Reconsidering Concepts and Ideas in Current Welfare State Policies

Welfare state reforms in the decade before and after the turn of the millennium were substantially informed by neoliberal ideas. On the basis of such ideas, welfare states supported the marketization of social security and social services, the outsourcing of tasks to for-profit providers and the construction of social citizens as “consumers” who purchase social security and social services on welfare markets. These welfare state reforms have in general contributed to an increase in social inequality, social cleavages and social conflicts in many European countries. Contemporary, though, in some policy fields and measures also other ideas where further developed and partly implemented, such as the concept of the social investment state in family policies, on the basis of which the role of public support and social rights has been strengthened. In the aftermath of the neoliberal austerity period, current welfare state policies are reacting to the various classical and emerging social problems, and political actors in part are trying to find solutions on the basis of old and new political concepts and ideas beyond the neoliberal paradigm.

In the stream we analyse such concepts and ideas in the policies of contemporary welfare states, their cultural basis, the political and public debates and struggles about these concepts, and the question what kind of welfare states are currently emerging. We also aim to discuss the theoretical approaches and typologies that can be used for cross-national comparative research in this field.