As the last event of our CRC 1342 Jour Fixe lecture series in the summer semester, Sara Niedzwiecki from the University of California, Santa Cruz, gave a lecture on "Immigrants and the Welfare State in Latin America. Barriers to access" on June 19, 2024. The lecture was not only attended by numerous colleagues on site, but could also be followed via video conference format.

Abstract:

Countries in the Global South experienced a massive increase in immigration in the past decade, with more migrants ending up there than in the Global North. Within South America, over seven million Venezuelans have left their country since 2015, leading to an extraordinary scale of intraregional migration. During these same years, and due to the expansion of social programs, millions of citizens in the region accessed basic income and better-quality healthcare, many for the first time. This talk studies these dual trends and analyzes whether social policies effectively incorporate immigrants. Failing to provide newcomers with a basic standard of living produces social exclusion. It shows that immigrants have more impediments to accessing the welfare state than citizens, even for universal public health, but especially for targeted social assistance. This derives from a combination of political elites’ views around the degree to which immigrants “deserve” access to different types of policies. The research focuses on the barriers that immigrants face to accessing social policy in middle-income South American countries with high rates of immigration—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. Barriers to access are measured through qualitative coding of social assistance, social pensions, and public healthcare that build on legal documents, information requests, and secondary literature from 1990 to 2023, and public officials’ views are measured through in-depth interviews. In analyzing barriers to accessing social policy, this study contributes to the literatures on comparative welfare states and immigration, as well as comparative social policy in middle income countries. 

Sara Niedzwiecki is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She studies social policy, subnational politics, and immigration in Latin America. Sara is the author of Uneven Social Policies: The Politics of Subnational Variation in Latin America (2018, Cambridge University Press), which was awarded LASA's Donna Lee Van Cott Book Award from The Political Institutions Section and the International Public Policy Association's IPPA Book Award. She also co-authored Measuring Regional Authority: A Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance (Oxford University Press, 2016). Sara has authored and co-authored articles in Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, Latin American Politics and Society, Studies in Comparative International Development, Regional and Federal Studies, PS: Political Science and Politics, International Political Science Review, among other peer-reviewed journals. During 2020-2021 academic year, Sara was a fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute for International Studies where she worked on a new project on social policy and immigration in South America.

Website: saraniedzwiecki.com

Dr. Gulnaz Isabekova-Landau, postdoctoral researcher in the Collaborative Research Center project B06, which examines social policies in Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, and Central Asia, participates in the "Health in the Mountains Agenda" implemented by the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic with support from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The "Health in the Mountains Agenda" builds on the initiative of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, championing 2023–2027 as the "Five Years of Action for the Development of Mountain Regions", which was endorsed at the 77^th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The "Health in the Mountains Agenda" focuses on rural health equity in mountainous areas of the country, cross-sectoral work on the determinants of health, and the role of gender equality and women’s empowerment in ensuring a strong rural health workforce and addressing health determinants. Dr. Gulnaz Isabekova-Landau is involved in the preparatory research targeting these areas and supporting a proposed policy dialogue, which is expected to include national authorities in the health sector, civil society organizations, multilateral system partners, and research institutes. Her role in this initiative builds on her years of experience researching healthcare systems and access to healthcare in Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, and Central Asia, as well as her recently published book on the sustainability of health aid to the Kyrgyz Republic.

Publications

Isabekova, G. (2024). Stakeholder Relationships and Sustainability. The Case of Health Aid to the Kyrgyz Republic. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-3-031-31990-7 Add to Citavi project by ISBN.

Isabekova, G. (2020). Mutual learning on the local level: The Swiss Red Cross and the Village Health Committees in the Kyrgyz Republic. Global Social Policy 21(1), 117-137.

Isabekova, G. and Pleines, H. (2020). Integrating development aid into social policy: Lessons on cooperation and its challenges learned from the example of health care in Kyrgyzstan. Social Policy & Administration, online first.

Isabekova, G. (2019). The Contribution of Vulnerability of Labour Migrants to Drug Resistance in the Region: Overview and Suggestions. European Journal of Development Research 31, 620-642.

This year's retreat of the Collaborative Research Centre 1342 "Global Dynamics of Social Policy" at the University of Bremen took place on the premises of the "Integrierter Gesundheitscampus" (IGB) [https://www.gesundheitscampusbremen.de/] on Friday, June 7, 2024. All members came together in the heart of Bremen's city centre to exchange ideas personally and professionally away from daily business.

All 15 projects of the CRC 1342 presented project-related news, current research results and publications as well as "work in progress" from 9 am to 5 pm. In the discussions that followed, the other colleagues provided relevant feedback from their specialist perspectives and different expertise.

Agenda:
09.00-10.00: Projects A02-A04
10.00-10.30: Coffee Break
10.30-12.00: Projects A05-B01
12.00-13.30: Lunch Break
13.30-15.00: Projects B04-B09
15.00-15.30: Coffee Break
15.30-17.00: Projects B10-B12
17.00: Get-together

Prof. Irene Dingeldey and Prof. Ulrich Mückenberger – both PIs of project A03: Worlds of Labour: Coverage and Generosity of Employment Law – received the "Top Cited Article"-Award of Wiley Publisher for the years 2022 and 2023. The article "Worldwide patterns of legal segmentation in employment law" is the scientific introduction of the special issue of the International Labour Review "Overcoming Legal Segmentation: Extending legal Rules to All Workers?" (February 2022).

ILO labour law through transnational social dialogues

Furthermore, the scientific volume dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has now been published by the prestigious Sorbonne publisher. It contains a chapter on the production of international labour norms via transnational social dialogues written by Ulrich Mückenberger.

Les dialogues sociaux transnationaux comme leviers des normes mondiales du travail, in: Dhermy-Mairal, Marine, Kott, Sandrine, Lespinet-Moret, Isabelle and Louis, Marieke (eds.) (2024): Mondialisation et justice sociale. Un siècle d’action de l’Organisation internationale du travail, Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, chapter 17.

On May 22, 2024, Prof. Marvin Suesse from Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) presented the central aspects and five case studies of his current monograph "The Nationalist Dilemma: A Global History of Economic Nationalism", published by Cambridge University Press. As part of the Jour Fixe series, the lecture was well attended not only by numerous colleagues from the University of Bremen and the CRC 1342, but also by many students from various faculties and study programs.

Publication:

Suesse, Marvin (2023): The Nationalist Dilemma: A Global History of Economic Nationalism, Cambridge University Press.

Abstract:

The Doctoral Researcher in the team of the Information Management Project (INF) wrote a cumulative dissertation titled "Multimodal and Collaborative Interaction for Visual Data Exploration". Gabriela obtained her PhD ("Dr.-Ing.") from the Faculty of Mathematics/Computer Science (FB 03) with a "summa cum laude".

Gabriela Molina León is a computer scientist and visualization researcher. Her thesis contributed to the CS fields of data visualization, human-computer interaction, and computer-supported cooperative work. In her dissertation, she investigated how different interaction modalities and devices can support data experts to visually explore and make sense of data, individually and collaboratively. Through a series of empirical studies applying mixed methods, Gabriela studied how experts interact and wish to interact with spatio-temporal data on tablets and large vertical displays at the workplace. Furthermore, she worked closely with social science researchers to support them in their work. They served as an example of real-world experts who interact with data in their everyday jobs.

The dissertation research was conducted partly during the first and second phases of the CRC 1342. Gabriela is one of the researchers who led the design and development of WeSIS. Accordingly, the first paper of her dissertation presented the lessons learned from the co-creation workshops conducted as part of the A01 project. Three of the four papers involved experiments that included social science researchers of the CRC as participants.

Gabriela Molina León was co-supervised by Prof. Dr. Andreas Breiter and Dr. Petra Isenberg (INRIA, France). As part of her research, she had a research stay in Paris, France, last year, which was co-financed by the CRC 1342 and the DAAD.

On Thursday, April 25, 2024, the "Praxisnacht des FB 8" of Faculty of Social Sciences took place at the University of Bremen from 6 pm to 10 pm. Over 250 students took part and received insights and tips on starting and planning a career from over 30 alumni. Among public authorities, NGOs and commercial enterprises, the Collaborative Research Centre 1342 “Global Dynamics of Social Policy” also took part.

After being welcomed by the Dean of Studies of Faculty 8, Prof. Dr. Julia Lossau, the students chose from four different occupational fields in three time blocks. These included Public Relations and Communication, Public Administration, Business, Media and Journalism as well as Research and Transfer.

The "Praxisnacht des FB 8 – Einblicke und Berichte" takes place every two years. It is aimed at students on Bachelor's degree courses in History, Geography, Integrated European Studies, Political Science and Sociology as well as students on Master's degree courses in Faculty 8.

Organization und contact person: Birgit Ennen [bennen@uni-bremen.de], University of Bremen

At this year's meeting of members on April 24, 2024, the Executive Committee of the Collaborative Research Centre 1342 "Global Dynamics of Social Policy" was elected in a new composition. The members of the Equal Opportunities Committee were also elected.

The CRC 1342 is headed by a Executive Committee elected by the CRC members. The committee makes decisions by simple majority and has a quorum if at least two thirds of the board members are present. On the Executive Committee, the spokesperson is responsible for the administration and management of the CRC. The deputy spokesperson and the representatives of the project directors focus on the coordination of the projects, the cooperation between the projects, and on the central database project.

The members of the Executive Committee and further information can be found [here].

The EOC is a consultative member of the CRC 1342 board and advises CRC members on all recruitment procedures within the CRC. The EOC advocates gender equality and the reconciliation of professional and family activities. It also advises and informs all members of the CRC on these issues. Additionally, the EOC is in contact with the equal opportunities networks at the University of Bremen.

The members of the EOC and further information can be found [here].

Dr. Kris-Stella Trump from Johns Hopkins University (USA) visited Bremen for the opening event of the Jour Fixe lecture series of the Collaborative Research Centre 1342 in the summer semester 2024. In her talk, she gave exciting insights into her current research and, in the subsequent discussion with colleagues, exchanged views primarily on methodological issues in the creation and implementation of surveys.

Abstract:

Accurately measuring public perceptions of economic phenomena is complicated, but doing so is important for responsive policy-making. Survey measurement difficulties are particularly pronounced when it comes to economic inequality, which is an abstract and mathematically demanding concept, but perceptions of which have the potential to directly affect the desirability of redistributive policies. In this paper, we compare different ways to ask questions about perceived inequality, characterizing the costs and benefits of different approaches. In particular, we ask whether relatively complicated survey items result in high rates of “satisficing” and/or high rates of non-response, with consequences for survey quality. In a survey fielded to representative samples in Switzerland, Germany, and France, we ask respondents about income inequality in two different ways. First, respondents estimate household incomes at specified percentiles of the income distribution. Later in the survey, they estimate the incomes that qualify a household as rich or poor, respectively. We anticipate that because the percentile questions are relatively abstract, respondents may rely on their prototypes of the rich and the poor when answering, leading to similar answers to the two sets of questions. We also anticipate that because the percentile questions are more mathematically involved, we may see systematic non-response patterns. The results show that in all three countries, the 90th percentile, the 99th percentile, and the rich are seen as significantly different from each other in terms of household income. At the same time, we find significant rates of non-response and uninformative responses in the percentile questions (but not the questions about the rich/poor). We conclude that even apparently low levels of mathematical complexity in question wording can lead to non-response patterns that affect the representativeness of survey samples.

Publication:

Trump, Kris-Stella (2023): “What does it take to be rich? Asking reasonable survey questions about income inequality.” Research & Politics 10(3).

Kris-Stella Trump is a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University. A scholar of public opinion and political psychology, she primarily studies perceptions of deservingness, attitudes toward income inequality, and the politics of distribution. Her regional focus lies in the United States and Western Europe. Kris-Stella joined Johns Hopkins from the University of Memphis, and prior to that, she served as program director at the Social Science Research Council. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. She is Estonian by origin, and also lived in Sweden and the United Kingdom before moving to the United States. You can find out more at: https://www.kstrump.com

The Information Management Project (INF) wrote a report on the experiences with Research Data Management (RDM) in the CRC 1342, which was published in "Bausteine Forschungsdatenmanagement". In order to expand systematic RDM, the article addresses, among other things, the question of how the individual interests of researchers can be harmonised with collective goals in large collaborative projects.

"Governance bei der Co-Creation eines webbasierten Forschungsdatenmanagementsystems in den Sozialwissenschaften"

This article deals with the development of WeSIS on the basis of practiced network governance. What is special about the creation of WeSIS is that it was developed by the participating researchers in co-creation. Coding rules, metadata or tools for the analysis and initial visualization of the data were developed jointly in order to address the needs of the researchers using it. Furthermore, the question of whether co-creation has added value for the joint RDM of the CRC 1342 is discussed. Based on more than five years of experience and the evaluations carried out, it can be concluded that a high degree of communication was required for the joint development of the information system. The article shows that the concept of network governance offers an appropriate perspective for coordinating the communication and decision-making processes in a targeted manner.

Bausteine Forschungsdatenmanagement is a publication of the joint Arbeitsgruppe "Forschungsdaten" of the Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerkinformationen e.V. (DINI) and nestor - Deutsches Kompetenznetzwerk zur digitalen Langzeitarchivierung.