Welfare State Change

Deadline for applications: November 19, 2007

Organizers:
Centre for Comparative Welfare Studies (CCWS), Aalborg University
Danish National Institute for Social Research (SFI)

Download pdf: Call for papers and Programme

Welfare State Change.
Policy feedback, incrementalism and the role of ideas
 
Previous assumptions about the immobility of European Welfare States are challenged both by actual developments and by theoretical advances. However, there remains considerable disagreement and confusion about the sources and processes of change. This conference will address three partially connected themes: The role of policy feedback, including learning effects, the role of ideas more generally, and the silent revolutions that are brought about by incremental change, sometimes as a result of conscious strategies, but occasionally as the unintended results of muddling through.
              The organizers invite all sort of theoretical, methodological and empirical papers on these aspects of welfare state change, including themes like:

• how policy paradigms work as constraints and facilitators of policy formation; how they shape learning processes; how, why and when they change
• measurement of the independent effects of ideas
• similarities and differences between different approaches to the study of the influence of cognitive factors on policy change
• incremental changes and silent revolutions of welfare states; mechanisms of change
• types of policy learning, policy transfer and policy diffusion
• feedback effects of outsourcing, competition and other forms of privatization/ marketization of the welfare state
• problem pressure, political power relations, or policy diffusion as source of policy convergence/divergence
  

Call for papers and research notes:
The conference is aimed at presenting papers, but also at informal exchange of ideas. This is why the conference takes place at an old manor, where informal discussions can continue after the sessions. It means that presenting short research notes will also in principle be possible. However, the number of participants (including key note speakers who participate in the conference) is limited to 35, and paper givers are prioritized.
 
The conference organizers invites submission of abstracts for papers and research notes (about one page). Please indicate whether you want to present "normal" paper (some 15-20 pages) or "research note" (some 5-10 pages).
 
 
Deadline for applications: 
November 19, 2007
 
Send applications to Inge Merete Ejsing-Duun (ime@socsci.aau.dk)
with cc. to Jørgen Goul Andersen (goul@socsci.aau.dk) and Niels Ploug (np@sfi.dk)

For more information and the programme, download the pdf: