Sweden and Turkey: Two Models of Welfare State in Europe

2011

This paper discusses a number of questions with regard to Sweden's economic and political development: How did Sweden become rich? What explains Sweden's high level of income equality? What were the causes of Sweden's problems from 1970 to 1995? How is it possible that Sweden, since the crisis of the early 1990s, is growing faster than most EU countries despite its high taxes and generous welfare state?

New Perspectives on Turkey, 2017

This article aims to consider how Turkey has been classified in the welfare regime literature, and on what basis it has been classified. This will then form the basis for exploring whether there appears to be any variation between approaches and methods and/or between the " position " (e.g., location or language) of the authors. Studies of Turkey's welfare regime exhibit a significant degree of variation in terms of both approaches and conclusions, resulting in little in the way of consensus. Among Turkish-language studies (and some, but not all, Turkish scholars writing in English), there does seem to be a broad consensus that Turkey may be classified as part of the Southern European welfare model, which squares with the modal conclusion of the English-language studies on the topic. However, some " regional " studies conclude that Turkey is part of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, while many of the cluster analyses suggest a wide variety of clusters that are not geographically contiguous.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

This paper discusses a number of questions with regard to Sweden's economic and political development: • How did Sweden become rich? • What explains Sweden's high level of income equality? • What were the causes of Sweden's problems from 1970 to 1995? • How is it possible that Sweden, since the crisis of the early 1990s, is growing faster than most EU countries despite its high taxes and generous welfare state? These questions are analyzed using recent insights from institutional economics, as well as studies of inequality and economic growth. The main conclusion is that there is little, if any, Swedish exceptionalism: Sweden became rich because of well-functioning capitalist institutions, and inequality was low before the expansion of the welfare state. The recent favorable growth record of Sweden, including the period of financial stress (2008-2010), is a likely outcome of a number of far-reaching structural reforms implemented in the 1980s and 90s.

Handbook of European Social Policy

Despite the shared history of socialist welfare state adaptation, there is consensus among scholars that Central and Eastern European (CEE) welfare states do not conform to either a putative post-socialist welfare state type or to Esping-Andersen's (1990) welfare regime typology developed for advanced capitalist welfare states (Deacon 2000; Fenger 2007; Aidukaite 2009; Inglot 2009). This is not surprising considering that welfare states in CEE are but a few years younger than their Western neighbours (Haggard and Kaufman, 2008; Inglot 2008; Mares and Carnes 2009) and that their historical evolution-despite their Bismarckian foundations, the homogenizing influence of the soviet model and the emergency, ad hoc and inconsistent institutional adjustments during the first two decades of post-socialism-has been as complex and diverse as that of their advanced capitalist counterparts (Inglot 2008, 2009; Cook 2010). This diversity is observable not only in terms of variations in the salience of institutional legacies from different historical periods across welfare domains, the timing, dynamics and direction of welfare reforms after the dissolution of state socialism and welfare state size, but also variations in the resulting architectures of mixed economies of welfare across policy domains and in the structure of inequalities and social outcomes. We agree, therefore, with Cerami's (2009, p. 51) assessment that welfare states in the European post-socialist and post-soviet space are best understood as 'unique hybrids', moreover, likely on diverging paths of development (see also Cook 2010; Deacon and Standing 1993; Orenstein and Haas 2002; Potucek 2008; Haggard and Kaufman 2008). As such, these welfare states may be grouped together at best only on the most general grounds and without sensitivity to differences in magnitude and kind. The shared Bismarckian and soviet-inspired institutional legacies are one broad similarity which might invite arguments of greater similarity than dissimilarity, although Inglot (2008) convincingly outlines the institutional variations that persisted despite these. The experience of welfare state adjustment during the 1990s, characterized by ad hoc, emergency institutional and policy transformations (Nunberg 1999; Deacon 2000, p. 149; Sotiropoulos and Pop 2007; Inglot 2009) and a highly volatile, cyclical expand-then-retrench, stop-and-go reform process during this period (Sotiropoulos et al. 2003; Inglot 2009; Szikra and Tomka 2009; Cook 2010) may also be cited as another shared feature of CEE welfare states, although again, scholars have highlighted variations certainly in degree (see Cerami and Vanhuysse 2009). Those emphasizing similarities over differences could also cite a propensity towards cushioning social policy adjustments in the early stages of post-socialist welfare state reform, although selective in scope, followed by path-departing institutional innovations during the late

New Political Economy, 2013

This paper discusses a number of questions with regard to Sweden's economic and political development: • How did Sweden become rich? • What explains Sweden's high level of income equality? • What were the causes of Sweden's problems from 1970 to 1995? • How is it possible that Sweden, since the crisis of the early 1990s, is growing faster than most EU countries despite its high taxes and generous welfare state? These questions are analyzed using recent insights from institutional economics, as well as studies of inequality and economic growth. The main conclusion is that there is little, if any, Swedish exceptionalism: Sweden became rich because of well-functioning capitalist institutions, and inequality was low before the expansion of the welfare state. The recent favorable growth record of Sweden, including the period of financial stress (2008-2010), is a likely outcome of a number of far-reaching structural reforms implemented in the 1980s and 90s.

Middle East Law and Governance, 2010

Informed by the debates on the transformation of welfare states in advanced industrial economies, this article evaluates the changing role of the state in welfare provision in Turkey. Turkey's welfare state has long been limited and inegalitarian. Strong family ties coupled with indirect and informal channels of welfare (ranging from agricultural subsidies to informal housing-both costly but politically expedient) have compensated for the welfare vacuum. At fi rst glance, Turkey's welfare reform that emerged from the 2000-2001 fi scal crisis appears like a classic case of moving towards a minimalist, 'neoliberal' welfare regime-with increasingly privatized health care and private social insurance. e state retreats via the subcontracting of welfare provision to private actors, growing involvement of charity organizations, and increasing public-private cooperation in education, health, and anti-poverty schemes. Yet, there is also evidence of the expansion of state power. e newly empowered 'General Directorate of Social Assistance and Solidarity (SYDGM)' manages an ever-increasing budget for social assistance, the number of mean-tested health insurance (Green Card) holders explodes, health care expenditures rise substantially, and municipalities become important liaisons for channeling private money and donations for antipoverty purposes. e cumulative eff ect is an 'institutional welfare-mix' that has actually mutated so as to compensate for the absence of the earlier, politically attractive but fi scally unsustainable welfare conduits. e result has so far been the creation of immense room for political patronage, the expansion of state power, and no signifi cant improvement of welfare governance.

Social Science Spectrum, 2016

The Swedish welfare state model has its roots in home turf as well as in the soil of othernations, mainly Germany and Britain. It took on its characteristic shape as the People’s Home in the 1930s, when national models to the left and right of the political spectrum in many countries were built around “the people”. At the time it was also labelled “the middle way” between capitalism and socialism. During the 1960s “record years” the Swedish welfare state grew rapidly. It stood at its zenith around 1970, hailed internationally as the Swedish model. However, the welfare state and the economy,closely intertwined, soon entered into a protracted structural crisis. In the early 1990s,Sweden experienced a deep and to a large extent home-made financial crisis and the Swedish model became a warning example in some quarters. Out of the crisis arose a revised model in which welfare services were still provided more or less “for free” (i.e.funded by tax money) while at the same time there were ...

London School of Economics and Political Science, Dissertation for the completion of Masters in Social Policy (European and Comparative Social Policy), 2013

ABSTRACT The primary contribution of this scholarly work to the literature is to extend the instruments for discussing the Europeanisation of social policies by applying isomorphism theory of sociology literature to Turkey, as a candidate country to the EU, and utilise this theoretical framework for analysing social security reform of Turkey between 2006 and 2013. The search is for diversifying possible explanations of specific Europeanisation trends. Moreover, the paper intends to contribute the literature of Turkey’s welfare regime, which is classified within the extended family of Mediterranean welfare states, by scrutinizing policy inputs and outcomes of social security reform, thus to contribute the literature on clusters and regime typologies. For this purpose, the study subsume three separate study areas of the literature – Europeanisation/convergence, pension reform agenda, and social security system of Turkey – within the scope of understanding the change and continuity in social security policies in Turkey. By using empirical evidences alongside a conceptual discussion, the study aims to provide a critical analysis that questions whether a convergence or a divergence can be identified between Turkey and European Social Model within the recent developments.

Journal of European Social Policy, 2006

This article discusses the current transformation of Turkey’s welfare regime in the context of contemporary developments in social policy processes, particularly in Europe. It is argued that the transformation, under constraints of gobalization and neo-liberalism, involves a change from an inegalitarian corporatism where both the rural population and urban informal sector employees were excluded from the formal social security system. Variables influencing the direction of change include the historical legacy of state-society relations in the country, the conservative liberalism of the current government, the influence of international financial institutions that emphasize budgetary discipline, as well as the need for more universalist approaches to combat new forms of poverty and social exclusion. The relations of Turkey with the EU also affect the balance between conservative-liberal trends and universalist, rights-based approaches to social policy.

The Daily Sabah, 2014

A review article regarding Turkey's welfare model and recent social policies in the face of changing social realities. With its expanding welfare state for the recent decade, the country is aiming to align its welfare model to new social challenges. Interesting article for researchers studying on out-of-western social policy experiments. The AK Party government is gaining votes from large cohorts that are highly satisfied with Turkey’s welfare services. Cheap and accessible healthcare, giving patients the chance to choose their services, unification and renovation of public hospitals, application of family practitioners, expansion of healthcare services covered by social insurance and increasing accessibility for all to get the best treatment from private hospitals