Full Description
Welfare states around the globe are changing, challenged by the development of knowledge economies. In many countries, policy-makers' main response has been to modernize welfare states by focusing on future-oriented social investment policies that focus on creating, mobilizing, and preserving human skills and capabilities. Yet, there is massive variance in the development of social investment strategies.
The World Politics of Social Investment: Political Dynamics of Reform is the second of two volumes of the World Politics of Social Investment (WOPSI) project, which systematically maps and explains different welfare reform strategies in democratic countries around the world. This volume traces the development of social investment reforms across the regions of Nordic, Continental, and Southern Europe, as well as Central and Eastern Europe, North and Latin America, and North East Asia. The chapters in this volume study the impact of different structural drivers for social investment (e.g., demographic, poverty, demand for skill, or lack of an available workforce), the salience of social investment in the public debates, and the different political coalitions that led to or prevented the adoption of social investment strategies. The chapters are written by leading social policy scholars from different world regions. They all apply a joint theoretical framework (developed in the first of the two volumes) to explain the politics of social investment in a range of contexts and policy fields. Jointly with the first volume, the WOPSI project offers the first worldwide analysis of social investment reforms around the globe.
Contents
Introduction
1. Structural Constraints, Institutional Legacies, and the Politics of Social Investment across World Regions
Silja Häusermann, Julian L. Garritzmann, Bruno Palier
Part I: Western Europe and North America
2. Legacies of Universalism: Origins and Persistence of the Broad Political Support for Inclusive Social Investment in Scandinavia
Alexander Horn, Kees van Kersbergen
3. Loud, Noisy, or Quiet Politics? The Role of Public Opinion, Parties, and Interest Groups in Social Investment Reforms in Western Europe
Marius R. Busemeyer, Julian L. Garritzmann
4. The Partisan Politics of Family and Labor Market Policy Reforms in Southern Europe
Reto Bürgisser
5. Reforming without Investing: Explaining Non-social Investment Strategies in Italy
Stefano Ronchi, Patrik Vesan
6. The Politics of Early Years and Family Policy Investments in North America
Susan Prentice, Linda White
Part II: Central and Eastern Europe
7. "Nation (Re)building through Social Investment? The Baltic Reform Trajectories"
Anu Toots, Triin Lauri
8. Explaining the Weakness of Social Investment Policies in the Visegrád Countries: The Cases of Childcare and Active Labor Market Policies
Dorota Szelewa, Michal Polakowski
9. Explaining the Contrasting Welfare Trajectories of the Baltic and Visegrád Countries: A Growth-Strategy Perspective
Sonja Avlija%s
Part III: North East Asia
10. The Politicization of Social Investment in the Media and Legislature in North East Asia
Jaemin Shim
11. An Increasing but Diverse Support for Social investment: Public Opinion on Social Investment in the North East Asian Welfare Systems
Ijin Hong, Chung-Yang Yeh, Jieun Lee, Jen-Der Lue
12. The Quiet Diffusion of Social Investment in Japan: Toward Stratification
Mari Miura, Eriko Hamada
13. Politics of Social Investment in Post-industrial South Korea
Sophia Seung-yoon Lee, Yeon-Myung Kim
Part IV: Latin America
14. The Politicization of Social Investment in Latin America
J. Salvador Peralta
15. Social Policy for Institutional Change: Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru
Jane Jenson, Nora Nagels
16. The Politics of Conditionality in Latin America's Cash Transfer Reforms
Cecilia Rossel, Florencia Antía, Pilar Manzi
17. How Democracies Transform their Welfare States: The Reform Trajectories and Political Coalitions of Inclusive, Stratified, and Targeted Social Investment Strategies Around the World
Bruno Palier, Julian L. Garritzmann, Silja Häusermann, Francesco Fioritto
