Political Economy and Welfare State Politics

Welfare state politics around the world are in motion. Not only the social risks that should be covered by the welfare state have changed from the old social risks of unemployment, old age and sickness to new social risks such as atypical employment, long-term employment, precarious and unpaid care work but new forms and conceptions of solidarity enter the debate as well (keywords are trans-European social protection schemes, welfare chauvinisms, universal basic income schemes). Welfare politics also change because of electoral transformations such as the rise of radical right-and left-wing as well as green parties and the concomitant electoral decline of established center-left and center-right parties. Relatedly, mass protests have begun to articulate more strongly issues of socio-economic security and redistributive politics across different regime types, highlighting the return of class politics outside of the narrowly conceived constitutional arena. These processes not only transform welfare state support coalitions at the mass and elite levels but also lead to greater party fragmentation and to more intricate government formation with a possible impact on welfare state politics. Finally, welfare states are challenged by larger macro-economic processes such as financialization, (de-)globalization and regional integration as well as enduring macro-economic shocks still following the financial and economic crisis that started more than a decade ago. This section aims to gather panels and papers that take a closer look at the contemporary debates over the political economy of welfare state politics. We invite scholars to submit panel and paper abstracts from a variety of disciplinary, geographical, and methodological backgrounds. We strive to build panels that take different perspectives on the issues outlined above.