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

18.12.2024

Dr. Gulnaz Isabekova-Landau, a postdoctoral researcher in the Collaborative Research Centre project B06, which explores social policies in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, is on her secondment with the Centre for Women's Research (CENWOR) in Sri Lanka.

International migration is a complex phenomenon, driven by social, economic, political, and climatic issues, and it affects the lives of persons who decide to migrate as well as their families. Acknowledging broader roots and implications of migration, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the “International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families” in 1990. The date of its adoption, December 18, later became International Migrants Day.

Sri Lanka has a long-term history of labor migration, particularly in terms of migrant domestic workers (MDWs), the majority of whom are female. MDWs account for about one-quarter of foreign employment on average (Henderson, 2024, p. 259). Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) remain the top-five destinations for MDWs (Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment of Sri Lanka, 2023). The work of MDWs in these countries is characterized by multiple challenges, including limited access to social protection and a number of cases of human rights violations.

CENWOR has a long-term history of conducting research on labor migration and migrant domestic workers, returnee migrant women and their health status, and more recently – the COVID-19 repercussions on labor migration in Sri Lanka. Building on this expertise, Dr. Isabekova-Landau is researching the access of returnee migrant domestic workers from Sri Lanka to health and social protection services. Her secondment is supported by a Marie Curie Staff Exchange within the Horizon Europe Programme (PRELAB, grant agreement no: 101129940). The study has only commenced, and more results will be reported at later stages.

Sources:

Henderson, S. (2024). The realities of return migration: Reintegrating women migrant domestic workers in Sri Lanka. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 33(2), 258–278. https://doi.org/10.1177/01171968241263363

Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment of Sri Lanka. (2023). National Policy and National Action Plan on Migration for Employment Sri Lanka 2023-2027. https://labourmin.gov.lk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/National-Policy-and-National-Action-Plan-on-Migration-for-Employment-Sri-Lanka-2023-2027-English-Ver._compressed.pdf

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

Research stay in October and November 2024

Dominik Gall, doctoral researcher in project B11 of the CRC 1342 and research assistant at the Department of Latin American History at the Institute of History at the University of Bremen, is working on the history of Argentine social policy from 1880-1949 and its links to the sugar industry in Jujuy from a global historical perspective. The main focus are the interactions and relationships between protectionism and social policy as well as their multidimensional economic, economic and social interdependencies. Examples include economic shocks and crises, immigration and transnational knowledge transfers. This global perspective in conjunction with the regional focus on the province of Jujuy, which at first glance appears to be far removed from the political and economic centre of Argentina - Buenos Aires - generates new research impulses by abandoning the national framework as a spatial limitation of the research subject. Furthermore, the dissertation project enables intellectual-historical research into the link between the ‘social question’ and the ‘indigenous question’ against the background of the consolidation of the still young nation state. In this context, the repressive dimension of social policy is to be examined with special consideration of globalised knowledge production.

To pursue this research interest, Dominik Gall travelled to Argentina in October and November 2024. There he not only visited the capital Buenos Aires for research purposes, but also travelled to Jujuy, the northernmost province of Argentina. The aim of the trip was to identify, localise and retrieve relevant sources that shed light on the nexus of social policy, protectionism and nation-state consolidation.

In Buenos Aires, Dominik Gall was able to visit various sections of the National Archives, the Congress Archives and relevant libraries such as the Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno (Argentinian National Library). In the archives in the capital, he primarily found sources that provide information about communication between the national government and the individual provinces, as well as assessments of the political and social situation. Global historical and intellectual-historical analysis should provide insights into the concepts and discourses of the relevant actors regarding trade and social policy and thus their scope for action. In San Salvador de Jujuy, Dominik Gall was able to access the Archivo de Tribunales (Court Archive), the Archivo historico de la Provincia (Provincial Historical Archive), the Archivo historico del poder legislativo and the newspaper archive. The corpus of sources researched includes amongst others correspondence between the sugar industrialists and the local government, minutes of proposed legislation and parliamentary consultations, annual speeches by the provincial government and case files on work accidents, from which Dominik Gall hopes to gain insights into the marginalised view on socio-political projects of the various indigenous groups living in Jujuy.

The trip made it clear once again that the sugar industry in Jujuy is a suitable subject for pursuing the research interests of sub-project B11 for several reasons. The massive boom that the local industry experienced at the turn of the century, the competitive advantage offered by protectionist measures, its integration into the world market, the exploitation of indigenous labour and the extensive political influence of the ingenios (sugar mills) make it a focal point from which the global interdependencies of Argentinian social policy can be observed.

Contact:
Dominik Gall
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Universitäts-Boulevard 13
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-67203
E-Mail: dgall@uni-bremen.de

Jour Fixe with Dorottya Szikra on 11.12.2024

As the last event of our Jour Fixe series in 2024, Prof. Dorottya Szikra from the Institute for Sociology, Centre for Social Sciences (Budapest, Hungary) held a lecture on "Social Policy in Autocratizing Context. Inclusionary and Exclusionary Processes" on December 11. Her presentation and the subsequent discussion with over 20 colleagues focussed on social policy reforms in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, and India.

Abstract: Illiberal parties’ grasp on power has relied on economic and social policy as much as on the demise of checks and balances and the distortion of electoral rules. Research has so far overlooked the ways in which these parties attract formerly neglected social groups with their welfarist approach. This lack of attention is not only important in scientific terms but has political consequences. Democratic forces are often blind to realize what illiberal and autocratic leaders offer in material terms to masses. This presentation summarizes a decade of comparative research into the social policies of populist, illiberal and autocratizing rulers. Utilizing examples from the procedures, content and discourses of welfare reforms in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, and India, we show how illiberal and authoritarian incumbents shape their welfare states in different geopolitical settings, and build up popularity through social policy programs.

Literature:

• Tomasz Inglot, Dorottya Szikra, Cristina Raț (2022): Mothers, Families or Children? Family Policy in Poland, Hungary, and Romania, 1945-2020. University of Pittsburgh Press. [Link]
• Dorottya Szikra, Kerem Gabriel Öktem (2023): An illiberal welfare state emerging? Welfare efforts and trajectories under democratic backsliding in Hungary and Turkey. In: Journal of European Social Policy. Sage. [Link]
• Dorota Szelewa, Dorottya Szikra (2024): Fighting Gender Equality under the Pandemic. The Case of Polish and Hungarian Anti-Gender Equality and Anti-LGBTQ+ Policies under the COVID-19 Crisis. In: PArtecipazione e COnflitto. [Link]

 

Dorottya Szikra is Research Professor and Head of Department at the Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest, and Visiting Professor at the Department of Gender Studies, CEU Vienna. She is teaching Welfare State and Gender under Undemocratic Rule and Critical Theory on Policy and Practice in 2023/2024. She is the country-lead of the ERC project WelfareExperiences analyzing how different welfare systems can affect people's mental health and chances of returning to work.

Szikra is also associated with CEU Democracy Institute where she led a CIVICA reseach project entitled Welfare, Democracy, and Populism under the COVID-19 Crisis (WELDECO). Szikra's main research field is welfare state and family policy development in Central and Eastern Europe. Between 2016 and 2020 she acted as the co-chair of the European Social Policy Analysis Network (ESPAnet). She has acted as a member of the editorial boards of various journals, including the European Journal of Social Security, the Hungarian on-line journal socio.hu and since 2020 the Journal of European Social Policy. Since 2021 she has served as a member of the EC commissioned High-Level Group on the future of social protection and of the welfare state in the EU.

Contact:
Dr. Kerem Gabriel Öktem
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 7
28359 Bremen
E-Mail: oektem@uni-bremen.de

Jour Fixe with Andi Luhur Prianto and Aqmal Reza Amri on 27.11.2024

Andi Luhur Prianto and Aqmal Reza Amri from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the Universitas Muhammadiyah Makassar in Indonesia are currently working as visiting research fellows at the University of Bremen. On November 27, they reported on the governance and protection of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia as part of our CRC 1342 Jour Fixe lecture series.

Abstract: The governance and protection of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia involve a complex interplay of legal frameworks, bilateral agreements, and social policies. While both Indonesia and Malaysia have established policies to safeguard migrant workers' rights, the practical implementation often faces significant challenges. Indonesian migrant workers encounter issues such as legal status uncertainties, poor working conditions, and limited access to social services. This presentation examines the roles of both countries' policies, focusing on how bilateral cooperation and regional frameworks influence the protection mechanisms. It seeks to answer critical questions: What are the primary challenges faced by Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia? How effective are the current social policies in addressing these challenges? What improvements can be made to enhance the protection and well-being of these workers? By shedding light on these issues, the presentation aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the governance and protection mechanisms for Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia, highlighting the importance of effective social policies and regional cooperation in ensuring their rights and welfare.

Andi Luhur Prianto, PhD is a lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Muhammadiyah Makassar. He also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Otoritas: Jurnal Ilmu Pemerintahan." His research focuses on urban politics, governance, and development issues. With extensive experience, Andi engages in in-depth research and projects aimed at providing solutions to key challenges in these fields. He is also actively involved in organizing workshops and writing scholarly papers to support the development of policies and best practices in his areas of expertise.

Aqmal Reza Amri is a lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Universitas Muhammadiyah Makassar. He is actively managing the "Journal of Contemporary Governance and Public Policy (JCGPP)" and is a researcher at the "Pusat Penelitian Ilmu Sosial dan Humaniora Kontemporer (PPISHK)" in Indonesia. His research focuses on civil society studies, migration studies, and indigenous people. Aqmal has conducted various studies on the social policies affecting these areas, and he has been involved in several projects aimed at addressing the challenges faced by marginalized communities.

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Heiko Pleines
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Research Centre for East European Studies
Klagenfurter Straße 8
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-69602
E-Mail: pleines@uni-bremen.de

B09 workshop from 27 to 29 September 2024 at the Collaborative Research Centre 1342

From 27 to 29 September 2024, the workshop "Representing the Countryside in Africa and Europe" took place at the University of Bremen, organized by project B09 "Social Policy and Rural Development in Africa". The workshop explored the question of how rural populations and regions are politically represented and whether there is a change or even a crisis in rural interest politics, as is often described and criticized in many contemporary and social diagnoses.

These questions of representation are crucial for sub-project B09, as they constitute the institutional context in which phenomena such as rural poverty and rural social change are negotiated and whether new resource flows or even social policies for rural populations could result from them. It turns out that very diverse actors and organizations can represent rural areas, their populations and their economies. This becomes all the clearer the more one departs from the usual comparisons and observes the question of rural social change and rural development and social policy in an interregional comparison - as in the CRC workshop.

The B09 team was thus able to attract a very diverse group of workshop participants and bring them to Bremen to critically examine the connections between rural identity and contestation, between protests and policies and between the various land targets in international politics, and to record how the life chances of rural populations in Africa and Europe are faring in the face of increasing commercialization of agricultural sectors, climate change and ecological destruction.

On European contexts, the participants presented their ongoing research on right-wing populism and farmers' protests in a European comparison (Natalia Mamonova, Ruralis, Oslo), the development of an EU rural policy (Christin Stühlen, University of Marburg), farmers' protests in Germany against the abolition of energy subsidies (Judith Müller & Birgit Peuker, University of Heidelberg) and the reception of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy by Polish agricultural associations (Michal Dudak, Polish Academic of Sciences, Warsaw).

The contributions on African countries included topics such as land and agrarian conflicts in Southern Africa (Boaventura Monjane, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town), new attempts to co-opt the rural poor in Tunisia (Kressen Thyen, B09), new land ownership conflicts in Morocco (Yasmine Berriane, CNRS-CMH, Paris), the exploitation structures and survival strategies of rural women workers in Tunisia (Dhouha Djerbi, Geneva Graduate Institute), the new land conservation agenda of the Botswana government and international conflicts over elephant hunting (Bontle Masilo, University of Botswana, Gaborone) and finally the efforts to implement sustainable agricultural policies in rural Zambia (Cleopas Sambo, Oslomet, Oslo).

Contact:
Dr. Roy Karadag
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Institute for Intercultural and International Studies
Mary-Somerville-Straße 7
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-67468
E-Mail: karadag@uni-bremen.de

A05 workshop on 25 October 2024 at the Collaborative Research Centre 1342

On October 25, project A05 "The Global Development of Coverage and Generosity in Public Education" hosted a workshop titled "25 Years of Global Education Agendas: Emerging Actors, Evolving Mechanisms, and Changing Interests" to examine pivotal shifts in global education agendas over the past twenty-five years. The workshop organized by the Team of Project A05 highlighted the emergence of new actors, evolving policy mechanisms, and shifting priorities in the global education landscape. Attendees included seven distinguished researchers from international institutions, the local project team, and invited commentators from Berlin and Hamburg.

Patricia Bromley from Stanford University presented on the discourse surrounding global education reforms. With co-authors she analyzes the ways international organizations promote and report on education reforms worldwide. Following her, Dennis Niemann from the University of Bremen provided a mixed-methods perspective on international organizations’ approaches to refugee and migrant education, offering insights into the policy frameworks addressing these populations’ educational needs. Clara Fontdevila and Antoni Verger from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) presented on the conceptualization of large-scale national assessments of student achievement, discussing how these assessments are developed and employed to measure educational outcomes at a national level. Marina López Levy, also from UAB, focused on the evolution of large-scale learning assessments in Latin America, tracing both the historical trajectory and regional adaptations of these mechanisms over time.

Jane Gingrich from the University of Oxford examined public attitudes toward higher education. Julian Garritzmann from Frankfurt University presented on the influence of party politics on mass higher education, investigating how various political ideologies shape the expansion of higher education enrollment. Both illuminate the intersection between politics and education policy, particularly within mass education frameworks. Gita Steiner-Khamsi from Teachers College, Columbia University, closed the presentations with a reflection on the day’s discussions. She emphasized the impact of global education campaigns on policy as well as the timing and sequencing of changing education agendas.

Commentators from Berlin and Hamburg provided valuable perspectives, addressing the implications of these studies and offering comparative insights on education reform trajectories across different regions. These contributions spurred vibrant discussions, enabling participants to delve into the complexities of regional and global interactions in educational policy.

The workshop facilitated dynamic exchanges on the roles and impacts of diverse actors in global education reform. Participants engaged with questions on accountability, the efficacy of large-scale assessments, and the socio-political factors shaping educational discourse. By fostering a collaborative environment, the workshop strengthened a sense of community among researchers and practitioners, promoting future collaboration and professional exchange. The event underscored the importance of interdisciplinary perspectives and highlighted the ongoing evolution of education as a global priority shaped by diverse stakeholders. Future events will continue to build on these discussions, further exploring how education systems can evolve to meet both global and local needs.

Contact:
Dr. Fabian Besche-Truthe
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 7
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57066
E-Mail: fbesche@uni-bremen.de

Dr. Helen Seitzer
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Institute for Intercultural and International Studies
Mary-Somerville-Straße 7
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57065
E-Mail: seitzer@uni-bremen.de

Jour Fixe with Won Sub Kim on 30.10.2024

To kick off the CRC 1342 Jour Fixe lecture series in the winter semester 2024/25, Prof. Won Sub Kim from Korea University in Seoul gave a talk on "Policy Transfer and Advocacy Coalitions of Pension Reforms in South Korea. From the Perspective of the Situated Learning" on 30 October. He is currently a guest researcher in the Collaborative Research Centre 1342 at the University of Bremen until the end of the year.

Abstract:

To tackle the severe old-age poverty, the Korean government introduced the Basic Pension (BP) in 2007 for the elderly with lower income. Since then, the non-contributory scheme has continued to develop and become one of the main public pension programs along with the earnings-related National Pension Scheme (NPS). The existing literature on the BP has been mainly conducted from the domestic perspective which involves political and socio-economic factors such as electoral competition and high old-age poverty rates. In contrast, this study pays special attention to international aspects (situated Learning) and domestic advocacy coalitions which translates in into the Korean context.

We take into consideration the three pension reforms in 1998, 2007, and 2014, which played a significant role in the development of the BP. Hence, this study aims to identify which attributes were critical to BP expansions. Through the three reforms, the existing BP has developed with a series of modifications and reinterpretations. In the Korean case, the initial reform model was considered with the reference of the World Bank’s conceptual framework. Later, the advocacy coalition for the BP continued to strategically reinterpret the international model in order to fit it in the Korean context. We also show that securing solid institutional positioning in the policy arena plays a crucial role in the introduction of a social policy such as the BP.

Won Sub Kim is Professor of Sociology at Korea University in Seoul. Born in South Korea, he studied sociology at Korea University and Bremen University and received his PhD from Bielefeld University. His scientific work centres on theory of the welfare state, old age income security systems and the East Asian Welfare State. Before coming to Korea University, he taught at Bielefeld University in Germany and at Kyung-Sang National University in South Korea.

Contact:
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

The future of social protection in Africa

Anna Wolkenhauer from project B09 "Social Policy and Rural Development in Africa" took part in a discussion for the Development Pathways podcast. The debate, which included also Jeremy Seekings and Hangala Siachiwena from the University of Cape Town, addressed the future of social protection in Africa.

Development Pathways: What Comes After Social Cash Transfers? (Soundcloud)

In Sub Saharan Africa, the last twenty years saw a proliferation of programmes that aim to provide a basic income security to marginalised segments of the population; especially Social Cash Transfers have become a prominent social assistance intervention. These are often targeted at selected groups who are deemed the "poorest". The discussion with Development Pathways, a global think tank that promotes the realisation of social and economic rights worldwide, centred around assessing the current and future challenges and opportunities of social protection in Africa.

After an overall positive analysis, based especially on the observation that governments and other actors are increasingly turning towards groups who have long fallen by the wayside of exclusive growth processes, Anna made a plea for interlinking social policy with economic reforms. The underlying causes for poverty and marginalisation are economic, and cannot be addressed by social cash transfers alone – despite being very important and arguably effective. Instead, greater efforts are needed for economic diversification and the creation of more and better jobs. The momentum that the global attention to social protection and cash transfers, especially among donor organisations, has created, though, should be seized to push for more transformative change.

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Anna Wolkenhauer
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Institute for Intercultural and International Studies
Mary-Somerville-Straße 9
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57099
E-Mail: anna.wolkenhauer@uni-bremen.de

As part of the research for her dissertation, Josefine Dehn travelled to Peru to visit various archives and libraries.

Josefine Dehn is a doctoral fellow in the sub-project B10 of the CRC, Armed Conflict and Dynamics of Social Policy, and studies the influences of internal wars on state social policy based on the case of Peru. The civil war there (1980-2000) between the Peruvian state and various guerrilla groups is considered one of the bloodiest in Latin America in the 20th century. In her dissertation, Josefine looks at the period from 1990 to 2000, during which several key events of the conflict took place. In general, the influence of warfare on the development of social policy has been rarely investigated to date, this is particularly true of intrastate wars and despite their worldwide occurrence. With her dissertation, Josefine wants to address this research gap from a political science perspective.

Josefine recently returned from a research trip to Peru, where she spent three weeks collecting data for her dissertation and the CRC sub-project in various archives and libraries. It was her second trip and Josefine spent a total of almost seven weeks in Lima, the capital of Peru. During this time, she researched several times in the National Archives and the archives and library of the Peruvian Congress, which are located in the historical centre of Lima. She also visited several locations of the National Library of Peru and the library of the Institute of Peruvian Studies, a prestigious interdisciplinary and non-governmental social science research institute focussing on Peru and Latin America.

During her research, Josefine was able to collect a wide range of empirical material for her dissertation and sub-project B10, on the one hand on the civil war and on the other on social policy developments in Peru between 1990 and 2000. This include various government documents, e.g. reports and yearbooks, detailed social expenditure data, parliamentary documents from legislative processes on social policy, collections of laws on social security for certain groups affected by the civil war, detailed reports and analyses on the internal conflict by the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation, as well as secondary literature.

One of the challenges Josefine faced during her trip was that primary sources in particular at times were difficult or impossible to access. The reasons for this are, for one thing, that even more than 20 years after its official end, the civil war is still a sensitive topic in Peru. Due to this, Josefine was sometimes only able to address it indirectly when consulting archive and library staff. For another, the institutional responsibility for the storage of certain documents was sometimes unclear even to the responsible staff of the archives and could not be determined. Despite these difficulties, however, Josefine was able to find sufficient promising primary and secondary sources, which she will now analyse as part of her dissertation. In the coming months, she will investigate which of a series of influences previously derived theoretically for the case of Peru can actually be identified empirically and, in particular, whether certain groups of particular importance to the state were favoured in the public social policy development during the civil war. These findings can then serve as an initial point of reference for further research.

For Josefine, the research trips offered an exciting but also challenging experience, plenty of food for thought and even more motivation for her research project. Peru is a fascinating country, but there are still major differences in access to and the scope of public social policy. The extent to which the Peruvian civil war has influenced these developments is therefore a step towards better understanding and combating this persistent inequality.

Contact:
Josefine Dehn
Feldkirchenstraße 21
96045 Bamberg
E-Mail: josefine.dehn@uni-bamberg.de