Informations du cours

The main objective of the course is to provide students with an understanding of the workings and underlying issues of welfare politics in advanced capitalist countries in connection to a set of contested issues of today. "The welfare state" here refers an activist state that seeks to regulate both civil society and the market. A common objective of these programs is to distribute economic resources more evenly and to ensure that all citizens enjoy a basic measure of economic security. Welfare policies include family policy with direct effects on gender equality, as well as attempts to regulate labour markets in order to promote employment. Here the tension created by ageing populations will be highlighted in generational terms. Another tension for modern welfare states stems from globalisation, not least between job creation and social protection, which points to the importance of understanding the interrelation between welfare models and production regimes. The interrelation of different institutions also has consequences for migration flows as well as for the resources and opportunities of migrants, making migration into an important sub-topic of welfare politics. Policy responses to climate change generate other types of potential trade-offs and in this context we highlight the emergence of eco-social policy agenda. The welfare state is a central topic of study in the social science sub-discipline known as political economy, which studies the interaction between states and markets, as well as its implications for the distribution of welfare among individuals. The course will cover major areas within contemporary research on the welfare state from a global perspective, including the different types of welfare states found among advanced industrialised nations, the complex interaction between states and markets that is at the core of all re-distributive politics, the changing dynamics of labour markets with a focus on gender aspects of welfare politics and, finally, the new challenges to welfare states posed by globalisation, international migration and climate change. Upon completing the course, students will have developed an ability to read, interpret and formulate ideas in relation to advanced texts in the areas of political economy and welfare politics. Students will also have developed good skills in communicating these ideas in oral and written scientific form.