How the Anticipation of Crises Shapes Social Security Policy and the Welfare State

The welfare state is exposed to increasing pressures from multiple, multidimensional and global crises. This requires not only immediate crisis management through social policy, but also challenges the future sustainability and functioning of welfare institutions, leading policy actors to try to identify (im-)possible and (im-)probable, desirable and undesirable futures, and act in response to them. The paper explores how crisis anticipation influences social policy institutions and processes. It focuses on social security as a key institution of the welfare state in which futures play an intrinsic role, as social security transforms vague uncertainties into specified risks. Theoretically, it develops a conceptual framework that builds on the interdisciplinary literature on futures and anticipation. Drawing on first preliminary results from a new three-year project on ‘Social Security in Crisis Mode’, the paper shows that the anticipation of crises is able to shape both the policymaking process at large and the availability of specific policy alternatives in particular. First, futures are part of the epistemic framework that actors in the initial phases of the policy cycle – problem construction, agenda setting, and policy formulation – draw on and that mold the options they see and deem appropriate. Second, crisis anticipation shapes temporalities of policymaking towards an increased urgency to act. Third, it influences and potentially transforms core logics of social security policymaking: from a focus on compensation and provision to more forward-looking principles such as precaution and preparation. Fourth, anticipation shapes the design of policy models, strengthening resilience and investive elements.