Participation, Marginalization and Welfare Services

Concepts, Politics and Practices Across European Countries

Aila-Leena Matthies, Lars Uggerhøj

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317083979
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Current debates around participation and marginalization dominate the agenda of many European political forums. There is an increasing concern about the stability of social cohesion and a growing number of particular groups of people who are regarded as being at risk of being socially excluded or marginalized. This volume goes beyond the surface of public discussions to look at the central role played by welfare services in European societies in either strengthening or hindering participatory citizenship and democracy. In current discussions welfare services - understood in a broad sense - are centrally positioned: there are high expectations that welfare services can hinder marginalization and enable participation. Yet marginalization is, in most cases, rooted in the deeper structures of society, with economy, participation and involvement dependent on political or highly personal factors, which are beyond the scope of welfare services. This groundbreaking volume posits that participation and marginalization are 'twin' concepts, expressing opposing sides of one and the same processes faced by individuals and communities. It will be essential reading for social workers, sociologists and policy-makers throughout Europe.

1 How Participation, Marginalization and Welfare Services are Connected

Aila-Leena Matthies

DOI: 10.4324/9781315599458-2

Introduction

This book discusses the current challenges of welfare services in different European welfare states, particularly with regard to facing various forms of marginalization and participation. One of the big agendas in Europe is to increase citizen participation, which usually translates in the area of welfare services as user involvement, or as the inclusion of persons at risk of social exclusion. It is time to analyse these concepts and agendas from a research perspective and also to look at basic assumptions beyond them critically. How can marginalization and participation be seen as twin concepts and as part of the same processes in current European societies? What is the role of welfare services in both of these processes, for participation and marginalization? In this book we would like to argue for why the link between participation, marginalization and welfare services exists and why it is vital to consider this link also in the research. The book is built on research and discussion of the cross-European research network on participation and is characterized more by discussions on shared focused topics than traditional comparative studies.

Current Context of Welfare Services in Europe

Currently, debates over participation and marginalization seem to dominate the agenda of many European political forums. There is an increasing concern about the stability of social cohesion in communities in general. Further, there is a growing number of particular groups of people who are regarded as being at risk of being socially excluded or placed in a marginalized position. As Peter Beresford (2013) identifies, there emerge both increasing academic and professional interest in user involvement, as well as continuing limitations of it in the current welfare services. The confusing co-existence of participatory and marginalizing tendencies are impacts of the competing pressures of neoliberalism, the emancipatory goals of social movements and the interests of various professional groups in more autonomy, for instance (ibid.). Welfare services have become one of the strategic core fields of intense competition between various ideological, political and professional directions, which are impacting on the development of entire societies.

Our goal in this book is to go beyond the surface of public discussions and to look at these phenomena carefully and from various selected perspectives and angles. Interestingly, in this current discussion welfare services – understood in a broad sense – are centrally positioned: there are high expectations that welfare services and targeted projects of welfare agencies should be able to hinder marginalization and enable participation and partnership. Yet welfare services themselves are put under extreme financial pressure. Great pressure from the global neoliberal market economy is put on states in order to control public expenditure at the macro-level and to open national public services to global market players. This leads very directly to cuts in welfare services at the local level (see Dominelli, Chapter 6) and increases the inequality of available services. The ignorance in regards to citizens’ needs becomes visible in the way stable services with constant professional staff are increasingly replaced with fire-guard or emergency, short-term funded projects, which are directed at the most burning social problems only. This means that the tools of the welfare services to prevent marginalization are not only weakening but even producing a new type of marginalization and dependency by defining certain groups of citizens as service users or living areas as at risk. This is currently most visible for instance in the categorization of service users in workfare-related services and services for service users and their children facing new forms of poverty.

We would like to underline that the challenges of marginalization as well as the efforts towards participatory democracy and modernized welfare states are shared across Europe, although mostly dealt with in a national context (see also van Berkel, Coenen and Vlek 1998). In this book we discuss the processes of participation and marginalization from cross-sectoral, interdisciplinary and cross-European points of view. We understand very clearly in analytical terms how the current situation of welfare services facing growing demands and cutting of resources is highly challenging. But we also share a critical perspective towards welfare services and welfare policies from the point of view of marginalization and participation of service users. Consequently, this book is theoretically rooted in critical reflection on welfare services, professionalism and current neoliberal changes in welfare services.

With the general notion of welfare services we refer to all kinds of personal-, family-, group- and community-based services for different age groups: from child daycare, youth work, school social work to services for families and old people and adults in general (providing social security and benefits, help for addictions and health problems, housing, health care, be it in more institutional or mobile settings). Sometimes educational services and cultural services are also counted as welfare services in a broader sense. Although the concept of welfare services is increasingly used to integrate health care and social services, the emphasis in this book is more on social services and closely related to social work and social-pedagogical work as well. A second line of focus comes from the topic of marginalization: we look in particular at various services that are in touch with people facing different forms of marginalization or who are at risk of it. The authors of this book come from sociology, economics, social work and social policy and have a specific interest in the view point of social work.

Welfare services are becoming a central part of welfare states in Europe and have become important for all social classes. Hans Bertram and Martin Bujard (2012: 11) speak about a comprehensive life-circle-related infrastructure, which is increasingly needed for coping at various stages and passages of life across social classes, but with differentiating demands. However, social services are most essential for people on the margins and in various challenging life situations. Using welfare services is sometimes the only connection to organized society for many people, and therefore also a chance to achieve access to a community and be part of society (see Mikkonen, Chapter 14).

Although providing a cross-European perspective on this topic, the book is neither offering a systematic comparison, nor building essentially on well-known typologies of welfare states. On the contrary, we argue that it is important to shift the view towards current and future challenges shared by all types of welfare states (Evers 2006). In the current and very rapidly changing cross-national situation of welfare states, the traditional comparative typologies (like Esping-Andersen 1990, Leibfried 1992) are no longer posing as much analytical potential as they used to do in the more stable era of welfare states. First, the role of welfare services is increasing in all type of welfare states, but services are not taken very much into account in the used typologies. Secondly, as Adalbert Evers (2006) discovered, in all types of welfare service states, services are today based on a kind of welfare mix, combining provisions by the public, market and third sectors as well as from families, households and informal social networks. Only the extent between the providers changes across the countries, cultures and even individually. Evers (ibid.) argues that in fact privatization, marketization and new public management are implemented everywhere, independent of the type of welfare states and the sector.

So far, the European Participation Research Network, in which this book has its roots, is not aiming at a systematic comparative analysis between European welfare states nor their service systems. It would like to underline that the agenda of participation, challenges of marginalization and the potentials in the role of welfare services are emerging everywhere independent of the basic differences between the welfare service systems. The point is not necessarily to involve different areas from Europe in one book, but to involve different central discussions of the subject in the book. With this book, the network rather wants to raise similar questions in various European contexts of welfare services and in different fields of services:

• What kinds of conceptual discourses, political programmes and practical phenomena of participation and marginalization have been studied in the field of welfare services?
• What kinds of progressive models of participation or emerging experiences of marginalization can be seen and shared across Europe?
• How are the challenges of marginalization, conditions and forms of participation and the role of welfare services in these processes interlinked?

The aim is to demonstrate the broad variety of the discourses of and approaches to participation in the field of welfare services in Europe. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to step back from the traditional comparative analyses between welfare state regimes and other structural approaches, although we do not ignore the fact that they still can be identified. Clarke and Fink (2008) are relativizing the nation-centred approach to cultures of welfare. More essential than a comparative discussion frame in this book are ideologies, rationalities and models of thinking which are evident and moving across the different types of welfare states. For instance, a typology of different constructions of passive and active aspects of social citizenship provided by Håkan Johansson and Bjoern Hvinden (2007: 44) deepen understanding of participation and welfare services in a comparative sense. A similar deepening knowledge is provided by the typology of various elements of thinking and tools of user involvement in social services developed by Adalbert Evers (2006: 257, also Evers 2012). In these comparative views we do not leave out national welfare states as structural frames, but still identify the parallel mixture of ideological and practical elements existing in all countries. Participation discourse as well as the models of user involvement are themselves more-or-less approaches that have spread from one country to another over the past 20 years (see Närhi and Kokkonen, Chapter 7, Videmsek, Chapter 5 and Ramon et al., Chapter 14).

The research network and this book focus on the link between citizen participation and welfare services for marginalized citizens in various European countries. This book contains research perspectives on this topic from nine countries that represent various types of European welfare states and various geographical parts of the continent. Comparison with the US and Canada (see Silvasti, Chapter 12) and with Israel (see Ramon et al., Chapter 14) are present in some contributions, too. The contributions should not be regarded as very typical for the country in which the authors have their background, as the selection of the authors is more based on their expertise in the research topic of concern. It is rather a happy coincidence than purposeful goal that all types of welfare regimes according to the traditional typologization of them are represented in this publication, including post-socialistic countries, although national backgrounds are not focused on. The minor overrepresentation of contributions from the North might need an explanation. More than in other parts of Europe, in the Nordic countries the development of a welfare state has been directed to the universal availability of welfare services. Moreover the operationalization of citizen rights and the system of social security are tightly bound to the use of welfare services. The provision of welfare services in the five Nordic countries currently follows various grades of welfare pluralism, though the role of the public sector is still quite significant (Matthies 2006).

Although the Nordic countries still believe that they occupy the top rank among democratic societies and in terms of equal citizens’ rights, there are increasingly numerous and diverse groups of citizens who lack a belief in the positive impact of democracy on their own lives (Mikkonen, Chapter 14, Julkunen 2001, Schlesinger and Fossum 2007, Pestoff 2008). Service users’ participation and subjectivization is lacking or poorly visible at all stages in service processes compared with many other countries (Seim 2006, Hvinden and Johansson 2007, Pestoff 2008, Branfield and Beresfold 2006, Matthies 2006). There is also enough evidence that the Nordic welfare service states are rapidly implementing neoliberal policies of we...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 How Participation, Marginalization and Welfare Services are Connected
• 2 Cross-European Research on Various Aspects of Participation and Marginalization in the Field of Welfare Services
• Part I Concepts
• Part II Policy Analysis
• Part III Practice Analysis
• Conclusion
• 17 Participation or Marginalization: How Different Perspectives Lead Towards a Democratic Direction
• Index