35. Ideas and Discourses framing Welfare State Change

Chloe BeRut (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)

Patricia Frericks (University of Kassel) 

Birgit Pfau-Effinger (University of Hamburg) 

Tamara Popic (Queen Mary University of London) 

The Stream is divided into two parts. 

Part 1. Welfare State Change, Ideas and Discourses (Patricia Frericks, Birgit Pfau-Effinger) 

New global crises, such as the COVID pandemic, climate change, and the rise of right wing and populist parties have led to new challenges for the developed and developing welfare states. Current welfare state policies are reacting to these challenges and related social problems, and political actors in part are trying to find solutions on the basis of old and new political ideas. An increasing number of theoretical contributions and empirical studies show that understanding the role of ideas and discourses for the development of social policies can improve our understanding of the causes of social policy development, and the related causal mechanisms. The main questions of this stream include:

- What are main ideas related to the ways in which welfare states should react to the new challenges, and how far these are contested in the population and among the social and political actors?

- How far and in which ways did old and new ideas and discourses influence the development of welfare state policies?

- Which are the social consequences of new social policies based on new ideas, regarding social inequality, social integration/social exclusion, and social cleavages?

- Which are adequate theoretical approaches and typologies to analyze and explain the connection between ideas, discourses and welfare state change in the context of the contemporary crises. 

We welcome papers that discuss the theoretical approaches and typologies, historical and/or cross-national comparative studies, as well as single country studies which are related to the overall theoretical questions. 

Part 2. The Welfare Talk: Discourse and Framing of Welfare and Welfare Reforms (Tamara Popic, Chloe BeRut) 

Understanding how welfare state change is justified through discourse is crucial in the attempt to fully grasp recent welfare trajectories in the context of the short- (crises, Covid-19) and long-term challenges (ageing, changing social structures, climate change, digital transitions, globalisation). How politicians, media and the public frame welfare and welfare change in face of these challenges becomes even more relevant because of the shift from traditional to new media, and rise of social media platforms, which are profoundly shaping modes of political and public communication. The main aim of this stream is to bring together scholars working on different aspect of political, media and public discourse and framing on welfare. We welcome papers that seek answers to questions such as:

- What are the key public and political narratives and frames developed to justify reforms driven by major welfare state challenges, e.g. ageing population, digitalisation, climate change, economic crises, Covid-19?

- How do politicians and the media frame ‘old’ and ‘new’ welfare problems, e.g. social inequalities, poverty, precarity?

- Which role traditional media outlets (e.g. newspapers) and/or social media platforms (e.g. Twitter/X) play in shaping the welfare discourse in the 21st century?

- What types of frames dominate debates on welfare reforms in A [a country] and/or B [a welfare sector]? 

We welcome contributions that examine the issues of framing and discourse with reference to any of the welfare sectors. Methdologically, we are open to a range of different approaches, including qualitative single case studies, small-N and large-N comparative designs.