paradigms shaped the ambivalent structure and design of Turkey social assistance regime: a welfare state paradigm and a state-organised charity paradigm. The welfare state paradigm, which perceives social assistance as a social right, was dominant in the 1970s and is embodied in the social pension programme. The state-organised charity paradigm, which aims to reinvigorate the Islamic tradition of charitable foundations (waqf), was dominant in the 1980s and is embodied in the Fund for the Encouragement of Social Cooperation and Solidarity. Today’s social assistance regime combines both elements in a curious synthesis.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to comparative social policy research and discursive institutionalism by uncovering the historical and ideational foundations of a largely neglected case, social assistance in Turkey.

Экономический кризис и оценка эффективности власти: кто несет ответственность за ухудшение уровня жизни в России?

Винить или не винить власть за последствия экономического кризиса? Если обвинять, то кого граждане считают ответственным за проблемы в экономике в первую очередь? Мы предполагаем, что кризис и оценка эффективности работы органов власти связаны логикой атрибуции ответственности, то есть способностью людей определять центры принятия решений и устанавливать связь между политическим курсом и изменениями в реальности. На основе материалов всероссийского опроса общественного мнения и фокус-групповых дискуссий мы устанавливаем, что логика атрибуции ответственности по-разному проявляется в оценках эффективности работы президента, правительства и думы. Результаты нашего исследования показывают, что коллективные органы с непопулярными политиками – Государственная дума и правительство – наделяются наибольшей ответственностью за ухудшение уровня жизни. Эти институты «принимают удар» на себя и становятся символическимвиновником неэффективной политики и ее последствий. На фоне высокого уровня фрустрации и недовольства работой думы и правительства, фигура президента остается вне критики граждан. Результаты его работы либо редко, либо вообще не связывают с кризисом. Анализ фокус-групповых дискуссий показал, что недостаток когнитивных ресурсов, институциальная непрозрачность и низкое качество политически релевантной информации ограничивают возможности людей адекватно оценивать работу органов власти и наделять ответственностью за политический курс. Проблемы с адекватной атрибуцией ответственности, в свою очередь, имеют серьезные следствия с точки зрения подотчетности и изменения политического курса. Не представляя кто несет ответственность за политические решения, люди не могут определить необходимые изменения в направлении политических действий. В таком случае не только «институциальная ясность» в распределении полномочий будет играть важную роль, но и качество медийной среды, выступающей основным проводником сведений о политике.