News about Global Dynamics of Social Policy

The Collaborative Research Centre "Global Dynamics of Social Policy" is represented on X as well as on Mastodon. On these channels you will always find the latest news about the CRC 1342.

Furthermore, we also recommend the blog Social Policy Worldwide of the SOCIUM Research Center Inequality and Social Policy at the University of Bremen.

Contact:
Dr. Maximilian Hohmann
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 3
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57058
E-Mail: hohmann@uni-bremen.de

12-14 September 2024, Bilbao

Meika Sternkopf, Dr. Johanna Fischer, Migyeong Yun and Davide Viero from the A07 Project "Global Dynamics of Long-term Care Policy" recently presented their research at the 7th International Conference on Evidence-based Policy in Long-term Care. Bringing together academics, policymakers, and experts, the conference is organised every two years by the International Long-term Care Policy Network (ILPN). This year, it was co-hosted by the Government of the Spanish province Biscay and took place in its capital Bilbao from 12-14 September 2024.

Meika Sternkopf and Migyeong Yun presented two of the A07 project’s case studies focusing on the development of long-term care systems in different contexts and regions. In a panel on care fragmentation challenges, Meika introduced her research on Uruguay with a presentation titled "Towards an integrated system of care? The introduction of the National Care System in Uruguay". Her research on the case highlighting the role of international organisations within advocacy coalitions has also been recently published in Policy Sciences. Another international interdependency was highlighted in Migyeong’s presentation "Developing a public long-term care system in the context of a pre-existing market for live-in migrant care work: The case of Taiwan" within a panel on migration and long-term care. This research conducted together with Simone Leiber and Li-fang Liang highlights how the existing migrant care market may influence the subsequent development of the public long-term care system using the case of failure to adopt long-term care insurance in Taiwan.

Within the panel "Easy to compare? Generating and using comparative data on long-term care" Davide Viero and Johanna Fischer presented their work on generating global comparative datasets. Drawing on earlier CRC research and her dissertation, Johanna presented the Historical Long-Term Care Systems Dataset outlining which countries worldwide have established different forms of long-term care systems. Davide continued to outline the current data collection on the generosity of long-term care systems, presenting a preliminary analysis of inclusiveness and scope of benefits across 40 countries worldwide. The datasets received great interest from the audience and yielded a lively discussion on possibilities and limitations of international comparative research in a complex field like long-term care.

The sessions on comparative data and care fragmentation were also co-organised and moderated by Johanna as a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Observatory of Long-Term Care Interest Group on Long-Term Care Policy. The novel Global Observatory of Long-Term Care is a new network initiative aimed at facilitate cross-national learning to improve and strengthen care systems and research. It was officially launched at the conference in Bilbao and welcomes any members with relevant experience and interest in the field of long-term care.

Contact:
Dr. Johanna Fischer
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 3
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57074
E-Mail: johanna.fischer@uni-bremen.de

Crossroads Central Asia, an independent non-profit research institute based in Bishkek, interviewed Gulnaz Isabekova-Landau.

Dr. Gulnaz Isabekova-Landau, a postdoctoral researcher in the Collaborative Research Center project B06, which explores social policies in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, was interviewed by Crossroads Central Asia. The topic was her book, which was published in the Collaborative Research Center’s "Global Dynamics of Social Policy" book series.

Crossroads Central Asia is an independent, non-profit research institute. It specializes in analyzing political, economic, and security dynamics in Central Asia within a broader Eurasian context. By amalgamating the expertise of regional and international scholars, Crossroads Central Asia aims to offer a more nuanced, balanced, and intersectoral understanding of the region. An interview with Dr. Gulnaz Isabekova-Landau presents significant insights from her book, "Stakeholder Relationships and Sustainability: The Case of Health Aid to the Kyrgyz Republic". She deliberates on the empowerment of civil society and establishes a causal link between stakeholder relationships and the sustainability of aid. This discussion provides a deeper insight into the policy-related implications of her book particularly about the challenges and prospects of health aid and its sustainability not only in the Kyrgyz Republic but also in the broader context.

Launched by CRC 1342 and Palgrave Macmillan, the "Global Dynamics of Social Policy" book series disseminates the research findings of the research consortium. By taking a global perspective on social policy and its developments, this book series focuses on the expansion, retrenchment, austerity, and overall transformation of welfare systems. It provides an in-depth look into specific policy areas and discusses the roles of national and international actors in these transformation processes.

Dr. Gulnaz Isabekova-Landau is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Collaborative Research Center 1342 "Global Dynamics of Social Policy" at the University of Bremen, and also at the Research Center for East European Studies at the University of Bremen. Her research focuses on healthcare systems, access to healthcare, social policy, and labor migration. In the past, she has studied water issues in Central Asia and the accessibility of state-guaranteed social services for survivors of human trafficking in Kazakhstan. Currently, Gulnaz is participating in research within the framework of the "Health in the Mountains Agenda". This initiative is a joint effort by the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic and the World Health Organization.

Contact:
Dr. Gulnaz Isabekova-Landau
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Research Centre for East European Studies
Klagenfurter Straße 8
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57073
E-Mail: gulnaz@uni-bremen.de

Fabienne Müller visits various archives in the US during research for her dissertation

Fabienne Müller, a doctoral researcher in project B11, which deals with the historical perspective of protectionism and social policy in Argentina and the US, is currently researching the questions of her dissertation in various cities in the United States. Her work focuses on the first half of the 1990s and the policies of President Bill Clinton.

In order to be able to classify the influence of neoliberal ideas on social and trade policy at the beginning of the first term of the 42nd President, Fabienne is working in various archives and libraries during her archive trip, which lasts a total of almost three months until September 18th of this year. Last year she already had the chance as a short-term fellow at the German Historical Institute Washington D.C. to view documents and correspondence in the National Archives in Washington D.C./College Park, Maryland and in the Hagley Library in Wilmington, Delaware.

This summer, more research days followed at the National Archives and the Manuscript Reading Room at the Library of Congress. A special experience were the two weeks in July that Fabienne spent in Little Rock, Arkansas. Since the Bill Clinton Presidential Library here holds documents from his terms as president, she had the opportunity to view files from those years that had just been released. These included the files of Rahm Emanuel, a close advisor to Bill Clinton on various topics, such as the NAFTA agreement and health policy. The material in this collection includes publications, reports, memoranda, draft speeches, surveys, newspaper articles, press releases, brochures, emails, talking points and correspondence, which Fabienne was able to view.

With this material and other documents from her two archival trips, Fabienne Müller hopes to get closer to answering the question of how much neoliberalism during this period affected the two policy areas that project B11 focuses on: social and trade policy. Her current stay also allows her to get to know individual parts of the US in a unique way and people from different groups, with whom she gets to talk in her host family, in the student dormitory, at the German Historical Institute, in various hotels, museums, archives and libraries and on long train journeys. They share with her parts of everyday life in a country which is currently shaped again by tough election campaigns, and give her very personal insights into the effects of the processes that project B11 is historically investigating. This learning process is not only valuable for Fabienne's dissertation within the project, but like every trip, it is an invaluable personal experience.

Contact:
Fabienne Müller
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Institut für Geschichtswissenschaft / FB 08
Universitäts-Boulevard 13
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-58628
E-Mail: famuelle@uni-bremen.de

"State, Society & Citizen - Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Welfare State Development"

The 13th NordWel Summer School "State, Society & Citizen - Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Welfare State Development" took place at the Haus der Wissenschaft in Bremen from 19 to 23 August 2024. On this website you will find the programme and further information about the Summer School.

Contact:
Dr. Maximilian Hohmann
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 3
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57058
E-Mail: hohmann@uni-bremen.de

Dr. Irina Wiegand
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 5
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-58508
E-Mail: irina.wiegand@uni-bremen.de

Article in "WirtschaftsWoche"

Dr. Armin Müller from project B05 "Inclusion and Benefit Dynamics in the Chinese Welfare Regime" was interviewed by WirtschaftsWoche. In the article "Altersvorsorge: Chinas Renten-Zeitbombe tickt" (paywall), he gives his expert opinion of how to deal with the ageing of Chinese society.

The article examines the financial sustainability of the Chinese pension system, which is precarious according to recent Chinese studies. In the People's Republic, similar to Western countries, there are debates about demographic change and an increase in the retirement age. The interview helped to contextualize the debate and shed light on important background information. For example, the retirement age is particularly low for women at 50 or 55. However, retired women often continue to play important social roles, such as looking after children, which enables the next generation of women to work full-time. Although raising the retirement age reduces the costs of contribution-financed pension insurance, it increases the need for childcare elsewhere. In addition, the system under discussion primarily covers employees in the formal urban sector. The vast majority of Chinese people do not benefit from a pension, which represents an independent livelihood, and is hardly considered in the discussion.

Contact:
Dr. Armin Müller
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Research IV and China Global Center
Campus Ring 1
28759 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 200-3473
E-Mail: armmueller@constructor.university

Interview with Samantha Grunow

Samantha Grunow worked as a Student Assistant in project A04 "Global Developments in Health Care Systems" from July 2022 until May 2024. She studied International Relations at the University of Bremen from 2021 until 2024 and focused her studies on the role of humanitarian organizations and aid amidst crisis and instability. In this interview, she describes her work experience and gives tips to students who are interested in a SHK position.

What were your tasks in project A04?

My tasks mainly included identifying and downloading relevant health care legislation and then supporting the development and implementation of a codebook to annotate this legislation to create a plane of comparability concerning inclusivity and generosity of health care systems on an international level. Towards the end of my time with A04, my tasks were centralized in implementing the codebook as much as possible, so we could make use of my experience in the development phases.

Were there synergy effects between your studies and your work at the CRC 1342?

I studied International Relations with a focus on the role of humanitarian actors. I wrote my final thesis on health care accessibility and the efficacy of humanitarian aid in Somalia, a country that has lacked a functioning central government for over 40 years now. Because of the overlap between my research's concern for the lack of a health care system and the project's concern for the assessment of existing systems, I was grateful for the team’s input on my research, especially early on as I had never focused on health care accessibility or health care systems before.

The project's insight to existing systems and the situation in Somalia was beneficial to guide some of my decision-making about how to approach the situation and support my conclusions by offering comparisons. Simultaneously, as I worked with white papers and other documentation from Somalia, this also informed my opinions and suggestions through the implementation of project’s codebook. Now, despite my absence, I hope some of my conclusions may help the team navigate obstacles they encounter when trying to assess health care systems which have been influenced by the involvement of humanitarian aid over time.

What career step followed and what do you take with you from your time as a student assistant into your professional life?

I finished my thesis in the middle of May and am now eager to find a full time position which is impactful and fulfilling. Working with the A04 project has given me valuable research skills, but what I value the most is that, even as a student assistant, I was given meaningful tasks which played a large role in the trajectory of the project. I joined the group a bit nervous that I would not be able to offer a lot due to my lack of experience, but I am thankful for this experience and take from it a reminder that everyone has skills and strengths that can be highlighted to optimize the productivity and success of any team.

What advice would you like to give future student assistants?

I encourage you to not only get your hours in but voice your opinion and do not be afraid to make mistakes. Listen to everyone's stories and advice and you will learn a lot more from your experience than how to collect and analyze data. The A04 project gave me a place to truly grow. I learned more than I ever anticipated about project management, especially regarding methodology and analysis, but this is mostly because the team gave me and my opinions a place in conversation. I was not the assistant that did the busy work, but a team member who supported decision making and planning. Take advantage of this position and make the most of it, you will appreciate all of it later.

Contact:
Alexander Polte
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 7
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57063
E-Mail: alexander.polte@uni-bremen.de

Jour Fixe with Prof. Sara Niedzwiecki on Wednesday, June 19, 2024

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

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Delia González de Reufels
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Institut für Geschichtswissenschaft / FB 08
Universitäts-Boulevard 13
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-67200
E-Mail: dgr@uni-bremen.de

A national agenda-setting policy dialogue planned for the summer of this year

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.

Contact:
Dr. Gulnaz Isabekova-Landau
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Research Centre for East European Studies
Klagenfurter Straße 8
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57073
E-Mail: gulnaz@uni-bremen.de

Full day meeting of all members

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

Contact:
Dr. Maximilian Hohmann
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 3
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57058
E-Mail: hohmann@uni-bremen.de

Prof. Dr. Herbert Obinger
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 5
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-58567
E-Mail: herbert.obinger@uni-bremen.de

Dr. Irina Wiegand
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 5
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-58508
E-Mail: irina.wiegand@uni-bremen.de