Combating Poverty in Local Welfare Systems

Alexandru Panican, Håkan Johansson, Håkan Johansson, Alexandru Panican

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137531896
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137531902
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

This book analyzes national anti-poverty measures at a local level via a set of unique and up-to-date empirical studies of minimum income support schemes and activation measures in five European cities. In examining this 'local welfare system' approach, it investigates the role that civil society organizations play, and the governance arrangements that prevail in contacts between public and civil society actors in local anti-poverty strategies. The current financial and economic crisis has caused increasing levels of poverty and unemployment, and put national minimum income protection schemes under severe strain. Combating Poverty in Local Welfare Systems therefore represents a timely and important intervention in the political and scientific debates as to whether more 'local welfare' is the solution to the challenges facing European welfare states.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

Håkan Johansson and Alexandru Panican (eds.)Combating Poverty in Local Welfare SystemsWork and Welfare in Europe10.1057/978-1-137-53190-2_1

Begin Abstract

1. A Move Towards the Local? The Relevance of a Local Welfare System Approach

Håkan Johansson¹ and Alexandru Panican¹

(1)

Lund University, Lund, Sweden

End Abstract

Challenges to National Models of Welfare

Fighting poverty and promoting social inclusion is a major challenge for most European welfare states, especially in the light of the 2008 financial crisis. The European Union (EU) has been extraordinarily interventionist in debates and has made the fight against poverty one of its five main EU 2020 headline targets. Under the banner of an ‘active inclusion strategy’, member states are encouraged to provide sufficient income support, inclusive labour markets and quality services, pursuing such policies in a coordinated manner at local, regional, national and European level, between policy areas (minimum income support, activation and social services) and among actors (public and non-public), as a means of fighting poverty and social exclusion. The request for a multi-pillar approach and coordinated actions and actors is put forward as the best way of combating ‘the persistence of poverty and joblessness and the growing complexities of multiple disadvantages’ (EC 2008/867, 2008; see also Küntzel 2012; Frazer and Marlier 2013; Clegg 2013).

The EU’s active inclusion strategy resembles other EU strategies, as a form of a social investment approach to the challenges European welfare states are facing (EC 2013; Morel et al. 2013). Despite a growing political and academic interest into these issues, and despite the fact that it is at local level that most welfare policies are put into practice, except for research into social services, previous welfare studies have, to a large extent, focused on national policies, national reforms and national schemes and neglected to explore the relevance of a local dimension for comparative welfare research (Andreotti and Mingione 2014). We argue that the relevance of the local dimension is particularly pertinent in the light of three different, but interrelated trends that encourage us to rethink much of welfare research: state rescaling, a shift from contributory to non-contributory schemes and greater involvement of civil society actors in fulfilling welfare needs.

Firstly, many social scientists believe that the ‘stateness’ of contemporary welfare states is challenged ‘from above’, whether ‘above’ is called globalisation, Europeanisation or denationalisation. It is commonly held that this condition limits the de facto sovereignty of national governments, requires stricter budgetary discipline and new regulative measures, narrows the range of legitimate policy options and instruments at state level and shifts the balance between politics, markets and international courts as sources of material advantage, security and protection against risks. In relation to national welfare state regulation, such analytical accounts suggest that national governments’ capacities in decision-making have been complemented by new international regulations, stemming from the EU and other international organisations (Graziano et al. 2011; Frazer and Marlier 2013). Processes of ‘upward’ rescaling—either expressed in terms of economic globalisation or as part of the construction of an internal market within the EU, including greater labour market mobility across borders—have thus diminished national governments’ ability to make autonomous decisions and their capacity to enforce political decisions. Internationalisation and globalisation hence place nation states and national regulative institutions in a novel situation as these can no longer act as the regulative power in a wide range of policy areas.

In the context of European welfare states, processes of rescaling have often been spurred by developments at EU level (Ferrera 2005). National governments appear to be less capable of determining economic and social developments within their national boundaries (Kvist and Sari 2007). Barbier (2013) proposes that European welfare states now have hybrid and multi-layered structures as they are embedded in the (social) policy-making apparatus of the EU, amplified in the EU’s active inclusion strategy. Hemerijck (2012: 293) and others maintain that European welfare states are developing in an interactive evolution with the EU, as a form of institutional ‘co-evolution’. Ferrera (2005) addresses the relations between national welfare states and the EU as a form of ‘nested social policies’, that is, domestic reforms take place within the context of European economic and social policies.

Whereas the aforementioned reform processes seem to challenge central and national level policy-making as a natural unit for analysis, supported by the EU’s interest into the principle of subsidiarity, it is also evident that welfare policies and programmes are increasingly being challenged as national constructs ‘from below’, expressed as arguments in favour of the decentralisation of welfare policies and services (Panara and Varney 2013; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000; Pollitt 2005; van Berkel et al. 2011). Across Europe, there is a trend for citizens to challenge long-established bureaucratic or paternalistic modes of administration that are viewed as rigid and inflexible. The notion of individualisation suggests, among other things, that people have become more knowledgeable, self-confident and conscious of their rights when dealing with frontline agency staff and professional helpers. These people expect—and are expected—to have the option of influencing decisions relating to their own welfare, whether these options are expressed through co-determination, user involvement, informed consent, group consultation or freedom of choice. Such demands for greater flexibility have certainly put pressure on a series of social security systems, but even more so on the delivery of social services, as clients, users and consumers expect to encounter more flexible solutions, adjusted to their particular circumstances (Hvinden and Johansson 2007).

Similar concerns are also being raised in relation to achieving greater participation or even more influence over the design, implementation and delivery of welfare policies and services. Throughout Europe we are seeing the emergence of new discourses on citizens’ involvement as well as the establishment of new forms of civic participation beyond representative democracy (Grote and Gbikpi 2002; Fung 2004; Fung and Wright 2003). Governments are increasingly experimenting with new forms of citizen participation, citizen forums and deliberative innovations. Within the area of welfare policies, these efforts seem to be expanding established forms of participation, including not only long-term actors (e.g. social partner organisations), but also self-help groups, user organisations, community-based organisations and other civil society actors speaking on behalf of marginalised groups (Newman et al. 2004; Barnes et al. 2007). Whereas traditional forms of political participation were mainly acted within the arena of national politics, these new experimental forms of participation often seek to engage local stakeholders in affairs that directly affect them.

These pressures ‘from above’ and ‘from below’ coincide with the observation that localism ‘is back on the political agenda’ (Featherstone et al. 2012: 177) and much emphasis in the re-scaling debate suggests that subnational (regional and local) arenas, entities, cities and urban conglomerates have become a more important level for certain public policy regulation and delivery (Mingione and Oberti 2013; Kazepov 2008, 2010). The solution to the challenges of modern governments does not lie in more extensive supranational coordination. Instead, the solutions to the complex set of problems many national governments face ought to be sought in subnational, regional or local, risk protection (Brenner 2004; Fyfe and Milligan 2003). Albeit that much social policy remains under the responsibility of national institutions (e.g. pensions and many other social security benefits), the mechanisms behind many social risks (e.g. poverty, economic exclusion or homelessness) and the greater diversity of life courses, risks, needs and preferences arguably require concerted efforts and close dialogue in the arena where people live and act—in local contexts.

The significance of exploring local-level studies into the topics of poverty and active inclusion is even more relevant considering that politicians turn to local solutions may in fact be interpreted as avoiding the responsibilities of European welfare states—a kind of ‘austerity localism’ (Featherstone et al. 2012; see also Council of Europe 2011). Arguably, rescaling and decentralisation could have adverse consequences for welfare and social policy provision (Brenner 2004; Ferrera and Rhodes 2000). From this perspective, welfare provisions and services previously provided at national level and then deliberatively decentralised to local level do not necessarily improve problem-solving capacities but might well create new—or reinforce already established—patterns of exclusion and/or conflicts over redistribution. A greater role for local welfare might also lead to increased inequality among regions and locations within a national state, with correspondingly different regional or communal capabilities to finance welfare, as well as challenging already weak understanding of social rights and social citizenship in European welfare states. The consequence of decentralisation and localisation may hence be greater cross-territorial disparities, greater social inequalities, more fragmented solidarity and unfair burdens on marginalised groups (Kitson et al. 2011). This combined with a potential greater reliance on non-public efforts creates a complex and partly ambiguous system of local-level welfare provision, with a complex set of actors involved.

Second, the current financial and economic crisis calls for a renewed approach to the relevance of national social policies and national income protection schemes. What started as a financial crisis has evolved into an economic, political and—without doubt—social crisis across the European continent (Brancaccio and Fontana 2011; Jenkins et al. 2013; Taylor-Gooby 2013). In the wake of the crisis, governments at various levels are currently facing increasing levels of unemployment, higher levels of long-term unemployment and new, more complex forms of social exclusion. Although different European countries face different challenges and have a range of capabilities for developing responses, observers tend to agree that the present crisis has either directly or indirectly given birth to a series of austerity packages that often aim to cut public spending, social security benefits and social services (Greve 2012). Southern European countries have been most severely affected (Gutiérrez 2014; Matsaganis 2011; Petmesidou and Guillén 2014), but also countries with other welfare regimes are facing greater pressures on ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. A Move Towards the Local? The Relevance of a Local Welfare System Approach
• 2. The Local Welfare System as a Scale Question
• 3. Conceptualising Local Welfare Systems: Exploring the Role of Actors and Governance Arrangements
• 4. Combating Poverty Through ‘Active Inclusion’? The European and National Contexts
• 5. Strategies Against Poverty and Social Exclusion in a Corporatist–Conservative Local Welfare System: The Dortmund Consensus
• 6. Anti-poverty Activities in a Liberal Welfare Model: Local Levers and Multi-level Tensions in Glasgow, UK
• 7. Strategies Against Poverty in a Social Democratic Local Welfare System: Still the Responsibility of Public Actors?
• 8. Active Inclusion in a Southern European Local Welfare System: Combining Fragmentation and Public–Private Partnership in Turin
• 9. Poland’s Active Inclusion Model—Still in Transition? The Case of Public Agencies’ Tensions and Emerging Role of Civil Society Organisations in Radom
• 10. Worlds of Active Inclusion at Local Level: A Comparative Analysis
• 11. Concluding Remarks: Exploring the Consequences of Scale and Place for Local Active Inclusion Strategies
• Backmatter