Freie Universität Berlin
John F. Kennedy- Institut, Abt. Politik
PS: Der amerikanische Sozialstaat
Dozentin: Prof. Dr. M. Mayer
SoSe 2003
Protokollanten: Alexander Bärtl, Merve Liebelt
Minutes of May 9th, 2003
Topic:Typologies of Welfare Regimes
Discussion leaders:Nina Weinz, Katrin Schulze
Literature:Gosta Esping-Andersen, The ThreeWorlds of Welfare Capitalism.
Princeton UP: 1990, pp. 9 –54.
This week’s seminar dealt with typologies of welfare states as introduced to the class
by The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism by Gospa Esping-Andersen.
Before dealing with concrete aspects of the text, the class was confronted with the
question of what kind of text they had been reading. Esping-Andersen explains and
critiques existing political theories of the welfare state and judges them to be
inadequate. Furthermore, he develops a new – and, in his opinion, more adequate
and complete - set of categories for examining and evaluating welfare regimes, and
thereby offers an entirely new approach to understanding and classifying these
regimes. His text must therefore be understood as theory critique. Later, the class
discussed Esping-Anderson´s motivation for such an investigation. Various - but in
their core similar - explanations were offered: That Esping-Anderson saw existing
approaches to be insufficient for understanding the role and effects of welfare
regimes. His objective was therefore to provide a more comprehensive approach, to
offer new categories and a new framework (typologies) that would allow assessing
welfare states more efficiently and correctly. Besides having impact on theory, Esping
Anderson´s ultimate goal might have been to influence political practice and public
policy concerning welfare.
This initial discussion led to the question of what a regime is. It was defined as
a system of rules and regulations applied within a certain region, regime clusters as
a group of states characterized by the same regime.
The discussion leaders went on to provide the class with an overview of the
text. Esping Andersen names and briefly explains the conventional theories of
welfare states known at the time when he wrote the text (1990), the system or
structuralist approach and the institutional approach. He adresses the shortcomings
of each in order to then present his (new) approach that embraces three criteria for a
more adequate explanation of welfare states.
1
Freie Universität Berlin
John F. Kennedy- Institut, Abt. Politik
PS: Der amerikanische Sozialstaat
Dozentin: Prof. Dr. M. Mayer
SoSe 2003
Protokollanten: Alexander Bärtl, Merve Liebelt
The first and most intensely discussed criteria was Esping-Andersen´s notion
of level of de-commodification that is provided by a welfare regime. EspingAndersen defines de-commodification as the “degree to which individuals or families
can uphold a socially acceptable standard of living independent of market
participation; individuals are not measured by their work”. This definition immediately
triggered the question how a “commodity” is defined, as this is the term from which
de-commodification derives. The class came to the conclusion that a commodity is a
good that is exchanged in the market. Applying this market category to human
beings, their commodification signifies the turning of human labor into something that
is bought and sold on the market. De-commodification through welfare policies of the
state hence means protecting people from the necessity of selling their labor on the
market and, hence, (depending on the level of decommodification) still be able to
survive. This is an important aspect since capitalism, once fully developed, has left
workers with no other opportunity than to “commodify” their labor power in order to be
able to reproduce. It is therefore helpful to measure the degree to which states decommodify labor, as these conditions impact significantly on the quality of life in any
given country.
The other two criteria Esping-Anderson introduces are the degree of
stratification produced by welfare regimes and the degree of state interference in
the market. Applying these three criteria, he clusters welfare regimes into three
different types: liberal, corporatist and social-democratic (see handout provided by
discussion leaders) and suggests measurements in order to compare the different
welfare regimes prevalent in industrialized capitalistic countries.
For practice, the class was split into three groups by the discussion leaders, each
“representing” one type of regime. The groups were asked to work out the pros and
cons of “their” regime in order to reach a more detailed understanding of the
differences of ideologies and resulting political practice. The discussion led to the
following results:
1. Liberal regime: The main ideology is that everything is up to the individual,
there´s a strong belief in the self-regulatory power of the free market and,
therefore, competition. The state´s role is confined to merely providing a
general framework, since failure in the market is seen as one´s own fault.
Integration of individuals happens through and by the market.
2
Freie Universität Berlin
John F. Kennedy- Institut, Abt. Politik
PS: Der amerikanische Sozialstaat
Dozentin: Prof. Dr. M. Mayer
SoSe 2003
Protokollanten: Alexander Bärtl, Merve Liebelt
2. Corporatist regime: Identity is created on the basis of professions and
associations and used as a basis for integration. Integration takes place via
groups, the market also playing a role. There´s general insurance to guarantee
social status, stability and loyalty toward the state.
3. Social-democratic regime: Promotes a higher standard of living for (almost) all.
High level of de-commodification. The economy is controlled by the state,
there is equality of status which leads to more more stability in society, but
also (controversially discussed) to less interest in politics. A problem of these
welfare regimes are the high costs.
Concluding the seminar Felix raised the question of what Esping-Anderson would
have to say to Katznelson´s opinion on welfare. Since Katznelson argues that
welfare´s main purpose is to maintain the social order, the class assumed that
Esping-Anderson would probably consider this approach too narrow a perspective
although, in a sense, they are both right (according to Prof. Mayer).
3