Retrenchment Policies Research Articles

Associational Networks and Welfare States in Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan

This article investigates the structures of civic networks and their roles in steering the political choices of party and union elites regarding the retrenchment or expansion of welfare states in four recently democratized developing countries. Utilizing coaffiliation networks built upon two waves of World Values Surveys and evidence from comparative case studies for Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan, the study develops two explanatory factors that account for variations in welfare politics: cohesiveness and embeddedness. In Argentina and, to a lesser degree, in Taiwan, party and union leaders' cohesive relationships, being disarticulated from the informal civic sphere, allowed them to conduct elite-driven social policy reforms from above, by launching radical neoliberal reforms (Argentina) or by developing a generous transfer-centered welfare state (Taiwan). In Brazil and South Korea, however, party and union leaders' durable solidarity embedded in wider civic communities enabled them to resist the retrenchment of welfare states (Brazil) or implement universal social policies (South Korea) based on bottom-up mobilization of welfare demands. This article demonstrates that elites in the formal sector make markedly different political choices when confronting economic crisis and democratic competition depending upon their organizational connections in formal and informal civic networks.

Social Citizenship Decline and System Convergence: How Does Health Care Fare?

During recent decades predictions of retrenchment and convergence of social policies have been legion, both in terms of expenditure and institutional set-up. Structural pressures such as trans-nationalization of capital, budgetary and financial restrictions in the European Union, negative demographic development and high unemployment levels are held to severely limit the possibilities to maintain, or develop, social policies. Recent research has focused on changes in cash benefits. Comparative analyses of changes in services, the other pillar of social policy, have so far been limited to a few countries. The purpose of this paper is to perform a diachronical cross-national analysis of health care services, comparing their development to that of cash benefits. Based on theories of social citizenship development, we propose a framework for the comparative study of health care systems focusing on organization structures rather than levels of expenditure. Contrary to previous claims we find that European health care systems are not particularly hit by retrenchment and that convergence is absent in key health care dimensions, namely coverage and provision. We only find convergence in the sense of increasing shares of private health care financing. The examination is based on OECD Health Data, SCIP and SaMip, providing both a descriptive analysis and multi-level regressions.

Privatization and labor policies

Using new data we analyze retrenchment programs before privatization, their effect on prices paid and re-hiring policies pursued by the new private owners. We find evidence in support of skimming and adverse selection. We find that some labor retrenchment policies have a negative impact on net privatization prices, even after taking sample selection bias and endogeneity into account. Some downsizing policies may lead to a higher frequency of post-privatization re-hiring. Skill-biased retrenchment programs are the only ones marginally associated with higher privatization prices and minimal re-hiring rates after privatization. But the political and economic costs of such programs may make them impractical.

Is Social Policy Retrenchment Unpopular? How Welfare Reforms Affect Government Popularity

This article investigates an established proposition in the welfare literature, namely whether retrenchment is indeed unpopular among the citizenry. Additional to the hypothesis that retrenchment has a negative impact on general government popularity, this article presents a more refined hypothesis: retrenchment is influential only for those citizens highly interested in social policy. This study analyses government performance data derived from election studies (CSES data) in a multilevel design and tests the influence of actual retrenchment initiatives. The findings indicate that retrenchment is not generally unpopular; however, it has a negative impact on the opinions of those interested in the topic.

Our Flawed but Beneficial Medicaid Program

Many U.S. governors are proposing or implementing deep cuts to their states' Medicaid programs to address budget shortfalls, and some are calling for Medicaid to be converted to a block-grant program. Some commentators defend such policy retrenchment by claiming that Medicaid coverage fails to improve health outcomes — indeed, that its beneficiaries may have worse health outcomes than patients with no insurance at all.1 To make that case, these commentators have creatively interpreted observational studies that have examined clinical outcomes associated with particular medical interventions according to the patient's insurance type — Medicaid, Medicare, private coverage, or none — and . . .

Leadership theory: implications for developing dental surgeons in primary care?

The development of leadership in healthcare has been seen as important in recent years, particularly at the clinical level. There have been various specific initiatives focusing on the development of leadership for doctors, nurses and other health care professions: for example, a leadership competency framework for doctors, the LEO programme and the RCN clinical leadership programme for nurses. The NHS has set up a Leadership Council to coordinate further developments. However, there has not been the same focus in dentistry, although the recent review of NHS dental services (Steele review) has proposed a need for leadership initiatives in NHS dentistry as a medium-term action. Central to this will be a need to focus on the leadership role for dental surgeons. Leadership is all the more important in dentistry, given the change of government and the policy of retrenchment, major public sector reform, the emergence of new organisations such as new commissioning consortia, possible changes to the dental contract, new ways of working, and changes to the profession such as the requirements for the revalidation of dental surgeons. The question is: which leadership theory or approach is best for dental surgeons working in primary care? This paper builds on earlier work exploring this question in relation to doctors generally, and GPs, in particular, and planned work on nurses. It will seek to address this question in relation to dental surgeons working in primary care.

Many Roads to Paris: A Comparative Review of Pension Policies in Two OECD Countries

Common (neoliberal) wisdom warns against the detrimental effects of demographic changes and fiscal pressures on traditional (both defined-benefit and public) pensions and urges a paradigm shift towards defined- contribution plans and personal retirement accounts. This paper examines these claims, promoted by the OECD and World Bank, among others, by comparing the experiences of two OECD members—Israel and Ireland. While Ireland, one of the founders of the OECD, has pursued typical neoliberal policies of retrenchment, Israel—the newest member of the OECD—has taken a more sinuous path, reversing some retrenchment and eventually making pensions mandatory and almost doubling employer contributions to them. The outcomes of these policies seem to be far more positive in Israel than in Ireland, both in terms of their effects on retirees and workers, as well as their impact via aggregate demand on the overall economy, particularly in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

Postretrenchment Politics: Policy Feedback in Chile's Health and Pension Reforms

AbstractThrough a comparison of three periods of health and pension reform in Chile, this article develops an explanation for the incremental form of social policy change that some Latin American nations have witnessed in recent years, despite the dramatic rise of left governments. It describes “postretrenchment politics,” which constitutes a realignment in the way politics plays out in countries that have undergone social policy retrenchment. In postretrenchment politics, the strengthened position of private business interests, combined with political learning legacies and lock-in effects generated by reforms, results in incremental political change, despite renewed efforts by left parties to address inequality. Global capital also plays an important contextual role, and may influence postretrenchment politics. In postretrenchment politics, newly reformed systems may achieve greater equity, but they do so in fragmented form.

Effect of Global Economic Slowdown

A recession is a decline in a country's gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year. The United States-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) defines economic recession as: "a significant decline in the economic activity spread across the country, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDPgrowth, real personal income, employment (non-farm payrolls), industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. The paper tries to find out the various ways and factors that have affected the employees due to the Economic Slowdown. The performance could be improved or decreased due to fear of lay off and retrenchment policies followed in some companies.

Do voters punish the government for welfare state retrenchment? A comparative study of electoral costs associated with social policy

This paper studies the claim that social policy retrenchment has tremendous electoral consequences. It analyzes the electoral impact of social policy attitudes in a comparative design (20 elections in Western OECD countries between 2001 and 2006). I find that punishment is conditional on the performance of governments, indicating that people punish or reward a government for its past actions. However, empirical comparison shows this to be true not only for social policy, but for all types of issues. This study shows that social policy does not have the outstanding relevance for voters as assumed by the social policy literature; accordingly, the electoral impact is only limited and not equally strong in all contexts. The context shapes the link between social policy attitudes and vote choice, but the variance in effect strength is not explained by differences in the institutional setting or the campaign saliency of social policy.

Leadership: a challenge for GPs?

Since High Quality Care for All (2008), the development of leadership has been seen as a priority, and this has prompted various initiatives, not least the development of a leadership competency framework for doctors. The Medical Leadership Competency Framework (2009) is the first strategic level attempt to develop the leadership competencies required by doctors at various stages in their careers. Leadership is all the more important given the recent change of government and the policy of retrenchment, major structural change, and the emergence of new organisations, for example, GP commissioning consortia. The success of these new organisations, particularly in budget holding, ‘will depend on the engagement of GPs and the leadership they provide’ (Ham, 2010). The question is: which leadership model or approach is best for GPs working in primary care? This short article will seek to address this question.

Is Breaking Up Still Hard to Do? – Policy Retrenchment and Housing Policy Change in a Path Dependent Context

Current research on Nordic housing policy shows how a path‐dependent approach can explain differences in housing regimes across the Nordic countries. The aim of this article is to present an argument of how housing policy change can be grasped within this path‐dependent approach to housing policy. The claim is that the argument behind “everyday retrenchment” made by Jacob Hacker can be elaborated further and then used as a framework to analyse path‐dependent housing policy change. Three hypotheses on housing policy change are presented in this paper; these should be further tested in future research. The main emphasis is placed on the theoretical level; however empirical examples from the present retrenchment phase in third‐sector housing in Denmark are also included in the article.

‘When poverty flies in the window, love walks out the door’: recessionary times for people experiencing poverty

This article presents a case study of the impact of the recession on an area of disadvantage as the economic crisis was unfolding in Ireland during 2009. Little attention has been given to the impact of the economic recession and subsequent policy responses on communities which have had long standing experiences of inequality and disadvantage. While it might be assumed that the recession would have potentially little further impact on a disadvantaged community, the research findings in this article demonstrate otherwise. They highlight the impact of the loss of the limited growth in job opportunities during the economic boom, together with emerging effect of retrenchment policies on the cost of living and indebtedness, and on the overall quality of family and community life. The article ends by reflecting on some of the long terms consequences of retrenchment for such communities.

Collective agreements on pensions as a source of solidarity

Within the literature of welfare state retrenchment, the “solidarity-decline thesis” is discussed. It is argued that the privatisation of pension schemes leads to a decrease of solidarity. On the basis of an empirical analysis of collective agreements on pension in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and France, this article discusses this thesis. It reviews concepts of solidarity used in the literature and develops a two-dimensional scheme of four different concepts. It is argued that pensions based on industrial agreements may compensate to a certain degree for solidarity losses caused by retrenchment policies.

Housing Policy Retrenchment: Australia and Canada Compared

Housing policy has declined in importance relative to other areas of state policy-making in many Western countries. This paper seeks to understand why this has happened at a time when there has been a decline in the level of housing affordability and supply of affordable rental housing. It presents an argument that a way of understanding this policy retrenchment, through a comparative analysis of Australian and Canadian housing systems, is to consider the way in which housing policy problems are defined, how policy-making capacity is institutionalised in state agencies and the form and extent of civil society mobilisation on housing issues. It is not sufficient to ascribe the declining salience of housing policy to the ascendancy of neo-liberal ideas in policy-making.

One welfare state emerging? Convergence versus divergence in 16 western countries

In this article we try to investigate the empirical validity of the convergence thesis, which assumes that welfare states are increasingly similar because more generous universal welfare states are adopting policies of retrenchment and neo-liberalization. Using data on the popularity of neo-liberal ideology, welfare state expenditures and the generosity of this spending for 16 western countries, we find that there is no general trend towards neo-liberalization and retrenchment. However, we do find that there is a trend towards convergence. More generous, universal welfare states are becoming more liberalized, and liberal welfare states are expanding, which causes convergence in the middle. At the end of the article we attempt to explain why welfare states are converging. We find that although they do not converge on neo-liberalization as is often thought, two common explanations used to support the neo-liberal convergence arguments, globalization and Europeanization, can explain the “middle-of-the-road” c...

The dangers and limitations of equality agendas as means for tackling old-age prejudice

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a critique of both the concept of age equality and of the limited scope it offers as a means for challenging old-age prejudice. The equality constructs that feature in anti-ageism initiatives and in current discourses on intergenerational equity have proved susceptible to political and ideological manipulation, which has led to the illegitimate dissociation of ageism from older age and promoted damaging notions of age equivalence. The consequence has been that old-age prejudice has been de-prioritised, and older people have been de-legitimised socially and as a welfare constituency. The corrective is best sought outside the confines of age equality frameworks, although legal remedies may play a useful role if human dignity is incorporated as an equality criterion. This paper also assesses other approaches to tackling old-age prejudice that avoid the constraints of equality constructs and engage more firmly with its roots. The notion of the ‘third age’ with new social roles merits reconsideration as an affordable alternative to current policies of work obligation and pension retrenchment. Radical interventions in the labour market in favour of older people may also be needed. Age activism and advocacy will increasingly influence policy on prejudice and well-being in older age, but changed emphases are needed, as from defensive strategies and the ideologies of generational interdependence and solidarity, towards the promotion of organisational, financial and social autonomy in older age.

From Outsiders to Influential Insiders: Pensioners' Organizations in the Policy Process in Sweden

This article explores the position and influence of pensioners' organizations in Sweden's policy process. The purpose is to shed light on a controversy in the literature concerning the power held by client interests. It has been argued in the literature regarding the new politics of the welfare state that client interests, such as pensioners' organizations, are important actors for the understanding of welfare policy retrenchment. This argument has been challenged, especially with reference to the Scandinavian countries. This essay argues that client groups' influence on welfare policy development is relevant to consider even in corporatist countries with a strong labor movement. This argument is supported by an empirical investigation of the case of Sweden, which shows that pensioner’ organizations, from a position as insiders in the policy process, have managed to be influential on several issues of importance for the elderly from the early 1990s to the present. The main explanation behind their influence is their high membership rate, which makes their views important for politicians to consider.

Industrial Relations as a Source of Social Policy: A Typology of the Institutional Conditions for Industrial Agreements on Social Benefits

AbstractThe article's starting point is that the now‐conventional conceptualization of welfare state retrenchment as a shift from state provision of income support to market processes is misleading. Rather, state provision may be replaced by benefits negotiated collectively by trade unions and employers. As a first step to further investigate this development the article suggests a typology of institutional contexts within which industrial agreements on social benefits emerge. This typology is based on Thomas H. Marshall's distinction between political and industrial citizenship. Following the comparative method of the ‘parallel demonstration of theory’, the typology is applied to four countries where collective agreements on social benefits have recently been concluded, namely Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Germany. It is argued that, on the one hand, the state's activity or passivity in labour relations and, on the other hand, the timing of the institutionalization of political and industrial citizenship is decisive for the development of collectively negotiated benefits. The conclusion for comparative welfare state research is that, when viewing policies of welfare state retrenchment, the research should systematically include industrial relations and their historical trajectories in its frame of reference.

Industrial Relations as a Source of Solidarity in Times of Welfare State Retrenchment

Within the literature on retrenchment policies, the ‘solidarity-decline thesis’ is discussed. It is argued that current welfare state restructuring leads to a decrease in the actual social cohesion of society because redistributive public benefits are cut. The article addresses this thesis by presenting empirical evidence on social security based on collective bargaining. In Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands, collective agreements are increasingly used to regulate and finance social benefits. These collectively negotiated benefits may compensate to a certain degree for solidarity losses caused by retrenchment policies. The article reviews concepts of solidarity used in the literature and develops a two-dimensional scheme of four different concepts. The conclusion for comparative welfare state research is twofold. First, when viewing policies of welfare state retrenchment, the research should systematically include industrial relations in its frame of reference. Second, further studies should analyse the politics as well as the outcomes of collectively negotiated benefits more systematically. Under certain conditions, which are worth specifying, collective bargaining may lead to complex public–private mixes that shift welfare states in other directions than outright market liberalisation, not only in factual but also in normative terms.