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The World Politics of Social Investment
Project leaders:
Bruno PALIER (Sciences Po CEE et LIEPP)
Silja HAEUSERMANN (University of Zurich)
Julian GARRITZMANN (Goethe University Frankfurt)
The project is supported by LIEPP since Septembre 2015
Description of the project :
Recent research on the development and implementation of social investment (investment in human capital, work-care support policies and active labor market policies) has shown that there is some level of implementation of social investment policies not only in different regions of Europe, but also in Latin America and South East Asia. However, one cannot speak of a general development of a social investment welfare state, as the phase but also-and especially-the specific substance of the social investment agenda varies strongly between these regions. Why have social investment ideas and policies been more developed in some regions and countries than in others? Going beyond different structural pressure, the project aims at theorizing the politics of social investment and testing different explanations empirically. The aim is to assess what are the political conditions for the development of social investment policies. Given that similar governments in different contexts have adopted different strategies with regard to social investment, the project investigates the institutional and socio-structural factors that enable or prevent political support coalitions for social investment. Deliverables are a background theory paper, a volume of standardized regional studies, and a volume of transversal contributions by more senior experts on social investment. The timeline is 2015-2018 and there will be two conferences to discuss and to coordinate the volumes.
Substantial goal of this project: Asses the political conditions for the development of social investment policies, investigate the politics of Social Investment in Europe, Latin America and East Asia along the following three questions:
- What explains the content of the social investment agenda? (empirically: identify framing and the effect of institutional legacies (constraints, economic strategy) on the social investment agenda in different regions of the world)
- How does political conflict over social investment map onto other conflict lines and cleavages? (empirically: identify actor positions, dimensionality, links between actor positions on different issues).
- What political coalitions support or prevent a social investment turn ? (empirically: identify reform coalitions and the institutional and structural conditions that produce them)
Poster of the project - May 2020
Publications :
Silja Häusermann, Julian L. Garritzmann, and Bruno Palier, The Politics of Social Investment. a global theoretical framework (open access), in The World Politics of Social Investment (volume I) : Welfare States in the Knowledge Economy, Oxford University Press, 2022.
Caroline de la Porte and Bruno Palier, The Politics of European Union’s Social Investment Initiatives (open access), in The World Politics of Social Investment (volume I) : Welfare States in the Knowledge Economy, Oxford University Press, 2022.
Silja Häusermann, Julian L. Garritzmann, and Bruno Palier, The Politics of Social Investment in the Knowledge Economy: Analytical Insights from a Global Comparison (open access), in The World Politics of Social Investment (volume I) : Welfare States in the Knowledge Economy, Oxford University Press, 2022.
Bruno Palier, Julian L. Garritzmann, Silja Häusermann, and Francesco Fioritto, How Democracies Transform Their Welfare States: The Reform Trajectories and Political Coalitions of Inclusive, Stratified and Targeted Social Investment Strategies in Capitalist Democracies (open access), in The World Politics of Social Investment (volume II) : The Politics of Varying Social Investment Strategies, Oxford University Press, 2022.
Julian L. GARRITZMANN, Silja HAEUSERMANN, and Bruno PALIER (eds), The World Politics of Social Investment (volume II) : The Politics of Varying Social Investment Strategies, Oxford University Press, 2022.
Julian L. GARRITZMANN, Silja HAEUSERMANN, Bruno PALIER, Christine ZOLLINGER, WoPSI - the World Politics of Social Investment: An international research project to explain variance in social investment agendas and social investment reforms across countries and world regions , LIEPP Working Paper, n°64, March 2017
Events :
The World Politics of Social Investment, conference May 14-15th 2018, Florence, Italie.
The World Politics of Social Investment, conference June 29th 2018, Paris France.
