The Politics of Welfare and Social Policy Reform

Section Chair: Alexandre Afonso, King’s College London Section Co-Chair Johan Bo Davidsson, University of Oxford Focus: Departing from the strong emphasis on institutions and stability which dominated the literature until recently, welfare state research is now increasingly focusing on the role of coalitions and change in social policy reforms. While European welfare states were considered “immovable objects” due to enduring popular support and institutional inertia, a number of recent studies have shown that welfare states can change providing that viable pro-reform coalitions emerge. Building on this, the section aims to cover a broad range of theoretical, empirical and methodological issues in the analysis of the politics of welfare state reform beyond path dependence. This ranges from the development of theoretical frameworks to explain welfare state change, the impact of globalisation and migration on social security schemes, the role of party and electoral politics on welfare state reforms, or the development of innovative methodological tools to analyse and understand welfare state change. Levels of analysis can range from individual preferences for social protection to comparative analyses of national systems or developments at EU level. Given the importance and diversity of welfare state research within political science, the section aims to be open to a wide variety of perspectives (including quantitative and qualitative research) while keeping a focus on the political aspects of the welfare state. Section chairs: Dr Alexandre Afonso is a lecturer in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. His work has been published inter alia in the Socio-Economic Review, Governance and Social Policy and Administration. He is a co-convenor of the ECPR standing group on the politics of welfare and social reforms, and was co-chair of the welfare state reform section at the ECPR general conference in Bordeaux. Dr Johan Bo Davidsson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. He holds a PhD from the European University Institute. His work has been published in inter alia the European Journal of Political Research and Political Studies. He is co-convenor of the ECPR standing group on the politics of welfare state reform.