(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.
The following experts will make comments on papers and give lectures:
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 15th March 2011. Please send the application to aurelien.abrassart@idheap.unil.ch. Applicants will be notified about acceptance by 31st 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.
Aurélien Abrassart, Giuliano Bonoli, Cyrielle Champion
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:
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
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
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
Contact information: Jean-Claude Barbier (CES, Paris 1), Fabrice Colomb (CES, Paris 1), Johan Bo Davidsson (EUI)
Download the call as pdf here.
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:
For further information concerning the workshop please contact the organizers by electronic mail.
Contact information:
social_policy@savion.huji.ac.il
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.
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:
Deadline for applications: 13 February 2009.
For more information and applications please contact Virpi Timonen
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:
For application, please send us an abstract of your research project (max. 1500 words in English or German) until March 15th, 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).
The interplay of ageing societies and the welfare state is at the centre of many contemporary debates. In sociological discussions, the influence of the welfare state on ageing societies is often stressed. Recently, especially the influence of the welfare state on the restructuring of the life-course and on social inequalities among older persons has been underlined. In political science discussions, on the other hand, the influence of ageing societies on the welfare state is an important point of focus. Lately, special emphasis has been given to devising strategies to counter the pressure exerted by ageing societies on social insurances. These strategies include the activation of nonemployed persons for paid work, the activation of retired persons for volunteering and informal care and a general redefinition of the idea of social citizenship.
For the workshop, we invite PhD-students in sociology and political science to submit abstracts related to the topic of “Ageing Societies and the Welfare State”. The contributions may be qualitative, quantitative, or conceptual. Country-comparative studies are especially welcome. Abstracts with a maximum of 200 words should be submitted before September 30, 2008. The participants will need to submit a complete version of their papers by the end of November 2008.
During the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to present their papers and receive feedback from senior researchers as well as from the other participants. Senior researchers acting as discussants for the PhD-students’ presentations will be inter alia Anneli Anttonen (University of Tampere, Finland, t.b.c.), Harald Kuenemund (University of Vechta, Germany), Ricca Edmondson (National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland, t.b.c.), Wim van Oorschot (University of Tilburg, Netherlands), and Theo van Tilburg (VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands).
Contact and applications: Kathrin Komp
Just before the Annual ESPAnet Conference in Helsinki a RECWOWE Doctoral Seminar 2008 took place. The programme consistsed of lectures presented by staff members, presentations by doctoral students and discussion on their research plans. The joint organisers are Stakes and University of Tampere, with Jussi Simpura, Stakes, and Anneli Anttonen, University of Tampere, as the workshop leaders. Staff member include Brigit Pfau-Effinger, Caroline de la Porte, Tine Rostgaard, Marta Szebehely, and Teppo KrÖger.
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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).
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“.
Contact: Stephan Lessenich (stephan.lessenich@uni-jena.de) and Ilona Ostner (iostner@uni-gottingen.de)
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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?
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Contact: Birgit Pfau-Effinger (pfau-effinger@sozialwiss.uni-hamburg.de) and Sladana Sakac-Magdalenic (Sakac-magdalenic@sozialwiss.uni-hamburg.de)
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)
Organizer: Joakim Palme
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 7th – 9th 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)
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Organizers: Daniel Clegg and Bruno Palier
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Organizer: Emma Carmel
Organizers: Joergen Goul Andersen and Sanne Lund Clement
The workshop was organised by the Centre for Comparative Research in Social Welfare (CCRSW) at Stirling University, Scotland, under the joint auspices of ESPAnet (The Network for European Social Policy Analysis) and the European Commission's Marie Curie Training Site for doctoral students which is currently located at CCRSW.
This was the second conference of its kind, following on from the young researchers' conference on 'European welfare states: dynamics and patterns of change' which was held at Sandbjerg Castle in Denmark in May 2002.
The Stirling workshop brought together well-known academics with an expertise in comparative European social policy analysis and about 24 doctoral students who are undertaking comparative PhD projects on topics related to social policy in Europe.
The senior researchers were expected to present papers, participate in panel discussions and provide detailed feedback on presentations and papers by two or three PhD researchers in small group sessions. PhD researchers were expected to present a paper based on their research and to participate in panel discussions.
Experienced researchers who have participated are: JØrgen Goul Andersen (Aalborg); Emma Carmel (Bath); Frank Castles (Edinburgh); Valeria Fargion (Florence); Richard Freeman (Edinburgh); Jon Kvist (Copenhagen); Traute Meyer (Southampton); Bruno Palier (Paris); Wim van Oorschot (Tilburg); Diane Sainsbury (Stockholm) and Christoffer Green Pedersen (Århus).
For more information, please contact Jochen Clasen