CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy

Euro-Austerity After COVID-19? Will Europe’s Welfare States Survive … Again?

H. Tolga Bölükbasi of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Bilkent University, Ankara, presented his work on the resilience of European welfare states in the face of economic and political challenges on 13.06.2023.

Best Paper Award for Lorraine Frisina Doetter

Lorraine Frisina Doetter and her co-authors Benedikt Preuß and Pasquale G. Frisina have won the 2022 Patrick J. Welch Award of the Association for Social Economics for their paper "The Intersections of Pandemic, Public Policy and Social Inequality in the United States." The author team explored the public policy response in the first year of the pandemic as well as the Covid-19 specific vulnerability of the three main ethnic population groups in the United States (White, Black, Hispanic).

Social Policy Response in the Global South: Evidence from 36 countries

Prof. Dr. Tim Dorlach

Tim Dorlach has done a meta-analysis of the 36 reports of our CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series. He has found that during the early phase of the pandemic, most countries have focussed on temporary and targeted benefits supporting the labour market and offering social assistance. Developing economies often used cash transfers and food relief and relied heavily on external funding, whereas emerging economies applied a broad range of measures and were acting more independently.

"Caucasus Analytical Digest" on Covid-19 responses in the South Caucasus region

The 126th edition, edited by CRC member Gulnaz Isabekova, focuses on the vulnerability of internally displaced persons as well as on the shortcomings of the EU’s “Team Europe” initiative.

Public Opinion, Pandemic Infection and Policymaking: The COVID-19 Story of Liberty and Death

CRC member Nate Breznau takes a look at how media sentiment has influenced public behaviour over time and by how far there was a correlation with infection rates.

Lockdown: When do people comply?

When governments decide which lockdown measures to take, they should keep general public preferences for government interventions in mind. If the lockdown turns out to be relatively too strict, compliance will drop, CRC member Nate Breznau and his colleagues Hung H.V. Nguyen and Lisa Heukamp write in their forthcoming paper in the Social Policy Review. In certain cases, giving people some slack will yield better results.

Indonesia: Targeted social protection with international financial support

For the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Mulyadi Sumarto and Fery Ferdiansyah analysed how Indonesia had to stretch its limited federal budget to fund social safety nets and to help the economy recover.

China's pragmatic adjustment of existing welfare institutions

In the 25th issue of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Tobias ten Brink, Yuxin Li and Tao Liu take a look at China's social and economic countermeasures during the pandemic. The government, that could rely on the basic safety net that had been expanded over the last two decades, invested 2 % of the GDP to support the vulnerable and to release the financial burden on enterprises.

Argentina' struggle to protect income and employment

The economic situation was already difficult before the pandemic, yet Argentina managed to invest a considerable part of the state budget in measures to protect the labour market and the basic income of the vulnerable population from the effects of the pandemic. Camila Arza (Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Public Policy, Buenos Aires) analyses the measures in detail in her report for the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series.

Singapore: Tapping the reserves to safeguard employment

Jun Jie Woo (National University of Singapore) wrote the 16th report of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series. He explains how the city-state channelled close to 100 billion Singapore Dollars into four Covid-19 budgets in order to cushion the economic and social impact of the pandemic.

Ecuador’s targeting problem

In her report for the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Maria Gabriela Palacio (Leiden University) highlights the difficulties Ecuador was facing in 2020 when it was trying to reach informal workers with a new social protection programme.

Turkey: Protecting the formal labour market was paramount

In another issue of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Kerem Öktem looks at the policy bundle that the Turkish government has applied in order to tackle the pandemic's ripple effects on the economy and livelihoods.

Uruguay relied on the strong base of its social security system

In the latest issue of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Cecilia Rossel and María Gutiérrez examine which measures Uruguay has taken to mitigate the side effects of the pandemic and the restrictions of public life.

Peru is boosting its economy while jeopardizing old-age security

For the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Javier Olivera (Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru) analyzes Peru's answers to surging poverty rates and plummeting GDP as the country is severely hit by the pandemic.

Caucasus Analytical Digest featuring CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series

In their recent edition, the Digest presents three essays on the social policy measures taken by Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia in order to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic. These essays (part 8, 10 and 13 of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series), were slightly revised for the special digest’s issue.

"Pandemic has the potential to lead to a consolidation of South Korea’s welfare state"

For the 7th edition of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Jaemin Shim reviews South Korea’s social policy interventions that have been adopted to mitigate the side effects of the pandemic. Shim characterizes the response as quick and bipartisan.

Azerbaijan: Shrinking oil revenues, rising number of people in need

Farid Guliyev examines how Azerbaijan has dealt with the social and economic impact of the pandemic on the Central Asian country. The social policy response, Guliyev writes, was swift but insufficient.

Zambia’s emergency support scheme highly dependent on international donors

In volume 9 of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Kate Pruce analyses Zambia’s efforts to curb the pandemic’s side effects on the most vulnerable groups while facing severe financial challenges. The government introduced an emergency cash transfer programme in July 2020, but it was mainly funded by international donors.

Mexico’s reaction to the pandemic follows path of austerity

For the fifth volume of our CRC 1342 Covid-19 social policy response series, Ricardo Velázquez Leyer (Universidad Iberoamericana) had a close look at the measures the Mexican government has taken to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic. However, such measures were virtually non-existent.

Costa Rica: Short-term social assistance scheme, equalling 3% of GDP

In the latest volume of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Koen Voorend and Daniel Alvarado examine Costa Rica's swift actions to mitigate the pandemic's social and economic side effects. The Cental American country has implemented pension and labour market reforms as well as an emergency social assistance scheme. But the costs did pile up and the future of the programmes seems uncertain, given the financial crisis the country is facing by now.

Report on Russia’s social policy response to Covid-19: Focus on families, with overall scope being inadequate

In the third edition of our CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Anna Tarasenko critizes Russia’s support programmes as being categorical rather than means-tested, often failing to target citizens who are in need.

Author team paints a bleak picture of India’s social policy response to the pandemic

Part 4 of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series has been published. For India, Stefan Kühner, Keerty Nakray and Daniel Neff conclude: The relief efforts have not been able to adequately address the social and economic suffering in the country.

Survey: How does the pandemic influence attitudes towards globalisation and the welfare state?

Franziska Deeg, Eloisa Harris and Simone Tonelli will conduct an online survey in Brazil and Germany this spring. The study is co-funded by the Dr. Hans Riegel-Foundation.

Second volume of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series released

In the the second volume of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series, Elize Massard da Fonseca, Luísa B. Arantes and Beatriz C. Portella analyse Brazil's social policy measures to mitigate the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

First volume of the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series released

Shih-Jiunn Shi and Suetgiin Soon from the National Taiwan University analyse Taiwan's social policy response to the social and economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

New publication series on Covid-19 responses

Dr. Tim Dorlach

In a few days, we will start to publish the CRC 1342 Covid-19 Social Policy Response Series. In this series of country reports we will record and analyse which social policy measures countries around the world - mainly from the Global South - have taken so far to mitigate the negative economic and social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Tim Dorlach from Socium coordinates the series and explains in an interview what we can expect.

Covid-19 Pandemic and Social Freedom

Frank Nullmeier reflects on the concept of freedom in times of a pandemic. He argues to reform public infection control and to then understand it as a social policy instrument that facilitates freedom in the first place.

China’s social policy response to COVID-19

Tao Liu co-authored the article "Social Policy Responses to the Covid-19 Crisis in China in 2020" with his Chinese colleagues Quan Lu, Zehao Cai, and Bin Chen. It was published open access in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The authors state that China is making a great effort to overcome the crisis. Nevertheless, they criticise the measures.

Covid-19 and live-in care workers

In a blog post Anna Safuta and Kristin Noack examine the impact of the corona crisis on migrant care workers. Their precarious situation gets aggravated.

Covid-19 effects on migrant workers in Western Europe

Migrant workers face severe economic uncertainties because of the pandemic, Eloisa Harris, Friederike Römer and Jakob Henninger write in a blog post for Social Europe. But the extent varies, depending on the social policies of the states.

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