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Workshop “Baltic States After the crisis? Transformation of Welfare Systems and Social Problems”

24-25 of November 2016

Vilnius University, Lithuania.

The aim of the workshop is to discuss welfare system reforms which have been implemented during the recent financial and economic crisis of 2008/2010 and post-crisis period, and major social problems in the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).

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ESPAnet doctoral workshop on ‘Health Impacts of Social Policy’

Stockholm 25-26 September 2015

Social policies affect living conditions in different ways. Whereas effects of social policy are typically assessed in terms of income and work status of individuals, welfare states also have important consequences for health, both at individual and population levels. Not only health care is of relevance, but also the ways in which countries have organized their cash benefit programs, such as social insurance, social assistance and family benefits.

The purpose of this workshop is to address health impacts of social policy by discussing the role of both cash and care. The target group is PhD students from various disciplines and at different stages in their education. We will allow for a maximum of 20 participants. The workshop provides possibilities for PhD students to present their work and to discuss their research with colleagues and experienced researchers.

Papers should address the main theme of the doctoral workshop. Although comparative and cross-national studies are particularly welcome, single country analyses may also be presented. In particular, we encourage studies that investigate the nexus of cash and care, either qualitatively or quantitatively.

Format

There are short plenary lectures/presentations by senior scholars and parallel paper sessions by PhD students. Plenary lectures are held by:

• Professor Jason Beckfield (Harvard University)
• Professor Johan Fritzell (Karolinska Institutet/Stockholm University)
• Professor Olle Lundberg (Karolinska Institutet/Stockholm University)
• Professor Kenneth Nelson (Stockholm University)
• Professor Joakim Palme (Uppsala University)
• Professor Claus Wendt (University of Siegen)

Finance

Students are expected to cover travel and accommodation costs. Lunches and one workshop dinner are kindly offered to all participants. Certificate of acceptance is provided upon request.

Application

Participants are selected based on relevance, originality and quality of their research. Applications should include a title and an abstract (up to 600 words), and a short CV (maximum two pages). Applications are sent to Sverker.Sjostrand@sofi.su.se.

Extended deadline for applications is 15 May 2015. (Successful applicants will be notified by 15 April 2015.)

Final papers should be submitted by 30 August 2015.

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Call for Papers for the 4th Doctoral Workshop of the German ESPAnet Section

What Welfare States do to People and how People use Welfare State Programmes

University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf, Faculty of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, 28 – 29 May 2015

Welfare States in industrialised countries have transformed considerably during the last decades. Although different in timing and degree, many countries have introduced reforms influenced by such ideas as activating welfare recipients, investive social policy, enhancing efficiency of welfare provision by market competition, furthering individual responsibility, choice, customer-orientation and autonomy. Against the backdrop of changing welfare state paradigms, we are interested in understanding what such kinds of policies actually do to people, and how people make use of new welfare state programmes implementing these ideas. While many studies have focused on categorising and explaining welfare state change, this call is interested in papers studying policy effects in terms of outcomes (e.g., effects on poverty, the quality of service provision, or working conditions in the social services sector) as well as behaviour (e.g., reactions of the insured, welfare recipients, or service providers).

We invite submissions of papers from PhD students who focus on the following aspects:

Country case studies as well as comparative papers on the effects of labour market activation policies; privatisation and marketisation of pension, health, care or other schemes; the introduction of new (investment driven) care policies; changes in local programmes, e.g. housing, youth and family welfare; shifting responsibilities between different welfare state institutions or major actors; as well as studies on the day-to-day strategies of welfare recipients and users of different programmes or services.

The workshop seeks to bring together PhD students from German and international universities and research institutions. We welcome papers from different theoretical, methodological and empirical perspectives. Special emphasis is given to discussing preliminary results of the PhD theses. So researchers should be in a position to present the overall framework, research questions and methodology of their projects, as well as some preliminary/indicative findings. Papers and presentations should be provided in English. Presentations will be grouped according to subject areas into three to four panels with senior researchers as commentators.

The workshop is organised by the German Section of the European Social Policy Association ESPAnet (www.espanet.org), an interdisciplinary organisation of social policy research at European level, and supported by the social policy sections of the German sociology (DGS) and political science (DVPW) associations. Senior researchers at the workshop include:

• Prof. Dr. Ingo Bode, University of Kassel (DGS, social policy section)
• Prof. Dr. Jochen Clasen, University of Edinburg
• Dr. Irene Dingeldey, University of Bremen (DVPW, working group welfare states in comparison)
• Prof. Dr. Anne Lise Ellingsaeter, University of Oslo
• Prof. Dr. Achim Goerres, University of Duisburg-Essen
• Prof. Dr. Ute Klammer, University of Duisburg-Essen (DGS, social policy section)
• Prof. Dr. Simone Leiber, University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf (German ESPAnet Section)
• Prof. Dr. Sigrid Leitner, University of Applied Sciences Cologne
• Prof. Dr. Annette Henninger, University of Marburg
• To apply, please send by email an abstract of your research project (max. 500 words in English) to Simone Leiber (see below) by January 31^st, 2015. We can offer some limited support for travel expenses; your application should make clear whether you would like to apply for financial support. If your abstract is selected for presentation, we expect you to provide a short paper on your project by April 30^th, 2015 (approx. 6,000-10,000 words). For more information and applications please contact Simone Leiber (Simone.Leiber@fh-duesseldorf.de).

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Call for Papers for the 3rd Doctoral Workshop of the German ESPAnet Section

“Privatisation and Marketisation of Social Services and Social Programs”

Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne, 14-15 November 2013

Welfare state restructuring has resulted in a significant re-calibration of the nexus between the state and the market and has been accompanied by the introduction of welfare markets in many policy fields. On the one hand privatisation and marketisation can be considered as reflecting the decreasing capacities and resources for nation-state governance, and on the other as flexible responses to the problems of growth and changing social risks, responses that are often expected to increase efficiency in welfare production. In the European context, the Services Directive of the European Commission was conceived in 2006 to promote a cross-border market in services. While this directive explicitly excludes certain social services and health care, as a legal framework it alone cannot explain the differences that exist between welfare states and policy fields on the extent of the privatisation and marketisation of social services: for example, the level of marketisation in most European welfare states appears to be higher for health and elderly care than for child care services.

We invite submissions of papers from PhD students who focus on the following: the drivers and obstacles to privatisation and marketisation in different national contexts and in different policy fields, including, inter alia, social services and social insurance; the effects these processes have on access, service-quality and financial resources; the problems of (multilevel) governance and public control of marketised social services.

The workshop seeks to bring together PhD students from German and international universities and research institutions. We welcome papers from different theoretical and empirical perspectives. Special emphasis is given to research design so researchers should be in a position to present the overall framework, research questions and methodology of their projects, and – if possible – some preliminary/indicative findings. Presentations in English are preferred, but presentations in German are also possible.

Presentations will be grouped according to subject areas into three to four panels with senior researchers as commentators. Senior researchers at the workshop include:

• Prof. Dr. Marius Busemeyer, University of Konstanz
• Prof. Dr. Achim Görres, University of Duisburg-Essen
• Prof. Dr. Annette Henninger, Philipps-University Marburg (German ESPAnet-Section)
• Prof. Dr. Simone Leiber, FH Düsseldorf (DGS, social policy section)
• Prof. Dr. Hildegard Theobald, University of Vechta
• Jun.-Prof. Dr. Sascha Münnich, University of Göttingen (DVPW, social policy working group)
• Dr. Tobias ten Brink, Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt (DVPW, political economy section)
• Dr. Thomas Paster, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne

The workshop is organised by the German Section of the European Social Policy Association ESPAnet (https://espanet.org/), an interdisciplinary organisation of social policy research at European level, and supported by the social policy sections of the German sociology and political science associations. The workshop is jointly organised on behalf of its partner organisations by Annette Henninger, Simone Leiber, Sascha Münnich and Thomas Paster. To apply, please send by email an abstract of your research project (max. 500 words in English or German) to one of the organisers (see below) by 15 June 2013. We can offer some limited support for travel expenses; your application should make clear whether you would like to apply for financial support. If your abstract is selected for presentation, we expect you to provide a short paper on your project by 30 September 2013 (ca. 6,000-10,000 words).

For more information and applications please contact one of the organisers: Annette Henninger (Annette.Henninger@staff.uni-marburg.de), Sascha Münnich (muennich@mpifg.de), Simone Leiber (Simone.Leiber@fh-duesseldorf.de) or Thomas Paster (thp@mpifg.de).

ESPAnet doctoral workshop 2013 at Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), University of Mannheim, Germany

Comparing Welfare States: Applying Quantitative and Qualitative Comparative Analysis in Social Policy Research

Mannheim, Germany, 4-6 July 2013

Comparison plays an important role in welfare state research. Explaining cross-national variations has been a major contribution of welfare state regime analysis following Esping-Andersen’s seminal Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Since Charles Ragin’s The Comparative Method the systematic study of few qualitative cases has been advanced by more formalized methods, in particular the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for small-N and Fuzzy Set QCA for medium-N studies. Applications of these methods in social policy research have grown in recent years, including comparisons of welfare state regime typologies and public policy reforms.

Comparison is also common in quantitative analyses. Macro-comparisons include cluster, factor or principal component analysis to test regime typologies. Pooled time-series analysis also uses a limited number of countries to explore cross-national variation, while also studying changes over time. Moreover, empirical cross-national research in the social policy field includes increasingly national and individual level data in multi-level analyses or two step quantitative procedures. Examples include studies of attitudes toward welfare states or analysis of social inequality data in different labour markets and minimum income systems.

Whether macro-comparative or multilevel analysis, such cross-national studies face similar problems of a too small N and rather limited diversity of observable national units of analysis. The selection of cases and appropriate research strategy thus becomes a major challenge in comparative analyses of welfare states and social policy in international perspective.

This doctoral workshop seeks to address the methodological challenges and different research strategies of comparative methods. It invites Ph.D. students to submit and present papers in the fields of comparative welfare state and cross-national social policy analysis. Especially welcome are papers that reflect explicitly on the use of comparative methods and research methodologies in their dissertation projects. Thus papers can be methodological and / or empirical papers discussing the use of comparative methods and / or exemplify their adaptation to comparative social policy analysis.

Papers might for example explore methods and topics such as:

• Cross-national comparison of welfare state regimes
• Comparing social policymaking with QCA or Fuzzy-set Methods
• Multi-level analysis of value survey data on welfare state attitudes
• Comparing national panel data on social inequality

Organizer

• Professor Bernhard Ebbinghaus, Chair in Macrosociology, University of Mannheim

Speakers and commentators

• Professor Michael Braun, GESIS and University of Mannheim, Germany
• Professor Patrick Emmenegger, Political Science, Hochschule St. Gallen, Switzerland
• Dr Emanuele Ferragina, Social Policy, Oxford University, UK
• Professor Jon Kvist, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
• Professor Wim van Oorschot, Catholic University (KU), Leuven, Belgium
• Professor Claudius Wagemann, Method Centre, Goethe University, Frankfurt. Germany

Further commentators

• Dr Thomas Bahle, MZES, University of Mannheim, Germany
• Dr Jan Drahokoupil, MZES, University of Mannheim, Germany & ETUI, Brussels, Belgium
• Dr. Nathalie Giger, MZES, University of Mannheim, Germany
• Dr Dirk Hofäcker, MZES, University of Mannheim, Germany
• Dr. Sebastian Koos, University of Mannheim, Germany
• Professor J. Timo Weishaupt, University of Mannheim, Germany
• Professor Claus Wendt, University of Siegen and SFB 884 Mannheim, Germany

Organizational coordination

• Dr. Sebastian Koos, University of Mannheim, Germany

Format of the workshop

Aim

This doctoral workshop will allow 20 PhD researchers to present their own work to colleagues and experienced researchers. It will provide doctoral researchers with a platform for presenting their work in small groups and to receive constructive comments from their peers and the senior researchers. In addition, there will be presentations by experienced researchers and experts to all participants, allowing doctoral researchers to play a role as allocated commentator or take part in the general discussion.

Lectures

As a part of the workshop, there will be an introduction and 6 plenary lectures on selected issues of comparative methods delivered by the senior researchers, including topics such as qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), fuzzy-set analysis (FS/QCA), cross-national regime comparison, comparative historical method, multi-level methods, survey analysis and a presentation on the European Data Centre (EDAC).

Length of each paper session

There will be 3 groups, working in parallel and each group (A, B, C) will meet 4 times for two hours. Each PhD researcher will have 60 minutes allocated to their work. During this hour they will introduce their paper, providing an overview of the content and argument (approximately 10 minutes), followed by critical comments and questions from a predefined senior lead discussant (approximately 10 minutes). The author then has a ‘right of reply’ (approx. 10 minutes), before general discussion of the paper (approx. 30 minutes).

Distribution of papers

All papers will be electronically pre-circulated to all participants, at least 14 days in advance of the workshop. Participants are required to read the papers in their group, and are required to attend and prepare all lectures (there will be one article or paper per lecture as background reading). The organizer will allocate students into groups well in advance of the workshops. The selection into groups will be based on similar research topics, methodologies or analytical approaches.

Finance

Accommodation (two nights), lunch and dinners will be paid for by the University of Mannheim. ESPAnet acknowledges this generous support gratefully.

Ph.D. students are expected to pay for their travel to Mannheim and additional meals; no fee will be charged for the workshop.

Location

Mannheim is well connected to the international rail network. For information see: www.bahn.de (multilingual site).  Closest airport connection to Mannheim is Frankfurt airport (FRA), 30-35 min. by train from Mannheim main station (Hauptbahnhof).

The workshop will take place at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) in Square A5 (http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/d7/en/directions), a 15-20 minute walk or short bus ride from the main station.

Application Deadline

Participants will be selected on the basis of the quality of their plans for their papers and the fit to the workshop theme. Please send the plan including: title of paper, outline (up to 600 words on rationale for the topic, analytical framework, and research strategy/methods used), the name of supervisor(s) and brief description of current state of your thesis project (e.g. when did you start and when do you aim to finish), with your name, email and address to: espanet2013ma@gmail.com

Deadline of application:  3 March 2013

Successful applicants will be notified by 15 March 2013.

Final papers

The final paper will have to be submitted a month in advance by 4 June 2013 as word or PDF-file to espanet2013ma@gmail.com. All papers will be made available to the discussant and all workshop participants via a password protected webpage.

Workshop details

Begin: Thursday, 4 July 2013 at 1 pm (13.00) Registration / 2 pm (14.00) Welcome

End: Saturday, 6 July 2013 at 1 pm (13.00) (optional lunch snack till 2 pm, 14.00)

Further information (schedule) will be provided in June.

Questions

In case you have any questions please contact the organizational coordinator Sebastian Koos (skoos@sowi.uni-mannheim.de).

ESPAnet doctoral workshop

Mixing and remixing – public and private social policies in austere times

University of Southampton, 30 July-2 August 2012

During the last decade we have seen a shift from public to private welfare in many countries. In core programmes such as pensions or health care public provision has been curtailed, accompanied by new incentives, regulation and high expectations of policy-makers for non-state provision. In labour market policies and unemployment benefits activation has been dominant. Only family policies have seen some increase in state support.

The shift towards non-state social policies came at a time when business invested less in occupational welfare and when household incomes were stagnating, exacerbated by the financial crisis that began in 2008. It appears that those public and private actors able to provide collective protection against social risks retreat, making personalised insurance more and more important for individuals whose incomes are also under pressure.

This doctoral workshop invites papers dealing theoretically, conceptually and empirically with such pressures and with the ever shifting boundary between the public and the private in contemporary European societies. Papers might explore questions such as:

• Business and welfare
• State regulation of the non-state sector
• The politics of boundary-setting between public and private social policies
• The re-emergence of the state as provider?
• Charities and social policy
• Private households between public and private welfare

Confirmed speakers/convenors

Professor Deborah Mabett, Birkbeck College, University of London

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/politics/our-staff/academic/deborah-mabbett

Title of presentation: ‘Social regulation of financial markets’.

Professor John Mohan, University of Southampton and Third Sector Research Centre

http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/About/Staff/JohnMohan/tabid/441/Default.aspx

Presentation on the contribution of the third sector to welfare

Professor Martin Seeleib-Kaiser, University of Oxford

http://www.spi.ox.ac.uk/staff/academic/profile/seeleib-kaiser.html

Title of presentation: Shifting the Public-Private Mix: A New Dualization of Welfare

Organiser/convenor

Dr Traute Meyer, University of Southampton

http://www.sociology.soton.ac.uk/profile/TrauteMeyer

Format of the workshop

Aim

This doctoral workshop will allow 24 PhD researchers to present their own work to colleagues and experienced researchers. It will provide PhD researchers with a platform for presenting their work in small groups (of eight) and to receive constructive comments from their peers and the senior researcher. In addition, there will be papers by experienced researchers and experts in the subject area chosen to all participants, allowing doctoral researchers to play a role as allocated commentator or take part in the general discussion.

Length of each paper session

There will be 3 groups, working in parallel and each group will meet four times. Each PhD researcher will have 60 minutes allocated to their work. During this hour they will introduce their paper, providing an overview of the content and argument (approximately 10 minutes), followed by critical comments and questions from a predefined senior lead discussant (approximately 15 minutes). The author then has a ‘right of reply’ (approx. 10 minutes), before general discussion of the paper (approx. 25 minutes). In addition, there will be three plenary lectures delivered by the senior researchers and a talk on how to publish your research by Traute Meyer, Editor of the Journal of European Social policy.

Distribution of papers and formation of small groups

All papers will be electronically pre-circulated to all participants, at least 14 days in advance of the workshop. Participants are required to read the papers in their group, and encouraged to read all papers. The organiser will allocate students into groups well in advance of the workshops. The selection will be based on similar research topics, methodologies or theoretical approaches.

Social life

There will be dinner for everyone each evening; an opportunity for chatting, fun and exploration of the area (one trip to the ancient New Forest planned; http://www.thenewforest.co.uk/).

Finance

Accommodation and food will be paid for by the University of Southampton; ESPAnet acknowledges this generous support gratefully.

Participants are expected to pay for their travel to Southampton. There may be a subsidy to travel costs, depending on overall participation.

Closest airport connections are Southampton airport for limited destination, Heathrow (plus 1.5 hours bus) and Gatwick (plus ca 2 hrs train).

Deadlines

Plans for papers

Participants will be selected on the basis of the quality of their plans for papers. Please send such plan (up to 1000 words) to

Dr Traute Meyer

Faculty of Social and Human Sciences

University of Southampton

tmeyer@soton.ac.uk

by 25 March 2012

Successful applicants will be notified on 27 March.

Final papers

Final paper copies will have to be submitted by 16 July 2012.

Any questions?

Please email Traute (tmeyer@soton.ac.uk).

RECWOWE / ESPAnet Doctoral Workshop

Adapting European welfare states to the emergence of new social risks

IDHEAP, Lausanne, Switzerland, 12-13 May 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS (click here to download a pdf version of the call)

The socio-economic context in which welfare states operate has undergone substantial changes over the last few decades. These include, most significantly, the decline of industrial employment and the expansion of the service sector; the massive entry of women into labour markets, and migrations. These developments have resulted in a major shift in social risk in comparison to the postwar years. While traditional welfare states provided a replacement income to those who were temporarily or permanently unable to work, today new social risks have emerged. These include the fact of being a working poor, being long term unemployed, possessing insufficient human capital, reconciling work and family life.
The objective of this workshop is to discuss these new social risks and the policy responses that are being developed to deal with them. We invite contributions by PhD students working on any aspect of the process of welfare state adaptation to the emergence of new social risks. The workshop is interdisciplinary, and we are particularly interested in studies of how social risks are evolving and what their impact on people’s welfare is (from sociology, economics, and social policy) and studies of how countries are responding to emerging new social risks (from political science, social policy).
The main aim of the workshop is to allow extensive discussions of on-going PhD projects. Doctoral candidates are invited to present their project or a related paper which will be discussed by the senior scholars. The workshop will include both presentation by senior scholar and discussions of PhD projects.

Senior scholars:

The following experts will make comments on papers and give lectures:

• Giuliano Bonoli, Professor of Social Policy, IDHEAP
• Patrick Emmeneger, Associate Professor, Centre for Welfare State Research, University of Southern Denmark
• Yuri Kazepov, Professor of Comparative Social Policy and Urban Sociology, University of Urbino
• Birgit Pfau-Effinger, Professor of Sociology, University of Hamburg
• Daniel Oesch, Assistant Professor, University of Lausanne
• John Stephens, Professor of Political Science and Sociology, Centre for European Studies, University of North Carolina (USA)

Application:

Interested students are requested to send in an abstract (max. 750 words) of the project or the paper they plan to present. The abstract should give information on research question, theory, methodology, and (expected) findings. The number of participants will be limited to 20.

Application deadline is 15 March 2011. Please send the application to aurelien.abrassart@idheap.unil.ch. Applicants will be notified about acceptance by 31 March 2011.

Costs: accommodation (two nights), lunches and one workshop dinner are provided free of charge. Participants must pay for their own travel additional meals. There is no registration fee.

Organisers:

Aurélien Abrassart, Giuliano Bonoli, Cyrielle Champion

Sciences Po, Collège Universitaire de Menton, (South of ) France, 28-30 October 2010 (organised jointly with RECWOWE – Reconciling Work and Welfare in Europe)

In 2010, the RECWOWE doctoral workshop is devoted to research focusing on the politics of employment-friendly welfare reforms. Activation, employability, employment rates have become key words of national and European employment policies over the last decades. They have also become goals for welfare reform aimed at increasing employment rates of older workers, (re-)conciling work and family life, increasing female labour force participation, investing in education and training, reducing non–wage costs in order to favour job creation, etc.  Accused in the past of hindering job creation, welfare states are being reformed to become “employment-friendly”. Even Continental European welfare states, once well-known for their “labour shedding” strategy, have turned to activation and employment-friendliness. In short, what might be called “employment-friendly welfare reforms” have become central in the social protection policy agendas over the last decades.

During this Doctoral workshop,  we would like to gather PHD students working on “employment-friendly” welfare reforms in Europe (at national and European levels) to come and present their work, as well as discuss senior papers also focussing on these topics. PhD-students with projects related to the theme of the workshop, doing comparative work, and at least in their third year and those close to finishing, are invited to apply for participation in this three days workshop, where they will present a research paper and discuss their scientific work, both within small groups and in plenary discussions. The workshop brings together a maximum of 20 PhD researchers and a team of 9 experts in all relevant fields (labour market changes, employment policies, unemployment protection, pension reforms, health care reforms, care policies, conciliation policies, issues of work/life balance, education and training in Europe). The workshop welcomes quantitative empirical studies in the field, as well as qualitative case studies and policy analyses, from all social sciences.  We will favour comparative work. It can be either focused on national reforms, or on the EU policies, or both.

The Experts who will be commenting PHD papers and give lectures are:

• Giuliano Bonoli, Professor of Social policy at IDHEAP, Lausanne.
• Jochen Clasen, Professor of Comparative Social Policy in the University of Edinburgh.
• Daniel Clegg, Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh.
• Ana Guillen, Professor of Sociology, University of Oviedo, Spain,
• Silja HÄusermann, researcher in comparative politics at the University of Zurich.
• Jon Kvist, Professor at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense.
• Nathalie Morel, PHD Researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm.
• Wim Van Oorschot, Professor of Sociology Department of Sociology Tilburg University.
• Bruno Palier, CNRS researcher in Centre d’Études europÉennes of Sciences Po, Paris.

Organisation of the workshop: The workshop was organised so that each PHD student has enough time for presenting his/her paper and getting feedbacks from senior researchers and other PHD students (at least 1 hours and 15 minutes will be given for the presentation and discussion of each PHD paper). There were also some plenary presentations of seniors participants’ paper. During these, we will apply Korpi’s rules, i.e. the paper will be presented and discussed by an assigned discussant (= a PHD student) and then discussed more broadly. The entire organisation and the success of the workshop will rely on the fact that papers will be sent in advance, and read by all participants in advance. That is the necessary condition for favouring intense and interesting discussion. This means that each participant commits to send his/her paper at least three weeks before the workshop (i.e. before the 7th of October).

Practical information: Travel and stay Travel expenses are at the cost of participating students. Accommodation is offered by RECWOWE for up to 2 nights, as well as free lunches and one free workshop dinner. The workshop was hosted by Sciences Po – CollÈge Universitaire de Menton. You will find all information on RECWOWE doctoral workshops on this website.

Local organiser: Bruno Palier, CNRS researcher at Sciences Po, Paris, and Sara Casella Colombeau, Sciences Po University, Centre d’Études europÉennes, 28 rue des Saint-PÈres, 75007 Paris, tel : 00331 45 49 83 54, e-mail: sara.casella@sciences-po.org 

Changing social policy in a cross-national perspective: methods and policy area specificities

Paris, 8-10 April 2010

Organisation: Jean-Claude Barbier (CES, Paris I), Fabrice Colomb (CES-Matisse, Paris I),
Johan Bo Davidsson (European University Institute)

In collaboration with ESPAnet, University Paris1-Sorbonne and the RT 6 network (social policy, social protection and solidarity) of the French association of sociology are organising a doctoral workshop on comparative methodologies and the transformation of social policies. The aim of the workshop is to create a venue for PhD students to present their research with the aim of further developing their dissertations, and/or transforming them into scientific publications.
Senior researchers will act as lecturers and discussants. They will present papers related to the theme of the workshop and they will give comments and feedback on the papers presented by PhD students. The overall theme of the workshop is the transformation of social policies in a comparative perspective. We welcome abstracts related to one of the three topics below. However, other themes could also be proposed.

Employment policies (Understanding recent evolutions of employment policies/labour market
policies; What is the interplay between the European level and the national one. How do countries interpret European recommendations concerning employment policies? Conversely, how do countries influence policy at the European level? Where have discussions concerning policies such as “activation”, “making work pay”, “flexicurity” originated?)

Private insurance (This dimension seems to be one of the dependent variables missing in much of the welfare state literature. To what extent and by which dynamic are private insurances layered onto or replacing existing systems? What implications does it have for the
validity of earlier welfare typologies? How can we understand the political process behind the privatization of welfare services and what implications has it had?)

Care (The relevance of care provision has never been as prominent as it became from the 1990s within the social protection systems, because of demographic and labour market changes. It is important to understand how these changes have affected the systems built in the 60s and 70s and what their current dynamics are.)
Proposals are invited to stress comparative aspects. Methods of comparison should be
explicitly described and justified. For example, the limits of the method related to the
data/results and the degree of generalization could be discussed in the paper. Studies using
quantitative and qualitative methods are both welcome. The unit of analysis could be the
micro, the meso or the macro level and could concern both Eastern and Western Europe.

Format

• Plenary sessions: 3 senior researchers will present papers which will emphasize methodological issues.
• Parallel sessions: PhD students will present their papers and get feedback and advice from senior researchers and other students of the group. 15 Students will be divided into three groups of five. Each student will present their paper and get feedback during 1.5h. Each group will gather papers on a same theme (e.g. “care” for session A, “employment” for session B). Participants of same groups will receive the paper of their peers. Participants will have to read papers for the discussion to be fruitful and dynamic.

Senior researchers

Jochen Clasen (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom), Valeria Fargion (University of Florence, Italy), Claude Martin (École nationale de santÉ publique, France), Martin Seeleib-Kaiser (University of Oxford, United Kingdom), Jean-Claude Barbier (University of Paris 1, France), Marie-ThÉrÈse Letablier (University of Paris 1, France)

Practical organisation

• PhD students who are interested should apply and send an abstract (max. 1500 words, in English) to the organizers (see contact information). Abstracts should mention research questions, methodology and findings expected. Abstracts should be sent to the three contacts (see below).
• The deadline of the application is 24 December 2009. The acceptance or the refusal will be notified by 25 January 2009.
• PhD students have to cover their travel expenses. Accommodations up to 2 nights, lunches and one dinner are free.
• Information concerning organisation and programs will be provided via RT6 website

Contact information: Jean-Claude Barbier (CES, Paris 1), Fabrice Colomb (CES, Paris 1), Johan Bo Davidsson (EUI)

Download the call as pdf here.

Welfare State Transformation: The role of institutions, ideas, gender, religion, and ethnicity

ESPAnet Israel Doctoral Workshop, 27-29 June 2010, Tel-Hai College, Israel

Call for papers
The Social Policy Research Group at the Hebrew University (Israel) in collaboration with ESPAnet Israel, the Lafer Center for Women and Gender Studies, and the Minerva Centre for Human Rights are organizing an international doctoral workshop on the issue of welfare state transformation. More specifically, the workshop sessions will seek to examine the way in which factors such as institutions, ideas, gender, religion and ethnicity are incorporated in the historical process of shaping the welfare state and have an impact on social policy formulation. Papers that address theoretical concerns within this broad theme are welcome.

The goal of the workshop is to create a platform for PhD students in diverse academic disciplines to present their research on the welfare state and on social policy with the aim of further developing their dissertations. In order to accomplish this goal, the workshop format will include 5 or 6 parallel sessions in which small groups of PhD students will present their papers and get feedback from senior researchers and other students in the group. Furthermore, the workshop will include senior researchers’ presentations related to the theme of the workshop.

Date and place:
27-29 June 2010 at the Tel-Hai College (North of Israel).

Organizers:
John Gal, Asher Ben-Arieh & Mimi Ajzenstadt (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem Israel).

Senior researchers (participation confirmed):
Birgit Pfau-Effinger (University of Hamburg, Germany), Yuri Kazepov (University of Urbino, Italy), Idit Weiss-Gal (Tel-Aviv University, Israel), Ayala Cohen (Tel-Hai College, Israel), Ofer Arian (Emek Yezreel College, Israel).

Practical details:

• The number of participants will be limited to 25.
• PhD students who are interested in participating in the workshop should send an abstract (Max 1500 words) containing the applicant’s details (name, mail and institution), rational of the research, its’ goals, methodology and its’ expected theoretical contribution. The paper should be sent by electronic mail (see contact information below).
• The deadline of the application is 1 March 2010. Applicants will be notified regarding  acceptance by 20 March 2010. Participants will be expected to send in full papers by 31 May 2010.
• PhD students will have to cover their travel expenses. However participation in the workshop including travel within Israel, accommodations for the two  nights and meals, will be covered by the organizers.

For further information concerning the workshop please contact the organizers by electronic mail.
Contact information:
social_policy@savion.huji.ac.il

Labour market flexibility, social protection, and family life

Tilburg University, 19-20 November 2009 (organised jointly with RECWOWE – Reconciling Work and Welfare in Europe)

Organizers: Wim van Oorschot, Ton Wilthagen

Invitation PhD-students with projects related to the theme of the workshop are invited to apply for participation in this two day workshop, where they can present a research paper and discuss their scientific work, both within small groups and in plenary discussions. The workshop brings together a maximum of 24 PhD researchers and a team of 6 experts in relevant fields.
The workshop welcomes quantitative empirical studies in the field, as well as qualitative case studies and policy analyses.
Especially welcomed are projects that focus on the relationships between flexible labour-markets, welfare protection for workers, and in- and out-of-work arrangements for the reconciliation of work and family life.

Experts The experts who will give lectures, and comment upon papers are:
Trudie Knijn (Utrecht University, Netherlands), Ute Klammer (Duisburg University, Germany), Jochen Clasen (Edinburg University, Scotland), Ruud Muffels, Ton Wilthagen, and Wim van Oorschot  (Tilburg University, The Netherlands).

Application Interested students are requested to apply and send in an abstract (max. 750 words) of the paper they plan to present. The abstract should give information on research question, theory, methodology, data, and (expected) findings.

Application deadline is 1 May 2009.
Please send applications to the local organiser Nadine Gugelot. Applicants will be notified about acceptance by 1 June.

Travel and stay Travel expenses are at the cost of participating students; they are offered free hosting for up to three nights, free lunches and one free workshop diner.
Local organiser Nadine Gugelot, Tilburg University, ReflecT Research Institute, room M318, tel 0013-4662181, e-mail: n.p.gugelot@uvt.nl
The workshop is hosted by the European Data Center for Work and Welfare EDACwowe (Wim van Oorschot) and the Flexicurity Research Institute ReflecT (Ton Wilthagen) of Tilburg University.

Understanding Changing Welfare States and Social Policies: Causes, Processes and Consequences

Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, 14-15 May 2009

Both quantitative and qualitative studies of social policies and welfare states can bring to light similarities and differences and highlight convergence or divergence between systems. Examination of the causes and consequences of these similarities and differences is the mainstay of comparative social policy research.

This workshop seeks to bring together a group of advanced doctoral students who are investigating changes in welfare states and social policies, and the causes and consequences thereof. Papers can also address the various putative mechanisms of policy influence/policy transfer where such transfer can be demonstrated to have taken place; papers that seek to understand the balance between national and supra-national forces and actors in influencing social policy developments are particularly welcome.

We invite papers that adopt a strong comparative dimension in addressing the issues of similarities/differences, convergence/divergence and policy transfer or diffusion between systems. Possible areas of investigation include, but are not restricted to, employment, pensions, care, health and housing policies, as well as systems-level studies of aggregate change or stability in broader policy areas and across welfare states.

The presenters should be in their final year of doctoral study and hence in a position to present the overall framework, research questions and methodology of their projects, as well as some preliminary/indicative findings in the light of their (largely) completed data collection.

Senior staff present at the workshop include:

• Jochen Clasen, University of Edinburgh
• Tony Fahey, University College Dublin
• Traute Meyer, Southampton University
• Brian Nolan, University College Dublin
• Julia O’Connor, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland
• Wim van Oorschot, Tilburg University
• Virpi Timonen, Trinity College Dublin
• Amilcar Moreira, Oslo University College

For more information and applications please contact Virpi Timonen

Changing Welfare States, changing theoretical concepts?

1st Doctoral Workshop of the German EspaNet Network

Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fÜr Sozialforschung, 13-14 May 2009

In the wake of far-reaching reforms in many policy fields, welfare states have become moving targets. It is unclear whether these changes can be properly characterized as convergence or divergence in a matrix of given regime types, or if they call for a recon-struction of existing typologies. Both quantitative and qualitative studies of welfare states, welfare mixes, social policies and their implications can bring to light similarities and dif-ferences between reform processes in different countries and policy fields as well as changes in welfare and gender regimes. Besides ‘thick descriptions’ of reform processes, social policy analysis aims at an examination of the causes and consequences of these developments. But it is an open question whether existing theories can be expanded to processes of welfare state change, or if the comparative analysis of welfare state change calls for new theoretical explanations.
The workshop is sponsored by the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fÜr Sozialforschung (WZB), the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS) and the Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences (BGSS). It seeks to bring together doctoral students at German Universities and Non-University Research Institutions who are inves-tigating changes in welfare states and social policies, and the causes and consequences thereof. Papers that seek to understand the balance between national and supra-national forces and actors in influencing social policy developments are also welcome. We wel-come papers from different theoretical and empirical perspectives (qualitative case studies, historical analyses, quantitative micro and macro level studies).The presenters should be in a position to present the overall framework, research questions and metho-dology of their projects, as well as some preliminary/indicative findings.
Presentations will be grouped according to subject areas into 3-4 panels with senior staff members as commentators. Senior staff present at the workshop includes:

• Thilo Bodenstein, Freie Universität Berlin (to be confirmed)
• Irene Dingeldey, Institut Arbeit und Wirtschaft, Universität Bremen
• Annette Henninger, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin
• Stephan Lessenich, Universität Jena
• Steffen Mau, UniversitÄät Bremen
• Rita Nikolai, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin
• Ellen Immergut, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (to be confirmed)

For application, please send us an abstract of your research project (max. 1500 words in English or German) until 15 March 2009. There is limited funding for travelling expen-ses; your application should also make clear whether you are in need of refunding.
For more information and applications please contact Annette Henninger  (Tel. #49/ (0)30/ 25491- 197) and Rita Nikolai (Tel. #49/ (0)30/ 25491-522).

Ageing Societies and the Welfare State

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 11-12 December 2008. (organised jointly with ESA – Network ‘Ageing in Europe’)

Contact and applications: Kathrin Komp

For more information, please click here.

The Politics of Recalibration: Welfare Reforms in the Wider Europe

Forli, University of Bologna-Forli, Italy, 5-7 June 2008

More than ten years after the seminal work by P. Pierson on the ‘New Politics’ of the Welfare State, we aimed at improving the knowledge of actors, strategies and outcomes of the welfare reform process in Europe. Starting from the broad concept of recalibration (in the words of Ferrera and Hemerijck), the conference dealed with key issues related to the politics of: new social risks (i.e. work and family reconciliation, single parenthood, insufficient social protection, etc.), the allocation of protection across risk groups (i.e. gender, occupational groups and generations), and of the interaction between the EU and national (and/or sub-national) governments in the provision of welfare and the promotion of employment. The above-mentioned politics of functional, distributive and institutional recalibration were analysed through the study of key actors (political parties, social partners, civil society), institutions (EU bodies, national and sub-national governments, civil servants at different levels of governance), and outcomes of the political process. The focus was on social policy (health care, pensions, social inclusion), employment policy and education in different welfare regimes in both eastern and western Europe. This initiative is supported by the Italian ESPAnet Association and sponsored by the Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche (Italian Review of Public Policy).

Contact: David Natali (david.natali@unibo.it) and Elizabetha Guandini.

For the two decades of its existence as a political concept, the “European Social Model“ has been a moving target. Born as a vision of a European-style welfare capitalism, it has gained force above all in its normative opposition to an (supposedly) American-style free market capitalism. However, with the social, political, economic, and demographic premises of European welfare states having changed fundamentally, the conception of what the “European Social Model“ should be and look like have been changing as well in recent years. While the process and style of EU policy-making may be said to have been “americanised“ with the adoption of the Open Method of Coordination, social policy in the EU, with its focus on employability and activation, is becoming ever more “Scandinavian“ in substance. As a result, for the first time in the history of European integration there is emerging a reasonably coherent political design of a “Social Europe“ – a design, however, that does not bear too much resemblance with what the early advocates meant when talking of the “European Social Model“.

PhD students were invited to present papers on findings of their PhD research which could be further developed for publication in academic journals. In the framework of the workshop, leading social scientists in the field acted as lecturers and presented papers. They also commented on the papers presented by PhD students in the framework of small groups, where the papers were presented to and discussed by other PhD students. The main questions at the workshop included: How did the relationship of welfare state policies on one hand and the organisation of different forms of work on the other develop as a consequence of welfare reform in European societies? (This relates to work within formal employment as well as to informal forms of work like care work and undeclared work.) What kinds of tensions have developed in this context, and why? How does this development differ in a cross-national perspective, and how can differences be explained? What are the consequences in relation to the social structures, family structures and social cohesion in European societies?

Reconciling work and welfare in Europe: Comparative perspectives. The workshop brought together well-known academics with an expertise in comparative European social policy analysis and about 20 doctoral students who are undertaking comparative PhD projects on topics relevant to the workshop’s theme. As the first joint RECWOWE/ESPAnet doctoral workshop, its topic was broad. It was aimed at doctoral researchers engaged in comparative investigations into aspects such as: ‘employment flexibility and security’; ‘family life, labour market flexibility and welfare regimes’; the ‘quantity and the quality of employment’ and ‘old welfare states and new types of employment’. Senior researchers presented panel papers and provided detailed feedback on papers by PhD researchers in small group sessions. PhD researchers presented papers based on their doctoral research in small groups and participated in panel discussions. All papers (for small group presentations and plenary papers) were electronically pre-circulated to all participants.

Contact: Tomas Sirovatka (sirovatk@fss.muni.cz) and Jochen Clasen (Jochen.Clasen@ed.ac.uk)

The Finnish national Graduate School on Work and Welfare Studies, LabourNet announced an international postgraduate conference, that was held at the University of Tampere in 7–9 September 2006. The Conference was of a multidisciplinary nature and we invited papers, which address various aspects of work and welfare. The conference was organised in cooperation with Danish National School “ Welfare state and Difference”, Department of Social Sciences of the University of Hamburg and Espanet. Cooperation and dissemination of research results were promoted also with the ongoing comparative research projects like WELLKNOW, FIWE and Russia in Flux.

Organizer: Pertti Koistinen (Pertti.Koistinen@uta.fi), Olli Kangas (olk@sfi.dk)

For more information, please click here.

Organizers: Daniel Clegg and Bruno Palier

The Governance of Social Policy in the New Europe

For more information, please contact Jochen Clasen