Core Theory: Welfare States in Transition
by Prof. Dr. Anke Hassel & Prof. Dr. Bruno Palier
Welfare states in advanced industrial democracies have faced transformative change over the last three decades. As economies have moved from manufacturing to service sector jobs, the role of financial services has risen, and the knowledge economy has started to embrace automation and digital tools, the role of work and the protection of citizens has started to change. In this course, we will look at these transformative changes through the perspective of the political economy. We will show and analyse how closely the welfare state is intertwined with the economic system of particular countries and how governments have used the potential of the welfare state to reboost growth and job creation. We will first investigate these relationships from a conceptual and theoretical angle. In the second part of the course, we will focus on four key policy fields of the welfare state: wages and employment, skills, housing and pensions. Students will become experts in the literature of the advanced welfare state and comparative political economy, and dive deeper into one policy field and research it using comparative case studies. The course provides an analytical insight into the different ways as to how capitalist political economies are organised today. It also provides students with an in-depth understanding of the institutions governing political economies.