The Power of Gender Perspectives: Feminist Influence on Policy Paradigms, Social Science, and Social...

Social PoliticsINTERNATIONAL STUDIES

IN GENDER, STATE,AND SOCIETY

Volume 16 V Number 4 V Winter 2009

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Contents

Special Issue:

The Power of Gender Perspectives: Feminist Influence on PolicyParadigms, Social Science and Social Politics

Edited by Ann Shola Orloff and Bruno Palier

Articles

The Power of Gender Perspectives: Feminist Influence onPolicy Paradigms, Social Science, and Social Politics 405

ANN SHOLA ORLOFF AND BRUNO PALIER

Culture in Connection: Re-Contextualizing IdeationalProcesses in the Analysis of Policy Development 413

TASLEEM J. PADAMSEE

Lost in Translation: The Social Investment Perspective andGender Equality 446

JANE JENSON

Investing, Facilitating, or Individualizing the Reconciliationof Work and Family Life: Three Paradigms and AmbivalentPolicies 484

TRUDIE KNIJN AND ARNOUD SMIT

Redefining Compassion to Reform Welfare: How Supportersof 1990s US Federal Welfare Reform Aimed for the MoralHigh Ground 519

ROBIN STRYKER AND PAMELA WALD

Gender, Ideational Analysis, and Social Policy 558DANIEL BELAND

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research,

scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

ANN SHOLA ORLOFF AND BRUNO PALIER

The Power of GenderPerspectives: Feminist Influenceon Policy Paradigms, SocialScience, and Social Politics

Abstract

Feminist scholarship changed the study of welfare states; influentialpolicy experts have taken off from the feminist critique, incorpor-ating it as they crafted their own social investment strategy,(mis-)translating (and transforming) feminist arguments into aneconomic rationale. Social science mattered as well: it helped tocreate a new policy paradigm that is influential across a number ofpolitical spaces. Public policy analysis thus needs to pay attentionto intellectual processes, emphasizing the role of knowledge inpolitics; in policy-making, there is puzzling, not only powering.But nobody masters her ideas, or her political actions: actors candeploy “frames,” or discourses, but cannot control what happensto them politically.

Introduction

Gender perspectives have had a growing influence on policyparadigms, both within social-science debates around the role of

Winter 2009 Pages 405–412 doi:10.1093/sp/jxp021# The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions,please e-mail: [email protected]

ideas and culture in policies, and on new social policy paradigmsthemselves. These are the themes we take up in this special issue ofSocial Politics.

More and more scholars recognize that current changes withinwelfare systems are of a paradigmatic nature, and therefore shouldinclude the analysis of ideas, discourse, ideologies and culture inexplanations of change and stability. An emerging body of scholar-ship seeks to document and understand the process through whichactors change their ideas, the process through which ideas, dis-courses and ideologies may influence welfare reforms, and the waysin which culturally given categories and ways of thinking informpolicy outcomes [see the essays by Padamsee (2009) and Beland(2009) in this volume].

When looking at the content of the current new social policyparadigms—the ideas which have become dominant in the socialpolicy field—we see new concern about women’s employment,emphasis on the “care crisis,” the promotion of investment in chil-dren as well as the reconciliation between work and family life (seethe essays by Jenson (2009) and by Knijn and Smit (2009) in thisvolume). One can assert that the new thinking about welfare statesand the new architecture for welfare systems of the twenty-firstcentury are largely based on ideas of social policies that havebecome thinkable thanks to a gendered analysis, promoted by thefeminist welfare scholars (for examples of such “new thinking,” seethe “Babies and Bosses” series produced by the OECD or anynumber of recent publications of the European Commission on childcare services and “work life balance”; Orloff 2009 reviews thegender literature on welfare states).

Studying feminist ideas and scholarship on gender is thus crucialto understanding contemporary welfare systems’ transformation, forboth changing gender relations and changing policy ideas and cul-tural assumptions—influenced by feminisms, in and out of theacademy—have been implicated in the alteration of policies. Genderis central to the transformations of the contemporary welfare state,in a host of ways. Familial and work arrangements that had under-pinned systems of social provision and regulation for many decadeshave been destabilized by changing gender relations, reflected inincreased levels of mothers’ employment; women’s greater autonomyvis-a-vis partnering, reproduction and sexuality; declining fertility;the terminal decline of housewifery and “male breadwinner” house-holds. Associated political and cultural changes—women’s equalitymovements and the increased presence of women in the formal pol-itical sphere, rising support for notions of gender equality, women’spolitical importance as voters, taxpayers, and bearers of the next

406 V Orloff and Palier

generation of workers and taxpayers—have shaped contemporarysocial politics. Women’s increased entry into politics to press anequality agenda has been central to the transformation of policyparadigms, especially when the so-called “femocrats” and electedwomen take up these themes.

Changing gender relations are also implicated indirectly inwelfare state transformations, via the influence of feminist socialanalysts (academic and otherwise), who have been in the vanguardof understanding these changes, on the work of “mainstream” socialscientists, formerly uninterested in gender issues. The academic andpolicy mainstream has taken up and transformed—some might evensay perverted—gendered insights about the linkages between familyand employment (“private” and “public” spheres), the significanceof care work for the welfare of all people and for the character ofgender relations, and the importance of non-familial services formothers’ employment. Social scientists and policy experts—and, tothe extent that they are influential, also political elites—now workfrom the premise that welfare states must be reformed to accommo-date or even facilitate gendered changes, perhaps through “a newgender contract,” to produce the higher levels of mother’ employ-ment and fertility they see as critical to the future of welfare statesor population well-being.

We see the evidence of the influence of gender studies in recentshifts away from neo-liberalism and toward paradigms calling forgreater state involvement in enhancing child outcomes and maternalemployment, called “social investment paradigms” by Jane Jenson(2009, this issue) and others, and in associated policy changes acrossmany countries in both the developed and developing world, albeitin different fashions. This certainly implies that one must “takeideas seriously” as an analytic matter. Social Politics authors havebeen investigating the significance of gendered transformations forchanging social policies and politics—and vice versa—for sometime, contributing to what has developed into an impressive body ofscholarship on the mutually constitutive relationship between genderand politics (including but not limited to welfare states) (for reviewsof the literature of systems of social provision and regulation, see,e.g., Orloff 2005, 2009). The causal influence of explicit policyparadigms, ideologies or discourses and implicit cultural assump-tions about gender have been continually highlighted within thisscholarship, for gender is understood to include “ideational”elements.1 The culturally constructed and ideologically justified gen-dered division of labor and masculine authority and privilege, gen-dered political and affective orientations and identities—both asdefended and as challenged, and sometimes transformed—are

The Power of Gender Perspectives V 407

critical factors in explaining policy developments and genderedoutcomes.

Simultaneously, but in another arena of the academy, scholarshave been arguing about the necessity of bringing ideas, culture, dis-course more centrally into explanatory narratives about institutionalchange, including in social policy and politics—and too often,without referencing relevant feminist work. There have been explicitfeminist contributions to this debate (Adams 1999; Adams andPadamsee 2001; Fraser 2000; Fraser and Gordon 1994; Haney2002; Jenson 1989; Orloff 1999). But feminist social scientistsworking on these issues have usually not been understood by themainstream to be engaging same questions—yet, arguably, genderanalysis has been among the most innovative in taking up questionsof how “ideational” elements influence systems of social provisionand social politics, as scholars of gender within sociology andpolitical science have served as conduits of influence for the linguis-tic and cultural turns (Adams, Clemens, and Orloff 2005). Thepapers by Padamsee (2009) and Beland (2009) in this special issuetake up these themes and underline the importance of feminist scho-larship and gender perspectives in contributing to approaches thatemphasize the role of ideas, culture, and policy paradigms inshaping policy outcomes.

We aim in this special issue to bring together the conversationaround the causal influence of culture and paradigms in changingpolicies/institutions and the discussion of specifically genderedaspects of cultural/ideational change—in the emergence of newpolicy paradigms, most centrally—with reference to contemporarysocial policies. Our starting point was our mutual interest in doingsomething on ideas, or “culture” and “policy paradigms” (theformer term more dominant in sociology, the latter in politicalscience). To get started, we invited papers on ideas and changingwelfare states, not limited to those incorporating a gender perspec-tive, for sessions organized at the annual conferences of RC19 (thecomparative welfare state research committee of the InternationalSociological Association) and ESPAnet (the European Network forSocial Policy Analysis). However, not by chance, many of the paperswe received focused on gendered policy changes—reconciliation,parental leaves, care policies, activation—and the specific role ofideas about gender and policy, notably social investment paradigms.Needless to say, we were intrigued, and saw the potential for thespecial issue of Social Politics to focus on the origins and emergenceof new and newly “gender aware” policy paradigms. We found anovel history of recent welfare system changes. The argument,broadly speaking, is that neo-liberalisms—important though not


determinative in shifting policy toward mothers’ commodification—are now on the decline; that there is competition among proponentsof different ideas about how to adapt to new postindustrial globalrealities; and that new global social policy paradigms, with bothimplicitly and explicitly gendered aspects, including new concerns tosupport mothers’ employment, are emerging. We claim that thishas been possible partly because of feminist intellectual work aswell as changes in gender relations, both of which inform the newparadigms. These new frameworks have had notable influence onsocial policies; as shown by the papers in this volume, the transform-ation of welfare systems cannot simply be characterized asneo-liberalization.

Neo-liberals sometimes pushed women’s commodification, albeitunevenly, as some countries’ political elites were constrained bycompeting demands to accommodate mothers’ full-time caregiving(O’Connor, Orloff and Shaver 1999, chap. 4). In this issue, Strykerand Wald (2009) discuss one instance of this in the celebrated US“welfare reform” (i.e., elimination of entitlement to social assist-ance) in the mid-1990s, which represented a drive toward poorsingle mothers’ commodification, and how this necessitated idea-tional shifts not only vis-a-vis mothers’ labor, but also with respectto other ideas linked to welfare provision, specifically, “com-passion.” But interests in women’s “activation” have now extendedfar beyond neoliberals to those interested in the “third way” orvarieties of “social investment,” for whom the nexus of fertility, car-egiving and care services, labor supply and immigration leads themto “considerations of gender.” Our (collective) narrative then alsochallenges the notion, still current in some parts of the academy,that “neo-liberalism” continues to be the hegemonic policy para-digm—the papers by Jenson (2009) and by Knijn and Smit (2009)make this point most forcefully, describing the new policy paradigmswhich have eclipsed neo-liberalism even as they incorporate somesignificant aspects of it. And note that this is an uneven processwithin and across states and international organizations—someelites embrace new social investment perspectives more decisivelythan others. But even in the United States, the key force promotingneo-liberal policies from the Reagan through the Bush adminis-trations, social investment ideas are receiving attention within thenewly-elected Obama administration. And the ideas of social invest-ment also find important spokespeople within the US academy;James Heckman (2006), a principal proponent of social investmentarguments both within the United States and internationally, isbased at the University of Chicago Economics Department—a deli-cious irony that would be more enjoyable if only the place had not


been the source of so much immiseration via structural adjustmentbrought in on the advice of other “Chicago boys.”

It seems that influential policy experts have taken off from thefeminist critique developed by scholars of gender and welfare states,incorporating it in their own social investment strategy, (mis?)tran-slating feminist arguments into an economic rationale. Feministscholarship has thus been crucially influential in changing the waywelfare state were studied and understood, and this new perspective,when finally endorsed by the mainstream research, has helped toallow the building of this new “post neo-liberal” social policy para-digm, sometimes called “social investment”. However, as JaneJenson (2009) shows in her article, while some aspects of the femin-ist contribution were endorsed by mainstream scholars and con-verted into a new social policy paradigm, some other basic claimsby feminist have been “lost in translation” (such as the relationaldimensions of care, the preoccupation for gender equality in thehere-and-now, and emancipatory perspectives, the critique ofrational actor theories of subjects and agency). This demonstratesthat new approaches and concepts in social scientists can be influen-tial, but that those forging these new perspectives do not necessarilymaster how their ideas are taken up.

Two main ideational filters have distorted feminist contributionswhen translated into the new social policy paradigms. These are thereduction of the gender perspective to economic rationalist reason-ing, as Jenson (2009) argues, and the adaptation of the approach tovarious national ideological and institutional contexts, leading to theemergence of three worlds of work-welfare reconciliationapproaches, both at the ideational and at the policy levels (see Knijnand Smit 2009, in this issue).

Feminist scholarship changed the study of welfare states—however, nobody masters her analytic insights, ideas, or her politicalactions: actors can deploy “frames,” or discourses, but cannotcontrol what happens to them politically. Social science also mat-tered: it helped to create a new policy paradigm that is influentialacross a number of political spaces. We thus agree with publicpolicy analyses, reviewed by Padamsee and Beland, that pay atten-tion to intellectual processes, emphasizing the role of knowledge inpolitics; in policy-making, there is puzzling, not only powering. Butone should never forget that power relations—including but notlimited to gender relations—are still central, even in the way ideasare incorporated and translated.


NOTES

Ann Shola Orloff is Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies andDirector of the Gender Studies Program at Northwestern University, 1810Chicago Ave., Evanston IL 60208, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Bruno Palier is at Sciences Po, Centre d’etudes europeennes (CEE), 28, ruedes Saints Peres, 75007 Paris, France. E-mail: [email protected].

1. This was well-articulated among gender studies scholars by themid-1980s, for example, by Joan Scott (1986) in her germinal “Gender asa Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” which offers a multi-layeredconcept of gender as comprising normative, cultural, institutional, and sub-jective elements.

REFERENCES

Adams, Julia. 1999. “Culture in Rational-Choice Theories ofState-Formation,” pp. 98-122 in State/Culture: State-Formation Afterthe Cultural Turn, edited by George Steinmetz. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press.

Adams, Julia, Elisabeth S. Clemens, and Ann Shola Orloff (eds). 2005.Remaking Modernity: Politics, History, and Sociology. Durham, NC:Duke University Press.

Adams, Julia and Tasleem Padamsee. 2001. “Signs and Regimes: RereadingFeminist Work on Welfare States.” Social Politics 8: 1–23.

Beland, Daniel. 2009. “Gender, Ideational Analysis, and Policy Change.”Social Politics 16 (4): 558–81.

Fraser, Nancy, and Linda Gordon, “‘Dependency’ Demystified: Inscriptionsof Power in a Keyword of the Welfare State.” Social Politics 1: 4–31.

Fraser, Nancy. 2000. “Rethinking Recognition.” New Left Review 3(May–June): 107–20.

Haney, Lynne. 2002. Inventing the Needy: Gender and the Politics ofWelfare in Hungary. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Heckman, James. 2006. “Skill Formation and the Economics of Investingin Disadvantaged Children.” Science 312: 1900–1902 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1128898].

Jenson, Jane. 1989. “Paradigms and Political Discourse: ProtectiveLegislation in France and the United States before 1914.” CanadianJournal of Political Science 22 (2): 235–58.

————. 2009. “Lost in Translation: The Social Investment Perspectiveand Gender Equality,” Social Politics 16 (4): 446–83.

Knijn, Trudie and Arnoud Smit. 2009. “Investing, Facilitating orIndividualizing the Reconciliation of Work and Family Life: ThreeParadigms and Ambivalent Policies.” Social Politics 16 (4): 484–518.

O’Connor, Julia S., Ann Shola Orloff and Sheila Shaver. 1999. States,Markets, Families: Gender, Liberalism and Social Policy in Australia,Canada, Great Britain and the United States. New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.


Orloff, Ann Shola. 1999. “Motherhood, Work and Welfare in the UnitedStates, Britain, Canada, and Australia,” pp. 321–54 in State/Culture:State-formation After the Cultural Turn, edited by George Steinmetz.Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

————. 2005. “Social Provision and Regulation: Theories of States,Social Policies, and Modernity,” pp. 190–224 in Remaking Modernity:Politics, History, and Sociology, edited by Julia Adams, Elisabeth S.Clemens and Ann Shola Orloff. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

————. 2009. “Gendering the Comparative Analysis of Welfare States:An Unfinished Agenda.” Sociological Theory 27: 317–43.

Padamsee, Tasleem. 2009. “Culture in Connection: Re-ContextualizingIdeational Processes in the Analysis of Policy Development.” SocialPolitics 16 (4): 413–45.

Scott, Joan. 1986. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.”American Historical Review 91: 1053–75.

Stryker, Robin and Pamela Wald. 2009. “Redefining Compassion toReform Welfare: How Supporters of 1990s US Federal Welfare ReformAimed for the Moral High Ground.” Social Politics 16 (4): 519–57.


TASLEEM J. PADAMSEE

Culture in Connection:Re-Contextualizing IdeationalProcesses in the Analysisof Policy Development

Abstract

Recent scholarship on ideational dynamics in policy developmenthas yielded a deeper understanding of policy-making processes pre-viously illuminated by interest- and institution-based analyses, andeven more importantly, a newfound ability to account for pro-cesses and outcomes those prior approaches failed to explain.Gender scholars have made particularly strong contributions to thecase that we cannot understand policy development without itscultural determinants. This new scholarship has laid a solid foun-dation for approaching culture, ideas, and discourses as constitu-tive elements of social policy, and we must now move forward tosituate these causal arguments within a broader picture of policydevelopment. This article explores four points of connection thathelp re-position these processes within the larger endeavor ofunderstanding social policy formation. These are: (a) interactionbetween ideational and other causal dynamics, (b) the interdepen-dence of these processes and its implications for notions of causal-ity in policy analysis, (c) the ways contemporaneous meanings are

Winter 2009 Pages 413–445 doi:10.1093/sp/jxp018# The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]

connected with one another, which reflects the multiplicity ofcultures, ideas, and discourses, and (d) the connections betweenthese meanings and discourses across time, which are critical toinstances of significant policy change. Each section also exploresthe empirical and theoretical scholarship on gender that helpsillustrate the need to examine these connections.

In response to observed gaps in contemporary accounts ofpolicy making, a group of sociologists and political scientists beganto articulate a new body of scholarship in the late 1980s, focused onthe causal role of culture, ideas, and discourse in the formation andtransformation of social policy. Although this “cultural turn” camelater to policy studies than to other substantive areas of the socialsciences (Steensland 2008; Steinmetz 1999), scholars have nowmade significant progress in understanding how cultural meaninghelps structure social policy. Feminist policy scholars have oftenbeen leaders in this effort, persuasively demonstrating how a set ofinherently ideational factors—gendered cultural assumptions, cat-egories, ideologies, and discourses—structures social policy and stateinstitutions. Attending to ideational dynamics has yielded a deeperunderstanding of policy-making processes previously illuminated byinterest- and institution-based analyses, and an enhanced ability toaccount for processes and outcomes. This new scholarship has laid asolid foundation for approaching culture, ideas, and discourses asconstitutive elements of social policy, and we must now moveforward to situate these causal arguments within a broader pictureof policy development. This project involves several critical steps,including (a) articulating the ways ideational causal dynamics inter-act with those that are the more traditional foci of policy studies, (b)recognizing the interdependence of cultural and material forces, (c)transitioning to an approach that sees ideational elements as mul-tiple and competing, and (d) understanding the importance of thismultiplicity for an analysis of policy change. Feminist scholarshipagain points the way here: both empirical policy research and con-temporary theorizing about the social dynamics of gender suggestthe importance of these points of connection for our understandingof policy development.

Many of the institutionalist and rational choice theories that havedominated policy studies in recent decades relegate meaning to theexplanatory sidelines, treating culture and ideas as epiphenomenalconsequences of more fundamental material, structural, and insti-tutional arrangements. Other analysts include specific political ideasor cultural elements in their accounts, but only to fill gaps in theircore explanatory frameworks (Lieberman 2002; Steensland 2008).

414 V Padamsee

Turning to anything cultural only as a cause of last resort reflects afailure to appreciate the explanatory significance of culturaldynamics, and the ways these dynamics are implicated in the work-ings of other factors that are accorded causal priority.

Why has there been a new willingness to consider ideational pro-cesses? First, real-world political developments—such as the end ofthe Cold War and the terrorist attacks of 9/11—have called atten-tion to major cultural and ideological transformations (Berman2001; Blyth 2003; Lieberman 2002). More consequentially, policyscholars have begun looking to culture to help explain phenomenathat institutionalist and rational choice theories could not. Twolacunae were particularly prominent: the content of policy choices,and policy change. While these theories successfully addressed ques-tions about who influences policy, which alternatives they select,and how existing institutions and prior decisions shape new policy,they proved unable to explain the appearance of policy options, thesubstantive content of demands, or the understandings and beliefsthrough which actors connect their needs with particular policy sol-utions (Beland 2005; Berman 2001; Lieberman 2002; Skrentny2006).

Perhaps most important was the problem of change. Both institu-tionalist and rational choice theories offered robust answers to theonce-difficult theoretical question of policy and institutional stab-ility, relying on concepts such as transaction costs, equilibrium,policy feedbacks, and lock-in (Blyth 2003; Clemens 2005; Pierson1993). By the early 1990s, however, a new challenge became appar-ent: in the context of so many ways to account for stasis, how couldscholars explain changes in the direction of state policy? For theorieswhose explanatory processes reproduced consistent policy choicesthrough increasing returns and path dependence, noticeable changecould only be explained as the result of exogenous shocks to thepolicy-making system (Blyth 2003; Lieberman 2002). But policychange also comes without major demographic or economicrupture: institutions are transformed, new instruments are invented,and trajectories shift, all through endogenous political processeswhereby stakeholders seem to choose or design change, rather thanbeing forced into it by radical disjunctures in the external context(Clemens 2005; Lieberman 2002; Streeck and Thelen 2005). It is toaddress such phenomena that scholars have looked to the roles ofcultural categories, policy ideas, and political discourses. If insti-tutions mostly create a rhythm of continuity, perhaps the ideationalcontent of policy debates and cultural meaning can better accountfor the choices actors make to create policy change.1

Re-Contextualizing Ideational Processes V 415

In the remainder of this paper, I explore four points of connectionthat re-position these dynamics within the broader endeavor ofunderstanding social policy formation: (a) interaction between idea-tional and other causal dynamics, (b) the interdependence of thesetypes of processes and the implications of this interdependence fornotions of causality in policy analysis, (c) the ways contemporaneousmeanings are connected with one another, reflecting the multiplicityof ideas and discourses, and (d) the connections between meaningsand discourses across time, which are critical to instances of signifi-cant policy transformation. But first, it will be helpful to definesome important terms and briefly review the key contributions ofthe existing literature on cultural dynamics in policy development.

Definitional Issues: Culture, Ideas, and Discourse

The burgeoning scholarship that re-expands explanations ofsocial policy development beyond interests and institutions invokes awide range of core terms; for my purposes, it is particularly impor-tant to define the primary category of “culture,” and the terms“ideas” and “discourses” in relation to it.

Steinmetz (1999) provides a usefully concise definition of cultureas, “systems of meaning and the practices in which they areembedded (7).” This definition calls attention to two complementaryroles culture can play in policy making. First, the meanings pat-terned by a culture are expressed in a range of “symbols that rep-resent and guide the thinking, feeling and behavior of its members(Griswold 1994, 11),” and thus also in the values, beliefs, andnorms of group members. These meanings are shaped by race, class,gender, and other relations of power, inequality, difference, and con-flict (Dirks, Eley, and Ortner 1994; Hall 1994; Steinmetz 1999).Second, because meaning guides thinking, feeling, and behavior, itbecomes embodied in social practices which both express and repro-duce it in daily life. Culture shapes human action by structuring ourunderstanding of ourselves and our world, but it also changes asstabilizations of meaning become contested and re-configured withinnew symbolic relationships and social practices (Laclau and Mouffe1985).

Scholars who organize their work around “ideas” rarely definethem, perhaps because their meaning appears self-evident. It isimportant to note, however, that the analysis of ideas explores asubset of the ways culture can influence policy. The distinguishingcharacteristic of ideas is that they are particularly coherent or expli-cit relative to other, less articulated cultural meanings; an idea is aconfiguration of meanings that is consciously understood by at least

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some of those influenced by it. Ideas can be specific policy proposalsor broader statements about the world as it is or should be, such as“regulating markets makes them less efficient,” “health care is aright,” or “women and men should be paid the same wage for doingthe same job.” I also use “ideational” as an overarching term torefer to the general category of dynamics that includes culture,meaning, ideas, and discourses—not as an adjectival form of“ideas,” but drawing on the classical distinction between thematerial and the ideal (as does Beland 2009, in this issue).

Finally, the concept of “discourse” also has to do with relation-ships of meaning, but emerges from a poststructuralist intellectualhistory most associated with Michel Foucault. A discourse organizesmeaning in a way that is fundamentally about boundaries and sense-making; it delineates what is possible to think, say, and do.Discourses constitute social and linguistic boundaries, such thatwhile we may discern competing discourses about welfare paymentsas “handouts” or “a safety net,” for instance, we cannot stepentirely outside of discourse to appreciate some symbolically unme-diated, extradiscursive “real.” Not simply our way of describing theworld, discourses are instantiations of the social operations of power(Foucault 1978, 1980; Fraser 1989; McHoul and Grace 1993). AFoucaultian notion of discourse is distinctive in its reliance on a dis-ciplinary conception of power that requires actors to continuallyre-enact certain patterns of behavior, thought, and social interaction(Foucault 1978; Mitchell 1999). Among others, feminists have beenconcerned to understand how—given the pervasiveness of discursivepower, women and others are sometimes able to resist. Judith Butler(1990), for instance, argues that disciplinary obligation may imbueactors with the means of resistance, through creative alterations oftheir performances that may gradually transform the meanings thoseacts express. Discourse, then, can exert important influences onpolicy by setting the terms in which it is thought and enacted, evenas it is also ultimately malleable.

Central Contributions of the Literature on Ideational Processesin Policy Development

Culture as Constitutive

New lines of research examining ideational dynamics in policyformation have yielded three central accomplishments. Most impor-tant, they demonstrate convincingly that culture is not epiphenome-nal but constitutive of a wide range of political processes andoutcomes. Sociologists and political scientists studying a variety of


policy issues have identified the causal roles of cultural meanings,categories, ideas, and discourses in understanding policy making,establishing the importance of ideational arguments at micro, meso,and macro levels, in individual case studies and cross-national com-parisons. The policy topics studied range widely, from individualpolicy decisions such as whether to fund needle exchange programsfor HIV prevention (Padamsee 2007) to larger trajectories such asdiscerning which social groups should be included in affirmativeaction programs (Skrentny 2002, 2006), from variations in the waypostsocialist economies went about privatization (Appel 2000) tothe ways state formation has been shaped by nationalist discoursesand rulers’ emotional, familial, and gendered attachments (Adams1999; Pincus 1999) and how cultural assumptions about genderdifference, appropriate gender roles, and the gendered division oflabor influence the development of individual programs as well asthe shape of entire welfare states (Lewis 1997; O’Connor 1996;Orloff 1996, 1999; Steinmetz 1999).

The content of what we know about how culture constitutessocial policy can be organized around a distinction between theoperations of ideational forces in the background and foreground(Campbell 1998, 2002). Perhaps the most profound influences ofculture arise from its embeddedness in the institutions, routines, pur-poses, and language of policy making. From this background pos-ition, it helps perpetuate existing patterns of policy practice, shapesthe conditions under which policy actors perceive a need for change,and informs the path of policy discussion. These cultural contri-butions can take normative or cognitive forms, shaping perceptionsof which alternatives are legitimate or potentially effective (Hedetoft2004; Mink 1995; Misra 2002; Sewell 1992; Steensland 2006).Either way, cultural meanings tell us the identity of people, groups,and things; pattern our understanding of how they are related; shapeour feelings about groups, policies, and actions; enable and constrainthe choices we make; and determine what we are willing to do(Adams 1999; Orloff 1999; Sewell 1985; Skrentny 2002).

Jane Jenson’s (1987) universe of political discourse, Anne Kane’s(1991) concept of a cultural structure, and Peter Hall’s (1993) policyparadigm each express related aspects of the background influencesof culture on social policy. Each suggests that we can analyticallyseparate the meaning elements culture organizes relevant to a par-ticular historical context and policy arena, and then investigate theway these principles influence the identities and behaviors of policyactors (including elites, experts, interest groups, and broaderpublics) and pattern social practices (see, e.g., Skrentny 2002, 2006;Jenson 2004; the essays in this issue). A range of comparative and

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case studies on the gendered foundations of social policyillustrates the background influence of culture particularly well;“cultural understandings and ideological preferences about genderrelations . . . have shaped welfare states since their origins (Orloff1999, 321).” In particular, the notion that men should be (paid)workers and women should be caregivers has influenced individualsocial policies as well as the broadest patterns of social provision(see, e.g., Fraser 1989, 1994; Gordon 1988; Nelson 1984; Orloff1999). Furthermore, insofar as the relations of meaning that informpolicy construct relations of inequality (between men and women,rich and poor, white and black, etc.), the resulting social practices willserve to reproduce these hierarchies (Beland 2009, this issue; Mink1995; Misra 2002; Quadagno 1994; Roberts 1995; Scott 1988b).

Culture also helps constitute social policy through foregroundprocesses, where it becomes actively articulated, consciously under-stood, and often strategically deployed. Here, cultural elements areexpressed in specific policy proposals; ideas about the social pro-blems, groups, and solutions to which those proposals relate; anddiscourses through which policy debates and decisions take place.Cultural processes are critical to all three “streams” of the policy-making process: agenda setting, developing policy alternatives, andadvocating specific alternatives for implementation (Kingdon 2003;see also Beland 2009, this issue). Framing is one particularly well-studied foreground process imported from the study of socialmovements and media studies; social policy researchers treat it as“deliberate activity aimed at generating public support for specificpolicy ideas (Beland 2005, 11).” In strategically deploying ideas insupport of (or opposition to) particular policy directions, framerspackage and disseminate elements of cultural meaning for varied pur-poses (Ferree 2003), as Stryker and Wald (2009, this issue) show forthe framing of the US welfare reform debate. Foreground ideationalprocesses, like background ones, involve a range of social actors,including social movement participants (Benford and Snow 2000;Bernstein 2003; Kolker 2004), political leaders (Beland 2007b;Druckman 2001), the media (Entman 1993; Gamson et al. 1992), andaudiences of framing efforts (Brooks and Manza 2006; Ferree 2003).

Ideational scholars have also illuminated the traffic of meaningbetween background and foreground. Cultural and discursiveelements move back and forth between the two, in and out of publicawareness, sometimes explicitly articulated and other times takenfor granted. Taken-for-granted notions of appropriate gender rolespowerfully shape decisions about social provision from the back-ground, for instance, but can also be renegotiated through fore-ground policy debates that make these assumptions explicit in order


to reinforce or alter them (see e.g., Jenson 2004; Knijn and Smit2009). By borrowing and re-casting ideas from the cultural reper-toire of the society, effective frames resonate with their intendedaudience and motivate action. In the foreground then, ideas aremanipulated, reinforced, and changed. Cultural meaning and politi-cal discourse can subsequently recede into the background throughinstitutionalization, as “ideas become embedded in organizations,patterns of discourse, and collective identities (Berman 2001, 238).”

Excavating Hidden Ideational Dynamics

Second, theorists in this area have excavated the hidden roles thatideational dynamics play in institutionalist and rational choice-basedaccounts of policy making. For example, cultural categories andspecific ideas that reflect them are implicit in institutionalist accountslike Theda Skocpol’s classic Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (1992),where the empirical narrative illustrates how successful women acti-vists employed maternalist ideas, but the theoretical explanationprioritizes political institutions and policy legacies. Other analystshave highlighted the crucial importance of the ideas themselves,however: the discourse of maternalism was politically effectivebecause it organized meanings having to do with gender, citizenship,civic responsibility, and public corruption into relationships thatconstructed “motherhood” as a more viable status from which toclaim social welfare benefits than other available categories of thetime (Adams and Padamsee 2001; Koven and Michel 1993;Steensland 2006). Even rational choice explanations tend to incorpor-ate cultural elements without acknowledging them as such. As JuliaAdams (1999) points out, for instance, understanding early modernpolitics requires us to examine not only the economic resources andinterests of “rational actors,” but also the feelings that motivate themtoward desired ends—feelings about honor and lineage that are basedin meanings of gender, family, and generation.

In order to generate a complete understanding of the policy-making processes that interest us, then, we must treat ideational pro-cesses as analytical and theoretical priorities. Scholars of gender,race, and social policy have been breaking this ground for sometime, identifying differential outcomes of welfare state programs,tracing them to the discursive and ideological underpinnings ofsocial policy development, and re-examining many of the founda-tional concepts of the field along the way, including “worker,”“care,” “regimes,” and “public vs. private” (Adams and Padamsee2001; Orloff 2009).

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Relationships between Ideational and Other Causal Factors

Finally, studies of how culture and ideas affect policy have begunto demonstrate that they function as important mechanisms andexplanations vis-a-vis other causal factors. Sometimes ideationalfactors mediate the impact of nonideational ones on policy out-comes, such as when the relationship between the strength of asocial movement and its ability to reach desired policy ends ismediated by policy makers’ culturally influenced perceptions of arelevant social group (Skrentny 2006). In other cases, culturalmeaning pre-structures the form and thereby the impact of othercausal variables; we must understand the cultural discourses inwhich state actors are steeped, for instance, in order to understandtheir policy-shaping actions and reactions (Adams 1999; Steinmetz1993). Whether culture, ideas, and discourses are causally prior tomore material factors or function as mechanisms between materialcauses and their results, a complete picture of policy making mustinvolve both categories of dynamics.

Ideational Processes in Connection

Having generated satisfying answers to the core originating ques-tion of the field—what roles do cultural meanings, discourses, andideas play in policy development?—it is now time to take a next stepby re-contextualizing these dynamics in a broader understanding ofthe processes through which social policy is formed. Thinking abouthow culture fits into this larger picture entails examining the pointsat which culture, ideas, and discourses come into contact with othercausal forces, and with one another. In order to explore these con-nections, I draw on structuralist and poststructuralist notions of sig-nification, meaning, and power.

The lines of thinking on which I build originate in the work ofSaussure (1959), who argued that meaning is fundamentally rela-tional, associative, and derived through contrasts between linguisticterms. Individual signs are not invested with positive definitions, buttake on value only through contrasts and differences from othersigns, critically in systems of binary oppositions (male/female,white/black, etc.) (Levi-Strauss 1963) and in the play of significationprocesses over time, as they take on competing meanings or tempor-arily stabilize (Derrida 1982). For Foucault (1980) and other post-structuralist theorists (e.g., see Scott 1988a, 1988b), this play oflanguage and meaning is related to operations of power: dispersedconstellations of unequal social relationships that are constituted indiscourse. Human agency in turn consists of the ways individuals


resist and recombine these discourses in order to construct newidentities, relationships, and institutions.

As a result of the work of feminist researchers and theorists, gen-dered categories, schemas, and discourses are among thebest-understood elements of the cultural material on which socialactors rely to organize their thinking and pattern policy. Gender is acore cultural binary and resource for meaning-making, so a discus-sion of ideational dynamics must ask whether, when, and how gen-dered meanings are invoked in the process or outcomes of policymaking. As the following sections demonstrate, gender scholars havepaved the way for thinking about how discursive influences connectwith one another and with material forces in policy formation.Although I focus on gendered cultural categories, they are of coursenot the only ones relevant to policy studies; racial and other mean-ings are commonly implicated as well.

In this discussion I follow Joan Scott’s approach, in which gendersignifies relations of power and is constitutive of social relationships.This definition both recognizes the dichotomizing and relationalfunctions of gender and interrogates the processes by which itorganizes social practice (Scott 1988b, 1993; Rubin 1986; in con-trast to Levi-Strauss 1963; Tilly 1999). As a “constitutive element ofsocial relations based on perceived differences between the sexes(Scott 1988b, 42),” gender involves cultural symbols and normativemeanings that rest on the repression of alternate understandings.Gender does not merely reflect the existence of difference; its mean-ings also help create and maintain difference by constructing powerrelationships and legitimizing the inequalities inherent in them.Gendered meanings also produce the possibilities for identity—bystabilizing certain understandings of “man” and “woman” genderhelps construct a finite range of possible subject positions in whichindividuals can recognize themselves (Althusser 1971), and by conti-nually enacting these gender identities in ways that are faithful orunfaithful to their scripts, individual men and women strengthen orsubvert the underlying meaning of these categories (Butler 1990;Foucault 1980). By functioning as a set of core cultural signifiers forrelationships of power, concepts of gender also help policy actorsmake sense of the social world in which they operate and the propo-sals they develop, advocate, or resist.

The following four sections explore how the analytically impor-tant meanings, ideas, and discourses of a given context interact withother types of causal factors, exist in relations of interdependencewith those factors, compete with other discourses in the same timeand place, and contribute to policy change as they become relativelyempowered or disempowered over time. Each section also draws on

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the work of scholars whose explorations of gendered processes,meanings, and outcomes help illustrate why it is necessary that wemove toward understanding these four points of connection in orderto create a more comprehensive picture of policy development.

Interactions of Ideas, Interests, and Institutions

Thinking about the interaction between ideational and otherpolicy development processes—as other observers of the ideationalliterature have suggested (e.g., Campbell 2002)—improves ouroverall understanding in two important ways. First, it helps identifyregularities in the parts of the policy-making process where each setof dynamics lends the most explanatory power. My own research onHIV/AIDS policy making in the United States and the UnitedKingdom, for instance, demonstrates that differences in the contentof early HIV/AIDS policies are primarily attributable to differencesin institutional capacity, while discrepancies in timing are bestexplained by the need to develop a discourse of generalized riskbefore policy makers would act (Padamsee 2007). Second, inter-action involves the ways ideational factors facilitate or constrain theinfluence of other causal streams, and vice versa. Ideational factorsinteract in this way with interests for instance, when normative cul-tural assumptions override the self-interests of policy actors whotherefore might not advocate (or even develop) alternatives fromwhich they would benefit, because they do not conform to broaderconceptions of the goals policy should pursue (Campbell 2002).Institutional arrangements interact with ideational influences as well,for example by affording actors with only certain worldviews aformal seat at the decision-making table, thereby selectively empow-ering some schemas and discourses over others (Ziegler 1997). Evenat moments of relative change, formal political institutions helpdetermine which actors are in a strong position to campaign fortheir agenda (Beland 2005; Steensland 2006).

The literatures on gender, politics, and professions suggest justsuch an interactive effect. Women continue to be distinctly underre-presented in the fields of science and politics, at least in part due tothe institutionalization of gendered assumptions within these pro-fessional fields (Sapiro 1983; Valian 1998). The “generic” categories“scientist,” “politician,” and “bureaucrat” are all implicitly mascu-line, both because successful professionals are presumed not to havecompeting responsibilities for unpaid care work at home, andbecause of the ways they are expected to talk and behave—that is,“doing” the identity of scientist or politician also entails a significantdegree of “doing masculinity” (Connell 1995; West andZimmerman 1987). Few would deny that inconsistencies between


these requirements and the other realities of women’s lives meanthat women are less likely to enter these career paths, less likely tomove up the occupational hierarchy if they do so, and as a resultless likely to occupy positions of decision-making power as legis-lators, government administrators, or scientific leaders. The insti-tutional patterns that minimize women’s presence at thepolicy-making table thus also limit the range of influential discoursesand ideas. The flip side of the institutional/ideational interaction isimportant as well, for the universe of political discourse also shapesthe institutions themselves, as when gendered meanings organizedearly welfare states into bifurcated streams of social provision(Orloff 1999).

Beyond Interaction to Interdependence

Despite the usefulness of analyzing interactions between idea-tional and material forces, a more comprehensive picture of therelationship between them requires us to move beyond the artificialseparation between the ideal and the material to also address theways these causal dynamics are interdependent, or mutually consti-tutive of one another. The concept of interdependence is exemplifiedby the substantial literature demonstrating that actors’ interests areconstituted by cultural meaning. The core of this insight dates backto Weber’s assertion that people (and organizations) do not havestraightforward interests given by their socioeconomic positions;rather they have ideas about their interests (Weber 1946). Wecannot presume that actors’ interests correspond specifically to theirsocial positions—determined by class, gender, race, occupation, andso on; it is actors’ interpretations of self-interest that structure theiractions on their own behalf. The perceived meanings that constitutethese interpretations are in turn shaped by other discursive processes.Cultural schemas and political discourses are constant resources forthe meanings through which individuals define their interests;meaning entrepreneurs also actively struggle to influence actors’interpretations of their interests at moments of political contest, byoffering a range of comprehensible subject positions for listeners toinhabit (Berman 2001; Hall 1997; Orloff 1999; Skrentny 2002;Steensland 2006). Identities can be seen as crystallized (or tempor-arily fixed) versions of these subject positions—historically con-structed ideas individuals or organizations have about who they arein relation to others. This process of identification with others whoshare one’s discursively defined positions helps shape individuals’perceptions of their own self-interest, and thereby also their politicalaction (Adams 1999; Adams and Padamsee 2001; Althusser 1971;Campbell 2002).

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Among the discursive elements that inform interpretations ofinterest are personal constructions of gender identity and the waysgendered meanings are embedded in social structures. The natureand implications of gender identity have been fertile ground for fem-inist scholars from multiple traditions. For example, classic second-wave feminist psychoanalytic theorists explained our genderedpsyches as outgrowths of the social organization of parenting:because women mother and do the vast majority of parenting work,girls grow up to be more relationally oriented than boys (Chodorow1978). Seen from this perspective, both men and women expressinterests, but men’s interpretations of these interests are moreoriented toward what benefits themselves while women’s interpret-ations are relatively more oriented toward the benefit of others. Atthe other end of the spectrum, poststructuralist feminists see genderas performative: we continually “do” gender through performancesthat embody subject positions made available to us by discourse(Butler 1990; West and Zimmerman 1987). It is in these repeatedenactments that we express, resist, or transform gendered culturalscripts; thus drawing on existing meanings of gender but also poten-tially contesting them as we interpret our own self-interests. As pol-itical actors, too, gendered groups are situated differently withrespect to political institutions because the state itself is structuredaround an inherently masculine “generic subject,” whose historicalconstitution depended on an opposition to women and non-Westernothers (Fraser 1989; Reed and Adams 2009). In contrast to the pre-sumption that positions determine interests, these theories articulatethe ways discursive meaning of social categories structures people’sinterpretations of their interests. The cultural construction offamilies, states, and the possibilities for individual identity meansthat perceptions of our own interests are malleable: as we enactgender differently and contest family or political structures, weaffect the very conditions that structure these interpretations.

Interests, then, cannot be understood as outside of discourse; bothone’s understanding of the interests themselves and one’s motivatedaction based on those interests are in part products of discursive pro-cesses. This insight can be applied beyond interests to otherdynamics in the policy-making process as well. Economic, demo-graphic, institutional, and other causal dynamics are also identifiedand interpreted by actors using the symbols, signs, and meaningsavailable to them, which are in turn expressed in the world throughidentities, interests, policies, institutions, and so on.

Policy scholars usually treat economic and demographic trans-formations, as well as natural disasters, as exogenous “shocks” tothe policy system—external influences that mandate policy


responses. We can see the interdependence of ideational and othercausal factors even here, however, both because the events them-selves are partially culturally constituted and because the “facts” ofthese situations must be constructed as problems in the policy and/or public arena before action can be taken. Once again, the insightsof gender scholars push us to recognize these cultural influences.Demographic and economic transitions are due in large part towomen’s actions and choices—about fertility, caregiving, and laborforce participation. Insofar as discourses of gender produce women’s(and men’s) identities and interpretations of their own lives, theyalso help construct these social facts. The life and death results ofnatural disasters are also produced by gendered cultural realities:four times as many women as men died in the Asian Tsunami of2004, in large part because local cultural practices prevented womenfrom learning to swim or climb trees; and the impact of natural dis-asters is generally greater for women because of subsequent lack ofcare for women’s specific health needs, the rationing of emergencyfood supplies only to adults such that women end up sharing por-tions with their children, and their disproportionate susceptibility topostdisaster violence (Aglionby 2005; Chew and Ramdas 2005).

Furthermore, moving from these already-constructed facts to apolicy response entails processes of interpretation organized aroundseveral questions: What caused the change or event? What problemsdoes it create? What policies might address them? Whose responsi-bility is it to do so? The answers to these questions are not inherentin the phenomena themselves, but must be interpreted in ways thatmake sense to policy makers and the public. This process ofinterpretation is shaped by the cultural categories and discoursesthat provide the language within which such issues are discussed.Deborah Stone’s influential article (1989) on the construction ofpolicy problems argues that difficult conditions become defined asproblems through strategic causal argument. At the core of everypolicy challenge, then, lies a set of ideas that help make sense of theproblematic condition, its origins, and its potential solutions.Gendered meanings inform our understandings of what a changelike increasing labor force participation among women means, whyit would occur, whether it is a problem or not, and what policy sol-utions might be needed or possible. Even the social science ques-tions, data, and interpretations meant to help us understand suchsocial transitions are fundamentally influenced by what we take forgranted about women and men (Watkins 1993). And althoughnatural disasters—or other “exogenous shocks”—can seemunavoidably compelling, they cannot actually bring about policychange until they are interpreted through the normative and

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cognitive lenses policy actors use to make sense of potentialproblems and solutions.

Institutions themselves structure the political behavior of bureau-crats, officials, and interest groups, thus helping both to reproduceconsistent patterns of policy action and to determine the shape ofnew policies. But institutions too are interdependent with ideationalfactors. Perhaps the clearest indication of this interdependence is theinstitutionalization of particular cultural and discursive elements informal organizations and practices. As feminist scholars havepointed out, for instance, cultural discourses about gender, race, andclass are institutionalized in welfare states, reproducing inequalitiesby structuring them into everyday practices of social provision(Haney 1996; Misra 2002; O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999).Historically, welfare states have reflected culturally specific under-standings of appropriate gender roles that define labor and care asgendered domains, and reinforced women’s unpaid domestic respon-sibilities and economic dependence on men (Gordon 1990; Lewis1997; Orloff 1993). Shifts in gendered ideologies help to explainsome of the variation in contemporary transitions in many Westernnations through which women are increasingly constructed asworkers and as similar to men (Jenson 1987; Lewis 2001; Orloff1999). Not only do gendered cultural discourses play into policydebates, but these meanings help constitute the larger institutionalstructures through which individual decisions are patterned.Institutional processes of policy reproduction and change are alsopartially constituted by ideational factors and therefore interdepen-dent with them. The concept of policy feedback, for instance, refersto the impact of previously enacted measures on ongoing policymaking, which occurs in part through the mechanisms of “interpre-tive feedback” (Pierson 1993) or “social learning” (Heclo 1974).

The assertion that the material and the ideal are interdependentin the process of policy development leads to epistemological andmethodological questions about causality. Many policy scholarshave been reticent to accept the proposition that culture is causallyimportant, or allow it a place in the causal story only after interest-and institution-based arguments have been exhausted withoutexplaining the phenomenon of interest. This epistemological stancegives causal priority to nondiscursive factors, independent of theempirical situation. As we have seen, however, ideational dynamicsoperate most powerfully by shaping the ways individuals and organ-izations interpret their interests, providing the categories and mean-ings through which all social actors understand policy problems andactivities, and becoming institutionalized in the practices, rules, andauthority structures that pattern much of policy development.


The study of culture, ideas, and discourses as important to policydevelopment, then, is not fundamentally about de-legitimatingcausal arguments that came before; it is about filling gaps in ourunderstanding of policy making by understanding the interdepen-dence of ideational and other types of processes. Approaching policymaking as shaped by interdependent sets of material and ideationalcausal forces involves sacrificing a degree of parsimony, but recog-nizing interdependence more than compensates for the increasedcomplexity it introduces by more accurately reflecting policy devel-opment processes (Adams 1999; Lieberman 2002; Somers 1998).

Anne Kane’s (1991) recommendation that we attend to cultureboth analytically and concretely offers a useful guide here.Establishing the analytic importance of culture involves identifyingthe cultural categories, political ideas, and discourses at play in aparticular context, and verifying that these ideational factors shapehow social actors think about policy action, are embodied in pre-existing policies and institutions, and so on. Establishing the con-crete importance of ideational factors involves systematically tracingtheir impact through the policy-making process. Careful reconstruc-tion of events and perspectives can show how actors carry specificpolitical ideas into the policy-making process (Campbell 2002) anduse them to pursue their own perceived self-interest; the moments atwhich individuals bring novel worldviews into positions of insti-tutional power and then translate their ideas into policy; the wayseffective framing facilitates the formation of new political coalitionsthat advocate for change; how the universe of political discoursefacilitates the development of some policy alternatives while render-ing others nonsensical early in the process, and so on.

The Multiplicity of Discourses

Policy-relevant ideas are not isolated entities that exist only in therealm of policy makers’ deliberations. On the contrary, specificideas, proposals, and practices are instantiations of broader dis-courses that draw on underlying elements of cultural meaning todefine and delimit the lines along which actors think, speak, and actin the policy arena. Furthermore, these sense-making political dis-courses are never singular entities, but instead co-exist with others inthe same time and place; constrain one another; and advance andrecede from prominence as reflections and operations of socialpower. The existence of multiple contemporaneously circulating dis-courses is affirmed by their competition; opposing arguments requiresocial actors to draw on contradictory cultural material (or combineelements of meaning in contradictory ways), so there could be noideological conflict in a policy arena dominated by a unitary,

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monolithic discourse. Of the multiple discourses circulating in agiven context, some constitute differences in perspective containedwithin the prevailing universe of political discourse, while othersexist outside of that universe—competing with or marginalized by it.Individual signs and the discourses that connect them are definednot as positive and isolated terms, but solely through their contrastsand distinctions from other signs and discourses (Saussure 1959). Itis through such relationships of meaning that the multiple discoursesin a policy field help make sense of one another (Foucault 1972). A“workfare” discourse—of government help contingent on paidemployment or work-like activities—makes sense in large partbecause it exists as a counter position to “welfare”—constituted asrelatively permanent and undeserving dependence on the state(Fraser and Gordon 1994). Maternalism, too, made sense in its his-torical context because it existed in the same discursive universe asdiscourses about patriarchal fatherhood as the basis of social welfare(Adams and Padamsee 2001). Both workfare/welfare and maternal-ism/patriarchal fatherhood discursive contrasts in turn rely on theirassociation with the deeply embedded cultural binary of male/female, which organizes other meanings having to do with working,caring, virtue, vice, power, and more (Scott 1988b).

This concept of multiple circulating discourses as an importantcomponent of the policy-making process has roots in existing litera-ture. Elisabeth Clemens (2005) calls attention to multiplicity as anemerging theme in political and historical sociology in general,where it introduces new ways to think about agency, social change,and the institutional and ideational embeddedness of events andpolitics (see also Somers and Block 2005). Speaking more specifi-cally about policy development, Lieberman (2002) suggests that wemove away from a constant emphasis on order and regularitytoward attention to the variety of institutional and ideational pat-terns in which any given episode is situated. Political arrangementsare products of debate and compromise that rarely remove all theelements of their predecessors; it therefore makes more sense topresume multiplicity and friction than coherence and order asthemes of political life. Stuart Hall points out that it is more accu-rate to refer to “cultures” than to the “culture” of any society, sincemeanings and values vary with class, race, ethnicity, gender, and soon. Political thought and conversation can thus draw on a range ofways to organize meaning elements, creating the potential for com-peting discourses relevant to the same issues (Hall 1994; Steinmetz1999).

Framing processes – strategic deployments of certain ideas fromamongst a range of options – effectively illustrate the relevance of


discursive multiplicity. For instance, many contemporary frames relyon a neoliberal ideology, but there are other ideologies in dialoguewith neoliberalism in the same contexts (think, for example, of theUS debate over whether health care reform should be market-based,publicly financed, or universalistic; or Jenson’s piece in this volume,which highlights ideas of social investment that have arisen in con-testation with neo-liberalism). Framing projects involve competitionfor discursive dominance; they rely upon the existence of multiplepotential relationships of meaning through which to tell policystories. Framers can propose alternatives to current policies onlybecause there are competing discourses to draw on within andoutside the current universe of political discourse. In many cases, itis the very distinctiveness of a chosen frame from a more prominentpolitical discourse that makes it effective, as illustrated by Somersand Block’s (2005) study of how proponents of market-drivenwelfare successfully mobilized a “perversity thesis” in order to over-come prior discourses of poverty. (See also Stryker and Wald’s dis-cussion of the 1990s Republican redefinition of compassion insupport of US welfare reform efforts in this issue).

Within a field of circulating discourses, some are relativelyempowered and others are relatively disempowered. The empoweredsubset of a given time and place constitutes that context’s universeof political discourse; other discourses exist, but fall outside thelimits of comprehensible political decision making (Jenson 1987).Certain discourses are empowered by virtue of being institutiona-lized; current policies embody the “winners” of past ideational con-flicts and reflect these discourses in the image of ongoing practices(see, e.g., Clemens 1997). Discourses are also empowered throughstructures of authority; the bureaucrats, administrators, experts, andothers with authority over policy development are those steeped inthe worldview of the empowered discourses (Baumgartner and Jones1993; Orloff 1999). And discourses may be empowered through thelanguage of policy making—perceptions and discussions of pro-blems, alternatives, and even assessments of policy success or failureare grounded in cognitive and normative assumptions derived fromempowered discourses (Hall 1993). At any given point then, certainmeaning structures are privileged over others as a result of specifichistorical and social processes.

Nancy Fraser (1989) articulates just such an exploration of mul-tiple and competing discourses in her influential discussion of con-temporary welfare politics and the contested “politics of needsinterpretation.” Reprivatization discourses seek to re-locate responsi-bility for meeting people’s needs back into the family or theeconomy; social movements use oppositional discourses to advocate

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for the state to meet needs; and expert discourses may depoliticizeconflicts over needs by replacing argument with regulation. Otheranalysts have extended the notion of a politics of needs interpret-ation to consider other discursive contests, such as whether or not“mothers” are a recognized category for claiming social provision(Haney 2002). Needs discourses and the contests between them areintertwined both with the gendered categories and assumptionsfoundational to contemporary politics and with other discursivestructures that shape welfare politics, such as the dependency/auton-omy dichotomy (Fraser and Gordon 1994; Haney 1997; Padamseeand Adams 2002).

The understanding that a given policy-making context includes arange of co-existing but unequally situated discourses helps explainboth the reproduction of existing patterns and the transition to newones. Most of the time, articulated policy alternatives (as well asautomatic policy making that occurs without public debate) drawfrom the universe of empowered discourses. In her discussion of thepolitical claims feminists might make, for instance, Linda Zerilli(2005) notes just such limitations on the arguments that can bemade within an existing discursive universe:

Demands for new rights have to be articulated in a politicallanguage whose terms the disenfranchised do not set. . . . Thusthe act of persuading members of the community to accept anew right must appeal to the current sense of who the commu-nity is and thus its values. This means that the potentiallyradical character of some new demands will be attenuated bythe values that exist and . . . that some demands will never getheard at all, save as legitimate extensions of what exists (Zerilli2005, 175–6).

Disempowered discourses, in contrast, are unable to exert mucheffect on policy: they are not institutionalized, tend to be margina-lized in the worldviews of powerful actors, and are relatively absentfrom the language of policy making. Implementing a policy that res-onates with a less empowered discourse requires a change in—orexpansion of—the universe of political discourse. The impact of par-ticular discourses on policy making, then, can be formative or negli-gible, depending on their relative empowerment, the degree to whichthey resonate with various political actors, the competing discoursesthat seek to dislodge them, and the ways they interact and are inter-dependent with nondiscursive factors.

The work of other feminist and cultural theorists further suggeststhe importance of naturalization and institutionalization for under-standing the relative empowerment of discourses. Butler (1990,


1997) explores how social operations of power actively construct thecategories of social reality and individual identity we routinely takefor granted (such as “woman” and “man”), excluding other possible(and lived) meanings in order to make these categories appear coher-ent, natural, and fundamental to political thought and activity.Examining the processes through which social structures come toseem stable, Bourdieu (1999) similarly views institutionalization asthe means by which cultural meaning and hierarchical categoriesmove from the realm of debate to having “all the appearances of thenatural (56–7, emphasis in original).” Fraser (1989) views socialstructures as “institutionalized patterns of interpretation,” throughwhich certain meanings attain temporary stabilization and relativehegemony. Other discourses do exist in this view, but they are dis-empowered; Fraser therefore argues that contestation among dis-courses is a positive process, offering the potential to destabilizeexisting patterns and create more emancipatory ones.

The concept of discourse empowerment thus helps us understandhow paradigms constrain policy makers’ perceptions of theiroptions. It is difficult to pursue policies that break from the para-digm not because alternate discourses do not exist, but because theyare so disempowered in the political field that they are difficult toaccess. Their hegemonic aspect means policy makers with the mostopportunity to articulate policy ideas are those with worldviews thatclosely mirror the current universe of political discourse. In addition,the institutionalization of policy programs that reflect the dominantparadigm makes it easiest to articulate new solutions that are rela-tively minor variations from the old ones. A universe of political dis-course, then, is not only about what we are able to understand, orthe conditions of comprehensibility, but also about the power todetermine which ideas can be expressed, empowered, andinstitutionalized.

Discursive Processes of Policy Change

Clemens contends that the accomplishment of “relatively durableinstitutional configurations . . . [is] understood in terms of the contex-tually shaped lines of action that are culturally available to actorswho are themselves culturally constituted (2005, 515).” The mostimportant aspect of the multiplicity concept, however, is that it setsthe stage for understanding policy change—a critical motivationbehind the emergence of ideational scholarship. Even in stablemoments, cultural meaning is ordered but not fully coherent—embodying contradictions and actively suppressing alternatives thatoffer ever-present resources for potential change (Clemens 2005;Foucault 1978; Lieberman 2002; Skrentny 2002). Circulating

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discourses, then, are not permanently empowered or disempowered;stabilizations of meaning present in a snapshot of the universe ofpolitical discourse are temporary and contingent (Laclau andMouffe 1985). If the cultural field relevant to a particular topic werebare except for the prevailing discourse, policy actors would beunable to conceive, articulate, or advocate alternatives that differedsubstantially from present policy. The multiplicity of culturalelements in that field, however, offers actors new discourses to drawon, resurrect, recombine, or reconstitute in order to generate andargue for novel policy ideas. Any existing universe of political dis-course tends to reproduce similar policy choices, so fundamentalchange is untenable within its confines. But the availability of mul-tiple, differently situated discourses in the cultural milieu allowssocial actors to do the political work to destabilize a given constella-tion of meanings, empower a new set of discourses, and substantiallyalter the universe of political discourse in order to facilitatelarge-scale policy change. Feminist scholarship documenting recenttransformations in welfare policy help illustrate this concept of theexistence of discursive multiplicity, for example in policy changes toaddress new challenges to work and family life in which gendersameness and the gender-neutral citizen-worker as discursive cat-egories now compete with older, more institutionalized, discoursesemphasizing gender difference and women as caregivers (Mahon2006; Orloff 1999; Knijn and Smit 2009, this issue).

Shifting multiplicity and discursive change to center stage raisesnew questions to which contemporary scholars are just beginning tooffer answers: When does discursive change happen? How do thesetransitions unfold? And which discourses rise to prominence in thesemoments? One answer to the question of when ideational transitionsoccur is that crisis conditions bring competing discourses into directconflict, opening the possibility of a shift in the prevailing politicaldiscourse. These crises can result suddenly from specific events—such as the collapse of communism or a recession (see, e.g., Gal andKligman 2000; Jenson 2004; McNamara 1998)—or build moregradually through a series of political attacks on existing policies—such as ongoing charges that public assistance programs fail to solve(or even perpetuate) poverty and should thus be replaced withmarket-driven ones (Somers and Block 2005; Stryker and Wald2009, this issue). Either rapidly or slowly, then, the discourses andbeliefs that structure existing solutions are delegitimated, makingroom for others to take their place as the dominant lenses throughwhich policy is seen. Other analysts point to ongoing frictions andsocial changes to mark the conditions under which discursivechange occurs. Hall (1993) sees the origins of paradigm shifts in


unusual political economic problems that policy makers cannotsolve without stretching the prevailing paradigm to the point ofincoherence and instability. Jenson (1987) argues that the universeof political discourse shifts when social change has altered the pat-terns on which it was founded, traditional policy actors fail to adapttheir discourse to new situations, and challenges are extensive andpluralistic. Lieberman (2002) argues that change occurs when thereis friction between dueling sets of political ideas or between prevail-ing ideas and the institutions meant to embody them.

Once these types of instability have opened the window for dis-cursive change, how does it actually occur? The ability to invokemeanings that have been marginalized or dormant, and to reconfi-gure their relationships, rests on the agency of the various socialactors who participate in policy-making processes. As Sewell argues,agency is not constituted in opposition to structure, but as “constitu-ent of it (1992, 20).” “Rather than agency understood simply as theabsence of constraint, this line of theorizing appreciates agency asconstituted through institutional embeddings (Clemens 2005, 503),”and—to use a term from Somers and Block (2005)—ideationalembeddings as well. The multiplicity of cultural meanings, politicaldiscourses, social practices, and individual identities present in agiven context offers agents a variety of ways to interpret problems,articulate solutions, and advocate for programs. By transposing cul-tural schemas to novel situations and utilizing their resources in crea-tive ways, agents re-make already-existing elements into the newdiscursive arguments that transform the universe of political dis-course (Butler 1990). This creative process has multiple possible out-comes, including lack of change—if previously dominant discoursesretain their position.

When transformations of meaning do occur, they often resultfrom the purposive actions of meaning entrepreneurs. Politicalactors create new discourses by emphasizing certain relationshipsamong meanings over others, defining who is deserving of help andwhat kinds of social provision make sense (Padamsee and Adams2002). These actors can be individuals or interest groups, but theycan also exist at much larger scales, as Rianne Mahon (2006) showsin her study of the Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) as an entrepreneur of meanings relevant tothe work/family reconciliation agenda. The effectiveness of meaningentrepreneurs depends on the degree to which their ideas achievepolitical resonance, which rests in turn on their own ability to gain awide and sustained hearing of the discourse they champion (Berman2001; Cohen and Hanagan 1991; Snow and Benford 1988), thedegree to which the new discourse draws on elements of cultural

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meaning important to their audience (Ferree 2003), and the resist-ance they encounter from competing discourses. The role ofmeaning entrepreneurs is closely linked to the transitions of auth-ority and policy-making power that accompany substantial shifts inthe universe of political discourse. When an incumbent paradigm isfaced with crises it cannot solve, or when public confidence in a par-ticular way of articulating and addressing a problem disintegrates,groups previously external to the policy-making process can helpgenerate alternatives. This association between changes in who canmake policy and alterations in the discursive universe is so strongthat politicians often seek to build support in large part by trying tochange the political discourse of the day (Baumgartner and Jones1993; Hall 1993).

Finally, we must ask which discourses “win”: which of the com-peting discourses will emerge dominant from a moment of flux, andhow will the universe of political discourse look afterward?2 Somersand Block (2005) have offered one relevant starting point: ideaswith the power to undermine and dislodge previously powerful onesare those which possess “epistemic privilege,” composed of aninternal logic that demonstrates why dominant ideas fail to solve aproblem, explains why intelligent people could have been misled bythem, and provides an alternative view of reality through a morecompelling narrative.

These processes of discursive change can be further illustratedthrough a gendered re-reading of Skocpol’s (1996) account of theClinton administration’s failed attempt to bring universal healthinsurance to the United States. This policy window opened becauseof a widespread public understanding of the US health care systemas in serious crisis, with a significant portion of the population unin-sured and costs spiraling out of control. With Hillary Clinton at thehelm of the reform initiative, the administration undertook a carefulprocess of designing a system that would control costs, cover all citi-zens, maintain the private health insurance market, and gain thesupport of the widest possible range of stakeholders. Nevertheless,the effort ultimately failed—not only taking health care reform offthe policy agenda for the next fifteen years but also ushering in abacklash against the Democratic party and successful neoliberalattacks on social programs. Skocpol tells this as a story about insti-tutional actors and organizational failure, but it is also fundamen-tally about a contest of ideas. The fact that Democrats lacked theorganizational capacity to sell the Clinton program to legislators orthe public meant that they lost the battle to control the circulationof ideas, and to alter the universe of political discourse in the necess-ary ways. The discourse that dominated US understandings of health


insurance at the start of the debate—that it is most appropriatelyhandled through private, market mechanisms—thus remainedempowered afterward. The perceived crisis had opened a window ofpossibility in which alternate discourses about public responsibilityfor health care and government capacity to better handle the issueemerged, but these competitors failed to take hold, emerging discre-dited instead of empowered enough to facilitate the institutionalreforms the administration advocated.

This episode also exemplifies the involvement of gendered dis-courses in a wide range of social policy debates, including many thatdo not at first seem to be about gender at all. Skocpol explains thatalthough President Clinton’s decision to put his wife in charge of thereform effort originally signaled his personal commitment and put acompassionate face on the issue, she was ultimately demonized asdomineering, arrogant, and manipulative, and scapegoated asresponsible for the initiative’s failure and the resulting backlash.I would argue that this story can shed more light on the use of gen-dered meanings in discursive contests. Opponents of “Hillarycare”invoked negative cultural discourses about educated, assertive, andcareer women not only to attack Hillary Rodham Clinton as a keyfigure in the debate, but also to create meaning about the reformproposals themselves. Health Security was a complicated and foreignidea to US politicians and citizens, and both proponents andopponents needed to give it meaning in order to advance their argu-ments. Since meaning is ultimately relational, this involved creatingassociative links between the proposal and existing categories ofmeaning, and gendered categories and schemas offered deeplyembedded cultural resources. Whether purposefully or not, PresidentClinton’s choice to link “Hillary” with the reform effort suggestedpositive gendered associations that made it appear more approach-able, caring, and nonthreatening. When opponents mounted theirfull ideological attack, however, they invoked more negative culturaldiscourses about dominating, uppity career women and emasculatedhusbands to cast Health Security as a totally unreasonable,irrational, and nonsensical plan. Conservatives did not merely ridi-cule the first lady to disempower her, as Skocpol describes, they didso as part of a successful bid to create dramatically negative associa-tional meanings for the reform proposal itself. Culturally availablegendered meanings thus helped prevent the transformation of theuniverse of political discourse around US health care, and therebycontributed to the defeat of the policy initiative and the furtherempowerment of a conservative social agenda.

Finally, the notion of discursive multiplicity and its implicationsfor policy change also complements current research on the

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institutional engines of institutional change, which is moving onfrom so-called “punctuated equilibrium” models. Scholars such asClemens, Lieberman, Wolfgang Streeck, and Kathleen Thelen haveargued that major institutional transformations can result fromgradual, incremental, and endogenous processes of change and thatsuch transformations are often outgrowths of multiple contradictoryelements existing within an institutional and ideational space, andthe ways these frictions play out over time. Streeck and Thelen(2005) do not initially appear sympathetic to ideational factors; yettheir understanding of institutions begins with the recognition “thatthere is always a gap between the ideal pattern of a rule and the realpattern of life under it (2005, 14, emphasis in original).” Because ofthis gap, they argue, transformative change can result from anaccumulation of gradual, incremental changes in the real process ofimplementing and/or enforcing formal institutional rules. Whathappens in the gap between formal structures and lived practices,however, calls out for ideational analysis. Endogenous institutionalshifts also implicate constitutive discursive dynamics, becauseinsofar as political actors have motives, make choices, and act onbehalf of their interests, they must also discern and interpret thesethrough the meanings and political discourses available to them.

Conclusion

Building on existing scholarship on the roles of culture, ideas, anddiscourse in policy development, this discussion has articulated fourcrucial steps we must take in order to extend and deepen our under-standing of social policy formation. By considering connectionsamong and between cultural and material dynamics, we canre-contextualize the insights of the “cultural turn” in policy studiesin the broader questions that originally motivated scholars in thefield: Why do social policy decisions take the forms they do, andhow can we explain policy variation across contexts and changeover time?

Various strands of feminist scholarship have pointed the waytoward these connections, by demonstrating that gendered cat-egories, dynamics, and discourses constrain the impact of insti-tutional leadership on policy (interaction); help constitutenonideational causal factors including interests, “exogenous” shocksto the policy system, and existing institutions (interdependence);compete with one another and take temporarily stabilized, empow-ered, and disempowered forms (multiplicity); and transform overtime as well as contribute to alterations in the universe of politicaldiscourse that are not directly related to gender (discursive change).


Approaching meaning as fundamentally relational and contrastiveunderlies these insights: gendered (and other) meanings spill into allsocial policy endeavors by structuring the way social actors makesense of policy problems and potential solutions, and offer con-stantly available cultural resources through which they articulatepolicy ideas and attach positive or negative valences to them.

Advancing our understanding of social policy formation requiresthat we strengthen conversations across individual areas of inquiry.Ideational scholars have demonstrated that culture profoundly influ-ences social policy, just as institutionalists, rational-choice scholars,and analysts of gender and race have provided other compellingpieces of the picture. Shifting our focus from articulating individuallines of causal force to examining the connections between thempromises to propel analyses of social policy in challenging, integra-tive directions. As we move toward a comprehensive picture ofpolicy making that includes both ideational and material factors, wemust keep two critical insights in mind. First, it is not enough toexamine these dynamics side by side, or even in interaction; causalstories that account fully for policy development must includecareful analyses of the ways ideational and nonideational dynamicsare fundamentally interdependent. Second, we must recognize thatspecific discourses we see prominently operating at certain times andplaces are not the only ones present in those contexts; they existwithin a multiplicity of circulating and competing discourses, andthe relative empowerment and disempowerment of these discoursesis key to our understanding of how and why social policy changes.

NOTES

Department of Sociology, Ohio State University; Tel: þ1 614-247-1974;Email: [email protected].

The author wishes to thank Julia Adams, Daniel Beland, Kelly Garrett,Ann Orloff, Bruno Palier, Chavella Pittman, and the anonymous reviewersfor their insightful comments on prior drafts of this paper; and JuliaAdams, Joya Misra, and Ann Orloff for stimulating early discussions aboutthe thoughts developed here.

1. Some scholars seek to understand policy change through endogenouspolitical processes without attention to ideational factors (see e.g., Streekand Thelen 2005; for a relevant critique see Beland 2007a). Lieberman(2002) also notes that analyses influenced by culture and ideas are no moreguaranteed to explain change than institutional accounts are; some idea-tional accounts merely chronicle shifts between ideational equilibria.

2. A similar question is posed by research on framing contests—see e.g.Zald 1996.

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JANE JENSON

Lost in Translation: The SocialInvestment Perspective andGender Equality

Abstract

The social investment perspective is replacing standardneoliberalism in Latin America as well as Europe. With it comeideas about social citizenship that reconfigure the citizenshipregimes of the three regions. The responsibility mix is equilibratedto give a greater role for the state, although as investor rather thanspender; access to citizenship rights shifts to incorporate theexcluded and marginalized; and governance practices alter toemphasize decentralization to the local and the community. Themain idea of the social investment perspective is that the futuremust be assured by investing in children and ending the interge-nerational transmission of disadvantage. With this set of child-centered policy ideas, the equality claims of adult women andattention to their needs are sidelined in favor of those of children,including girls.

In the mid-1990s neoliberalism was being challenged byalternative ideas about economic and social relations. As politicalspace for new perspectives widened, the discourse and practices ofinternational as well national and sub-national social policymakersbegan to cohere around new ideas about social politics.

Winter 2009 Pages 446–483 doi:10.1093/sp/jxp019# The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions,please e-mail: [email protected] Access publication November 12, 2009

Summarizing the direction of change, Bruno Palier wrote of an idea-tional revolution that would “replace traditional and static socialpolicies, ones that aim to repair the most difficult situations orreplace lost income, with a dynamic vision that takes into accountindividual trajectories, the risks of the knowledge economy, and theemergence of new inequalities across genders, the generations, andsocial groups in post-industrial economies . . . . In other words, thisinvolves going from a welfare state that is a ‘nurse’ to one that is an‘investor’” (Palier 2008: 5–6, our translation).

The notion of “investment” and particularly “social investment”underpins this policy perspective.1 We will argue here—as elsewhere(Jenson and Saint-Martin 2006; Jenson 2008; forthcoming)—thatthere is convergence around the key objectives of a social investmentcitizenship regime in ways that are comparable to the consensus thatoccurred in the post-1945 years.2 This is happening in both Europeand Latin America, again just as after 1945.3 Then, systems of socialprotection in Europe and the Americas were grounded in the sharedobjective of providing a measure of social security via health, pensions,unemployment, and other programmes to the worker and his family ina primarily industrial economy.4 Social citizenship regimes that rely onthe social investment perspective are intended to sustain a differenteconomy—the knowledge-based and service economy (Palier 2008:8–9). The announced goals are to increase social inclusion and mini-mize the intergenerational transfer of poverty as well as to ensure thatthe population is well prepared for the likely employment conditions(less job security; more precarious forms of employment) of contem-porary economies. Doing so will allow individuals and families tomaintain responsibility for their well-being with market incomes andintra-family exchanges, as well as lessening the threats to social protec-tion coming from ageing societies and higher dependency ratios.

Not all jurisdictions in Europe and Latin America have embracedthe ideas of social investment at exactly the same time or with the sameenthusiasm, of course.5 Nor is social investment the only strategy onoffer for modernizing social policy (Knijn, this volume). Nonetheless,over the past 15 years there has been convergence around a package ofideas about modernization, social inclusion, and social investment thathave reworked policy positions of both post-1945 social protectionsystems and those of neoliberalism (Jenson and Saint-Martin 2003,2006). These notions call neither for a return to the practices ofpost-1945 social policy nor for a complete rejection of neo-liberalism.6

Ideas about how to reform “traditional” social protection co-exist withthose for constraining the forces of market fundamentalism to form thesocial investment perspective, as Part I of the article documents. Thisconvergence in ideas is presented via an examination of three

Lost in Translation V 447

dimensions of social citizenship that in combination form a new citi-zenship regime. The first task of the article is to document this shift oneach dimension of the regimes in two regions, Europe and LatinAmerica.

One of the innovations of the social investment perspective is thatideas about gender differences and circumstances as well as theunequal gendering effects of employment and family life are front andcenter in this policy discourse. Gender awareness is a distinguishingfeature (Molyneux 2006). Attention to the situation of women and togender relations in families distinguishes the social investment perspec-tive from previous policy discourses. During the so-called Golden Ageafter 1945 welfare regimes had clear gendering effects that followed asa direct consequence of relying on the male breadwinner as citizenshipnorm (Hernes 1988: 190). Latin American welfare regimes were nevergender-blind, either: “Built into the earliest forms of social provisionwere assumptions of female dependency on a male breadwinner whichpositioned women as under the protection of ‘their’ men, whether hus-bands or fathers” (Molyneux 2006: 427).

Now, it is common for male policy intellectuals and policy com-munities to begin their analysis by asserting the collapse of thatnorm.7 They explicitly anchor their analysis with considerations ofthe distribution of care work (for the dependent elderly as well chil-dren) at the same time as they promote increased rates of femalelabor force participation.8 The latter focus more often than not alsoincludes attention to the need for better regulation of forms ofemployment (service sector, part-time), in part because they are themost feminized sectors of most labor markets.9

This gender awareness follows from political mobilization, ofcourse. The orienting effects of the male breadwinner model werequite invisible to policy-makers until feminist critiques pointed it out.These critiques bloomed as part of post-1960s women’s movementsthat were organized around claims for gender equality at home aswell as at work, in politics as well as the economy, and in all formsof power relations. Movements at the national and internationallevels pressed their claims for equality of outcomes as well as againstdiscrimination and for full citizenship rights. In a global review ofsecond-wave women’s movements and the issues around which theymobilized, Nelson and Chowdhury (1994: 10ff.) identified three keytypes of demands. Alongside those for safety and security and thosefor reproductive rights and health were equality claims. This thirdtype of demands (Nelson and Chowdhury 1994: 13):

represent attempts to improve women’s access to existing edu-cation, employment, healthcare, credit and other resource

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opportunities and ultimately to make those resources moreresponsive to women’s needs . . . . In their demands for greateraccess to and substantive equality in the distribution ofresources, women are posing a fundamental question of distri-butive justice: Can a society have equality, even equality ofopportunity, without a social commitment to distributivejustice that understands the sex-gender organization of life?

The second task of the article, undertaken in Part II, is to addressthe following questions: does the social investment perspective offeran approach to gender relations that responds to women’s equalityclaims and ambitions for full citizenship rights? Does its genderawareness translate into the egalitarianism many feminists haveadvocated since the 1960s? Do the child-centered and human capitalfoci of the social investment strategy reinforce an agenda for genderequality, as some policy intellectuals assume?

In asking these questions this article starts from the assumption that“ideas matter.”10 Actors in public policy domains make choices aboutpolicy design based on their understandings of the challenges and pro-blems they face. For example, where one policy-maker sees the “struc-tural effects of long-term disadvantage” another may see “laziness.”Where one advocacy group or social movement sees “child poverty”another may see “the feminisation of poverty.” There is representationalcontent to any action on the part of policy-makers and citizens, and rep-resentation involves “the power to give meaning to social relations andthereby to represent and dispute over ‘interests’” (Jenson 1990: 663).11

It is therefore important to analyze the idea sets in political dis-course, not because they “cause” anything independently of actors’interests, but because they always give shape to actors’ representationsof their interests inside institutions and political struggles (Jenson1989: 237–38). This analytic position rejects, in other words, thecurrent analytic propensity to weigh the “effects” of ideas as comparedto material interests, or ideas in comparison to institutions and inter-ests.12 As Max Weber taught us almost a century ago, and as feminists,historical institutionalists, and many others have documented since:“Not ideas, but material interests, directly govern men’s conduct. Yetvery frequently the ‘world images’ that have been created by ‘ideas’have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action hasbeen pushed by the dynamic of interest” (Weber 1946: 280).

From Social Protection to Social Investment: ReconfiguringCitizenship Regimes

The social investment perspective represents an approach to socialcitizenship different from the social protection logic of the three


decades after 1945 as well as the safety-net stance of neoliberals.13

One key ideational shift involves ideas about time. In the threedecades of the postwar boom, the here-and-now was the mostimportant moment in time. Inequalities, inequities, and challenges inthe present were to be addressed in the present, by for example,reducing poverty by means of transfers. During its heyday in the1980s, neoliberalism shifted the time horizon towards the future.Where neo-liberalism was well implanted—particularly in liberalwelfare regimes and some international organizations—a key notionwas that social policy in the present would have an impact on thefuture. Usually this impact was seen as a negative one, perpetuating“dependency” and raising public debt that would “burden futuregenerations.” The social investment perspective also looks to thefuture but in a somewhat different way. In contrast to neoliberalismthat focused on restoring market forces “displaced” by socialspending, in the social investment perspective the state may have alegitimate role if it acts to increase the probability of future profitsand positive outcomes. This objective-setting in future terms isexemplified by the overriding concentration, now shared by policycommunities in Europe and Latin America, on breaking the interge-nerational cycle of poverty and disadvantage rather than on endingpoverty (Esping-Andersen et al. 2002: 22; ECLAC 2007: Chapter V,for example). It is also seen in a reframing of the fears about thechallenge of ageing societies, with the proposal “to support familieswith children as an investment in the future tax base” in order toprepare for higher costs of future pensions (Lindh, Malmberg, andPalme 2005: 482).

These differences in the notion of time underpin the two lists ofvalues provided in Box 1. The first column is a summary by RobertGoodin et al. (1999: 22) of the “six moral values which welfarestates have traditionally been supposed to serve,” with “tradition-ally” meaning since 1945. The second column is the list provided bythe British Labour Party’s Commission on Social Justice, whosereport in 1994 was one of the signs that the social investment per-spective was taking shape (Dobrowolsky and Jenson 2005: 207).The differences are important if subtle, being more ones of verbuse—and therefore timing—than of end goals. See for example thedifferent ways of presenting an anti-poverty goal: one list promisesto reduce poverty where it occurs, while the other seeks to preventit, only promising relief when absolutely necessary. Note also theconcern with the life-cycle present in the second list but absent fromthe first. Finally the “traditional” list promises to promote equality;the second does not mention it.

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Box 1. Social Values Compared.

Moral values traditionally associated

with the post-1945 welfare statea

Values identified for a social investment

welfare systemb

Promoting economic efficiency Protect people against risks in the labor

market and from family change

Reducing poverty Prevent poverty where possible and

relieve it where necessary

Promoting social equality Redistribute resources from richer to

poorer members of society

Promoting social integration and

avoiding social exclusion

Redistribute resources of time and

money over people’s life-cycle

Promoting social stability Promote social cohesion

Promoting autonomy Encourage personal independence

aList compiled by Goodin et al. (1999: 22).bList compiled by the British Labour Party’s Commission on Social Justice (Goodinet al. 1999: 22).

The ideas underpinning the social investment perspective shapespending strategies. As the 2007 Peruvian anti-poverty law put it:“we have to move from a vision based on social spending to onebased on social investment.”14 The final communique of the OECDsocial ministers in 2005 was just as blunt: “social policies must bepro-active, stressing investment in people’s capabilities and therealisation of their potential, not merely insuring against misfor-tune” (quoted in Jenson 2007: 27). For public outlays to be effectiveand therefore worthwhile they must not simply be consumed in thepresent to meet current needs; they should be an investment that willpay off and reap rewards in the future.

Ideas about time also shape policy instruments. Statistical toolssuch as those informed by life-course perspectives are favored overcross-sectional measures of the here-and-now, precisely because theyreveal long-term consequences of critical life transitions (Palier2008: 12; Lindh, Malmberg, and Palme 2005: 476). As the BelgianMinister for Social Affairs and Pensions, Frank Vandenbroucke, suc-cinctly put it: “The life course perspective is also highly relevantfrom a practical policy point of view. Indeed we should firmly keepin mind that good pension policies – like good health policies –begin at birth” (Esping-Andersen et al. 2002: xvi). A focus on thefuture also directs policy-makers’ policy evaluations to results and tooutcome measures rather than to how much is spent by whom,which was the focus of earlier instruments for policy evaluation.


All of these shifts in ideas about time and about appropriatepolicy instruments underpin new ideas and practices about socialcitizenship. Therefore, in order to map the ideas about social citizen-ship that are promoted from within the social investment perspectiveand to compare them systematically to earlier ideas, I will use theheuristic of the citizenship regime.15 This is an analytic grid thatpermits one to make visible several intersecting dimensions of socialcitizenship:

1. basic values about the responsibility mix. These define theboundaries of state responsibilities and differentiate them fromthose of markets, of families, and of communities in the “welfarediamond.”16 The result is a definition of “how we wish toproduce welfare,” whether via purchased welfare, via the recipro-city of kin, via collective support in communities, or via collectiveand public solidarity, that is state provision and according to theprinciple of equality among citizens.

2. formal recognition of particular rights and duties (civil, pol-itical, social, and cultural; individual and collective). A citizenshipregime establishes the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion of apolitical community. In doing so, it identifies those entitled to fullcitizenship status and those who only, in effect, hold second-classstatus as well as those who are not citizens.

3. the governance arrangements of a polity. Among these, weinclude the institutional mechanisms giving access to the state, themodes of participation in civic life and public debates and thelegitimacy of specific types of claims-making.

The Responsibility Mix

Ideas about the role of the state in Europe under the influence ofKeynesianism macro-economic thinking followed from the prevailingassumption that social spending “would complement the marketeconomy: it would be an instrument of automatic countercyclicalstabilization, it would ensure an educated and healthy workforce; andit would provide the complex social infrastructure essential to anurban economy” (Banting 1987: 185; also Goodin et al. 1999: 4ff.).The family was assumed to be the major source of welfare, with theincome of the vast majority derived from employment, whether one’sown or a family member’s. The community corner of the welfarediamond was important because many social services were publiclyfunded but actually provided by organizations in the third sector andanchored in the community. For example, churches, non-profit associ-ations, and unions organized hospitals, senior residences and schools,providing many health and education services and often using public

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funds. Sometimes the partnership was quite explicit, as in some of theBismarkian welfare regimes of continental Europe, where religiousinstitutions and unions organized and ran pension funds and providedsocial services. Sometimes the partnership was very important but lessvisible, as in some liberal welfare regimes where the growth of thewelfare state also involved the expansion of nonprofit agencies usingpublic funding to provide services of all kinds.

The developmentalist state in Latin America “was born out of thesame process that generated Keynesianism and welfare states” inEurope (Draibe 2007: 241).17 However, whereas a variety of welfareregimes were found in Europe after 1945, in Latin America oneregime type predominated: “ . . . from the mid-twentieth century on,Latin American states, whether democratic or authoritarian, tendedto promote corporatist citizenship regimes. They extended socialrights (including subsidies, credit, health care, education, and thelike) and institutionalized corporatist modes of interest intermedia-tion for workers and peasants, in particular” (Yashar 1999: 80).The third sector played a role as well. Armando Barrientos(2004) labels the traditional Latin American welfare mix“conservative-informal,” indicating its reliance on social insurancein formal policy design while in operation largely dependent oninformal arrangements.

The neoliberalism of the 1980s contested this responsibility mix.While market outcomes were preferred, there was recognition of thecontribution of other parts of the diamond. State spending was criti-cized while “community” involvement was celebrated. Communitiesand organizations were called on to organize themselves to becomemore business-like and to substitute for the state in service delivery.This was often done in the name of community development (Schild2000: 276 and passim; Meyer and Rankin 2002). As Roberts andPortes (2006: 60–61) summarize the situation in the “free marketcities” of Latin America: “putting out services to NGOs enablesstates to downsize their bureaucracies, . . . that leads many NGOs tobe open to state financing, but often at the expense of losing inde-pendence and becoming administrators of state policies.”

Neoliberals popularized the diagnosis that social spending andstate intervention were in conflict with economic prosperity, andthus the state was labeled the source of the problems of manycountries. Such ideas generated neoliberals’ vision of how to reba-lance the welfare diamond. They downplayed the role of the stateand promoted “structural adjustments” that would make marketsthe distributors of well-being, families responsible for their ownopportunities, and the community sector the final safety net.


Describing neoliberals’ position on social citizenship in LatinAmerica Dagnino (2005: 2) writes:

as a part of the neoliberal agenda of reform, citizenship beganto be understood and promoted as mere individual integrationto the market. At the same time and as part of the sameprocess of structural adjustments, consolidated rights are beingprogressively withdrawn from workers throughout LatinAmerica. In a parallel development, philanthropic projectsfrom the so-called Third Sector have been expanding innumbers and scope, in an attempt to address poverty andexclusion . . .

Janet Newman et al. (2004: 204) use very similar words to describechanges that occurred in European countries under neoliberalism: “ . . .governments – in the UK, the USA and across much of WesternEurope – have attempted to shift the focus towards various forms ofco-production with other agencies and with citizens themselvesthrough partnerships, community involvement and strategies of‘responsibilisation.’”

In the last decade there has been convergence around new ideasabout the welfare diamond for social citizenship. The social invest-ment perspective does not reject the premise of either post-1945welfare regimes or neoliberalism that the market ought to be theprimary source of well-being; it too emphasizes the importance ofpaid employment and other forms of market income. But whereasneoliberals assumed that market participation was the solution, thesocial investment perspective includes a suspicion that the marketmay not be producing sufficient employment income for everyone. Acommon social investment prescription is the need to “make workpay,” not simply by making it compulsory and competitive withsocial benefit rates but also by supplementing wages, providinglow-cost services, or both.

This trust in markets gives discursive coherence to talk aboutinvestments. The social investment perspective seeks to avoid“spending,” but there is legitimacy for the idea of “investing.”Individuals and their families are called upon “to invest in their ownhuman capital,” so as to succeed in the labor market. But the majordifference between the responsibility mix in the social investmentperspective and that of neoliberalism is that the state is assignedsome responsibility for ensuring that such investments are possible.There is a basic recognition that opportunities are neither equallynor equitably distributed. It may be necessary to provide services ortransfers to ensure that children can be sent to school, to pre-school,or to the doctor, for example. Parents may not have the resources to

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do so, and therefore they will not able to “choose” to invest in theirchildren.

Two examples illustrate how the justifications for redesign of thewelfare diamond are elaborated in terms of “investments” rather than“spending.” One is early childhood education and care (ECEC). Inliberal and corporatist welfare regimes until very recently child careremained firmly in the family sector of the welfare diamond, althoughsocial democratic regimes provided public services in the name ofgender equality (Mahon 2006). In the last decade, however, andacross all regime types, putting public money into ECEC has becomethe norm, justified as an investment in children’s futures. As theOECD’s important publication Starting Strong II put it, “a centralissue for OECD governments in relation to early childhood funding isnot whether to invest, but how much and at what level” (OECD2006: 20). It then goes on to say (OECD 2006: 37):

The move towards seeing early childhood services as a publicgood has received much support in recent years from econom-ists as well from education researchers [who] suggest that theearly childhood period provides an unequalled opportunity forinvestment in human capital . . . A basic principle is that learn-ing in one life stage begets learning in the next . . . . The rate ofreturn to a dollar of investment made while a person is youngis higher than the rate of return for the same dollar made at alater age.

The Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbeanmakes virtually the same claim (ECLAC 2007: 117):

In order to promote greater educational equity in LatinAmerica, it is not enough to universalize primary education(the second of the Millennium Development Goals); it is alsonecessary to meet three further challenges concerning coverageand continuity. The first is to assure universal access of childrenaged between 3 and 6 to quality pre-school programmes whichcan contribute to their general training and, as an indirecteffect, improve education outcomes at the primary level.

In both these quotes we also see the effects of new ideas about timeand about policy instruments. There is both a notion of investingnow for future returns and that interventions are to be judged bytheir outcomes.

The instruments of “asset building” provide a second example ofthe welfare diamond being redesigned. For Keynesians and neoliberalsalike, individual and family savings were a private matter.18 Now inthe social investment perspective, asset-building involves “public and


private strategies to enable low-income persons to save and accumu-late long-term assets” (Boshara 2004: 1). Described explicitly as socialinvestments,19 the plans often target adult savers through micro-creditprogrammes, but they are also popular as tools for promoting assetsof children and young people. In the United Kingdom since 2002 theChild Trust Fund makes several payments into an account in thechild’s name (at birth and age 7), to be used when the child reachesthe age of majority.20 In Mexico, the Youngsters with Opportunitiesprogramme (Jovenes con oportunidades—part of the generalOportunidades programme) begun in 2002 provided endowmentgrants to poor students who finish secondary school and go to univer-sity (OECD 2003: 36ff).21 Such a focus on asset-building followsdirectly from a social policy discourse constructed in terms of socialinvestments, locating pay-offs in the medium and long term.22

Policy communities’ converging ideas about both ECEC andasset-building has led states to underwrite activities such as childcare and savings which for Keynesians as much as for neo-liberalswere private matters. Neoliberalism’s emphasis on individual andfamily responsibility is muted in the social investment perspective,but there is also care to avoid the so-called limits of early welfareprogrammes, such as those that might have encouraged families tochoose full-time parental child care over labor market participationor those that provided transfers for current consumption with noattention to “building capacity.”

Rights and Duties of Citizenship

Ideas about the rights of social citizenship varied across welfareregimes in the post-1945 decades, but one basic idea for manywelfare regimes was that access to citizenship rights depended onone’s own or a family member’s relationship to the formal labormarket. As the Latin American welfare states were built in the 1940smost of the peasant population was excluded from such citizenshiprights because they were not in the formal labor force (Draibe andReisco 2007: 42ff).23 In European corporatist welfare regimes accessto social rights depended on contributions to various social securityregimes. In liberal regimes many social benefits depended on therelationship to the labor market, while a nonrelationship, either ofone’s own or a family breadwinner, opened access to the pro-grammes of the social safety net.24 And, while social democraticregimes provided more universal rights, the employment nexus ofsocial policy thinking was at the center of decommodification rights(Esping-Andersen 1990).

As ideas drawn from neoliberalism assaulted the state—and there-fore the citizenship—corner of the welfare diamond, redesign of

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citizenship rights was the norm.25 Some existing social citizenshiprights were privatized.26 Perhaps the most draconian assaults were onpublic pension systems in Latin America.27 But generous public pen-sions were also a target of neoliberals in Europe.28 Ideas about socialsolidarity also shifted as poverty and social exclusion were foregrounded and attention to the rights of the so-called mainstreamfaded. In Chile under the dictatorship for example (Schild 2000: 282):

The neo-liberal modernizations introduced a significant shift indiscourses of social policy. Accordingly, social spending was toreach the truly needy and not ‘special interest groups’ such asorganized labour and organized middle-class professionals andpublic servants. Thus, although social assistance spending wasnot eliminated altogether, it became highly targeted to groupsdeemed most vulnerable, the poorest sectors, and mothers withinfants.

Similar notions of a divided society, with social policy attentionfocused on the margins and the risk of “social exclusion” wereincreasingly popular not only in neoliberal Britain but also in Franceand at the level of the European Commission (Jenson 1998).29

The social investment perspective approach to citizenship oftendeploys ideas about social exclusion, including sometimes in linewith Amaryta Sen’s (2000) notion of capabilities.30 In the perspec-tive in general there is a return of the language of social citizenship,albeit not a return to post-1945 ideas. There is again willingness tosee the middle class as well as the poor as legitimate beneficiaries ofsocial policy, with an emphasis on universal programmes such asECEC and universal social benefits. In Latin America, ideas oftenturn on ensuring better coverage for those left aside by traditionalsocial protection systems, particularly in the areas of health and pen-sions (Cortes 2007: 10–11; appendices). For example, MexicoCity’s administration under the country’s largest left-wing partysince 1997 has worked on constructing a cross-class alliance(Hilgers 2008: 134). In addition, the municipal government hasdeployed many of the familiar tools of the social investment perspec-tive, focused on children and human capital. In addition to subsidiz-ing seniors’ nutrition and dramatically improving access to healthcare for the uninsured, it has subsidized micro-credits for householdproduction, children’s school supplies, scholarships for children inlone-parent families, breakfasts in public schools, compensation forrising milk prices, and scholarships for job training (Laurell 2007: 4;Hilgers 2008: 135). The justification for this targeting within a dis-course of universal social citizenship is “well-being for all; first thepoor” (Laurell 2008: 146).


In Europe, concerns about the limits of social rights, particularly inBismarkian regimes, has led to various similar programmes to “plugthe holes.” France, for example, instituted a programme of “universalhealth coverage” (Couverture maladie universelle) in 1999 as the gapbetween citizens covered by employment-related regimes and thoseoutside them became too large to sustain (Palier 2002). Across theEuropean Union, high rates of precarious work and economic restruc-turing have generated enthusiasm for “flexicurity” as a way of assur-ing some measure of income stability even when job stability is athing of the past. The European Union, for example, incorporated theprinciple of flexicurity in the updated 2008–10 Integrated Guidelinesfor Growth and Jobs and launched a traveling Mission for Flexicurityin 2008.31 Overall, there has been a revival of the idea that citizenshipinvolves social rights and not simply the duties and individual respon-sibility stressed by neo-liberals.

Another way that the social investment perspective reconfiguresthe rights dimension of a citizenship regime is by giving a “childfocus” to social rights (Jenson 2001; Esping-Andersen et al. chapter2; Jenson and Saint-Martin 2003). One expression of these ideascomes in the form of an emphasis on investments in human capital.For example, the Mexican government describing its national socialdevelopment programme, Oportunidades, called for “investing inhuman capital”: “Quality education means that educational achieve-ments translate into real access to better opportunities to make useof the benefits of that education. There will be payoffs from theinvestment in the form of increases in the basic skills of poorMexican girls, boys and youth” (Secretarıa de Desarrollo Social2003: 65).

A second expression of this focus is through the addition of newsocial programmes that target parents of young children, leavingaside adults without dependent children. Argentina’s Plan Familiashas evolved from a classic neoliberal workfare programme for unem-ployed heads of households (Plan Jefes y Jefas de HogarDesocupados)32 to one focused on children and justified in the fam-iliar language of social investment (Cortes 2007: 16). Then ministerof social affairs, Alicia Kirchner, presented the re-jigged PlanNacional de Familias por la inclusion social, which among otherthings targets lone mothers, as one advancing opportunities for chil-dren’s development. She also repeated the mantra of “not simplypassive assistance”: “This plan is a means to promote growth viaeducation; it generates future opportunities for both children andmother’s access to the labour market.”33

In the OECD world, policy responses are frequently alsoaddressed to women with young children, such as expanded ECEC

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services, parental leave, and tax packages to encourage women toenter the labour force (OECD 2006: 21). In-work benefit pro-grammes that provide incentives to low-income earners to enter andstay in the labor force have increased rapidly in popularity over thelast decade.34 Several of them are “child-tested” as well as “work-tested.”35 Examples are Britain’s Working Families Tax Credit(instituted by New Labour in 1999). Even when supplements areavailable to all adults, as is Britain’s Working Tax Credit (whichreplaced the Working Families Tax Credit), children are factoredinto calculating the benefits, with full benefits going only to familieswith children.

The third expression of this redefinition of social citizenshiprights is found in what has become an international theme of “childpoverty.” Reducing child poverty has emerged as the major socialpolicy goal in many jurisdictions. Popularized by UNICEF (UNICEF2000 for example), Britain’s New Labour government made fightingchild poverty a major theme (Dobrowolsky and Jenson 2005).In similar ways, Ireland promised to reduce the number of childrenin “consistent poverty” to below 2 percent of all children. Indeed, inan analysis of the Joint Reports on Social Inclusion issued annuallyby the European Commission and Council, “poverty in general hasbeen almost excised,” while child poverty has emerged as a “strongissue” (Daly 2008: 10). One result is that fighting child poverty isnow a highlight of the European Union’s Renewed Social Agenda,under both the heading “Children and Youth – Tomorrow’sEurope” and “Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion” (EuropeanCommission 2008: chapters 1 and 4).

In Latin America the poverty of families with children has been atarget in efforts to overcome the limits of corporatist welfare regimeswhose “truncated” design provided little coverage to much of thepopulation (Fiszbein 2004). Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) arethe preferred policy instruments, which by 2008 were being used in14 Latin American countries. All have a similar structure, being tar-geted policies that are conditional both on means-testing and therequirement to “undertake some pre-specified action” (Bastagli2008: 127 and 137). Presented in the words of their promoters (dela Briere and Rawlings 2006: 4):

They therefore hold promise for addressing the inter-generational transmission of poverty and fostering socialinclusion by explicitly targeting the poor, focusing on children,delivering transfers to women, and changing social accountabil-ity relationships between beneficiaries, service providers andgovernments. CCT programs are at the forefront of applying


new social policy theories and program administration prac-tices. They address demand-side barriers, have a synergisticfocus on investments in health, education and nutrition, andcombine short-term transfers for income support with incen-tives for long-run investments in human capital.

Promoted widely by the development policy community, major pro-grammes have been adopted in a number of countries while smallerpilots have been tried in others.36 Overall, they reflect recognitionthat spending is necessary both to overcome current poverty and to“break the intergenerational transmission of poverty” (Lindert et al.2007: 6). They are widely classified among the “pro-poor” policies.The best known and by far the largest CCT is Brazil’s BolsaFamilia.37 Experimentation with allowances for poor families beganin the 1990s, but the programme was improved and consolidated bythe administration of President Lula da Silva. Within the framing ofsocial citizenship rights set out in the 1988 Constitution and by theNational Secretary of Social Assistance (created in 1995), in 2003Lula combined four separate CCT allowances into a single cashtransfer funded by the central government and easily administeredby local authorities (Fenwick 2009: 109ff.). It combines conditional-ities that make it available only to families with children and preg-nant women and a portion that goes to anyone living in extremepoverty (Bastagli 2008: 132–33). The conditional nature of theseprogrammes has provoked criticism among defenders of social citi-zenship rights. It is important therefore to assess the ways these areimplemented. In a systematic comparison of CCT programmes inLatin America, Bastagli (2008: 134) reports, for example: “In Brazil,where the Bolsa Familia was launched in 2003, by 2007, out of atotal beneficiary population of 11.2 million households, one millionbeneficiary households received a notification from the federal gov-ernment for failure to comply to a conditionality and 11 householdswere dropped from the programme for non-compliance that sameyear.” While some CCT programmes, such as Chile’s, consume atiny amount of government spending, others, such as Brazil’s, rep-resent a major spending commitment and receive positive evalu-ations for their effect on lowering poverty and improving schooling(Fenwick 2009: 114; Bastagli 2008: 134ff.).

We observe, therefore, that with respect to rights and duties, thesecond dimension of the citizenship regime, there has also been aconvergence in policy goals across the two continents, towardsincluding the excluded. This goal has brought changes to socialcitizenship rights. Labor regulations as well as new social pro-grammes provide somewhat better coverage of rising service-sector

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employment and the consequences of “informal” work. Reform hasalso brought redesign of social policy programmes and instruments,such as supplements to the earnings of the working poor whetherin the form of in-work benefits or CCTs. Often this convergencehas been justified in terms by a child-centered analysis, and inparticular the need to break the intergenerational transmission ofdisadvantage.

Governance Arrangements and Citizenship Regimes

Most welfare regimes after 1945 and through the 1970s relied onthe ideas of the traditional Weberian state, organized around idea-tional commitments to bureaucratic hierarchies and accountabilityfor public spending. As part of the construction of postwar welfareregimes, power was centralized in the hand of the national govern-ment, including in many federal systems. This centralization was jus-tified in the name of nation-building, with the idea being that allcitizens would have access to equal services, no matter the resourcesof their local community.

Embedded in neoliberal critiques of postwar welfare regimes werearguments justifying not only the privatization of state services butalso their decentralization to another level of government.Neoliberalism brought increasing enthusiasm for involvement ingovernance by local governments and the “community,” via nongo-vernmental organizations. This is as true in Latin America as inEurope.38 In the six Latin American cities studied by Roberts andPortes (2006: 61), “ . . . reform of the state emphasize[d] managerial,technocratic competence, a trend that had begun in the 1970s and1980s . . . .” Distrustful and often denigrating of “bureaucrats,” neo-liberals argued that states should behave in more business-like waysand learn how to manage as the private sector supposedly does.They also put their trust in the “little state,” that is cities, municipalauthorities, and local groups. “The role of the state shifts from thatof ‘governing’ through direct forms of control (hierarchical govern-ance), to that of ‘governance’, in which the state must collaboratewith a wide range of actors in networks that cut across the public,private and voluntary sectors, and operate across different levels ofdecision making” (Newman et al. 2004: 204).

Proponents of the social investment perspective do not completelyreject either neoliberal ideas about governance or the suspicion ofbureaucrats and “special interests.” Indeed, the very label “socialinvestment” serves to project the image of the more business-like,market-friendly and dynamic entrepreneurial state as well as onemore responsive to local needs and concerns. As Tony Blair andGerhard Schroder put it in their 1999 Third Way manifesto:


“Modern social democrats solve problems where they can best besolved. Some problems can now only be tackled at European level:others, such as the recent financial crises, require increased inter-national co-operation. But, as a general principle, power should bedevolved to the lowest possible level” (Blair and Schroder 1999; alsoGiddens 1998 and ECLAC 2007: 119, 122, both of which empha-size the advantages of decentralization).

New Labour’s post-1997 “modernization programme,” forexample, promised more space to local areas in order to achievecommunity leadership, democratic renewal, and improved serviceperformance in relation to local needs. It promoted community con-sultation and a “joined up” multi-agency partnership approachtowards meeting local needs (Lowndes and Wilson 2001: 635).Indeed, such ideas about governance practices to engage local com-munities and NGOs are found throughout the European Union andits member states, as they reconfigure their citizenship regimes. MikeGeddes terms this the “new orthodoxy of local partnerships” andsees the instruments of governance arising directly from the socialanalysis underpinning social investment (2000: 783–84):

local partnership reflects the perceived limits of both ‘statist’forms of governance and some of the more extreme market-ledexperiments of the 1980s, as ways of addressing the ‘govern-ance crisis’ and the growing demand for more direct involve-ment of citizens and ‘communities’ . . . .

But it is not only in Europe that the neoliberals’ enthusiasm forempowering local authorities has been retained in the social invest-ment perspective. In Latin America mobilization against bothauthoritarianism and clientelism and for expanded citizenship hastightly tied citizenship rights and political participation in politicalmobilization for democratization (for an overview see Harbers2007: 39f.). Not surprisingly, then, promises to improve citizenship,local social services, and community participation have been trackedacross the region. Mexico City provides a case in point. Faced withchallenges to its neoliberal programmes, the federal governmentfinally accepted the establishment of democratic local institutions inMexico City in 1997 and the opposition left-wing party, the PRD,immediately won power. The local government instituted both thesocial reforms described above and new forms of governance.Various institutional forms have been tried, and are too numerous tooverview here (for such an overview see Harbers 2007). One recenteffort illustrates one way decentralized governance (neighborhoodassemblies) and the programme for social rights have been linked:

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When Lopez Obrador took office, . . . he integrated these assem-blies into his social program, the Programa IntegradoTerritorial de Desarrollo Social (PIT) and centralized theirorganization. There are two rounds of assemblies per year. Inthe first round the program’s priorities for the coming year arepresented and citizens are provided with information about thevarious sub-programs. The second round of assemblies takesplace at the end of the year and informs citizens how theresources of the PIT have been allocated. Turnout for theassemblies has ranged between less than 1 and just under 3percent of registered voters (Harbers 2007: 50).

In addition to consultation, a goal of the integrated programme wasto weaken bureaucratic authority by instituting a new managementsystem (Laurell 2008: 146–47).

Patterns of access to political power have also altered with chan-ging citizenship regimes. In post-1945 welfare regimes organizedinterests and associations were acceptable, indeed valued parts ofthe representational system, and this not only where corporatismwas the norm. With its critiques of “statism” and too much relianceon the public sector for the provision of well-being, neoliberalismassaulted existing relationships of representation. Unions were some-times directly undermined, especially in Latin America as rightswere removed or weakened. Other times associational power wassubjected to a “double shift” of the focus both downward towardsthe firm-level and upward toward the international.39 Neoliberalsmounted an assault on the identities of advocacy groups, labelingthem “special interests” and seeking to delegitimize their claims inthe eyes of the public (Jenson and Phillips 1996; Schild 2000: 282).Neoliberals favored forms of representation that appeared to allow“individuals” and not groups to seek representation. This vision hasconsequences for the capacity of some movements and groups tohave their claims heard and certainly to achieve any positive resultsfor their demands (Alvarez 1999).

In contrast, the social investment perspective’s focus on “thelocal” relies extensively on notions of consultation, communicationand community involvement, often with municipal authorities pro-moted as the best representatives. This new enthusiasm for the locallevel is often accompanied by enthusiasm for social capital, dis-played both within agencies concerned with development and acrossEuropean governments and Union institutions. No matter the limitsof social capital as a concept,40 its use demonstrates an appreciationof “the social” absent when neoliberals adhered to MargaretThatcher’s dictum that “there is no such thing as society.”41


Convergence Around Social Investment: Is Gender AwarenessEnough?

Part I has documented a convergence in Latin American andEuropean ideas about social citizenship, following from the adoptionand deployment of ideas about the social investment perspective. Theresult is that all three dimensions of the citizenship regime are beingreconfigured. In this convergence, some policy instruments are quitesimilar across the two regions, such as those promoting humancapital acquisition, programmes for asset-building and credit, part-nerships with NGOs, and local and community-based delivery. Thecommon roots in ideas about modifying the supply-side of the laborforce are obvious. Other instruments are less similar. In-workbenefits to fight child poverty as well as services to support parentalemployment have been preferred in Europe while Latin America hasinnovated with CCTs that provide incentives to mothers to send theirchildren to school and for health check-ups. Despite these differencesin instrument choice, however, two policy objectives inform actionon both continents: using “investments” to break the intergenera-tional transfer of poverty so as to improve future outcomes anddesigning programmes to decrease social exclusion (especially non-participation in the labor market), because of both the current andlong-term consequences of poverty for children.

There are several possible ways to assess this convergence. Onethat is popular among male social policy experts and the develop-ment community alike is that there is finally recognition of women’scentral contribution to the achievement of good societal outcomes.For example, one of the best-known proponents of the social invest-ment perspective, Gøsta Esping-Andersen, advocates a “new gendercontract” to underpin a new welfare state and support a child-centered social investment strategy. He bases his policy stance on therecognition that high rates of female labor force participation arenecessary for the sustainability of the new political economy(Esping-Andersen et al. 2002: chapters 3 and 2). The desired highparticipation rates will only be achieved, he argues, when appropri-ately designed policies and programmes to provide social care (ident-ified as day care; paid maternity—or even parental—leave; and timeto care for sick children) are in place. They will allow for “femalelife course masculinisation.” He also expresses a hope, but is stillsceptical, that men will embrace “a more feminine life course”(Esping-Andersen et al. 2002: 94–95).

This attention to women’s economic role emerged both fromnational and international feminist organizing and from mobiliz-ation within the international development community. With respect

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to the latter, a policy focus on “women and development” took offin the 1970s, as feminists moved into and struggled within organiz-ations to force them to consider gender relations and their effects.Over time agencies of the United Nations, other international organ-izations, and NGOs came to recognize women’s economic contri-butions as central to any successful development strategy. The 2000Millennium Development Goals (MDG), for example, reflect thisfocus on women’s contribution to development within a broadersocial investment perspective focused on education and humancapital.42 Women are also key targets in the now very popularmicro-credit programmes, an example of an asset-building policyinstrument in the social investment perspective.

There is another assessment of this convergence around the socialinvestment perspective, however. Feminists are significantly moresceptical that the social investment perspective, and particularlyits child and human capital foci, will have positive consequencesfor their own agenda for achieving gender equality. Feminists’ assess-ments of the MDG provide a good, albeit only one, example of thisscepticism (Murphy 2006: 249). For example, the third MDG goal isto “promote gender equality and empower women,” a phrase thatsounds very much inspired by a feminist perspective. The actualagreed target, however, is to “eliminate gender disparity in primaryand secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of edu-cation no later than 2015.”43 This focuses the goal on girls, with nospecific target for adult women. Without a target, attention can ebband flow.44 Without a target, the definition of “empowerment” itselfremains underspecified and indicators can alter with the times.45

Of course, the place where adult women are consistently presentis in the fifth MDG: to improve maternal health. The target is toreduce the maternal mortality rate by three quarters between 1990and 2015. While completely appropriate to target, because child-birth remains potentially deadly and otherwise damaging to millionsof women, maternity is only one of their multiple social roles.Increasingly, however, within the social investment perspective expli-cit attention to adult women is overwhelmingly focused on mater-nity, and particularly their contribution to demographic growth.

Gøsta Esping-Andersen (2002, 2008) provides an example of thisapproach to gender relations from within a social investment perspec-tive. The first of his three lessons about contemporary welfare statesdeals with “families and the revolution in women’s roles” (2008). Thestructure of the argument is straightforward. Post-industrial economiesand modern families depend on women’s employment. But womenare having fewer children. This has created a new challenge: finding abalance between work and maternity. In his analysis, the most


important policy instrument available to achieve an appropriatebalance is nonparental child care. The defamilialization of care forpreschool children will allow women to successfully combine theirgoals for a career and motherhood, and thereby avoid the demo-graphic crisis facing Europe and the risks of family poverty that threa-tens the well-being of children.

Yet, we know that not all policy designs have the same effects onwomen’s opportunities and life course (for a recent overview seeBrighouse and Wright 2008). We can ask, therefore, whether thesocial investment perspective can be embraced by feminists? Dothese ideas about social investment and social citizenship offer anapproach to gender relations that responds to women’s equalityclaims and ambitions for full citizenship rights? Do they adequatelyaddress the inequalities of gendered power relations?

A first step to assess the gendering consequences as well as theequality potential of the social investment perspective is to notewhat is absent. First, gone from the analysis are the structuralfactors that cause women, their work and their achievements to bedevalued and undervalued with respect to men’s. Often in the socialinvestment perspective, cultural differences underpinning genderroles, found around the globe, are to be worked around rather thanchanged.46 For example, while expressing the hope there will be a“feminisation” of male life-courses, Esping-Andersen argues formore access to child care, for changes in working time and for someattention to women’s “negotiation capacity” within the family.47

The latter he considers to depend on the fact that they too contrib-ute income to the family (Esping-Andersen 2008: 49). He is scepticalthat men will assume care work responsibilities if it requires them totake leave from paid employment. Therefore, he pays less attentionto parental leaves and more to maternity leaves, those taken bymothers after the birth of a child. This relative silence about parentalleaves means that there is a virtual hush around one key dimensionof a more egalitarian family-work balance, which is care for childrenin general. Family leaves and flexible parental leaves are instrumentsfor promoting shared parenting throughout childhood. Yet hisalmost exclusive focus on maternity, because of the concern aboutdemography, leaves these very real issues aside.

Secondly, in discussing women’s careers and maternity, the analy-sis does not even gesture in the direction of one of the most impor-tant equality claims that feminists have made for decades—equalpay. In his detailed calculations meant to convince economists andpolicy-makers of the pay-offs of investments in nonparental childcare, he simply accepts the standard that women’s wages will be 67percent of men’s (Esping-Andersen 2008: 39). This analysis, in other

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words, displays no concern about gender equality in the workplace,about structural discrimination or about the long-term consequencesof family care. Support for women’s capacity to balance work andfamily is assessed purely in terms of an instrument’s potential forachieving a better demographic balance.

Why does this matter? After all, Esping-Andersen is only onepolicy intellectual among many. Why be concerned about theabsence of attention to long-standing feminist goals for genderequality in his ideas about and prescriptions for social policy drivenby a social investment perspective? There would be little reason forfeminists to be concerned if his analysis were sui generis. It is,however, quite representative of one of the possible consequences ofthe social investment perspective on social policy analysis, which isto write out attention to gender equality. And, he represents a wayof analyzing modern social policy dilemmas whose logic is increas-ingly being accepted as modern dogma, not only in the EuropeanUnion but farther afield as well.48

Declining attention to equality of condition or even equal oppor-tunities for women and men is a hallmark of the social investmentperspective. For example, in a recent publication promoting socialinvestment and addressed to one of the “laggard” Bismarkian politi-cal economies, Jacques Delors and Michel Dolle instrumentalizewomen’s employment and work-family balance issues in the nameof “investing in children.” They begin by describing women’semployment and its importance first for demography and second asa protection against the negative consequences of population ageing.Women’s own goals for economic autonomy come a distant third,while workplace discrimination merits only a short paragraph(Delors and Dolle 2009: 195–98). Even more telling are the policyproposals, which focus on better services, particularly for poorfamilies to be sure, and which provide a very useful correctiveagainst the—false and class-based—notion of “choice.” However,the bottom line for these two major French policy intellectuals isthat once specific details are on the table for discussion the focus ison “families” not on women, on child poverty and on child develop-ment goals (Delors and Dolle 2009: 208–10). Silence envelopesgender equality, even as one possible policy goal among several.

Another, and perhaps even more telling example can be drawnfrom one of the countries often described as on the forefront of thesocial investment perspective. Beginning in the 1960s Swedishwomen’s movements and their allies advocated for high quality andaffordable child care services in the name of gender equality. Theyalso mobilized for well-designed parental leaves that would work aprofound shift in the gender division of labour (Mahon 2006). In


the “gender role debates,” the Swedish Social Democratic Party wasone of the main proponents of gender equality, and therefore of sig-nificant change in gender relations at home as well as in women’srole in society. Gradually over time, however, the two policy instru-ments of child care and parental leaves have been developed andpromoted to serve other ends, while attention to gender relationshas been sidelined. In its 2006 election manifesto, for example, theSocial Democratic Party placed gender equality at the bottom of itslist of commitments, just before improving international affairs. Insharp contrast, preschool education and children in general receivedsubstantially more attention in the document, constituting one of thesix identified priorities—“the best of countries to grow up in” (SAP2006: 3; see also 13 for the equality paragraph).

For Swedish policy intellectuals too, if support for dual-earnermodel is a “best practice” Sweden can diffuse across the EuropeanUnion, it is because such families provide a response to the troublingissue of intergenerational conflict and demography. Sweden isdescribed as having paid attention to the links between demographyand gender at least since the Myrdals’ writings in the 1930s, but thevision of gender relations presented is an instrumental one: “Fertilitystudies also indicate that the increased gender equity following fromdual-earner activity has positive effects on the propensity to havechildren. Moreover, the available evidence does not seem to indicateany systematic negative effects on educational performance of chil-dren as a result of full time employment by their mothers” (Lindh,Malmberg, and Palme 2005: 482, 479). Equity is the means to anend, rather than the end in itself, as it is for feminists.

For these authors, just we saw for Delors and Dolle as well asEsping-Andersen, higher rates of women’s labor force participationare a collective good, and therefore adequate services for balancingwork and family are essential in modern, social investment welfareregimes. Gone, however, is attention to several of the well-knownstructural inequalities that have always concerned feminists. In theSwedish labor force, for example, while the employment rate ofwomen is decidedly high, two of every five employed women workpart-time (whereas the rate for men is only 11 percent). Not surpris-ingly, the negative pay gap between Swedish women and men ishigher than the average for the EU 27.49

Another example comes from the international organizationperhaps most involved in promoting the social investment perspec-tive for modernizing welfare states (Dobrowolsky and Jenson 2005).In its Babies and Bosses series, for example, the OECD’s analysis ofthe work-family balance nexus was originally driven by several con-cerns: declining fertility, poverty, and—in an earlier formulation—

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gender pay gaps.50 By the time of the synthesis report in 2007,however, the analysis had been pared down to demographic andlabor supply questions, framed in a classic social investment perspec-tive as concern with employment for all and the future of society:

If parents cannot achieve their desired work/family lifebalance, not only is their welfare lower but economic develop-ment is also curtailed through reduced labour supply byparents. A reduction of birth rates has obvious implications forfuture labour supply as well as for the financial sustainabilityof social protection systems. As parenting is also crucial tochild development, and thus the shape of future societies,policy makers have many reasons to want to help parents finda better work/family balance.51

While the report itself includes recommendations about genderequity, the focus is on sharing leave time (via paternity leaves) ratherthan on equality per se. Attention to such sharing, just as access toECEC services, is to be lauded. It does not, however, represent theequality agenda of much of second-wave feminism. It reflects insteadthe crowding-out effect that follows when the focus shifts to chil-dren, human capital development and often social capital.52

This writing out of gender equality goals and the needs of adultwomen has been analyzed by feminist scholars. With respect toseveral of the CCT and other new social programmes, MaxineMolyneux makes an important distinction between “gender aware-ness” and attention to gender inequalities and programmes thatpromote equality. Her conceptual distinction is worth quoting atlength, because the structure of gender awareness in this Mexicanprogramme is very similar to that displayed in the social investmentperspective in general:

It is clear that the design of the programme shows evidence ofgender-awareness: gender is not only incorporated into, but iscentral to the management and design of, Oportunidades.There are four main aspects to this gender sensitivity: first, theprogramme was one of the earliest in Latin America to give thefinancial transfers (and principal responsibilities associatedwith them) to the female head of participating households;second, the transfers associated with children’s school attend-ance involved an element of affirmative action: stipends were10 per cent higher for girls than for boys at the onset of sec-ondary school which is when the risk of female drop-out ishighest; and third, the programme’s health-care benefits forchildren were supplemented by a scheme which monitors the


health of, and provides support for, pregnant and breastfeedingmothers and children under 2 years of age. The fourth aspectof the project design which displays gender sensitivity is thegoal to promote the leadership and citizenship of the womensubscribed. These goals are, however, inconsistent: they rep-resent a combination of equality measures (for the girls) andmaternalist measures (for their mothers).

The logic of the design was quite similar to what we have seen forthe MDG targets—equality for girls and protection for maternity.There is very little in the programme design that targets women’sneed and hopes for economic autonomy or security. “Training forthe job market is limited or non-existent, despite this being a fre-quent request by beneficiaries, and there is scant, if any, childcareprovision for those women who want or need it because they work,train or study” (Molyneux 2006: 439).

Nor is the much that inspires hope there will be the effects, soimportant to Esping-Andersen’s version of the social investment per-spective, on women’s “negotiation capacity” within the family byproviding women with some outside income. Assessments of theMexican programmes find little evidence of any positive effect onpower relations within the family (Molyneux 2006: 437). Indeed,given other analyses which assess male appropriation of women’swages, there is little reason to believe that having both parents earnsome income is sufficient to alter the long-standing patterns ofgender power.

A large literature, both economic and ethnographic, examiningthese patterns of “non” negotiation in many societies is available(reviewed in detail in Chant 2003: 17ff). It documents the ways inwhich women’s wages are appropriated by men. This literaturestands in sharp contrast to the one study about spending on clothing(women and children’s versus men’s) that occurred when the UnitedKingdom instituted a child benefit paid to mothers (Lundberg,Pollak, and Wales 1997), the study that provided the empirical foun-dation for Esping-Andersen’s conclusion that women’s negotiatingcapacity improves when some, even minimal, income is availabledirectly to them (2008: 35). This far-reaching conclusion has beenexplicitly contradicted, moreover, both by a direct comparator study(Hotchkiss 2006)53 and by the long-standing feminist concernsabout and empirical attention to inequalities in the intra-familial dis-tribution of income (Chant 2003: 20).

Overall, several assessments of the instruments as well as theprinciples of the social investment perspective signal a return ofnaturalized notions of the mother–child nexus, both because of the

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concern about demography and because of the way the interge-nerational transmission of poverty is sometimes analyzed.Molyneux points to the return of the notion of “bad mothers”that underpins the design of incentives in CCTs. Women who failto meet the requirements both lose their benefits and are stigma-tized as failing to perform their maternal duty (2006: 438). Asimilar emphasis on improving parenting practices of poor women,often lone-parents, is found in several versions of the social invest-ment perspective in liberal welfare regimes. New Labour’s SureStart initiative, for example, focused on training for parenting aswell as employability measures and services for children, thenotion being that parents in poor neighborhoods and living in low-income needed instruction in how to parent (Dobrowolsky andJenson 2005: 218).54

This emphasis on “parenting”—which most often meansmothering—is part of the reassertion of woman-maternity connec-tion within the social investment perspective and the writing out ofthe gender equality goals that finally come to underpin post-1960social policy as a result of feminist mobilizations at the national andinternational levels. This means there has been a shrinking politicalspace for women to make claims for full citizenship, especially asocial citizenship founded on equality between adult women andmen.

Concluding remarks

The social investment perspective is spreading. Visible in liberaland social democratic welfare regimes in Europe in the mid-1990s, itis being promoted and gaining visibility in Bismarckian regimes. Thepolitics of welfare regimes is converging around a package of ideasabout modernization, social inclusion, and social investment. Theyrework and recombine policy positions of both post-1945 social pro-tection systems and those of neoliberalism. A similar dynamic existsin several Latin America. In several countries the transition todemocracy brought not only reformed political institutions but alsoother ways of analyzing social inequalities and new instruments forbreaking the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. Anemphasis on generational and intergenerational analysis as well asenthusiasm for ensuring investments in human and social capital hasbrought the needs of children and youth to the fore in policy dis-course in a more dramatic way than when the ideas of Keynesianismor neo-liberals held sway.

These policy ideas within the social investment perspective areall infused with concerns about women and their circumstances. If


the policies of the Keynesian era appeared blind to their own gen-dering effects and neo-liberals abandoned notions of any collectiveresponsibility for equality and therefore were essentially uncon-cerned about gendered inequalities, gender awareness is at the veryheart of the social investment perspective. Women’s economic con-tributions as well as their care work are on the agenda, and refor-mers propose ways to promote women’s capacity to balance workand family.

At first blush, this gender awareness seems to represent a victoryfor decades of feminist mobilization and analysis. Closer attentionreveals, however, that something has been lost in the translation ofegalitarian feminism into the gender awareness that infuses thesocial investment perspective. Long ago we learned that womencould be the object of public policy, and even a certain public gener-osity, without them being incorporated on equal terms into socialand political citizenship. In the first half of the twentieth century,mothers’ pensions and family allowances paid to mothers ratherthan fathers provided a classic example of gender awareness thatnever translated into gender equality. For much of the twentiethcentury, at least until the assaults of neoliberalism took hold, thestate substituted for the breadwinner so as to ensure a minimumincome to widowed, “abandoned” or lone mothers and their chil-dren, whether in the form of generous family allowances or less gen-erous social assistance transfers. In the first decades of thetwenty-first century gender awareness prompts other types of policyinterventions, but now as before it has only the weakest of commit-ments to equalizing relations between women and men by challen-ging power relations.

There is another lesson as well. It is that gender awareness cantake the form of appropriation of some of the policy instruments forwhich feminists have struggled for decades in their search for equal-ity, without necessarily producing “strong gender egalitarianism”(Brighouse and Wright 2008). Their translation into instruments toserve the social investment perspective has resulted both in writingout the equality claims of adult women in favor of those of girls,and a reassertion of the hegemony of the mother–child linkagewhich feminists for decades have sought to treat as only one dimen-sion in the complex of gender relations within which women andmen live. The lesson is clear: feminists, both women and men,cannot be seduced by the gender awareness of the social investmentperspective into thinking that, without corrective interventions ontheir part, it will either represent or generate an accurate translationof their claims for gender equality.

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NOTES

Departement de science politique, Universite de Montreal, Montreal,Canada. Email: [email protected].

1. Hemerijck (2007) recounts the emergence and consolidation the ideaof the European “developmental welfare state,” as depending in large parton a “child-centred social investment strategy” and a “human capitalinvestment push” (Hemerijck 2007: 12–13).

2. The definition of convergence adopted here is that of Knill (2005:768), who writes: “ . . . policy convergence can be defined as any increase inthe similarity between one or more characteristics of a certain policy (e.g.policy objectives, policy instruments, policy settings) across a given set ofpolitical jurisdictions (supranational institutions, states, regions, local auth-orities) over a given period of time. Policy convergence thus describes theend result of a process of policy change over time towards some commonpoint, regardless of the causal processes.” The focus in this article is onlyon policy objectives, because as argued here, instruments and settings con-tinue to vary widely across jurisdictions.

3. Draibe and Reisco (2007) make the case that it is now possible toanalyze Latin America alongside other welfare regimes, recognizing ofcourse the differences in developmental trajectories.

4. As the literatures on “welfare regimes,” “families of nations,” and soon clearly teach us, there were obviously differences across jurisdictions inthe specific policies as well as in their ideological foundations and politicalsupport.

5. The institutions of the European Union have only recently, forexample, begun to deploy the language of social investment (Jenson 2007,2008). Bismarckian regimes have also been slow to do so, although there isnow a move to push them that direction (Delors and Dolle 2009 forexample). Trudie Knijn (this volume) documents other approaches to mod-ernizing social policy circulating in Europe that she considers to be alterna-tives to the social investment perspective.

6. No claim is being made that this perspective is particularly pro-gressive. Assessment of the social investment perspective according to itsconsequences for a fair and just distribution of wealth or for the pro-motion of equality is a task for another article. The one undertakenhere is to describe the perspective and its consequences for social citizen-ship, the notion being that it is always helpful to know what is reallygoing on.

7. For example in their recent manifesto, Jacques Delors and MichelDolle begin their argument for moving beyond the traditional welfare stateby unpacking the norm of “Monsieur Gagnepain et Madame Aufoyer”[Mr. Breadwinner and Mrs. Housewife] (2009: 15 and passim).

8. For just one example among many: “Historically, reproduction hasbeen an essential part of the lives of both women and men, with womentaking a disproportionate share of the responsibility. Denying the effect ofsocial arrangements on reproduction, therefore, would be tantamount todeclaring that activities that for centuries have dominated the lives of


women have not been part of political and economic development” (Lindh,Malmberg, and Palme 2005: 480).

9. See for example the campaign of the European Union against thegender gap, analyzed not only in terms of earnings but also discrimination,segregation, and reliance on policies such as the promotion of part-timeemployment. http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId¼681&langId¼en,consulted 3 July 2009.

10. There is now a vast literature on how ideas matter. For a usefuloverview, see Campbell (2004) as well as Beland (this volume) andPadamsee (this volume).

11. Left aside here is the large debate about the role of “culture” inshaping social policy. This matter is addressed explicitly in Stryker andWald (this volume).

12. This analytical position clearly stands on a rejection of the so-called“discursive institutionalism” that provides an impoverished vision of therole of “ideas.” In a wrong-headed insistence on separating “ideas” frominterests—an impossible task as historical institutionalism makes clear—promoters of “discursive institutionalism” foreground “ideational vari-ables” that “just as any other factor, sometimes matters, sometimes doesnot matter in the explanation of policy change” (Schmidt and Radaelli2004: 184). The ontological position of the version of historical institution-alism employed here is that ideas “always matter.”

13. O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver (1999: 53) describe the Hayekianunderpinnings of neoliberalism’s acceptance of safety nets as legitimatelyproviding “a minimum level of adequacy.”

14. Decreto Supremo No 029-2007-PCM, 30 March 2007. A lawreforming all social programmes in Peru.

15. For the development of this concept see Jenson and Phillips (1996)and Jenson and Saint-Martin (2003) as well as Yashar (1999, 2005) whoapplies it to Latin America.

16. The metaphor of the welfare diamond underpins the responsibilitymix. It disaggregates the three “welfare pillars” described by those employ-ing the concept of welfare regime (for example, Esping-Andersen 1999).Where the three pillars of welfare regimes are state, market, and family, wesuggest that it is important to consider four sources of well-being.Distinguishing the community sector from both the family and the marketprovides a better handle on processes of shifting responsibilities and govern-ance. For a similar diamond see Evers, Marja, and Clare (1994).

17. Cortes (2007: 4ff.) provides, however, a useful reminder that therehas been a tendency, at least with respect to the Argentine “golden age,” toexaggerate the generosity and functionality of the post-1945 social protec-tion regime. The same warning about “nostalgia” can easily be made withrespect to Europe, of course.

18. One major exception was, however, the United States’ massivesupport for asset accumulation via tax breaks for home ownership.

19. The OECD (2003: 17) makes the case for these instruments beingsocial investments in this way: “In a publicly funded asset-building scheme,

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the funds that match household savings or constitute the endowments of a“baby bond” programme really are not government current expenditures.They are savings, just like those of the households they benefit. Forget howgovernment budgets may treat them; in the national economic accounts, theyought to be counted as “government saving”, which is to say “governmentinvestment”. In effect and under the rules of the schemes, governments trans-fer to households a portion of current revenues as a claim on human or phys-ical capital. This forms the foundation for the idea of social investment.Following the reasoning above, it ought to be possible to simulate ex anteand to measure ex post social investment’s net return over time, in terms ofboth economic growth and reduced income transfers because (if the argu-ments for Asset Building are correct) fewer people would live in poverty.”

20. See http://www.childtrustfund.gov.uk.21. See http://www.oportunidades.gob.mx/jovenes/jovenes.html.22. The case for asset-building as a new welfare policy approach, in

comparison to the outdated models, is made in OECD (2003: Chapter 1).23. Brazil was quite typical, with its “ . . . relatively wide and systematic

recognition of social rights by the state in Brazilian history, . . . such recog-nition did not have a universal character but was restricted to workers”(Dagnino 2005: 6).

24. In liberal regimes such as the United Kingdom and Canada, healthcare was a large exception to this generalization.

25. Francis Castles’ detailed quantitative data analysis of the originalOECD countries documents that this was more redesign than cutbacks.Spending levels were stable, but there were clear shifts in composition ofspending. Cash transfers declined relative to services (Castles 2005: 414–19). In Latin America, in the late 1980s state spending did decline signifi-cantly, but then it rose again (Draibe and Reisco 2007: 48; 104–9).

26. The severity of cuts and redesign depended in part on the timing ofthe reform. Chile as the “innovator” provided the most “radical example ofthe Neoliberal market model,” while Brazil used more universal principlesfor policy design (Draibe and Reisco 2007: 52; and 51–55).

27. Beginning with Chile under Pinochet in 1981, seven Latin Americancountries subsequently privatized their public pension systems, movingtowards individual capitalization designs in order to completely replace thepublic system, establish a parallel system or set up a mixed system (Madrid2002: 159–60).

28. The literature on European pensions is enormous. For some com-parative work see Bonoli and Shinkawa (2005).

29. This is a discourse that “presents ‘society’ as experiencing a risingstandard of living by defining those who have not done so, who have becomepoorer, as ‘excluded from’ society, as ‘outside’ it” (Levitas 1996: 7).

30. The link between Amartya Sen’s ideas about “capabilities” and thesocial investment perspective is strong. See, for example, ECLAC (2007)(which has a chapter entitled “Opportunities, capabilities and protection”),the World Development Report 2007 (which has a chapter entitled“Opportunities, capabilities, second chances”), the IDB (2008: 5), which


describes its analysis of social exclusion as “following Sen”), and theEuropean Union which used the language of capabilities in its “stocktak-ing” process in 2007 (European Commission 2007) that led to theRenewed Social Agenda in July 2008. See also Porter and Craig (2004:392) and Delors and Dolle (2009: 9 and passim).

31. See http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/employment_strategy/flex_mission_en.htm, consulted 4 August 2008.

32. It covered two million households who were unemployed and poor.Work (usually part-time) had to be accepted and there were conditions forvaccination of children and schooling (Barbeito and Goldberg 2007: 200).

33. See the remarks of the minister of social affairs on http://www.presidencia.gov.ar/Articulo.aspx?cdArticulo=4702. Consulted 1 February2008.

34. By 2003 eight of the EU15 had an introduced an in-work benefit(Immervoll et al. 2007: 35). Sweden introduced one in 2007.

35. Because they are work-tested, such benefits are quite different inlogic from family allowances, which are child-tested—that is there must bean eligible child in the family—and which may be income-tested. In-worksupplements are just that; they top up employment income.

36. Unless otherwise indicated, information is from Soares et al. (2007).37. Created in 2003 to rationalize a number of existing CCT’s that had

been focused on reducing child labor, increasing school attendance, pro-moting pre-natal care, and so on, the Bolsa Familia is conditional onschool attendance and medical visits, what are termed “human capitalrequirements” (Lindert et al. 2007: 6).

38. On Latin America, for the neoliberal period see Yashar (1999: 86).For the continuation of this decentralization see Marques-Pereira (2007).On Europe see Geddes (2000).

39. Etchemendy and Collier (2007: 392–93 and passim) survey LatinAmerica; Martin and Ross (1999: 8ff and passim) consider the “doubleshift” and the European situation.

40. For one reflective overview of the now vast literature on the idea ofsocial capital see Schuller (2007).

41. From a 1987 interview, housed on the site of the Margaret ThatcherFoundation, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid¼106689, consulted 5 August 2008.

42. Craig Murphy writes of this shift, represented by the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDG) proclaimed in 2000, this way: “By adoptingthem, many powerful institutions – both governmental and intergovern-mental – have come to embrace an egalitarian, human-centred view ofdevelopment that was not common-place in the 1970s. Moreover, theseinstitutions have accepted the central role of women, and of their empower-ment, in any attempt to achieve the society-wide development goals . . . ”(Murphy 2006: 210–11).

43. See http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/, consulted 3 July 2009.44. Women’s employment and parliamentary representation are some-

times included in annual assessments of progress, although as a secondary

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factor. For example in the 2008 Millennium Development Goals Report(http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Default.aspx, consulted 3 July 2009, muchmore attention is devoted to assessing progress on the education targetsthan on possible measures of adult women’s empowerment.

45. While earlier reports stayed on the terrain of national decision-making, decision-making in refugee camps appeared in the 2008 report.

46. Delors and Dolle (2009: 198), for example, link discrimination and“cultural behaviour being as it is” as the primary reason for discriminationin the workplace. Employers treat all women as potential mothers, andtherefore prefer to invest their training and salary resources in men.

47. This lack of attention to the design details of parental and familyleaves is in sharp contrast to the argument for “strong gender egalitarian-ism” by Brighouse and Wright (2008), who argue that only leave entitle-ments to individuals (that is nontransferable paternity leaves) have realequality-promoting effects.

48. The claim is not that Esping-Andersen invented this analytic logic.Indeed, all of its components were already in place in this 1997 analysis byOECD researchers: “Today’s labour-market, social, macro-economic anddemographic realities look starkly different from those prevailing when thewelfare state was constructed . . . . Social expenditure must move towardsunderwriting social investment, helping recipients to get re-established inthe labour market and society, instead of merely ensuring that failure to doso does not result in destitution.” (Pearson and Scherer 1997: 6; 9).Children were the focus of the article.

49. For the 2007 figures see: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=685&langId=en&intPageId=169, consulted 3 July 2009.

50. See the 2004 presentation of the three country study (New Zealand,Portugal and Switzerland) at http://www.oecd.org/document/13/0,3343,en_2649_34819_33844621_1_1_1_1,00.html.

51. This quote is from the presentation of the synthesis report on http://www.oecd.org/document/45/0,3343,en_2649_34819_39651501_1_1_1_1,00.html.

52. The European Union’s social policy perspectives associated with themid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy provide other examples of thiswriting-out of attention to gender relations and even women (Jenson2008). The effect has also been observed in the Canadian case(Dobrowolsky and Jenson 2004). Molyneux (2002) provides a detailedassessment of the ways the move towards a discourse of social capitalresulted in the writing-out of gender, as well as analytic conflict betweenfeminists and others in the development community.

53. Lundberg, Pollak, and Wales’ study (1997), which concludesthat paying Britain’s Child Benefit to mothers accounts for changes inbehaviour—in this case increased spending on women and children’sclothing—is directly undermined by Hotchkiss’ analysis (2006), whichfound a secular increase in spending on women’s clothing over the sameyears. She examined childless couples (therefore nonrecipients of the ChildBenefit) and observed a similar shift in expenditure patterns to favor


spending on women’s clothing. This finding puts the validity of the analysisby Lundberg, Pollak, and Wales into serious doubt.

54. This notion that the poor suffer from a lack of parenting skills isdeeply embedded in social policy traditions, both those that eventuallybecame liberal welfare regimes (Jenson 1986) and social democratic andcorporatist ones. Nonparental child care in France, Sweden, and Canada,among others, in the 1940s and 1950s targeted poor children, as expertsargued they would benefit from less time spent with their parents and morewith trained early childhood educators and health workers (Jenson andSineau 2001: 245–46).

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TRUDIE KNIJN AND ARNOUD SMIT

Investing, Facilitating, orIndividualizing theReconciliation of Work andFamily Life: Three Paradigmsand Ambivalent Policies1

Abstract

After decades of promoting work–family reconciliation with theaim of advancing gender equality, European Union (EU) dis-courses around work and family have been reframed. This articledistinguishes three currently paramount discourses: The socialinvestment approach, the transitional labor market model, and theindividual life-course model. Respectively, they propose investingin, facilitating, and individualizing the new social risks, includingthe resolution of tensions in the relationship between work andfamily life. Each has particular assumptions about risk-sharing,public and private responsibility, and the position of the individualvis-a-vis the state and the community. These paradigms have beenanalyzed in relation to EU policies on the reconciliation of workand family life. We find some traces of these paradigms in theLisbon agreements, its amendments, and in the National ActionPlans that are regularly submitted by the member-states. We


conclude that the gender-equality agenda has been subordinated tothe focus on creating competitive knowledge-based economies inthe EU. Social investment is the most prominent of the three para-digms in this new agenda, yet because it is mixed up with elementsfrom the other paradigms, current policy agendas lack coherence.

Introduction

For decades, reconciling work and family life has been thefocus of scholars who study family life, the labor market, and socialpolicies from a gender perspective. In recent years, concern aboutother social and economic issues—including declining fertility rates,the need to improve social protection for the unemployed, and theimportance of human capital in internationally competitive econom-ies—have inspired new frameworks for thinking about work andfamily issues. In this article, we evaluate three paradigms currentlydominating the intellectual discourse on reconciliation: The socialinvestment state, the transitional labor market (TLM) model, andthe individual life-course perspective. We analyze their “policytheory,” that is, their assumptions about the link between socialpolicy and preferred outcomes. In her analysis of the framing ofEuropean Union (EU) policies on work/family reconciliation sincethe 1957 Treaty of Rome, Lewis (2006) concludes that these policieshave moved away from their clear orientation as equal-opportunitypolicies and become an instrument of the economic-growth agenda.In particular, an instrumentalist approach that de-genders the issueand downplays concerns about the right to give and receive care hasgained prevalence. This shift in orientation can be analyzed by eval-uating the framing of social policy at the EU level, as Lewis hasdone. However, our approach differs from that of Lewis because weexamine influential social policy paradigms that dominate currentdiscourse and might reframe EU-level policy and/or those ofmember states. These paradigms offer more or less consistent propo-sals for system changes that affect family life, gender relations, andemployment.

Feminist analyses of the tensions between work and family lifehave highlighted and criticized gender inequality and the normativeassumptions underpinning much public policy during the secondhalf of the twentieth century and beyond in the EU member states(Daly and Rake 2003; Knijn and Kremer 1997; Ostner and Lewis1995). Feminist scholars have also contributed to better understand-ing the gendered underpinnings of social policy through cross-national analyses of institutional arrangements (Bettio et al. 1998;Millar and Warman 1996; O’Connor, Orloff and Shaver 1999;

The Reconciliation of Work and Family Life V 485

Plantenga et al. 2005; Saraceno 2004). Feminist scholars have thusdeveloped conceptual and analytic tools for analyzing the compli-cated relationship between gender and welfare states. These scho-larly insights have, according to Lewis (2006) and Jenson (2008),found their way into the EU machinery, which since the 1970s hassought to combat gender inequality at the policy level as well as inits apparatus. But what happened with all these insights, and howare they reflected in current policy discourse? We argue that there isnot a single guiding orientation, but rather at least three discoursescurrently dominating policy discussions

This article first describes the three currently paramount socialpolicy discourses, each with particular assumptions about how toregulate the post-industrial labor market in an era of globalizationand a graying population. Next, these paradigms will be analyzed inrelation to EU policies regarding reconciliation of work and familylife. We find some traces of these paradigms in the Lisbon agree-ments (reached at the pivotal 2000 meeting of the EU), its amend-ments, and in the National Action Plans (NAPs) that the memberstates regularly submit to the European Council. We conclude that,at the EU level, the gender-equality agenda has been subordinated tothe new emphasis on creating a competitive knowledge-basedeconomy. In the member states’ agenda, however, a focus on genderequality is still alive and appears to combine well with the socialinvestment paradigm, although it is mixed up with elements fromthe other paradigms.

From Gender Equality to Reconciling Work and Welfare: ThePower of Discourse

In the late 1990s, within the EU (as well as outside it), new para-digmatic proposal rationales for reconciling work and family lifewere put forward by a range of political actors. These new rationalesresulted in diversification of reconciliation ideas in which still-problematic gender issues more or less disappeared behind the ambi-tious EU agenda formulated at the 2000 Lisbon conference, that is,to become the most internationally competitive, knowledge-basedeconomy. In Jenson’s (2008, 2009) analysis of changing policy para-digms, she argues that a new, “social investment” approach hasgained influence in Europe and Latin America, following the neo-liberal critiques of the welfare state that arose during the 1980s.This social investment perspective (Esping-Andersen 2002; Giddens1998) is, according to Jenson (2008, 2009) and Jenson and SaintMartin (2006), based on three principles: First, life-long learning asa condition for employability; second, an orientation to the future

486 V Knijn and Smit

with particular attention for investments in children; and third,investments in individuals as beneficial for the community. But isthere only one dominating policy paradigm, or are several paradigmsstruggling for dominance? The answer partly depends on how weunderstand the concepts of policy paradigms and paradigm shifts, aswell as on the way in which the discourse that accompanies a newparadigm finds its way into policy implementation.

We argue that a paradigm shift is taking place at the EU level inthe field of work/family reconciliation. This shift has not yet fullycrystallized, either at the EU level or in the policy intentions andactual policies of member states. Instead of there being one domi-nant policy paradigm, we argue that there has been a diversificationof discourses, each of which re-interprets the gender-equalityapproach of the EU. In order to grasp this diversity of discourses, weread and characterize the work of various scholars, exploring theirapproach to the reconciliation of work and family life and the impli-cations for gender equality. At least three new social policy para-digms are emerging, each with a different approach towards socialsolidarity, gender equality, and the role of the state, the market, andthe individual citizen. In order to see which variety of discourse isprevalent at the EU and national levels, we conduct a comparativepolicy analysis of European Employment Strategy (EES) documentsand a close reading of NAPs (called National Reform Programs(NRPs) after 2005) of all EU member states in the twenty-firstcentury.

Three Alternative Paradigms

At the end of the twentieth century, the traditional, protectivewelfare state in Western Europe came under strain with the emer-gence of new “social risks” (Bonoli 2007): A graying population;declining fertility rates; the need for flexible labor markets in post-industrial economies; and the immigration of non-EU born peoplewho are filling gaps in care work, transport, and seasonal agricul-tural jobs. In response, scholars put forth new policy ideas that, inline with Peter Hall’s claims about policy paradigms, involved awide-ranging search for alternatives and led to experimentation withpolicy modifications (Hall 1993, 291). We distinguish three para-digms: The social investment approach, the TLM model, and theindividual life-course model. Respectively, they propose investing in,facilitating, and individualizing the new social risks, includingthe resolution of tensions in the relationship between work andfamily life.


The social investment approach gained prominence partlythrough the New Labour/Third Way movement in the UK at theend of the 1990s (Giddens 1998), and partly through a reportwritten by Esping-Andersen et al. (2002). The latter had been com-missioned by the Belgian Social-Democratic Minister for SocialAffairs and Pensions in preparation for the Belgian presidency of theEU in 2001, and it condemned obsolete European welfare states thatprotected insiders in the labor market, either male breadwinners orpensioners, at the cost of young and/or female newcomers (Jensonand Saint-Martin 2006). A few years earlier, in reaction to his fem-inist critics, Esping-Andersen (1999) had argued that continentalfamilialism excluded women and youths from a “closed” labormarket and generated a trade-off between fertility and employment.From a gender-equality perspective, however, this approach shiftsthe focus away from women’s citizenship and the complex relationsbetween public and private life to the more straightforward issue ofwomen’s economic productivity and fertility on behalf of theEuropean Social Model. Thus, social investments in the coming gen-eration, education, and liberating women from family obligations byoutsourcing care are the main routes toward achieving these largereconomic objectives.

A second paradigm developing in the late 1990s emerges out oflabor market and employment policy studies and is pre-occupiedwith labor market flexibility. The TLM model of Gunther Schmid(2003, 2006) proposes a framework for transitions to and from thelabor market for employees who need to take “time off” for train-ing, schooling, having, and caring for children, among otherreasons. Analyzes new risks related to labor market transitions andoffers a framework for risk management. As far as gender equality isconcerned, Schmid and Gazier (2002) refer to gendered dilemmas byadvocating work and welfare reforms that enable transitionsbetween work and care. Assumptions about risk-sharing form themain theoretical basis of TLM, which subsequently found its wayinto the flexicurity approach that, after its introduction byAdriaansens (1991), was further developed by Wilthagen (2002,2004).

A third paradigm, based on a neo-classical economic supply-sidetheory, advocates a radical change from collective to individualarrangements guaranteeing efficient transitions to and from employ-ment. This life-course model, introduced for instance by the Dutcheconomist Lans Bovenberg (2005, 2007), aims at optimizing the effi-cient use of human capital by introducing private savings schemesthat enable workers to take a “time out,” be it to update their skills,take care of their children, or avoid burn-out. If no such events


occur during the working life, workers can use the savings schemefor early retirement. At first, Bovenberg’s approach was warmlyaccepted by the Dutch Christian Democratic party as an alternativeto collectively paid leave. Within a few years, Bovenberg won anacademic reward (the Spinoza Prize), and after the Dutch ChristianDemocrats came back into power, they crafted the Life CourseSavings Scheme (LCSS) to replace all Dutch leave schemes (with theexception of the maternity leave scheme, which is protected by anEU directive) as well as early-retirement arrangements.2 However,the Life Course Savings model only lasted for a few years due to alack of interest of employees in the scheme (only 7 percent partici-pated). In addition, the Dutch government decided in 2009 to with-draw parental leave from the LCSS. Thus, neither the policy goalsnor the instruments of this paradigm survived the “process of exper-imentation.” Because also the OECD showed an interest in theLCSS, and for the sake of identifying the varieties of approaches toreconciliation family and work that may be implemented at the EUand national levels, we think it is useful, however, to compare thisparadigm with the other two.

Common Language, Diversified Ideas

These new social policy paradigms can best be characterized by acomparative reading of the work of the above-mentioned academics,all of whom are closely linked to political elites. Their approachesshare some common features (Knijn and Smit 2007; see also Jenson2008, 2009). New social risks, life course, human capital, andre-commodification are the keywords of each of these paradigms.Nevertheless, these approaches are fundamentally dissimilar on twoof the components that make up a policy paradigm (Hall 1993): Thedefinition of the character of the current problems and the policyinstruments for solving these problems. We will now examine indetail how the three paradigms define the main problems to beaddressed, and what policy instruments they privilege.

The social investment approach of Esping-Andersen (2002) under-stands new social risks as resulting from post-industrialization incombination with the graying population. His main worries areabout social exclusion and social inequality, in particular becauseyoung and female newcomers to the labor market face job insecurityand have only feeble social security protections. Risks includeincreasing child poverty due to rising rates of divorce and lone par-enthood, low labor force participation rates of low-skilled mothersand fathers, and low fertility rates (see also Bonoli 2007; Castles


2003). Esping-Andersen’s proposed policy instruments includethings such as high-quality public child care.

The TLM model as formulated by Schmid holds that post-industrial labor markets in a knowledge-based economy demand aflexible workforce, continuous innovation, and employees who havetime for training, education, and care. Like Esping-Andersen,Schmid is concerned about the permanent exclusion of what he callsnew “social minorities” such as youth and women (Schmid andGazier 2002; Schmid and Schomann 2004). His “TLM model” doesnot include a single policy instrument. Instead, it is a methodologyto analyze whether new social risks are private or public responsibil-ities, in order to inspire a new risk-sharing strategy. The related“flexicurity model” outlined by Wilthagen (2008) and recentlyaccepted as a major EU employment strategy does not contain onesingle policy instrument either. Instead, “ . . . resulting from nego-tiations and consultations at the national level, flexicurity can takedifferent forms from country to country” (Wilthagen 2008, 3).

The individual life course model implies a radical shift away fromthe social protection state. In his diagnosis of the problem,Bovenberg points at what he characterizes as an over-protectivewelfare state, in which the “implicit income insurance provided bythe intergenerational social contract harms the incentives to accumu-late human capital, supply labor, and form stable personal relation-ships” (Bovenberg 2005, 404, 2007). Existing collective and/orpublic social security and employment protection systems are notadequate to maximize human capital in a dynamic economy. Hence,he favors more individual responsibility for the maintenance of one’sown human capital, for instance, through tax-favored savings thatcan be used during periods out of the labor market (for reasons ofunemployment, training, or parenthood). In the end, tax-favoredpersonal saving accounts can substitute for collective or public(early) retirement funds, and can supplement the short-termminimum unemployment benefits that should replace long-durationearning-related unemployment benefits. If made mandatory, suchindividual accounts can even form the basis of social security andcan “be viewed as a self-insurance device against human capital riskover the life cycle” (Idem 2005, 417).

Both Esping-Andersen and Schmid present paradigms that reflectand attempt to modify the welfare state model with which theyidentify. The social investment paradigm emerges out of the socialdemocratic route to welfare, but proposes to modernize the welfarestate through public investments focusing on the accommodation ofhuman capital and avoidance of poverty, particularly among chil-dren. Welfare production is ultimately the state’s responsibility, and


a re-distributive “social contract” reflecting collective solidarity isstill an important commitment. The TLM model emerges from theGerman corporatist welfare state that has—at least so far—failed toactivate the excluded. Schmid (2006) refers to principles of justicefor social partners’ sharing of the risks of unemployment—coalitionsand collectivities have to take responsibility for risk management.Because new social risks related to an increasingly flexible labormarket and the demands of family life have not been covered wellby the “old corporatism,” it is suggested that new institutional fra-meworks are needed to help people develop their capabilities.Finally, the individual life course model as envisioned by Bovenberg(2005) reflects the neo-classical assumptions of liberal welfare statesthat strongly deviate from the re-distributive protection system thatonce characterized (and in some areas still does) the Dutch welfarestate (critical comments by Delsen and Smits 2007; Gautie 2005).This paradigm stresses that what is needed is “a self-insurancedevice against human capital risk over the life cycle” (2005, 417)while a residual welfare state offers public compensation to the poor(Table 1).

The Three Paradigms and the Framing of Work-FamilyReconciliation

Despite differences in the policy approaches of these three para-digms, they share a common language for framing work- andfamily-related social risks. Each paradigm encapsulates the needsand risks of post-industrial welfare capitalism with four keywords:New social risks, life course, re-commodification, and humancapital. Yet, this common terminology obscures major differences inthe policy approaches espoused by the three paradigms, which wethink have significant implications for social politics and policy out-comes. However, all of the three paradigms start from normativelyprioritizing labor market policies, of which family policies are theservant. We believe that these analysts should focus not only on theconsequences of family life for employment, as the three paradigmsdo, but look also at the reverse consequences: The effect of fullemployment on the reconciliation of work and family life. Weexplore these reverse effects through analysis of the keywords of thethree paradigms.

One crucial term is risk-sharing (Schmid 2006). Referring toRawls (1990, 2001), Dworkin (2000), and Sen (2001), Schmidargues that the extent of risk sharing depends upon whether risksare triggered or caused by individual choice or external circum-stances, and whether the consequences of risks can be borne


Table 1. Main Characteristics and Differences of the Three Paradigms

Names of the paradigms Social investment approach Transitional labor model Individual life-course approach

Welfare regime of origin Social Democratic Corporatist Liberal

Main preoccupation,

problem

How to broaden the limited

opportunities of new categories of

employees (women and youth)?

How to combine labor

market flexibility with

social protection?

How to avoid waste of human

capital?

Causes of the problem Post-industrial developments and

insider privileges

Flexibilization of the labor

markets

Intergenerational redistributive

income protection systems

Policy goal Investing Facilitating Individualizing

Policy instruments Good-quality public childcare and

education, parental leaves

Flexicurity, lifelong learning,

activation policies, time

policies

Private savings schemes,

self-insurance against human

capital risks

Who should take care of

the new social risks

The (welfare) state The social partners The individual employees/

citizens

492

VK

nijn

and

Smit

individually or exceed an individual’s capacity (Schmid 2006, 21).For social policy, it is important to decide whether family-relatedsocial risks are categorized as resulting from individual choices(withdrawing from the labor market to raise children) or as the con-sequence of external circumstances (lack of childcare capacity orsocial norms), and whether the consequences of the risks—assumingthat having children is a risk—can be borne individually.

New social risks include the risks of the flexible labor market andof fluid families, and relate mainly to the relationship between thetwo increasingly unstable institutions. Assessing both sides of therelationship between work and family life offers a lens for evaluatingcurrent transformations of European welfare states. So far muchattention has been paid within the new policy paradigms to thenegative consequences of (lone) motherhood and long maternalleaves for women’s labor market participation, while childcare pro-visions are seen as the condition for stimulating women to enter thelabor market. Only limited policy attention is paid to the effects oflabor market flexibility on family formation, family life, or divorce;the effect of unpaid parental leave for mothers’ (too early) return tothe labor market; or the effects of unequal treatment of companiesthat offer paid parental leave to core workers only, even as the rateof temporary work is increasing.

The life-course perspective is a central theme of the IndividualLife Course Paradigm, but we note that all three paradigms take thisdynamic perspective when analyzing risks that result from increas-ingly unstable families and flexible labor markets. However, assump-tions about the “ideal” life course easily become a new standardthat many workers cannot meet. Lewis (2004) as well as Frericks(2007) point to the negative effects on family life and women’spensions of assumptions that all adult workers share anemployment-oriented life course. This perspective is also proble-matic in starting from the assumptions that individuals are atomizedand rational, and that individual lives are “malleable.” Commentingon both assumptions, Liefbroer (2007) suggests that we would dobetter to look at life courses from the perspective of linked lives(Elder 1994), and analyze how people deal with the discrepancybetween the ideology of malleable life courses and a social realitythat is less malleable.

The term re-commodification has emerged in the social policylexicon after decades of emphasis on de-commodification. In thelight of demographic trends and the desire to reduce the costs ofnonparticipation in the labor market, welfare states have developedan “all hands on deck” policy (Esping-Andersen 2002; Gautie2005), which is shared by all three social policy paradigms.


A number of countries have introduced activation policies based onthe Scandinavian model of quickly re-integrating those on socialbenefits in the labor market through training or work. Active labormarket programs, individualization of social security, shortening ofunemployment benefits, reduction of tax benefits for early retirement,a shift toward companies’ responsibilities for sick employees—allpoint in the direction of decreasing public social protection andincreasing reliance upon collective (that is occupational) and/orprivate social security. Although the goal of re-commodification is tohelp families by increasing employment, it instead can put familiesat greater risk of poverty due to the fact that there are now fewersocial insurance-based protections, and they are of shorter durationthan in the past; this has become more visible in the current econ-omic crisis. In the care domain, re-commodification has many faces.Moreover, the diversity of commodified care workers exceeds theimagination, varying from well-paid professional pedagogues inScandinavian childcare centers to underpaid household workers,including illegal migrant workers and those paid throughcash-for-care vouchers in Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Austria (Da Roitet al. 2007). “The current re-shuffling of care work does not offer aclear-cut and consistent picture from the perspective of commodifi-cation and de-commodification. Care is shifted from the family tothe state, from the state to the market, and from there to the familyand vice versa [. . .] One common characteristic is the increasingcommodification of care work without proper de-commodifyingbenefits. There seems to be one exception to this rule, namely in theform of work-related care rights” (Knijn and Ostner 2002, 161).

Human capital is a keyword in all three paradigms, although ithas distinct meanings in each one. In general, it implies that individ-ual workers have to take responsibility for their employability, sup-ported by either publicly, collectively (e.g., through occupationalschemes), or individually paid education and training programs. Inthe knowledge-based post-industrial economy, lifelong learning isessential, and social exclusion can be largely attributed to a lack ofappropriate qualifications, particularly among older and/or low-skilled workers and women who stay out of the labor market forlong time periods. Self-investment is the new credo because bothtechnical and organizational innovations require lifelong learningto prevent workers’ skills from becoming obsolete. However,Nussbaum (2000, 2003), Lewis and Guillari (2005), and Schmid(2006) all offer critiques of the human-capital approach for unrealis-tically assuming that the world is made up of atomized individuals.Sen’s (2001) alternative notion of capabilities offers a perspective onthe relationship between work and family life in which social


obligations toward relatives and others restrict workers’ autonomyand capacity to invest in human capital, and this is especially truefor women. The opposite is also true: Reciprocity in caring tasks,sharing parenthood, and developing care skills are rather restrictedby work life, especially for men. The capabilities approach may alsobe helpful when studying inequalities among families and their chil-dren (Esping-Andersen 2002), particularly in a context of fluidfamilies, flexible labor markets, a knowledge-based economy, andan increasing migrant population.

We next consider whether or not these paradigms have had anyinfluence on the development of reconciliation policies at the EUlevel.

Assumptions in EU Policy Regarding Reconciliation of Workand Family Life

Have the problem descriptions, policy goals, and policy instru-ments outlined in the three paradigms affected EU social policy onreconciling work and family life? The European Commission paperon modernizing social protection (CEC 2003c) has outlined twoaims of public support for the reconciliation of work and family life:To help families perform tasks that are fundamental to society andto make it easier for men and women to perform their familyresponsibilities while being active in the labor market. Whetherthese aims and their related policy programs reflect the three para-digms is hard to say, because at the moment the EU only providespolicy analyses and goals, but no policy instruments. Thus, we firstanalyze EU policy programs and then explore their connection withthe above-described paradigms.

Here we address policies and policy instruments developed withinthe framework of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC).3 TheOMC was introduced in the EU after the 2000 Lisbon Summit, andimplemented in the EES and Social Inclusion Policies.4 In EU policydocuments, one sees tensions between the goals of promoting bothpaid work and labor market flexibility, which surfaces mainly in theOMC for the EES. Since the Treaty of Amsterdam (European Union1997), the Luxemburg Job Summit (Council of the EuropeanUnion 1997b), and the Lisbon Council (Council of the EuropeanUnion 2000c), promoting higher rates of employment has been amajor objective of EU policies and is assumed to be the main sol-ution for a diverse range of problems in the member-states—poverty,economic problems, and demographic challenges (e.g., affordabilityof pensions). Since then, work–family reconciliation and equalopportunity policies have been re-directed toward the goal of


promoting higher employment rates. The EES Guidelines are theinstruments to achieve this, and together with the Joint EmploymentReports and the NAPs, they were the first OMC to be used in theEU (Schafer 2006). Education and lifelong learning, entrepreneur-ship, adaptation to a changing environment, equal opportunities,and reconciliation have become a means to this end. Individualsmust be either working or in training, and the care and raising ofchildren is mainly delegated to formal institutions and services. Thereverse effects of labor market policies on family life are notexplored in the EES document.5 The European Parliament’sResolution on Reconciling Professional, Family and Private Livesexplicitly states that the best way to achieve reconciliation is toreduce working times (European Parliament 2004, Article 3), butthis statement has had no follow-up in more recent documents.

For young people entering the labor market for the first time andfor those who want to re-enter after a period of inactivity, the firstEES Guidelines (Council of the European Union 1998) recommendensuring a smooth transition from school to work and preventinglong-term unemployment. Another theme of the guidelines is thatthe rapid transition toward a service-based economy requires brid-ging the gender gap in employment and investments in training andeducation. In addition, member states are urged to reform their taxand benefit systems to remove disincentives for the unemployed tore-enter the labor market, such as long maternity leaves. Womenwho are not registered as unemployed and receive no benefits shouldalso be included.

The number of temporary jobs is increasing, reaching more than amillion in some EU countries, notably France, Spain, Italy, and theUK (Eurostat 2009). Temporary employment bears obvious risks forworkers, and the EU recognizes its dual face. On the one hand, suchjobs are necessary to reduce friction between supply and demand inthe labor market; help enterprises stay competitive; provide workexperience for the unemployed; and help employees reconcile workand private life, take up education or training, or prepare for retire-ment. On the other hand, people can get stuck in temporary, flex-ible, fixed-term and/or part-time jobs that lack social security andopportunities for career advancement. In response, a Council direc-tive (1999/70/EC) compels member states to implement agreementsbetween the social partners on part-time and fixed-term work and toavoid segmentation of the labor market. The EES impact evaluationof 2002, five years after the start of this strategy, also explicitlyrefers to these downsides of flexible work (CEC 2002, 14). The syn-thetic report on Modernizing Work Organization states that flexiblework is often perceived as a “better-than-nothing option,” although


it cites the Eurobarometer survey of February/March 2002 in whichonly one-third of fixed-term workers say they do such work volunta-rily (EMCO 2002, 12). Therefore, employment guidelines call formore security for employees in order to combine the advantages offlexible, temporary, and part-time jobs with employee protection,anticipating the current flexicurity approach. Member states are alsourged to reduce any obstacles that might exist to moving toward self-employment in tax and social security regimes and under adminis-trative and regulatory burdens.

In recent years, the EU has referred to the necessity of supportingself-employment (Council of the European Union 2005), andbecome less outspoken concerning the social protection systems thatshould address related risks. Less than a decade ago it was more out-spoken. “The means for encouraging people to become self-employed vary: raising entrepreneurial awareness through revisedcurricula, using closer links between business and schools, cam-paigns, competitions and specific programs for women, disabledpeople and ethnic minorities/immigrants” (Council of the EuropeanUnion 2000b, 54). At the time, the EU explicitly highlighted howpart-time employment could create risks related to working hours,income, training, and temporary contracts (Council of the EuropeanUnion 2000b, 55).

In the area of retirement, the EU has focused mainly on theaffordability of pensions and other social programs, given agingpopulations. The EU has ignored the fact that retirees regularly helpout with the care of their grandchildren, making it easier for parentsto keep working. However, within the EU, financial sustainabilityhas been the primary cause of concern, outweighing the possiblebenefits that early retirement might have for retirees, their childrenand their grandchildren. As part of the Lisbon agenda, the EESdocuments urge member states to reform their tax and welfaresystems so as to provide disincentives for early retirement and toprevent the lay-off of elderly employees. The shift toward full par-ticipation of the elderly is rather new; previously, the “EC Directive97/81 on the framework agreement on part-time work” stated thatelderly employees should have the opportunity to use part-timework as a preparation for their retirement (Council of the EuropeanUnion 1997a, 13). Now, full-time work is increasingly expected ofolder employees.

In the 1990s, European policies showed awareness of the veryclear tension between responsibilities for children and work, and thefact that childcare could make reconciliation easier to achieve. The“Recommendation on Childcare” (Council of the European Union1992) focused on informal facilities as well as changes in the


environment, structure, and organization of work as importantmeans to help reconcile responsibilities. The 1996 Council Directive(Council of the European Union 1996) obliged member states toimplement a framework “on parental leave and time of work ongrounds of force majeure” developed by the European social part-ners. The directive addressed the need for parents to be able to taketime off to care for family members in case of acute illness or acci-dents. We can thus state that at that time reconciliation addressedboth women’s employment and equal sharing of responsibilities forfamily life. An EC Resolution in 2000 on the balanced participationof women and men in family and working life (Council of theEuropean Union 2000a) also supports this statement, as it calledupon the member states to encourage men to take up more familyresponsibilities.

The European Commission has also emphasized that there hasnever been economic growth without population growth, and thatthe average number of children born in Europe is lower than the pre-ferred number people want to have. According to the Commission,“late access to employment, job instability, expensive housing andlack of incentives (family benefits, parental leave, child care, equalpay)” all inhibit fertility (CEC 2005, 5). The organization of workand the labor market are other acknowledged problems, and high-quality and affordable childcare facilities are recommended. EU poli-ticians recognize that it is mostly women who are halting theircareer; also long-term maternity leave can result in low labor marketparticipation, with implications for pensions and skills. Hence, theCommission urges the member states to promote women’s access topaid work.

It is notable that documents concerned with employment, partici-pation, and the general Lisbon goals (CEC 2003a; CEU 2005) onlyemphasize women’s employment rates, whereas documents on equalopportunities and the Joint reports on Social Protection and SocialInclusion still refer to gender equality and reconciliation (CEC2003b). Although the employment and participation argument isnever far away, these reports are concerned with equal sharing in itsown right instead of adopting the more utilitarian view foundwithin the Lisbon-related documents. Employment also is held up asthe solution to other family-related risks, like divorce, single parent-hood, and widowhood (EESC 2006, 176). Since 2001, the EESGuidelines have called for tax-and-benefit system reforms that wouldremove poverty traps.

For a long time, care of the elderly and chronically sick wasin the hands of relatives and community members. Care ofrelatives was included in the EES Guidelines from day one,


although—again—increasing employment rates seems to have beenthe main objective. The European Economic and Social Committeeconcludes that, in addition to financial incentives in benefits andpensions systems, “child care and special provisions for disabledpeople, education and public health assets” could contribute tomaking work pay (EESC 2004, 87). According to the Joint report(CEC 2003b, 86), member states perceive the need to formalize careto support (and not replace) the role of families. Most memberstates currently have a care leave and/or care allowance system tomake it possible to care for the elderly at home, but little progresshas been made in developing long-term care facilities.

Traces of the Three Paradigms in EU Policies

A first conclusion from our general reading of the EU approachto reconciliation issues is that the policies proposed under the EESheadings aim at the labor market integration of parents, youngpeople, and seniors. The main fear expressed by the commission inone report (CEC 2003c) is that some kinds of family support mighthave adverse effects on employment. It therefore advises againstfamily supplements for children or dependent spouses, means-testedbenefits on the basis of family income, long maternity leaves, andallowing lone parent households to remain dependent on benefitsfor a lengthy period. Instead, EES documents promote affordablechildcare and short-term care leaves. No attention is paid to theinfluence of increasing flexibility and fixed-term jobs on family for-mation; the effects of privatization and commercialization of careservices on the quality of services available for children and theelderly; how the individualization of social security affects families’income; and how increasing work mobility may impact divorcerates. In the commission’s words, public policy should take intoaccount workers who experience “possible disruptions related tofamily life.” However, the text presents economic and labor marketdemands as immovable forces, to be accepted without criticalevaluation.

A second conclusion is that traces of all the three paradigms arepresent in EU social policies, and no particular paradigm dominatesat this time. The social investment paradigm is apparent in the pushfor affordable childcare and fight against early retirement or thelay-off of elderly employees. Social investments in training and edu-cation are also highlighted as a way to bridge the gender gap inemployment and impel the re-entry of the unemployed into thelabor market. The TLM paradigm is reflected in the plea for a flex-ible labor market and self-employment, and its social risks are


recognized, as are the needs for job leaves and protection of part-time work. However, the individual life course approach is notexplicit in EU policy texts, perhaps because the EU has focused lesson promoting particular policy instruments. Aside from setting goalson childcare services and maternity leave, support for the individuallife course paradigm is more implicit, as it is increasingly assumedthat citizens should take responsibility for their employability.

A final conclusion is that the EU’s concern with reconciliationpolicies has declined over the years (Lewis 2006). Despite growingattention to social issues, the economic approach, which is the EU’sraison d’etre, still dominates. A strong and vibrant economy is seenas a precondition to a social charter, social protection, andinclusion. Otherwise, “(a)t risk—in the medium to long run—isnothing less than the sustainability of the society Europe has built”(High Level Group 2004, 16). Since Lisbon, and even more since thereport of the High Level Group that has to evaluate the Lisbon goals(2004), reconciliation is taking a back seat to narrower employmentconcerns. The Lisbon goals have turned equal opportunities into aprerequisite for achieving full employment. Reconciliation policiesnow should “promote more favorable conditions for women andmen to enter, re-enter, and remain in the labour market” (CEC2003a, 15).

This dominant policy goal can take shape through many policyinstruments and appears to have been inspired most prominently bythe social investment paradigm. It appears, however, in a faintoutline and is conflated with some assumptions of the TLM model,now presented as flexicurity. The EU policies do not recommenddetailed policy instruments; even the childcare guidelines do notspell out what route risk-sharing should take—public, collective (bywhich we mean occupational rather than public), or individualized.Nor does the EU say much about who bears the risk of fixed-termcontracts and leaves. In addition, it is only recently that EU docu-ments pay explicit attention to the consequences of multiple changesin life and work during the life course. In the Green paper,“Confronting demographic change,” special reference is made to thenonlinear careers that youth might have in the future: They mightwant to work harder during one life phase and take a career breakto care for their children during another (CEC 2005). Does this fore-tell the growing influence of the individual life course paradigm?

Perhaps, the policy intentions of the member states offer a betterview of which instruments will be used to implement EU policygoals. The next step is thus to analyze the policies of member states,as reflected in the regular reports they make to the EU.


Reconciliation Policies in EU Member States

Given that most of EU social policies are made by “soft law,”and only directives have to be implemented, what members statesactually do with all the agreements, guidelines, and good intentionsof the European Commission and Councils remains to be seen. Toexplore this question, we analyze the National Reports submittedby the Member States in 2005 and 2006.6 One has to be cautious,however, as these plans are inspired by three probably contradictorymotives: (1) Responding to EU demands for these plans in thebenchmarking process of the OMC; (2) furthering domestic govern-ments’ political agendas; and (3) confronting problems as they areframed and understood in these countries at the moment theseplans are written. We offer an overview of the issues at stake con-cerning the reconciliation policy and the mechanisms that areintended.

In the current NAPs and NRPs, reconciliation policies try to killnot just two, but many birds with the proverbial single stone.Reducing poverty, increasing fertility, facilitating care for elderlypeople, or even stabilizing the family are all mentioned as objectivesof the reconciliation policy. However, NAPs and NRPs have to be—and are—more explicit than EU policy documents. These documentspresent the policy goals and instruments of the member states and,in addition to laying out national problem descriptions, also describethe specific measures these countries have taken. On the basis of thenational and ideational backgrounds of the three policy paradigms,we might expect to find traces of the TLM model in the continentalcountries of Western Europe, including the southern countries,whereas the social investment paradigm might manifest itself in theNordic countries. The individual life course paradigm deviates somuch from the European Social Model that it is expected only toappear in its founding father’s homeland, the Netherlands. Noexpectations can be formulated about the CEE countries given theirrelatively recent membership in the EU.

Table 2 can be read in two ways: First, by analyzing which of thenewly developed paradigms are dominant in the national intentionsto reconcile work and family life; second, to understand specificreconciliation policies. With regard to the first issue we concludethat the social investment approach clearly dominates in the memberstates’ intentions, confirming Jane Jenson’s (2009) findings in thisvolume. Paradoxically, flexicurity is adopted by all welfare statesoutside of the continental regimes, which contradicts the expectationthat this social partner-based model would be a favorite strategy ofcorporatist welfare states. Indeed, flexicurity has its origin in


Table 2. NAPs (2006) and NRPs (2005) Overview of EU Member States Clustered According to Their Welfare Regimes (three

Nordic, Two Liberal, One Hybrid (NL), Four Bismarckian, Five Mediterranean, and Eight EEC Countries)a

Country/

topics Care for children

Employment strategy (precarious,

flexible, part-time work,

self-employment) and security. Additional to work–family balance

Paradigm

codes

Denmark High-quality care. Aim: future

participation; avoid

deprivation; women’s

independence through work.

Right and duty to activation for

youth and/or disabled, mentally

ill and seniors, immigrants.

Nobody on passive income

support; welfare agreement for

older workers.

Gender Equality Act, special

attention for migrant women.

SI

Finland Extending leaves Low-wage subsidies for employers,

improve skills and education of

the unemployed; work incentives

through tax and benefit reforms;

postpone retirement; improve

social protection and pensions for

entrepreneurs

Improve family leave system;

monitoring of gender wage gaps.

SI/some

Flexi

502

VK

nijn

and

Smit

Sweden High-quality and affordable

childcare; pension

compensation for parental

leave. Aim: increasing birth

rate and gender equality with

WFB.

Activate priority groups (long-term

unemployed, older men and

women; immigrants); increase

vocational training and education;

prevent and decrease long-term

sick leave; create more flexible

work including security (elderly);

illness.

Greater gender equality through

Equal Opportunities Act;

combine work and care for men

and women; shared responsibility

of professional and family care

for the elderly.

SI/some

Flexi

Ireland Extend child care services

(national development plan

2000–2006). Aim: equal

opportunities for children and

women’s employment.

Activation, vocational training and

education; No tax for

minimum-wage workers; restrict

early retirement and promote

flexible retirement; increase

contribution for full pensions

New legislation on maternity,

adoptive and parental leave;

national committee on WFB to

raise awareness at the enterprise

level.

SI/some

Flexi/

some LC

United

Kingdom

Extend affordability and quality

of child care. Aim: avoid lone

parent poverty and child

deprivation.

Activation and education of youth,

lone parents, long-term

unemployed, elderly, disabled;

prolong working age; flexible

retirement schemes; private

savings for additional pensions

None. SI/some

Flexi/

some LC

Continued

The

Reco

nciliatio

nof

Work

and

Family

LifeV

503

Table 2. Continued

Country/





Paradigm

codes

Netherlands Child allowance in taxation

(income-related); streamline

income-related care schemes;

saving for parental leaves.

Customized social welfare for

activation purposes (women,

ethnic minorities); vocational

training for unemployed youth

<23; promote entrepreneurship

(no security guaranteed); prolong

working age; Life Course Savings

Scheme (connect leaves, education

and pre-pension through savings)

Gender mainstreaming; Life Course

Savings Scheme (LCSS)

LC/some

SI

Austria 18,000 additional places, costs

should be covered; More

flexible work for WFB. Aim:

WFB, social integration; future

participation.

Pensions for informal care workers;

training and job schemes;

integrate marginal groups (youth,

female, disabled) in employment.

Strengthen position of caring

relatives (preferential pension

insurance, family hospice leave);

eliminate gender segregation.

Flexi/SI

Belgium Aim: WFB (balanced sharing) Monitoring pensions and rights for

atypical (female) workers;

integrate marginal groups (youth,

female, disabled) in employment.

Promoting teleworking for WFB Flexi/some

SI

Germany Extend affordable services. Aim:

quality of education; avoid

poverty by working.

Active labor market measures

(seniors, youth, disabled and

migrants); vocational training

schemes and apprenticeships.

No extra’s SI

504

VK

nijn

and

Smit

Luxembourg Extend affordable childcare

services (also at home) and

leaves. Aim: children’s social

integration and women’s

employment.


education; personal job-finding

plan; prolong working age;

preserve pension entitlements of

informal carers through pension

insurance payments.

Need to adapt the

breadwinner-based social security

model; pension entitlements for

informal caregivers; respite care.

SI

Spain Twenty-seven percent cover of

child care in 2008.

Create better and more stable jobs

by reducing social security

contributions for transition to

permanent jobs (by law);

micro-credits for self-employment;

vocational training in and out of

employment; activation of

disabled; prolong working age by

increasing length of pension

contributions.

Mainstream equal treatment and

equal opportunities

(employment, wages, positive

action) through the draft Organic

Law on Equality of men and

Women; flexicurity for maternal

leave; mainstream gender in

immigrant integration;

contribution payments for leave

(first 2 years after birth and first

year off work).

Flexi/some

SI

Portugal Sets targets for child care services.

Aim: social integration of

children; WFB.

Activation of marginal groups

(disabled, immigrants); flexible

retirement; prolong working age;

stimulate individual savings.

Equal opportunities in public and

private life

SI/some

LC

Continued

The

Reco

nciliatio

nof

Work

and

Family

LifeV

505

Table 2. Continued

Country/





Paradigm

codes

Greece Extend pre-school services and

leaves; extend nursing school

hours. Aim: WFB and women’s

employment.

Activation, vocational training plus

social protection for marginal

groups (women, young, disabled).

Working hours flexibility for lone

mothers, widows and disabled

people; use part-time work for

activation; prolong working age.

Laws on equal opportunities SI/some

Flexi

Cyprus Regulating security for flexible

jobs for WFB Aim:

employment of women.

Employment pathways for specific

groups (youth, women); training

and entrepreneurship.

No extra’s Flexi/some

SI

Malta Extending affordable childcare

services credits for parental

leaves and study, not penalized

pension-wise. Aim: children’s

social integration and women’s

employment.

Customized social welfare for

activation purposes (women,

older workers); Lifelong learning

programs; Promote flexible jobs

for WFB and retirement; reform

pension system to improve

security for non-regular workers

and the self-employed.

Gender mainstreaming; equal

opportunities; contribution

credits for parents in education;

pension and social security

credits for care for children.

SI and Flexi

506

VK

nijn

and

Smit

Czech

Republic

Pre-school care marginal groups

(Roma)

Reform benefit and taxation system

to avoid state dependence.

Vocational activation.

Strengthen family awareness and

cohesion, rights of children;

services for parental skills;

information on rights and duties

of working parents; prevent

families from breaking up, etc.

LC

Estonia Public services and improve

flexible work for WFB. Aim:

avoid unemployment; equal

opportunities for children

Active labor market measures

(seniors, youth, women and

disabled); increase qualifications,

lifelong learning; improve flexible

work for WFB and marginal

groups; change legislation on

labor relations.

More consideration and monitoring

of gender equality; introduction

of caregivers’ allowance.

SI/Flexi

Hungary Extend pre-school services; reduce

social security contributions

for parents on leave; right to

return to work after childcare

allowance. Aim: WFB and

women’s employment.

Activation, vocational training plus

social protection for marginal

groups (women, youth, Roma);

lifelong learning; restricting early

retirement and promoting

part-time work for older people;

social partners’ flexicurity

guarantee.

Disincentives eliminated; reduction

of long parental leave schemes is

mentioned.

SI/Flexi

Latvia Signals lack of child care services,

no plans yet. Aim: parental

share of work and care.


education; benefits conditional on

activation. Promote flexible jobs

(no mention of security); prolong

working age.

Raise awareness on sharing care,

role of men in caring

SI

Continued

The

Reco

nciliatio

nof

Work

and

Family

LifeV

507

Table 2. Continued

Country/





Paradigm

codes

Lithuania Not mentioned Activation, vocational training and

education; investments in human

resources; labor taxation reform;

promote flexible work

organization and entrepreneurship

(no mention of security); prolong

working age through

flexibilization.

National program on equal

opportunities for men and

women in launched.

SI

Poland Extend child care services and

parental leave. Aim: education.

Activation of marginal groups

(disabled, older workers); prolong

working age; flexible work forms

for parents and guardians.

WFB priority in Country

Development Strategy.

SI

Slovakia Extend quality and affordability

of child care services.

Activation (by strengthening

incentives, minimizing “inactivity

trap”) of marginal groups

(disabled, lone mothers, elderly,

Roma); prolonged working age.

Equal opportunities in social policy;

legislation on its way in NRP

2006–2008.

SI

508

VK

nijn

and

Smit

Slovenia Extend child care services Activation and education of youth,

long-term unemployed; subsidies

for fixed-term contracts; stricter

obligations for beneficiaries to

accept temporary jobs;

flexicurity; Prolong working age

through benefits for employers

hiring seniors. Equal retirement

age for men and women.

Implementation of Principle of

Equal Treatment Act (2005–

2013) for almost all areas of life

(labor market, sports, media,

private life, etc.).

SI/Flexi

Bulgaria Not mentioned Employment re-entry for marginal

groups (Roma, youth, orphans,

low-skilled); vocational training,

subsidized jobs, tax reductions;

promote “active ageing.”

Law on monitoring equal gender

opportunities; gender budgeting

of resources

??

Romania Pension credits for periods of

care.

Pension credits for out-of-work

periods (sickness, care, military

service, etc.); increase number of

pension contributors

(self-employed) and length of

contribution period; prolong

working age; activation and

training; promote

entrepreneurship (Roma);

minimize undeclared work.

Equal opportunities: coordinated

measures in social protection and

inclusion.

Flexi

aBold texts represent explicit Social Investment, bold-italic texts denote explicit Flexicurity, and italic text represents explicit Life CourseApproach.

The

Reco

nciliatio

nof

Work

and

Family

LifeV

509

Denmark and probably is still a bridge too far in Continentalthinking.

Considering the “families” of welfare regimes, the table showsthat the Scandinavian welfare states remain on the social-democraticpath (and this might be described as path-dependent), but aremoving toward more emphasis on flexicurity. One explanation forthis might be that these countries increasingly rely on the social part-ners by facilitating part-time leave policies, and on decentralizedchildcare policies to help parents reconcile work and family life.There seems to be an unfolding hybridization of the Scandinavianmodel by promoting more “choice” in childcare, although thiswelfare regime is still relatively immune to neo-liberalism.

There are some interesting developments in the liberal welfareregimes of Ireland and the UK. Here, a real third-order policychange seems to have occurred in the past decade. These countriescontain all three labor market policy paradigms in combination withpublic social investments in childcare. This is a remarkable policyshift that, if realized, would completely change the categorization ofthese countries.

The Bismarckian welfare regimes of continental Europe also areundergoing a regime shift toward a social investment approach,though some countries (Austria and Belgium) combine this withpromoting flexicurity, and the Netherlands is exceptional in that ithas effected a radical change in regime type. At a time when theliberal regimes of Ireland and the UK have shifted toward the socialinvestment model, the Netherlands drifted away from socializedapproaches by embracing a privatized and individualized risk-takingapproach that many associate with the liberal regimes.

The Mediterranean countries, once separated by Leibfried (1992)as a fourth regime type, should perhaps not be differentiated fromthe other Continental ones any longer: They behave like the rest ofthe Continent, implementing mainly social investment strategies inaddition to some flexicurity. Their NAPs do not differ so much fromthe Bismarckian intentions described above though we have torealize that Italy was not examined because it did not deliver anEnglish language version of the NAP.

Finally, the more recent EU members seem to be good Europeanpupils: All of these countries, except for the Czech Republic, haveadopted aspects of all three paradigms. In these countries, the socialinvestment approach dominates too, in combination with some flexi-curity intentions and some traces of the life course paradigm.

Our second reading of table 2 focuses on how and in what waysreconciliation policies address the effects of employment transform-ations on family life.


Care for Children: Extending Services and Protecting Leaves

Increasingly, most EU member states recognize that having chil-dren creates risks for women’s employment, income, and pensions.They call for extending educational and care services to children andrefer both to the aim of increasing women’s employment and to thesocial integration of children. In fact, preventing future deprivationis directly linked to the development of pre-school education, reveal-ing the strong influence of the social investment approach. Somecountries also combine a social investment orientation with a flexi-curity approach. For example, Spain focuses on enhancing flexibilityand security for maternity leave periods, recognizing risks duringbreastfeeding, and creating a new maternity subsidy. Hungary con-siders promoting employment of persons rendered inactive becausethey are caring for a child or relative. The Netherlands very recently(January 2009) retreated from its previous policy of putting the risksof care-giving on the shoulders of the parents themselves. Unpaidparental leave is now compensated by tax deductions, independentof participation in the LCSS. If all of the stated plans are realized,hardly any country in Europe will lack sufficient childcare anymore.

Precarious Work, Flexible Employment Strategies, and PovertyReduction

The EU member states differ significantly in their policies towardsprecarious and/or flexible work and poverty. The majority of statescombine both the social investment and flexicurity approaches,aiming to offer training and education to improve the skills of labormarket outsiders while also being aware that a flexible labor marketcreates challenges and risks. A challenge of flexibilization is how tooptimize opportunities for reconciling work and care and prolongingthe working age without creating new risks, such as income insecur-ity and diminished rights to social security and pensions. Hence,many countries have tried to re-calibrate social policies related tofixed-term job contracts and transitions to and from the labormarket. An example is Austria’s policy on elder care, where morethan eighty percent of individuals in need of care are at home, caredfor primarily by female family members. As this puts at risk thecaregivers’ own retirement income security, the country has intro-duced a number of preferential pension insurance options for thesecare giving periods. In another example, the Estonian government isgradually increasing the state’s contribution to the pension systemfor people outside of the labor market so as to protect their pensionrights. Luxembourg has introduced preservation of pension entitle-ments of informal careers through pension insurance payments,


while Malta and the Netherlands have a new pension reform propo-sal to credit social security contributions for the care of children.Romania’s objective for pension reform is to include persons unableto contribute due to periods out of paid work such as maternityleave, sickness, university education, and military service.

Work–Family Balance, and Equal Opportunities, Need MoreAttention

Despite the EU guidelines of the 1970s (Directive 76/207/EEC)on the equal treatment of women and men, there is still much pro-gress to be made in the member states. Labor market segregation,gender wage gaps, and gendered unemployment rates have provendifficult to solve. Nevertheless, some countries, like the CzechRepublic, Luxembourg, and Romania, do not mention these issuesin their reports. Spain, in contrast, is very outspoken about the needto improve equal employment opportunities, fight wage discrimi-nation between women and men, and draw up equality plans thatencourage companies to implement affirmative actions for women.Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Greece, Austria, Finland,and Ireland also have introduced new laws or national programs topromote equal opportunities for women and men, and will conductassessments to see if progress has been made. Other countries, likeCyprus, Greece, and Estonia, envision flexible work as a way topromote reconciliation of work and family life or to promoteemployment for marginalized groups, such as disabled people orsingle mothers. This may prove helpful in a rigid labor market thathas not allowed for part-time work, flexible working hours, andtemporary leaves, but it also may contribute to unstable and atypicalworking hours. Introducing labor market flexibility thus should bedone carefully so that it does not produce a gender-segregated labormarket. The Danish reports seem to be aware of that risk when theystate that, in the context of pro-longing work life and improvinglabor-market flexibility, social and employment policies must comp-lement each other.

Malta takes another route by focusing on flexible and adaptableforms of work organization such as paid parental leave, optionalreduced hours, and teleworking to promote work–life balance.Portugal signals that the extension of childcare services is an instru-ment to promote the reconciliation of work and family life andequal opportunities between men and women, and should alsoresult in many new jobs. In addition, the country’s report states thatsocial inclusion should be based upon the recognition of equalopportunities to ensure the exercise of rights both in the public andthe private spheres. Moreover, several countries recognize that


national legislation can only do so much to promote flexibleworking schemes and equal pay, while avoiding labor market segre-gation. This is why Estonia, Ireland, and Sweden explicitly mentionemployees and companies as partners in realizing the reconciliationof work and family life.

Conclusions

This article has uncovered common characteristics in three socialpolicy paradigms that have emerged in response to new social risks.Each of the paradigms takes a life-course perspective, promotessome amount of risk-sharing, accentuates the importance of invest-ing in human capital, and pleads for the re-commodification ofthose outside the labor market.

However, a more detailed investigation has shown significantdifferences in the three paradigms as they compete to define thefuture of the European social model, and especially how the reconci-liation of work and family life should be achieved. They differ onproblem definition, main policy goals, instruments, and who bearsresponsibility for minimizing the effects of the new social risks.Moreover, EU documents reveal that no one paradigm prevails;traces of all three are visible in its approach to work–familyreconciliation. This concords with what we know about the policy-making process in the EU, which involves forging compromisesbetween the various approaches supported by the different memberstates.

At the level of national policy-making, in contrast, states havemade a choice between the three paradigms, with the social invest-ment paradigm clearly prevailing. The emphasis in many states is onchildcare, protection of flexible work, and facilitating temporarytransitions between work, care, and learning. Many welfare regimesappear to be hybridizing and slowly converging—this includes theScandinavian, EEC, and Southern countries, and also the UK andIreland. Particularly, notable is the shift by continental welfareregimes toward the social investment approach, which implies thatpath dependency is not channeling states in their choice of socialpolicy paradigms. If such a mechanism were at work, Nordiccountries should follow the social investment approach, corporatistcountries the TLM approach, and liberal countries the life courseapproach, which is evidently not the case. Welfare regimes differ-ences are slowly withering away when countries are faced with newsocial risks. Finally, and in contrast with EU-level reconciliation pol-icies that have moved away from concern with gender equality,


many member states continue to be deeply preoccupied with theissue.

NOTES

Trudie Knijn is Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science, UtrechtUniversity, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands. E-mail:[email protected] and Arnoud Smit is at the Copernicus Institute forSustainable Development and Innovation, Utrecht University,Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands.

1. This article is based on the authors’ RECWOWE papers “Mixed lifecourse paradigms: reconciliation of work and family life or reconciliationof individualism and solidarity?” http://recwowe.vitamib.com/. We thankour reviewers, in particular Bruno Palier, for their excellent and stimulatingcomments on the previous versions of this article. Thanks also to KimberlyMorgan for editorial assistance.

2. In 2007 Bovenberg also found access to the OECD via a formerDutch Christian Democratic minister (De Geus) residing at the OECD inParis (Bovenberg 2007) For critical evaluations see: Seminar on the liferisks, life course and social policy (delsa/elsa/wp1 (2007)) http://www.oecd.org/home/.

3. We used the policy-scientific approach as described by Leeuw (2003)as the basis to analyze formal EU documents (EU directives, resolutions,regulations decisions and treaties; communications of the EuropeanCommission, European Council and European Parliament); and advisorycommittees’ opinions and background reports and analyses, in particulardocuments that are part of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) onEmployment and the OMC on Social Protection and Social Inclusion, andthe preparatory and evaluation documents that are published for theseOMCs.

4. The OMC is a means of governance that should promote mutuallearning and policy exchanges (Vanderbroucke 2002), and works with peerpressure and benchmarking. This is achieved by using a cycle in which thecommon targets of the policies are set at European Council meetings, andguidelines and policies are developed and instruments proposed; these haveto be incorporated into National Action Plans. The OMC gives clear direc-tions for member states on what to change or implement in order to reachthe commonly agreed objectives. Member states are however relatively freeto do what they want with these objectives; it works with “naming andshaming” (Van der Vleuten and Verloo 2006).

5. Although they do emerge in the reports on equality between womenand men.

6. All NAPs can be found at: http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/social_inclusion/naps_en.htm. All NRPs can be found at: http://ec.europa.eu/growthandjobs/pdf/nrp_2005_en.pdf. For six countries (Cyprus,Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, and Lithuania) this information comesfrom the National Reform Programme 2005 (former National Action Plan


in which member states present their actions to achieve the Lisbon goals foremployment). For the other countries the information comes from theNational Reports on Strategies for Social Protection and Social Inclusion2006–2008 (for 2006). These “NAPincls” also include the NationalStrategic Report on Pensions and the National Strategy for Health andLong-term Care.

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ROBIN STRYKER AND PAMELA WALD

Redefining Compassion toReform Welfare: HowSupporters of 1990s US FederalWelfare Reform Aimed for theMoral High Ground

Abstract

We use historical and content/discourse analyses to examinehow the abstract, general value of compassion shaped debate overthe 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work OpportunityReconciliation Act (PRWORA), ending entitlement to need-basedpublic assistance in the United States. We find that a taken-for-granted compassionate American identity institutionalized as asocial safety net helped constrain debate over ending entitlement,even as women’s labor force participation and neo-liberal dis-courses were rising. But in the mid-1990s, Republican supportersof radical reform converted constraint into opportunity, redefiningcompassion to make it a positive resource for ending entitlement.Compassion so redefined conjoined with perversity rhetoric andnegative attributions about welfare recipients to construct a moralmap and logically coherent symbolic package promoting entitle-ment’s end. “Conservative” US welfare reform, like “liberal”

Winter 2009 Pages 519–557 doi:10.1093/sp/jxp022# The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions,please e-mail: [email protected]

US affirmative action, is a case of policy and institutional changepromoted through value redefinition. Multiple perspectives on therole of ideas, including background and foreground, and instrumen-tal and constitutive, combine to explain why Republican leadersperceived the need to redefine compassion, and to account for thecontent and pattern of frames invoking compassion by Democratsand Republicans in Congressional debates over the PRWORA.

As the House of Representatives prepared to approve the 1996welfare reform legislation, Representative John E. Ensign (R-NV)said, “[T]oday is truly independence day for welfare recipients. It isthe first day to redefine compassion in America.” (US Congress1996, H9406). The 1996 Personal Responsibility and WorkOpportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) eliminated the entitle-ment to assistance put in place by the 1935 Social Security Act,replacing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) withTemporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Under thePRWORA, parents—overwhelmingly single mothers—no longerwere guaranteed need-based cash assistance. Eligibility became time-limited and subject to work requirements and other rules. Althoughthe PRWORA eliminated part of the social safety net, supportersargued it was compassionate and would benefit welfare recipients.

Scholars have shown that the PWORA and earlier welfare pro-grams have been shaped by racial and gendered hierarchies andassociated systems of meaning (Adams and Padamsee 2001; Gordon1990, 1994; Hancock 2003, 2004; Lubiano 1992; Mink 1998;Naples 1987; Pierson-Balik 2003; Roberts 1997; Thomas 1998). Inparticular, gendered and racial divisions of labor shape systems ofsocial provision and regulation by structuring who does what kindsof labor, and who can have access to which kinds of benefits andunder what conditions. The gender division of labor in capitalismhistorically assigned paid employment to men and unpaid care workto women, and all societies depend on women’s unpaid care labor.Yet, the conditions under which women perform this work, andmost critically, whether or not they also are expected to be employedare linked to racial, class, and other inequalities. Welfare and itspartial foundation in values of compassion have long been linked tounderstandings of (in)dependence and deservingness: those whocould be expected to be economically self-supporting were not thetarget of compassion, while those who were seen as unable tosupport themselves were deserving of compassion—and welfare.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, maternalist reformersargued for recognizing mothers’ social contribution by campaigningfor programs that would allow poor mothers to care for their

520 V Stryker and Wald

children full-time even if their husbands died or deserted them, par-alleling the ideal of full-time care, enjoyed by better-off marriedwomen (Skocpol 1992). They assumed that mothers should not beemployed, and that dependence on husbands—or the state if menwere not available—was proper. Poor widowed mothers were“deserving,” and thus compassion dictated that they be helped. Atthe same time, men’s claim to “deservingness” was more difficult:they were expected to be self-supporting, at least until old age or, bythe time of the New Deal, until unemployment deprived them of(paid) work (Orloff 2003). The programs that were enacted in theProgressive Era, mothers’ pensions at the state level, followed byfederal A(F)DC in the 1930s and after, never fulfilled the most gen-erous dreams of reformers. But they did allow for widows and, later,divorced and unmarried women to claim benefits for caring for theirchildren (Orloff 2006). Following the New Dealers’ compromiseswith Southern Democrats, these programs were administered at thestate level, allowing for benefit access to be restricted by raciallybased understandings of African-American women as “employablemothers,” and therefore “undeserving” of compassion and supportfor their children. Only in the 1960s and 1970s were such restric-tions challenged and largely overturned. And many scholars wouldclaim that part of the changing climate for AFDC in the 1990s wasrelated to the shift in the demographics of its clientele, as moreunmarried women of color—often understood as “undeserving”—joined the rolls. At the same time, shifts in the gender regime—mostimportantly, increases in the levels of labor force participation ofmothers—undermined understandings of most women as properlyexempt from the mandate to be economically self-supporting anddeserving of compassion (Orloff 2006). In short, interdependentstructural and ideational changes pertaining to race, gender, unpaidcare work, paid work, deservingness and dependency, need andresponsibility, and state, families, and markets in varying waysshaped US welfare politics and policies from early twentieth centuryMothers’ Pensions through the New Deal, ADFC, the failedGuaranteed Annual Income Proposals, and the 1988 Family SupportAct (FSA) to the PRWORA.1

We take as given the impossibility of understanding how endingentitlement could be proposed or passed without factoring in theinfluence of race inequalities and stereotypes, and of the massiveincrease in women’s labor market work and accompanying changesin gender ideology. From the Keynesian welfare state’s heyday to thePRWORA debates, correlative shifts in rhetoric and reality weregreat enough to reconfigure substantially the dominant genderregime underpinning American social and regulatory policies

Redefining Compassion to Reform Welfare V 521

(O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999). This had implications forwhich groups could be understood as deserving of compassionatehelp and which would be understood as properly the target ofemployment requirements. Where a breadwinner-carer model ofgender relations underlay New Deal policies, the PRWORA’s workrequirements and time limits were much more consistent with amodel of (formally) gender-neutral “employment for all” (Orloff2006), though the PRWORA’s emphasis on marriage promotionincorporated a possibly contradictory emphasis on traditional familyforms.2

We also take as given the influence of what Somers and Block(2005, 265) call “perversity rhetoric,” embedding gendered andraced moral categorizations of deserving and undeserving into “adiscourse reassign[ing] blame for the poor’s condition from povertyto perversity.” Actors promoting the PRWORA deployed perversityrhetoric to argue that the welfare system caused poverty by encoura-ging welfare dependency and associated behavioral ills of crime, ille-gitimacy, and idleness. Indeed, some type of perversity rhetoric,arguing that historically instituted welfare systems caused undesir-able dependency, was a hallmark of neoliberal discourse acrossadvanced capitalism more generally (Jenson 2009; Knijn and Smit2009). Note, though, that prior scholarship shows that US liberalsas well as conservatives contributed to changing welfare goals anddiscourses (Mittelstadt 2001).

In this article, we build on earlier scholarship on US welfarereform to argue that a full understanding of how US welfare entitle-ment was ended requires an analysis of how the general value ofcompassion structured the PRWORA debates. We incorporateseveral of the multiple ways that “ideas matter” for policymaking,as asserted by scholars such as Bleich (2003), Steensland (2006),Campbell (1998, 2002), Padamsee (2009), and Beland (2009): in theforeground and background; as strategic resources andtaken-for-granted backdrops shaping “the range of cognitive percep-tions and normative evaluations that people find comprehensible orplausible” (Steensland 2006, 1282). Our historically and institution-ally situated discourse analysis shows how the redefinition of com-passion relates to perversity rhetoric and neoliberal ideology, andhelps explain why Republican elites promoting radical reform appearto have seen redefinition as necessary. As Somers and Block (2005)point out, “the logic behind [perversity] rhetoric is impeccable—ifassistance is actually hurting the poor by creating dependence, thendenying [assistance] is not cruel but compassionate.”

Our analysis underscores an under-recognized mechanism ofpolicy and institutional change: redefinition of general values—in


this case compassion—previously institutionalized in a policy arena,so these values can be converted from constraints to promoters ofchange. Such policy feedback works through ideational processes. Itsimport lies, paradoxically, in mobilizing continuity with tradition asan avenue for radical change. Analysis of the redefinition of com-passion to promote the PRWORA allows us to suggest the moregeneral conditions under which value redefinition is most likely toemerge as strategy for promoting change. We first describe ourunderstanding of core concepts for ideational analysis, includingculture, framing, and values, then turn to our analysis of the role of“compassion” in the welfare reform debates.

Who Cares whether the PRWORA Is Compassionate and Why?

Culture includes ideas, values, categories, beliefs, principles,norms, cognitive schema, and spoken, written, or signed language,and material objects as they represent, evoke, or activate meaning,as well as “frames,” which are especially significant in research onpolitical and policy change (see, e.g., Beland 2005; Bleich 2003;Ferree 2003; Gamson and Modigliani 1987; Pedriana and Stryker1997; Snow et al. 1986; Stryker, Scarpellino, and Holtzman 1999).It is well accepted that frames are mobilized instrumentally topromote or contest candidates, issue definitions or policies, and havea normative-evaluative, as well as cognitive component (Beland2009; Padamsee 2009). Frames may be understood broadly as cogni-tive and moral maps (Bleich 2003), or more narrowly. Gamson andModigliani (1987) argued that issues are “symbolically packaged assets of ideas, words and arguments that cluster internally but areexternally distinct. ‘At the core of a [symbolic] package is its frame. . . a central organizing idea providing meaning to an unfolding stripof events’” (Pedriana and Stryker 1997, 639, quoting Gamson andModigliani 1987, 143, italics in original). Because packages, frames,and catch phrases used to promote them help define and legitimatesocial problems, movements, and policy responses, they are highlycontested, with a key “part of every public political struggle [being]a battle over whose symbolic framing of an issue is authoritative”(Williams 1995, 127).

Values are implicated because diverse, competing frames “can bebuilt around abstract general values that are widely shared”(Pedriana and Stryker 1997, 640). Institutionalized in law, suchabstract general values likely exert strong feedback effects, shapingopportunities for and effectiveness of later framing by elites andsocial movements. Analyzing late 1960s US Congress’ hearings onaffirmative action and related litigation, Pedriana and Stryker (1997)


showed how equal opportunity values embodied in Title VII of the1964 Civil Rights Act structured framing contests over specificmeanings attributed to equal employment opportunity enacted inantidiscrimination law. Because affirmative action supporters couldnot circumvent core equal opportunity values, but also could notaccept their taken-for-granted meaning as color-blind, merit-orienteduniversalism, supporters were pushed to fight uphill—ultimately suc-cessfully—to redefine the legally institutionalized meaning of equalopportunity to require corrective action remedying systematic pat-terns of discrimination. So redefined, equal opportunity valueshelped promote race-conscious affirmative action. Supporters ofcolor-blindness spent the next forty years fighting their own battle toreclaim equal opportunity’s meaning in antidiscrimination law(Pedriana and Stryker 1997).

We analogize the role of compassion in welfare reform to that ofequality of opportunity in antidiscrimination policy. We do notclaim that compassion is as central to the US political culture forelites or the public as is equal opportunity. Nor do we claim thatcompassion, relative to other values, is as central to debates aboutpolicies to combat poverty as are equal opportunity values todebates about policies to combat discrimination. We do claim thatcompassion historically was institutionalized in the US welfarepolicy in the idea of a state-provided safety net to which certainpoor Americans, most centrally poor mothers, were entitled. We doclaim that, when it comes to poverty and welfare, the value of com-passion has a large number of adherents in the US public. If we areright, efforts to forestall the elimination of a welfare entitlementshould mobilize the generally accepted meaning of compassion asrequiring a safety net. We also expect reformers promoting an endto entitlement would perceive the need to redefine compassion, andits proper targets, so they could use it as a positive resource.

We ground our claims and expectations in empirical evidencesuggesting the importance of compassion as a general value in USantipoverty policies. Two types of evidence separate from thePRWORA debates suggest this: (a) the institutionalization ofthe safety-net concept in welfare policy and debate prior to thePRWORA; (b) public opinion.

Post-New Deal ADC and AFDC were means-tested entitlements,with the government assistance guarantee in effect for sixty yearsprior to the PRWORA (Mink and Solinger 2003, 663). ThePRWORA culminated thirty years of reform to strengthen workrequirements and devolve more responsibility to states (Borris 1999;Mink 1998; O’Connor 2001). Already in the mid-1950s, liberalreformers were concerned about combating dependency among their


other goals in changing welfare (Mittelstadt 2001). But endingentitlement broke radically from the taken-for-granted assumptionof a state-guaranteed safety net, at least for the “truly needy.”That assumption can be seen across both Democratic andRepublican administrations until the 1990s. President Johnson’sWar on Poverty exemplified a commitment to helping the “trulyneedy.” Republican President Richard Nixon proposed—thoughultimately failed to enact—a family assistance plan, intended toreplace AFDC and promote employment through market incentiveswhile also combating poverty with a government-guaranteed annualincome (Quadagno 1990). In the early 1980s, even the Reagan revo-lution did not seek to eliminate AFDC. Although Reagan “slashedanti-poverty budgets and severely restricted eligibility rules to elimin-ate aid for all but the ‘truly needy,’” he emphasized that hisAdministration maintained the “safety net” for the “truly needy”(O’Connor 2001, 242–43). The 1988 FSA increased workrequirements, while reaffirming federal government commitment toa safety net.

In sum, even as support for big government eroded, reformersincreasingly attacked welfare for discouraging work and promotingdependency, and women’s labor force participation increased dra-matically, US federal welfare policies continued to define poor singlemothers as “truly needy,” deserving compassion; need-based entitle-ment to public assistance—the “safety net” was well institutiona-lized. When in 1984, Charles Murray argued for ending all welfaresave unemployment for the nonelderly, “his proposals for endingwelfare were considered beyond the pale” even by neoconservatives,who emphasized “virtues of free market individualism,” but alsostressed “need for public aid to the ‘truly needy’” (O’Connor 2001,252). But by the 1990s, Republicans had taken up Murray’s sugges-tion. The Republicans’ 1994 Contract with America proposedending entitlement, abandoning safety-net rhetoric and reality.Republican leaders reasonably could have anticipated being attackedfor lacking compassion, and they indeed were. Yet, as we willdemonstrate, this time, they were able to turn back the attacks.

Consistent with Republicans’ rhetoric, polls from the 1970s and1980s show disenchantment with welfare programs and negativeattitudes toward recipients (Gilens 1995, 1999; Kluegel andSmith 1986; Shapiro et al. 1987). But polls also reflected Americans’desire to help the poor. For example, Alan Wolfe (1998) foundmost of his suburban respondents polled in the mid-1990s felt obli-gated to help the poor, but criticized the form taken by welfare(Wolfe 1998, 200–1). National public opinion echoed this ambiva-lence, with responses varying depending on question wording.


Implicitly endorsing compassion for the poor, 60 percent of thosepolled in the 1998 General Social Survey indicated “too little” wasspent on the poor; only 11 percent suggested “too much” wasspent.3 Between 1984 and 2004, the percentage of GSS respondentsindicating “too little” was spent registered a high of 70 percent, andnever dipped below 55 percent. In the 2004 National ElectionSurvey, 57 percent of respondents said that spending to aid the poorshould be increased; only 7.5 percent said it should be decreased(National Election Studies 2004). In the 1983–87 GSS, 89 percentof respondents agreed that welfare assistance helps prevent hungerand starvation, and 83 percent agreed it helps people get on theirfeet when facing hard situations such as unemployment, death in thefamily, or divorce. But respondents were far less supportive ofspending more money to help welfare recipients. In 1980, a whop-ping 81 percent agreed that the United States was spending toomuch money on welfare (Kluegel and Smith 1986, 153), while evenafter welfare reform, 44.5 percent of respondents in the 2004 GSSagreed that welfare spending should be decreased (National ElectionStudies 2004). In short, while exhibiting ambivalence at best, andhostility at worst, to welfare and welfare recipients, clear majoritiesof Americans supported government aid to the poor. This suggeststhat they thought of themselves and their country as compassionatein its treatment of the poor and, we think, reflects a backgroundbelief in compassion as an important general value appropriatelyguiding US antipoverty policies.

During the PRWORA debates, conservative intellectuals and poli-ticians appeared to believe that the value of compassion provided apotential barrier—and important key—to reforming welfare. In theforward to Marvin Olasky’s 1996 book, Renewing AmericanCompassion, a sequel to his Tragedy of American Compassion(1992), Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia), House speaker and strong pro-moter of ending entitlement, wrote:

As Americans we can no longer escape this reality: threedecades of social welfare policies have failed, condemning toomany of our fellow citizens to lives of despair. Nevertheless,Americans want a compassionate society that will help thetruly needy . . . . (in Olasky 1996, ix)

Methods and Data

In the analysis that follows, we do not provide full process tracingof the passage of the PRWORA; rather, we aim simply to contextua-lize our interpretations of floor debates, which are our central source


of evidence. We consulted secondary treatments of US welfare poli-tics and policies, including nonpartisan summaries of reform billscompiled by Congressional Quarterly, as well as primary documentsespecially for the period between the 1988 FSA and the PRWORA,aided by Mink and Solinger’s (2003) compendium of welfare docu-ments. We examined Congressional documents from the 103rd and104th sessions, during which Congress held hearings on Republicanand Clinton Administration proposals most immediately precedingthe PRWORA. Olasky’s (1992, 1996) influential books on com-passion helped set the stage for the PRWORA and so provide impor-tant evidence.

Data for our discourse analysis come from 104th Congress floordebates between January 1995 and August 1996, when PresidentClinton signed the PRWORA. Analyzing these debates highlights themost proximate discourse in Congress’ framing of the PRWORA, sowe can elucidate fully crystallized and competing definitions of com-passion. Because we relied on documents that are available electroni-cally or in published form, we had to exclude hearings andunpublished memos and other such informal materials. This shouldnot be problematic, because floor debates, especially those closest intime to anticipated legislation, are about constructing legislationsymbolically for the public. They are arenas for rhetorical flourish,in which supporters and opponents of impending legislation cast itas good or evil, casting themselves as heroes and others as villains inpolitics and policy making.

We used the legislative history of the PRWORA [P.L. 104–193]available from the Lexis Nexis Congressional Index electronic data-base to identify and obtain floor debates (Congressional InformationService 1996). Excluding procedural discussions and one debate notsubstantively related to welfare reform, thirty-two debates remained(list available from authors). We used Atlas.ti for computer-assistedcoding and analysis, facilitating our interpretive work. We explainfurther how we constructed content codes as we report results.

The Political Context of PRWORA Floor Debates

In the late 1980s through the early 1990s, elites debating welfarereform reprised familiar roles: “Liberals called for more spending,”while conservatives called for “fiscal restraint” and “personalresponsibility” (DeParle 2004, 131). Though conservatives were ableto cut spending, liberals often held the line, labeling reductions“mean” and “punitive” (DeParle 2004). Yet, elites across the politi-cal spectrum increasingly agreed the system was broken and requiredfixing (Mink and Solinger 2003, 523–603; Orloff 2001; Somers and


Block 2005). States under both Democratic and Conservativecontrol enacted policies encouraging more “responsible” behavior inreturn for assistance. For example, under welfare-entrepreneurialRepublican governor Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin enactedLearnfare, requiring welfare-teen mothers to return to school toavoid forfeiting half their monthly grant. Under DemocraticGovernor Bill Clinton, Arkansas reduced public assistance coststhrough child support enforcement that recovered money owed towelfare families by absent fathers (Brownstein 1991, in Mink andSolinger 2003, 533, 553).

With conservatives stressing “personal responsibility,” and liber-als emphasizing that responsibility be coupled with providing“opportunity” and “government support,” a bipartisan consensusemerged toward balancing “opportunity” with “responsibility”(Mink and Solinger 2003, 523–603). Analyses of debates inCongress and the media prior to passage of the 1988 FSA indicatethat “the concept of ‘mutual obligation’ – the new social contract[between government and personal responsibility] had almost unani-mous support” (Deprez 2002; Holcomb 1993; see also Naples1997). So did preventing long-term welfare dependency (Holcomb1993). In 1990, two years before running for President as a centristNew Democrat promising “to end welfare as we know it,” Clintontestified in Congress praising Arkansas’ “welfare reform and preven-tion” as “breaking out of the old, liberal and conservative precon-ceptions and merging the best of both into a program with commonsense” (Clinton 1990, in Mink and Solinger 2003, 540).

By the time he was elected President in 1992, Clinton presentedhimself as committed to further reform building on the FSA, provid-ing new resources, but also new control mechanisms to movewelfare recipients, overwhelmingly single mothers, to formal paidemployment. He approved state-level flexibility (Mink and Solinger2003, 535). His 1990 testimony already previewed what became hisAdministration’s plan. Consistent with the “comprehensive, biparti-san” plan supported by 49 of 50 governors in the late 1980s,Clinton argued that “everyone on welfare should sign a contractcommitting to pursue independence in return for benefits” (Clinton1990, in Mink and Solinger 2003, 541). “Independence” is under-stood to mean economic independence derived from paid employ-ment. Government would support recipients’ efforts by providingsubstantially more money for child care, health coverage, education,training, and work placement.4 People did “have a right to [govern-ment] assistance,” but maintained it in return for “their best efforts”(Clinton 1990, in Mink and Solinger 2003, 542)—which no longermeant simply their best efforts at taking care of their children, as it


had, at least sometimes, in the past. Now, it implied paid employ-ment or workfare (government-sponsored job-related activities inexchange for benefits). Note that Clinton initially embraced not theend of entitlement, but work requirements and the associated under-standing that mothers’ “deservingness” was premised on workeffort.

Republicans embraced the end of entitlement; in 1991, a HouseRepublican working group suggested that after a recipient’s eligi-bility expired, “cash welfare [would be] permanently terminated”(Haskins 2006, 27). Between the time of the group’s report, inOctober 1992, and the PRWORA’s enactment, “almost everyRepublican Bill contained some version of time limits,” thus, theend of entitlement (Haskins 2006, 27).

With Clinton promising government responsibility and morespending in return for more personal responsibility and Republicansbeginning to promote ending entitlement, Marvin Olasky (1992)emphasized a new component in the cultural mix facilitating thePRWORA. Like Murray, Olasky did not want the federal govern-ment to provide cash assistance to the poor. Beyond Murray, Olaskylinked now more generally accepted arguments about welfare perver-sity to two different concepts of compassion.

In The Tragedy of American Compassion, Olasky (1992, 22)praised nineteenth century notions that not all merited aid, conjuringup de Tocqueville’s discussion, in Democracy in America, of howAmericans “display[ed] general compassion” interacting with neigh-bors facing personal problems. This highlighted poverty as personalproblem and also the personal, private, and small-scale interactionalnature of truly compassionate relief. Olasky (1992) argued that inthe twentieth century, especially in conjunction with Johnson’s Waron Poverty and beyond, compassionate relief became synonymouswith expanding government assistance. Citing to media coverage,political pamphlets, and academic and popular books of the 1970s–80s with titles featuring the word “compassion,” Olasky (1992, 193,195) said it had become a “revealed truth” that increased govern-ment transfers exemplified compassion not just to “widows” and“orphans,” but “to all even if they had victimized themselves andcontinued to do so.” “To suggest that government transfers shouldbe reduced, or even tightly constrained, is to risk being rebuked asheartless” (Olasky 1992, 195 quoting Lee 1989, 14–15).

In sum, Olasky (1992) reiterated Murray’s arguments that welfareentitlement had perverse consequences and linked it to argumentsthat the morally appropriate concept of compassion had beenhijacked for one that was morally inappropriate and ineffective. Bythe 1995–96 PRWORA floor debates, many who favored more


punitive reform echoed Olasky, redefining compassion fromgovernment-provided entitlement to a safety net, to Olasky’s puta-tive “original” definition. The 1994 mid-term elections, in whichRepublicans ascended to power, facilitated both compassion’s redefi-nition and ending entitlement.

In the 103rd Congress, House Republicans pushed work require-ments and ending entitlement, including a two-year lifetime limit onwelfare eligibility. President Clinton tied promoting work to guaran-teeing health insurance, building on the mutual obligation conceptcharacterizing the FSA (Congressional Quarterly 1995; Shalala1994; Winston 2002). Under Clinton’s plan, welfare recipients whohad been assisted for two years and were subject to work require-ments could count on government-funded employment if unable tofind a private sector job (Shalala 1994; Weaver 2000; Winston2002). The Administration emphasized that recipients could expect“support, job training and child care” to “make work pay,” but alsosupported the goal of welfare “independence” (Shalala 1994, inMink and Solinger 2003, 579, 581). The 103rd Congress endedwithout welfare reform and ending entitlement was a centerpieceof House Republicans’ mid-term (1994) electoral agenda—theContract with America (Republican National Committee 1994). TheContract included a five, rather than two, year lifetime limit, butrequired states to move recipients into employment if they hadreceived benefits for two years. It did not require states to providejobs for those who wanted employment, but could not find a privatesector job (Mink and Solinger 2003, 587–94), as Clinton adminis-tration proposals did.

Republicans controlled both House and Senate after mid-termelections, increasing the likelihood of more punitive reforms passing.But politicians considering how policies they promoted would shapetheir electoral fortunes faced one disquieting fact. Though manyvoters polled wanted welfare recipients to behave more “responsi-bly” in return for government aid, many balked at rigid and punitivetime limits (Garin, Molyneux, and DiVall 1993). In their 1993national survey, Peter D. Hart Associates found “a politically andideologically broad-based” segment of the US public, including 67percent of both blacks and liberals and 77 percent of Democrats,said “the welfare system is not working well” and that their“primary goal” for reform was to “move recipients . . . into the workforce” (Garin, Molyneux, and DiVall 1993, in Mink and Solinger2003, 565). But “a strict two year limit on welfare benefits [was]one of the least supported [welfare] reforms tested in the survey”(Garin, Molyneux, and DiVall in Mink and Solinger 2003, 565,emphasis in original). By 7:1, voters preferred a two-year limit


followed by public service for those who could not find jobs, toinstituting a strict two-year time limit. Eighty-eight percent of voters(including 54 percent who strongly agreed), thought many poor chil-dren, through no fault of their own, would be hurt by a stricttwo-year cut-off.5 Though many Americans said the extant system“exacerbate[ed] the problem of poverty” by “encourage[ing] depen-dence,” many attributed existing programs’ failure to lack of “suffi-cient help . . . to make the transition to self-reliance” (Garin,Molyneux, and DiVall, in Mink and Solinger 2003, 565).

Thus, in 1993, the US public was more in sympathy withClinton’s proposals than with Republicans’ model. Only 7 percentsaid saving money was reform’s top goal (52 percent said the topgoal was helping people get off welfare into work), 85 percent saidthe problem was spending money the wrong way, not spending toomuch, and more than 5:1 voters favored reforms to help peopleleave welfare, even if reform cost much more money in the shortrun. Ninety-five percent supported providing child care, 89 percentsupported health care for mothers to work, and 87 percent (57percent strongly) favored providing public service jobs for the poorwho could not find private sector jobs (Garin, Molyneux, andDiVall 1993). Faced with these polls, Republicans could haveremade their reforms more consistent with public opinion. Instead,they redefined the meaning of strict time limits—with minimal reci-procal government responsibility—as compassionate rather thanpunitive.

In January 1995, new Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrichintroduced H.R. 4, closely replicating the Contract with America(Congressional Quarterly 1995; DeParle 2004; Haskins 2006;Winston 2002). When Gingrich opened hearings on 5 January 1995,Representative Clay Shaw (R-FL) quickly emphasized: “I think wehave put together a very compassionate welfare reform package –the cruelest welfare system is the one that we already have . . . payingpeople to stay in their place . . . not to break out” (US Congress—House 1996). Gingrich responded by linking Republican reformsexplicitly to Olasky’s arguments in his Tragedy of AmericanCompassion (US Congress—House 1996).

Democrats proposed two alternatives to H.R. 4 that came to avote on the House floor, but the House passed H.R 4 with a mostlyparty-line vote (Congressional Quarterly 1995; Weaver 2000;Winston 2002). The President supported a Democratic alternativemore conservative than his original bill, which signaled toRepublicans that their mid-term electoral success had pushedClinton’s “zone of acceptable outcomes . . . substantially to theright” (Weaver 2000, 289). As the Senate grappled with reform and


House Democrats offered more bills to counter H.R. 4,Republican-proposed bills all would have ended entitlement whileDemocratic bills protected some version of entitlement.6 The Senatepassed an amended version of H.R. 4 ending entitlement, and aHouse-Senate Conference Committee put similar provisions in itsomnibus budget reconciliation bill. By the end of January 1996,Clinton had vetoed both, encouraging Congress to work with him toproduce a bipartisan bill “tough on work and responsibility, but nottough on children and parents,” one that did not make “deepbudget cuts that . . . undermine states’ ability to move people fromwelfare to work” (Clinton 1996, 1–2).

In July 1996, House and Senate passed versions of thePRWORA.7 Senator Wendell Ford (D-KY) proposed a last ditchamendment “allow[ing] federal welfare funds to be used for vou-chers for families of welfare recipients who exceeded the five-yeartime limits” (Congressional Quarterly 1996, 622). By very narrowmargins (48–51; motion to reconsider tabled 50–49), the Senaterejected it, after Republicans argued that providing vouchers wouldundermine time limits. Before the House and Senate could vote on afinal conference report—and after signaling he wanted to soften theHouse bill but might sign the Senate version—Clinton announcedhe would sign the PRWORA, fulfilling his 1992 campaign promiseto “end welfare as we know it” (Congressional Quarterly 1996;Winston 2002). A few hours after Clinton’s statement, the Houseapproved the bill, 328–101, with half of House Democrats votingin favor (Winston 2002). The Senate approved the following day,78–21. Though all Senators voting “no” were Democrats, moreDemocrats voted in favor than against (Winston 2002). On 22August 1996, President Clinton signed the PRWORA into law.

Throughout the debates over welfare reform, Republican leadersgrappled with closing the apparent gap between their approach andthe less punitive one supported by the US public, and engaged inexplicit efforts to reframe compassion. Jason DeParle (2004)recounts visiting a pollster’s office, observing results of a focusgroup of self-identified Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.Participants listened to a Gingrich speech and used dials to indicateapproval of specific points. When Gingrich said, “Caring for peopleis not synonymous with caretaking for people,” members of allthree groups highly approved (DeParle 2004, 131, emphasis in orig-inal). DeParle (2004, 131) read this as part of a Gingrich strategy to“redefine compassion” to support ending entitlement.

Gingrich set the old arguments on their head. While Reaganattacked poor people for abusing the programs, Gingrich


attacked programs for abusing the poor. He didn’t complain,as did Reagan, of high living welfare queens; he reminded thepublic that poor children were suffering and said welfare wasto blame. While Reagan talked of welfare recipients whose ‘taxfree cash income alone is over a hundred fifty thousanddollars,’ Gingrich talked of ‘twelve-year-olds having babies’and ‘seventeen-year-olds dying of Aids.’ (DeParle 2004, 131)

When he presented his interpretation to Gringrich, DeParle (2004,131) reports that Gingrich responded: “Congratulations! Youcracked the code!”

Meanwhile, Gingrich publicly touted a second Olasky book oncompassion and welfare reform. With its Gingrich-penned forward,the book appeared the year of the PRWORA. In it, Olasky (1996)extended his argument about reclaiming the definition of com-passion, arguing that programs springing from the New Deal andWar on Poverty redistributed resources to “the undeserving” who“wished to continue in self-destructive pursuits” (Olasky 1996, 75).Where private charities of the nineteenth and pre-Depression twenti-eth centuries were effective “because they offered compassion thatwas challenging, personal and spiritually based,” government assist-ance “emphasized entitlement rather than challenge, bureaucracyrather than personal help, and a reduction of man to material beingonly” (Olasky 1996, 3). Federal cash aid should be replaced “with atruly compassionate approach based on private and religiouscharity” (Olasky 1996, 26). Washington should promote the “true”meaning of compassion “by phasing out federal programs andpushing states to develop ways for individuals and community-basedinstitutions to take over poverty-fighting responsibility” (Olasky1996, 98).

In his forward, Gingrich made clear that he strongly endorsedOlasky’s argument. Doing so while invoking Americans’ desire for“a compassionate society that will help the truly needy,” Gingrichalso implicitly signaled he recognized the idea of compassion institu-tionalized in prior policies and public understanding (Gingrich, inOlasky 2006, ix). He also implicitly signaled his understanding thatredefining compassion was strategic, because it allowed the elimin-ation of entitlement to be framed as consistent with Americans’concept of themselves and political leaders as “compassionate.”

If Republican leaders did attribute strategic importance to redefin-ing compassion consistent with Olasky’s arguments, we should findthis redefinition, along with disputes about compassion’s meaning inthe 104th Congress floor debates. Indeed, the Republican strategy ofredefining compassion reached full elaboration here.


104th Congress Floor Debates

We analyzed discourse iteratively, our coding evolving as we readdebates and secondary sources. Identifying arguments by reformsupporters and opponents, we began constructing codes by readingsecondary accounts and analyzing a small set of documents com-piled in Welfare: A Documentary History of U.S. Policy and Politics(Mink and Solinger 2003). As we read floor debates, we refined ourcoding, adding codes, separating some codes into multiple codes,and elaborating code descriptions to arrive at our final coding, withmeaningful criteria for frame identification that are explicit andprecise enough to ensure inter-coder reliability. One of us did finalcoding; the other checked and verified it. Only a handful of codeswere reassigned.

We developed codes for many arguments, including those relatedto family, work, immigration, and negative aspects of the currentsystem. Once focused on compassion’s role, we developed strategiesfor conclusive, verifiable claims, e.g., computerized searches locatingand counting explicit compassion mentions relative to other values(self-sufficiency, opportunity, and personal responsibility) typicallyconsidered important for welfare reform.8

There are different numbers of speakers represented across the32 debates or “documents” we coded. A given speaker may makemultiple statements in a document. We coded each statement as aseparate quote, defining “quote” as an argument by one speaker ona single topic. In a quote, speakers could repeat words/phrases likecompassion or personal responsibility multiple times in proximity,e.g., in a sentence, paragraph, or continuous paragraphs. Wecounted this as just one explicit mention.

After systematizing and verifying our explicit reference coding, weused debate familiarity to construct techniques identifying implicitreferences.9 We read each quote multiple times, discarding thoseincluded inappropriately to arrive at accurate counts of explicit andimplicit references. We interpreted all explicit references forinclusion in one or more specific frame. We came to tentative con-clusions, then re-examined these by checking whether additionalpatterns that should hold, assuming our interpretations were correct,did in fact hold.

Representatives and Senators explicitly mentioned compassion in117 quotes, compared with 177 quotes explicitly mentioning self-sufficiency, 157 for personal responsibility, and 145 for opportunity.Thus, we do not claim that compassion was the only or most impor-tant value in these debates. But 117 explicit quotes, coupled with


650 implicit quotes referencing compassion, suggest that compassionwas an important American value perceived at stake.

Table 1 provides the universe of frames, including coding criteriaand exemplary quotes explicitly referencing compassion in the1995–96 debates. Footnotes of table 1 identify each speaker andpolitical party. Consistent with debates’ time distribution, a majorityof quotes come from 1995, when many bills were debated. With the1996 floor debates confined to mid-summer, a significant minorityof quotes are from late July 1996.

Table 2 extends the analysis presented in table 1, showing incolumn 1 the number and percentage of explicit compassion quotes(total N ¼ 117) represented by each frame. Because a quote mayrepresent more than one frame, percentages in column 1 do not sumto 100 percent. In columns 2–5, table 2 shows the number and per-centage of all explicit compassion quotes (row 1 of table 2) and thenof each frame separately (rows 2–9) spoken by PRWORA suppor-ters and opponents, and Republicans and Democrats. We compileddata on supporters’ and opponents’ identity using final PRWORAvote tallies. Ultimate supporters include some speakers attackingearlier bills they said they could not support.

The material presented in table 1 allows us to examine systemati-cally the role of compassion. Speakers mobilized compassion toframe the American people and the US policy, and to construct com-peting definitions of existing programs, reform and reform suppor-ters and opponents.

Starting at the top left of table 1, the first frame, compassionateidentity, invoked in 15 percent of explicit compassion quotes, showsspeakers presumed compassion was an important general value forconstructing appropriate antipoverty policies. For example, SenatorDaniel R. Coat’s (R-IN) stated: “Compassion for the poor is a valu-able part of the American tradition and it is also a central part ofour moral tradition.” As expected, table 2 shows the compassionateidentity frame almost evenly spread across Democrats andRepublicans. Two-thirds of invocations were by those who sup-ported the final PRWORA and one-third by those who voted againstthat bill. This finding is essential: without it, there would have beenno reason for Republican supporters of more punitive reform to per-ceive a need to redefine compassion.

We term a second frame in table 1 compassion’s “traditional defi-nition.” It invokes the 60 year AFDC tradition Olasky attacks. Forthis frame, invoked by 20 percent of explicit compassion quotes, astatement had to defend the safety net, entitlements, or the federalgovernment’s historical commitment to protect children or helpthe poor. Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s (D-MA) invocation of


Table 1. Frames, Frame Criteria, and Exemplary Quotes.

Frame Frame criteria Examples

1. Compassionate

identity

Americans value compassion, the American people

are compassionate, compassion is an American

value, or we are a compassionate country/society

“I remember the deep conviction of the American people and their

compassion for the less fortunate. I urge my colleagues to continue

that tradition . . . .”a

“Compassion for the poor is a valuable part of the American

tradition, and it is also a central part of our moral tradition.”b

“This Republican budget does not speak to the American values that

I know and the ones that I cherish, values that I see every day in

my fellow Nebraskans. The greatest of these values are shared

sacrifice, fairness, and compassion for our neighbors.”c

2. Traditional

definition of

compassion

Must defend current safety net, entitlements,

government benefits/assistance, or government

commitment/responsibility to protect children or

help the poor. May reference history of helping

those in need through government benefits

“[I]t is unfortunate to see the National Government backing away

from a responsibility toward our Nation’s children—a

responsibility embraced by the Democratic alternative which was

tougher on work and more compassionate toward children. I will

work in the future for adoption of that kind of commonsense

welfare reform.”d

“A ‘survival of the richest’ plan is not what makes America America.

President Kennedy said in his Inaugural Address: ‘If a free society

cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who

are rich.’ And in defense of the national safety net, President

Reagan said in 1984: ‘We can promote economic viability, while

showing the disadvantaged genuine compassion.’”e

“[B]ecause this Republican legislation also is very tough on kids and

basically takes away almost all the protections for children that

exist in the current system, the Castle-Tanner substitute would at

least provide sufficient or at least more resources to get people to

work and, also, I think, protect that safety net for children.”f

536

VStryker

and

Wald

3. Balancing

compassion and

other values

Welfare reform is compassionate and promotes

work, responsibility, opportunity, or

self-sufficiency. The American people are

compassionate, but also value work,

responsibility, etc.

“This landmark piece of welfare reform emphasizes responsibility

and compassion.”g

“Americans are a compassionate people, eager to lend a helping

hand . . . but Americans also are a just people, expecting everyone

to contribute as they are able and to take responsibility for

themselves & their families. It is the balancing of these two

concerns that makes correcting our welfare system a challenge, but

a challenge which must be met.”h

4. Welfare reform or

reform supporters

are not

compassionate—

offensive claim

Welfare reform/reformers is/are not compassionate

because cruel, mean-spirited, punitive,

eliminate(s) the safety net, or harm(s) children,

needy, or the poor

“Where is the compassion, where is the sense of decency, where is

the heart of this Congress? This bill is mean, it is base, it is

downright law down . . . it is an abdication of our responsibility

and an abandonment of our morality. It is wrong, just plain

wrong.”i

“But the American people are also compassionate. They do not want

innocent children punished for the behavior of their parents. They

expect us to protect poor and vulnerable children. And that is the

most serious flaw in the legislation before us—innocent children

are not guaranteed protection.”j

5. Welfare reform or

reform supporters

are not

compassionate—

defensive claim

Disputes argument that welfare reform/reformers

is/are not compassionate because cruel,

mean-spirited, punitive, eliminate(s) the safety

net, or harm(s) children, needy, or the poor

“Mr. Speaker, in the last few days I have seen an uproar from the

friends on the left regarding the restructuring of the welfare

system. I hear phrases like ‘lacking compassion,’ ‘mean spirited,’

‘cruelty to children.’ I am here to tell you that changing a system

that does not work has nothing to do with lacking compassion.”k

“We must not be deterred by those who claim that we are not

compassionate. We are compelled to help all Americans,

particularly our neighbors struggling to survive in the poorest

neighborhoods.”l

Continued

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Table 1. Continued

Frame Frame criteria Examples

6. Current system

not

compassionate

Use of “perversity rhetoric” to say old system

creates dependency, illegitimacy/out-of-wedlock

childbearing, poverty, unemployment, harms

recipients or children, does not encourage

responsibility, or is not fiscally responsible.

“I ask my colleagues today now what is compassionate about

continuing failed welfare programs that encourage a second, and

third and fourth generation of welfare dependency? I say to my

colleagues, ‘You know, and I know, the answer is nothing.’’’m

“We are ending a welfare system that is not compassionate and

replacing it with hope and opportunity. We are ending a failed

system and encouraging personal responsibility.”n

7. Welfare reform/supporters is/are compassionate

7a. Welfare

reform/

supporters

maintain(s) the

safety net or

entitlements

Applies the traditional definition of compassion to

welfare reform and/or welfare reform supporters

Thus, a statement must mention the safety net,

entitlements, government benefits/assistance, or

government commitment/responsibility to

protect children or help the poor in conjunction

with welfare reform or reform supporters. May

include claim that reform provides more funding

for child care, Medicaid, or health insurance

than current law

“Some well meaning people will once again make the claim that

welfare reform is mean-spirited. Well, I disagree. We reform

welfare not out of spite but out of compassion. We change this

system not because we want to hurt people, but because we want

to help people help themselves. And we change this system not to

throw children into the streets, but to give children a greater

change to realize the American dream and still maintain a safety

net for those truly in need.”o

7b. Depicts

reform/

supporters as

compassionate

without

specifying why

States that welfare reform/supporters is/are

compassionate without specifying a reason. Does

not invoke the traditional definition of

compassion. Does not redefine compassion

“We have created a truly compassionate reform. This reform effort

has been assaulted. We have often as individuals been assaulted,

all too often with language that is neither kind nor gentlemanly.”p

538

VStryker

and

Wald

7c. Redefinition of

compassion

Depicts welfare reform or reform supporters as

compassionate for one of the following reasons.

Compassion requires reducing welfare rolls,

dependency, or government spending.

Compassion requires promoting work,

self-sufficiency, opportunity, fiscal and personal

responsibility, or requiring people to care for

own children. Federal government is incapable of

being compassionate. State and local

governments, charities, religious organizations,

communities, or individuals are better at being

compassionate than federal government

“For 30 years we have been measuring compassion by how many

people are on welfare. Isn’t it time we began measuring

compassion by how few people are on welfare.”q

“For 30 years we have been deficit spending. We have lost sight of

our fundamental responsibilities to make certain that we measure

our commitment to compassion with our ability to sustain

programs financially.”r

“Does anybody really believe the Federal Government embodies

compassion, that it has a heart? Of course not – those are

qualities found only outside Washington, in America’s

communities.”s

aRepresentative Donald Payne (D-NJ), US Congress (1995, H3773).bSenator Daniel R. Coats (R-IN), US Congress (1995, S13500).cSenator J. James Exon, D-NE, US Congress (1995, S15600).dSenator Barbara Boxer D-CA, US Congress (1995, S13789).eSenator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), US Congress (1995, S19103).fRepresentative Frank Pallone Jr., (D-NJ), US Congress (1996, H7790).gRepresentative Linda Smith, (R-WA), US Congress (1996, H9416).hRepresentative John S. Tanner, (D-TN), US Congress (1996, H9418).iRepresentative John Lewis, (D-GA), US Congress (1996, H9413).jSenator Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND), US Congress (1995, S13786).kRepresentative Jon Christensen (R-NE), US Congress (1995, H3581).lRepresentative Rick Lazio (R-NY), US Congress (1995, H3778).mRepresentative Gerald B.H. Solomon (R-NY), US Congress (1995, H3344).nRepresentative Andrea H. Seastrand (R-CA), US Congress (1995, H3581).oRepresentative Tom Delay (R-TX), US Congress (1996, H9412).pRepresentative Dick Armey (R-TX), US Congress (1995, H3789).qRepresentative Ron Packard (R-CA), US Congress (1995, H3784).rRepresentative Bob Franks (R-NJ), US Congress (1995, H10785).sSenator Rod Grams (R-MN), US Congress (1995, S19105).

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Table 2. Numeric Counts in Explicit Compassion Quotesa.

Frames

Number and percent of

explicit compassionate

quotes that reference frame

Quotes by

PRWORA

supportersb, n (%)

Quotes by

PRWORA

opponents, n (%)

Quotes by

Republicansc,

n (%)

Quotes by

Democrats,

n (%)

Total 5 All Explicit

Compassion Quotes

N ¼ 117 (100) N ¼ 92 (75) N ¼ 23 (19) N ¼ 72 (62) N ¼ 44 (38)

1. Compassionate identity 18 (15) 12 (67) 5 (28) 9 (50) 8 (44)

2. Traditional definition of

compassion

23 (20) 13 (57) 10 (43) 2 (9) 21 (91)

3. Balancing compassion and

other values

23 (20) 20 (87) 3 (13) 12 (52) 11 (48)

4. Welfare reform or reform

supporters are not

compassionate—offensive

claim

30 (26) 12 (40) 17 (57) 0 29 (97)

5. Welfare reform or reform

supporters are not

compassionate—defensive

claim

14 (12) 14 (100) 0 14 (100) 0

6. Current system not

compassionate

35 (30) 34 (97) 1 (3) 32 (91) 3 (9)

7. Welfare reform/supporters is/are compassionate

7a. Reform/reformer

maintains the safety net

or entitlements

18 (15) 18 (100) 0 16 (89) 2 (11)

540

VStryker

and

Wald

7b. Depiction of reform/

supporters as

compassionate without

specifying why

2 (2) 2 (100) 0 2 (100) 0

7c. Redefinition of

compassion

40 (33) 39 (98) 0 40 (100) 0

aThe first cell in the first column indicates that there are 117 total explicit compassion quotes. The other cells in the first column indicate thenumber and percent of the explicit compassion quotes that mention each frame. For example, 18 (or 15 percent) of the explicit compassionquotes were also coded as compassionate identity. The first cell in the second column indicates that PRWPRA supporters articulated 92 (or 75percent) of the explicit compassion quotes. The second cell in the second column indicates that PRWORA supporters articulated 12 (or 67percent) of the quotes coded as compassionate identity, the third cell indicates that they articulated 13 (or 57 percent) of the quotes coded astraditional definition of compassion, etc. The columns for PRWORA opponents, Republicans, and Democrats should be read in the sameway. A quote may represent more than one of the frames listed. In a few cases, explicit references to compassion were idiosyncratic,mentioning none of the systematic frames we identified.bPRWORA supporters include Democrats who ultimately voted for the PRWORA, while critiquing earlier Republican reform proposals.The number of quotes attributed to supporters and opponents does not add up to the total N of 117 because, in a few instances, a personwho remained in Congress did not cast a vote for or against the PRWORA. This happened because he/she was a delegate who did not havethe right to vote or did not cast a vote. In addition, a few speakers were unidentified in the database. Senators Dole (R-KS) and Packwood(R-OR) who left Congress before the final vote on the PRWORA, but clearly supported Republican welfare reforms, are coded as supporters.cThe number of quotes attributed to Republicans and Democrats does not add up to 117 because one speaker was unidentified.

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Reagan’s “defense of the national safety net” stands out in highlightinginstitutionalization and the broad, bipartisan legitimacy of associatingcompassion for the poor with a state safety net/entitlement. Table 2shows Democrats were far more likely to invoke the traditionaldefinition than Republicans, with Democrats responsible for 91percent of invocations. In contrast, PRWORA supporters referencedthe traditional definition somewhat more than opponents. This appar-ent anomaly makes sense because, as shown by other exemplaryquotes, many Democrats voting for the final PRWORA attackedearlier Republican bills as failing compassion’s traditional definition.

A third frame invoked as often as compassion’s traditional defi-nition, almost equally by Republicans and Democrats, but 87percent of the time by PRWORA supporters, balanced compassionwith work, responsibility, opportunity, or self-sufficiency (tables 1and 2). This provides more evidence that Republicans, Democrats,and President Clinton all perceived the “need to reform,” recogniz-ing and appealing to multiple values. Here these values are distinct,with compassion on one side balanced against other key values,including personal responsibility.

The fourth and fifth frames in tables 1 and 2 are variations on theargument that welfare reform or its supporters are not compassio-nate. Descriptions and quotes make clear that the two frames aredistinguished by function—either arguing or disputing that reform/reformers are not compassionate because they are cruel, mean-spirited, heartless, or punitive, or because they will eliminate thesafety net or harm children, the needy, or the poor. The defensiveclaim is made by 12 percent of explicit compassion quotes, while26 percent of explicit compassion quotes attack reform/reformersfor lacking compassion. Defensive claims acknowledge, but refutethe charge. Many defensive quotes also are categorized appropriatelyin table 1’s sixth and seventh frames. The sixth claims that thecurrent system lacks compassion; the seventh that reform/reformersare compassionate, thus upholding American traditions and ideals.

As table 2 shows, when arguments invoke compassion’s tra-ditional definition to argue that reform/reformers are not compas-sionate (frame 4), they are made exclusively by Democrats.Representative John Lewis (D-GA) asked about the impendingPRWORA, “Where is the compassion . . . the sense of decency . . . theheart of this Congress? This bill is mean, it is base, it is downrightlow down . . . it is an abdication of our responsibility and an aban-donment of our morality. It is wrong, just plain wrong” (table 1).Though 40 percent of such statements were made by those who,unlike Representative Lewis, voted for the final PRWORA, thesewere made when criticizing earlier Republican-introduced proposals.


All those invoking the defensive version of the “reform/reformersare not compassionate” frame were Republican and PRWORAsupporters (Frame 5, table 2). Representative Rick Lazio (R-NY),exemplified such defense, arguing in March 1995, “We must not bedeterred by those who claim that we are not compassionate. We arecompelled to help all Americans . . . .” (table 1). Representative JonChristensen (R-NE) charged:

[In] the last few days I have seen an uproar from the friends onthe left regarding the restructuring of the welfare system. I hearphrases like ‘lacking compassion,’ ‘mean spirited,’ ‘cruelty tochildren.’ I am here to tell you that changing a system that doesnot work has nothing to do with lacking compassion. (Table 1)

By acknowledging and refuting the “lacking compassion” charge,Republican reformers showed they thought the charge tapped valueson which they were potentially vulnerable. Quotes refuting lack ofcompassion often also claimed it was the current system that did notreflect compassion.

That the current system is not compassionate is the sixth ident-ified frame. It invokes compassion with perversity rhetoric andappears in almost one-third of explicit compassion quotes. These areidentified—though not quite exclusively—with Republicans (91percent) and reform supporters (97 percent, table 2). Examplesinclude Representative Gerald B.H. Solomon’s (R-NY) statement“ask[ing] [his] colleagues today now what is compassionate aboutcontinuing failed welfare provisions that encourage a second, andthird and fourth generation of welfare dependency? I say to my col-leagues, ‘You know, and I know, the answer is nothing’” (table 1).

To this point, the evidence presented in tables 1 and 2 supportsour claim that, across the political spectrum, politicians in the 104thCongress recognized the importance of compassion as a generalvalue embodied in US welfare policies, understood the value’s tra-ditional meaning institutionalized in prior policy and discourse, andrecognized that the US public expected welfare reform to embodycompassion. Democrats routinely criticized Republican proposalsfor lacking compassion as traditionally defined. Republican refor-mers were concerned enough that such charges would be effective,that they acknowledged them and tried to refute them. That40 percent of charges that Republican reforms lacked compassionwere made by Democrats ultimately voting for the PRWORA showsthat Democrats favoring major reform also felt it important to con-tinue identifying with a traditional politics of compassion.

Our argument about the importance of redefining general valuesin policy debate is brought home by the seventh frame in tables 1


and 2, claiming welfare reform/reformers are compassionate. Theframe has three variants; by far the most prevalent is the redefinitionof compassion. The first variation (Frame 7a) argues that reform orits supporters maintain the safety net, reaffirming the traditionaldefinition of compassion, but attaching it positively to currentreforms, labeling them consistent with traditional meanings/values.PRWORA supporters utter all 15 percent of explicit compassionquotes referencing the frame; 89 percent of them are Republicans(table 2). Repeating opponents’ charge that welfare reformers lackedcompassion (Frame 3), DeLay defended against the charge (Frame4): “[W]e reform welfare not out of spite but out of compassion.”Explaining that reform would “help people help themselves . . . andgive children a greater chance to realize the American dream,”DeLay also claimed that the about-to-be-enacted PRWORA “stillmaintain(ed) a safety net for those truly in need” (Frame 7a, Table2). Meanwhile, in earlier debate, moderate Republican SenatorOlympia Snowe (ME) invoked the traditional safety net and alsoClinton’s value-balancing rhetoric:

[W]e must . . . end welfare as a way of life for millions ofAmericans and their families, while at the same time preservinga safety net for those in our society who need a leg-up ratherthan a hand out . . . we must require more individual responsi-bility, a strengthened work ethic and a sense of discipline andorder to the family, all while continuing to maintain our his-toric and compassionate commitment to those who need ourhelp in those dark times that are part of everyone’s life at sometime or another. (US Congress 1995, S13790)

The second variation on reform/reformers are compassionate also isinvoked only by PRWORA supporters. Invoked by Republicansonly, it is a very small residual category labeling reform compassio-nate without specifying why ( tables 1 and 2).

Redefining compassion to assert that reform/reformers are com-passionate (tables 1 and 2, Frame 7c) was the single most frequentframe associated with explicit references to compassion. One-thirdof quotes explicitly referencing compassion used this redefinition; allwere by Republicans and none were by opponents of PRWORA.Table 1 shows that redefinition signaled one or more of thesethemes: compassion requires reducing welfare rolls, dependency, orgovernment spending; it requires promoting work, responsibility,self-sufficiency, opportunity, fiscal, and personal responsibility; itrequires people to care for their own children; or that the federalgovernment is incapable of compassion and/or that state and localgovernment, religious organizations, individuals, or communities are


repositories of compassion. In contrast to the balancing frame, herecompassion is redefined to equate with promoting work, personalresponsibility, or self-sufficiency.

Table 1 has a small number of exemplary quotes redefining com-passion, including Representative Bob Franks’ (R-NJ) claim, “wemeasure our commitment to compassion with our ability to sustain pro-grams financially,” and Representative Ron Packard’s (R-CA) query,“isn’t it time we began measuring compassion by how few people areon welfare?” But the large number of additional quotes representingcompassion’s redefinition is striking, suggesting that Republicans under-took systematically to redefine compassion and considered this animportant part of efforts to promote their preferred reforms.

Representative Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) encouraged her “col-leagues to start measuring compassion by how few people are onwelfare, and not by how much money the Federal Governmentpours into the welfare system” (US Congress 1995, H3764).Representative JC Watts (R-OK), stated:

[T]here is a philosophical shift that needs to be made here. Weneed to make sure that we no longer measure compassion byhow many people are on welfare and how much money wethrow at welfare, but by how few people are on welfare andhow little money we take from our citizens to get those whoare down and out addicted to the government dole. (USCongress 1995, H3762–3)

Representative Solomon (R-NY) argued for redefining compassionwhile also emphasizing the current system’s perversity and lack ofcompassion.

Members on the other side of the aisle who defend the currentsystem talk in grand terms about compassion. They try to seizethe moral high ground in this debate while their feet remainfirmly planted against any meaningful change in the currentsystem. What kind of compassion leaves unaltered a monolithicbureaucracy that has the ability to ensnare entire generations inthe despair of poverty? What kind of compassion is it thatsaddles future generations with mountains of debt built onfailed but costly programs – debt that harms the poor morethan the better off by stifling economic growth, opportunity,and meaningful jobs in the private sector? However well inten-tioned these programs were at their inception, defenders of thewelfare state must face the fact that they have failed, and that itis time for real and revolutionary change. (US Congress 1995,H3437)


During later debates, many Republicans reiterated these themes,10

and also linked compassion to local rather than federal government.Consistent with Olasky’s claims, Senator Rod Grams (R-MN) asked:“Does anybody really believe that the Federal Government embodiescompassion, that it has a heart? Of course not—those are qualitiesfound only outside of Washington, in America’s communities” (USCongress 1995, S19105). Senator Coats (R-IN) redefined com-passion while also invoking the compassionate nature of Americancollective identity

Compassion for the poor is a valuable part of the Americantradition, and it is also a central . . . part of our moral tradition. . . But a renewal of compassion will ultimately be frustrated ifwe act on a definition of that virtue which has failed. Theproblem we face is not only that welfare is too expensive,which it is; the problem is that it is too stingy with the thingsthat matter the most—responsibility, moral values, humandignity and the warmth of community. This Nation, I suggest,Mr. President, requires a new definition of compassion, a defi-nition which mobilizes the resources of civil society to reachour deepest needs.11 (US Congress 1995, S13500)

At the end of the debate, Representative Jack Kingston (R-GA)responded to Representative Lewis’ (D-GA) criticisms that thosevoting for the PRWORA lacked compassion:

Nothing is more cruel than having a welfare system that trapschildren in poverty, that makes children and families break up,that makes them live in housing projects where the dad cannotbe at home, where there is a high drug use, where there areteenage dropout rates and teenage drug abuse. I do not seewhy they think that is compassion. (US Congress 1996,H9401)

Our analysis thus provides strong evidence that Republican elitespromoting the PRWORA perceived it strategic to redefine com-passion. Republicans and Democrats, reform supporters andopponents alike, presented compassion as a key American valueappropriately emphasized in discussing poverty and the US welfarepolicy. Democrats relied on compassion’s traditional definitions toattack Republican reforms. Republicans met the attacks head-on,acknowledging and repeating them before offering their defense.Some PRWORA supporters, mostly Republican but a fewDemocrats, defended against the perception that they lacked com-passion by insisting that their supported reforms still contained asafety net.


But only Republicans redefined compassion to invoke it as a posi-tive resource for radical reform. Among the 50 percent of explicitcompassion quotes claiming that welfare reform/reform supportersare compassionate—compassion’s redefinition was by far the mostprevalent theme. Compassion is redefined in two-thirds of all claimsthat reform/reform supporters are compassionate and one-third ofexplicit compassion claims overall. In its redefinition, in contrast toits balancing frame, compassion becomes personal responsibility andself-sufficiency. Compassion references conjoined with perversityrhetoric to frame the current system as lacking compassion, justify-ing, and rationalizing compassion’s redefinition. The justificationframe was mobilized almost exclusively by Republicans andPRWORA supporters.

We conclude that in 1995–96, Republicans in Congress con-structed and mobilized systematically a coherent symbolic packageorganized around redefining the general value of compassion. Thatpackage combined framing the current welfare system as perverse,thus lacking compassion, with further explicit reframing of com-passion. More evidence comes from an analysis of explicit mentionsof compassion in the 1987–88 debates over the FSA (available fromauthors). These debates, prior to Olasky’s 1992 and 1996 booksand their self-acknowledged import for House Republican leaderGingrich, do periodically invoke the compassionate nature ofAmericans, their government, and society, and they invoke stateobligation to help the poor who also are obligated to help them-selves. Perversity rhetoric also appears in these debates (Holcomb1993; Naples 1997). What does not appear is a coherent redefinitionof compassion. As Deprez (2002, 114) noted, in the FSA debates, “itwas rare that anyone supported the elimination of a governmentsupport system for those in need. And it was rare that the provisionof basic human needs—food, shelter and jobs—was not endorsed asa basic right.” Indeed, in only two quotes from the FSA debates dowe find anything approaching Republican PRWORA supporters’wholesale redefinition of compassion.12

Conclusion

We have argued that the general value of compassion shaped thePRWORA debates, structuring competing framings of welfarereform, by both supporters and opponents. Because compassion andequal opportunity played similar ideational roles across ideologicallydivergent reforms, we contend that the redefinition of abstractnational values should be understood as part of the more general“ideational processes” (Beland 2009) involved in discursive framing.


Findings suggest that value redefinition is more likely to the extentthat actors find their policy goals inconsistent with dominant mean-ings previously given central values institutionalized in prior policies.Value redefinition should be most likely when the value’s dominantmeaning has become almost taken-for-granted, and those debatingpolicy assume that adhering to such a value reflects how the publicwants to see itself, its national leaders, and policies. Value redefini-tion results in frames mobilized as foregrounded strategic weapons,while value redefinition as process involves both culture and ideas inthe foreground and background: as instrumental resources, and asconstitutive of actors’ identities and goals. All these ways of delineat-ing the causal influences of ideas and culture are required to explainwhy Republican leaders apparently perceived a need to redefinecompassion, and to explain the content and patterning of framesinvolved in the PRWORA debates.

Though the content of values, and their redefinition, vary depend-ing on policies debated, value redefinition as ideational processshould involve similar discursive structures across different debates.Policy supporters and opponents both invoke the value, with thosefinding preferred policies in sync with the value’s dominant mean-ings invoking those meanings, and those whose preferred policiesare out of sync engaging in redefinition. All redefinitions of generalvalues embedded in prior policy promote policy change whileemphasizing continuity, reinforcing traditional values at their mostabstract, general level while reinventing tradition.

Our findings also underscore Campbell’s claim (1998) that, whilethe background ideas that set the parameters for policy debate mayremain unarticulated, they might also be articulated with more orless clarity. In some cases, taken-for-grantedness is evidenced bymeanings and norms appearing implicitly, constraining policy byremoving some options from conscious deliberation. In our case,taken-for-grantedness is recognized and deliberately referenced inpolicy discourse. If politicians and policymakers cannot recognizeand invoke explicitly those values taken-for-granted by publics orwidely shared among elites across the political spectrum, theycannot convert constraint to opportunity through value redefinition.Paradoxically, apparent constraint is a vehicle for exercising agency.

Across the partisan divide, PRWORA supporters and opponentsalike simultaneously invoked cognitive meaning and normativevaluation to express that compassion was an important, appropriatetraditional value for US antipoverty policies and collective identity.Thus, while considering where ideas fit along a cognitive versus nor-mative dimension may benefit analytic clarity (Campbell 1998),many ideas exert influence by attributing meaning while at the same


time supplying moral evaluation (see also Bleich 2003). Against col-lectively recognized, articulated, and reinforced parameters for sensi-ble and appropriate policies, Democrats and PRWORA opponentsattacked Republican reformers for lacking compassion. RepublicanPRWORA promoters anticipated these attacks and felt compelled todefend themselves head-on. Here again, culture’s constitutive andstrategic influences combine. Exemplifying constraint typicallyassociated with culture’s constitutive influence, some Republicanreformers mobilized compassion’s traditional, safety-net meaning todefend the final PRWORA.

But the single most prevalent frame was Republican reformers’redefinition, which mobilized compassion offensively and putRepublicans on the moral high ground. This redefinition, while notsystematically present in earlier debates, was present during the entirePRWORA debate. Especially prominent at the debate’s outset in the104th Congress, it emerged after DeParle witnessed the related,Republican-assembled focus group and confirmed his “value redefini-tion” interpretation of the event with Gingrich. It also occurred at thesame time that Gingrich was penning the forward to Olasky’sRenewing American Compassion, itself advocating the redefinition ofcompassion. On the floor of the 104th Congress, redefinitionoccurred more than twice as often as defending the PRWORA withcompassion’s traditional definition. Redefinition forged a logicalassociation between denouncing the current system as perverse (thuslacking compassion) and asserting that compassion’s redefinedmeaning would be restored by eliminating entitlement.

Our findings provide additional support for Somers and Block’s(2005) conclusion about the importance of perversity rhetoric forenacting the PRWORA, while linking that rhetoric with the redefini-tion of compassion in an internally consistent symbolic packageserving as moral map for reform. Not all invocations of perversityrhetoric explicitly invoked compassion. Neither did all explicit com-passion mentions invoke perversity rhetoric. Our analysis highlightshow discursive intersection constructed a powerful argument, whileunderscoring the interdependence of ideas and institutions (Padamsee2009). Because perversity rhetoric makes negative attributions aboutwelfare recipients, the symbolic package and moral map we highlightlinks to the construction of raced and gendered moral boundaries andto correlative change in gender ideologies and women’s labor forceparticipation. In short, our explanatory account of how and whyRepublican leaders orchestrated the redefinition of compassion restson solid empirical ground, as does our suggestion about the con-ditions under which systematic elite efforts at value redefinition topromote policy and institutional change are more or less likely.


Republicans’ redefinition of compassion was part of the end gamein a series of related changes in elite and public ideas, race, gender andclass relations, and the balance of political power. We cannot knowwhether, given bipartisan agreement on need to reform welfare,Clinton’s commitments, and Republicans’ 1994 Congressional ascen-dance, the redefinition of compassion was a necessary condition forthe enactment of PRWORA. We concede that it might not have been,although final Senate vote on vouchers for welfare families was veryclose. But in the early 1990s, Republicans behaved as if they believed itwould be. What was perceived as real then was real in its conse-quences. And the apparent success of redefined compassion in debatesover welfare reform helped pave the way for George W. Bush’s cam-paign of “compassionate conservatism” in the 2000 Presidential elec-tion. The consequences of that election are still playing out.

NOTES

Robin Stryker is at the Department of Sociology and the Rogers Collegeof Law, University of Arizona. Email: [email protected]. PamelaWald is at the Marketing Department, University of the Sciences,Philadelphia. Email: [email protected]. The National Science Foundation(SES-0527035) and a University of Minnesota Institute for Advanced StudyFellowship supported this wok. We contributed an earlier version of thearticle to the annual meetings of Research Committee 19 of the InternationalSociological Association, 8–10 September 2007, University of Florence,Florence, Italy. We also presented earlier versions at the SociologyDepartment Workshop, University of Minnesota, 30 January 2007, theSociology Department, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, 5 April2007, the Sociology Department, University of Washington, Seattle, 25April 2007, and the 19th Annual Meeting on Socio-Economics, CopenhagenBusiness School, 28–30 June 2007. We appreciate comments received in allthese venues, including from Arturo Baiocchi, Elizabeth Boyle, Paul Burstein, Karl Dieter-Opp, Penny Edgell, Kathleen Hull, Doug Hartmann, EdgarKiser, Ross Matsueda, Diana Pearce, Becky Pettit, Barbara Reskin, JoachimSavelsberg, Kate Stovel, Danielle Docka, and Nicholas Pedriana. We alsogratefully acknowledge constructive comments received from Social Politicsreviewers and from Ann Orloff and Bruno Palier, editors of this special issue. Authorship is alphabetical; the authors contributed equally to this paper.Inquiries should be addressed to Robin Stryker, [email protected].

1. The literature is massive (see, just for a sampling, Cook and Barrett1992; Fraser and Gordon 1994; Gilens 1995, 1999; Goodwin 1997;Gordon 1990, 1994; Katz 1989, 1998; Kinder and Sanders 1996; Kluegeland Smith 1986; Mittelstadt 2001; Orloff 2006; Quadagno 1990, 1994;Roberts 1997; Shapiro 1990; Skocpol 1992; Somers and Block 2005;Steensland 2006; Thomas 1998; Wolfe 1998).


2. US conservatism represented by the 1990s Republican Party com-bined economic neo-liberalism with social conservatism, to put togetherelectoral coalitions of economic elites and the religious right.

3. Full citation for GSS data is in the references under Davis et al. 2005.We accessed GSS data used through the General Social Survey Data andInformation Retrieval System (GSSDIRS), 1972–2000 CumulativeCodebook, located on the Inter-university Consortium for Political andSocial Research website at http://webapp.icpsr.umich.edu/GSS/.

4. Clinton’s initial expert-informed plans included elements of socialinvestment similar to those discussed by Jenson (2009) for Europe. But thisaspect could not be sustained, given later Republican ascendance. UnderPresident Obama, social investment is back as a catch-phrase and policyjustification.

5. If there were to be a two-year limit, 70 percent of voters wantedcase-by-case application and exceptions for mothers on welfare workingpart time at low-wage jobs and mothers with pre-school children (Garin,Molyneux, and DiVall 1993).

6. Entitlement was protected in highly variable ways and to greater orlesser extent by various Democratic bills. For example, Senator Daschle’sproposed “Work First” bill kept the federal guarantee of cash assistance tothe poor, but replaced AFDC with grants conditional on the recipient’swillingness to take steps toward getting a job (Congressional Quarterly1995). The bill had the five-year lifetime limit, but with many exceptions,and if adults lost benefits, their children would receive vouchers providingfor their needs (Congressional Quarterly 1995; Weaver 2000). Daschle’sbill was defeated on a vote falling mostly along party lines (Weaver 2000).

7. Despite Clinton’s insistence that he would veto any bill guttingMedicaid, in May 1996, Republicans had introduced House and Senatebills eliminating AFDC and Medicaid entitlement. Democrats’ substitutebills did not pass, despite arguments that they contained a stronger safetynet for children. Republicans did stop insisting on Medicaid block grants(Congressional Quarterly 1996).

8. More details are available from the authors.9. Identifying implicit compassion required, e.g., searching on words

and phrases such as punish*, punitive, mean, mean-spirited, cruel*, heart-less*, harm* or protect* or help* the poor or children, care*, caring, etc.Just as they were associated with explicit references, these catch phrasesoften signaled implicit references.

10. See, e.g., statements by Senator John Ashcroft, (R-MO),Representative Solomon (R-NY), Representative Matt Salmon (R-AZ),Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), and Senator William Roth (R-DE), USCongress (1995, S13322, H13150, H3622–3, S11756; 1996, S8073).

11. Coats also argued that, “we show compassion for others because weare all equally dependent upon the compassion of our Maker.” Religionand spirituality sometimes were associated with redefining compassion toinvolve community, civil society, and interpersonal interaction; Christianconnotations were a minor part of overall debate, but echoed and


reinforced Olasky’s (1992, 1996) inclusion of churches and communities offaith among repositories of compassion and poor relief. These referencesoccurred especially in debate on the 1995 Dole bill containing a “charitablechoice” provision sponsored by Senator Ashcroft (R-MO) that would haveallowed faith-based organizations to compete with government and privatesector organizations in running welfare programs (Haskins 2006, 209).Charitable choice, linked to compassion and “return to community,”bridge clearly to George W. Bush’s rhetoric of “compassionate conserva-tism” in the 2000 Presidential election, and his Administration’s faith-basedsocial service initiatives. In 2000, Olasky published CompassionateConservatism, with forward and appendix written by G.W. Bush (see alsoCampbell 2003; Kutchins 2001). While the way in which US devolution tocommunity organizations links to church-state constitutional issues isuniquely American, the general theme has been important in social-democratic welfare states as well (Jenson 2009; Knijn and Smit 2009).

12. Both quotes come from 1987 House debates. In one, the speakerchallenges the “assumption [that] more dollars means greater compassion”and says a Republican-offered package is more compassionate because itputs more people in employment and training than an alternative, morecostly bill. In the other, the speaker promotes a bill that “helps those whoare in need” rather than “just helps the bureaucracy . . . if we are compassio-nate . . . we are going to design a bill that breaks down barriers of work”(US Congress 1987).

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Knijn, Trudie, and Arnoud Smit. 2009. “Investing, Facilitating orIndividualizing the Reconciliation of Work and Family Life: ThreeParadigms and Ambivalent Policies.” Social Politics 16 (4): 484–518.

Kutchins, Herb. 2001. “Neither Alms Nor a Friend: The Tragedy ofCompassionate Conservatism.” Social Justice 28:14–34.

Lee, Dwight. 1989. Public Compassion and Political Competition.St. Louis: Center for the Study of American Business, WashingtonUniversity (booklet published in the Contemporary Issue Series no. 35).

Lubiano, Wahneema. 1992. “Black Ladies, Welfare Queens, and StateMinstrels: Ideological War by Narrative Means.” In Race-ing Justice,Engendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and theConstruction of Social Reality, ed. Toni Morrison, 324–63. New York:Pantheon Books.


Mink, Gwendolyn. 1998. Welfare’s End. Ithaca and London: CornellUniversity Press.

Mink, Gwendolyn, and Rickie Solinger, eds. 2003. Welfare: ADocumentary History of U.S. Policy and Politics. New York: New YorkUniversity Press.

Mittelstadt, Jennifer. 2001. “‘Dependency as a Problem to be Solved’:Rehabilitation and the American Liberal Consensus on Welfare in the1950s.” Social Politics Summer 2001:229–57.

Murray, Charles. 1984. Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–80.New York: Basic Books.

Naples, Nancy. 1997. “The ‘New Consensus’ on the Gendered ‘SocialContract’: The 1987–8 U.S. Congressional Hearings on WelfareReform.” Signs 22:907–45.

National Election Studies. The 2004 National Election Study [dataset]. AnnArbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies [produ-cer and distributor]. www.electionstudies.org.

O’Connor, Alice. 2001. Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy,and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History. Princeton, N.J.:Princeton University Press.

O’Connor, Julia, Ann Orloff, and Shiela Shaver. 1999. States, Markets,Families: Gender, Liberalism and Social Policy in Australia, Canada,Great Britain and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Olasky, Marvin. 1992. The Tragedy of American Compassion. Wheaton,I.L.: Crossway.

————. 1996. Renewing American Compassion. New York: The FreePress.

Orloff, Ann Shola. 2001. “Ending the Entitlements of Poor Single Mothers:Changing Social Policies, Women’s Employment, and Caregiving in theContemporary United States.” In Women and Welfare: Theory andPractice in the United States and Europe, eds. Nancy J. Hirschmann,and Ulrike Liebert, 133–59. Rutgers University Press.

————. 2003. “Markets Not States? The Weakness of State SocialProvision for Breadwinning Men in the U.S.” In Families of a NewWorld, eds. Lynne Haney, and Lisa Pollard, 217–45. New York:Routledge.

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Padamsee, Tasleem. 2009. “Ideas in Connection: Re-contextualizing theCausal Analysis of Ideas in the Process of Policy Making.” SocialPolitics 16 (4): 413–45.

Pedriana, Nicholas, and Robin Stryker. 1997. “Political Culture Wars1960s Style: Equal Employment Opportunity: Affirmative Action Lawand the Philadelphia Plan.” American Journal of Sociology 103:633–91.


Pierson-Balik, Denise. 2003. “Race, Class, and Gender in Punitive WelfareReform: Social Eugenics and Welfare Policy.” Race, Gender, and Class10:11–30.

Quadagno, Jill. 1990. “Race, Class, and Gender in the U.S. Welfare State:Nixon’s Failed Family Assistance Plan.” American Sociological Review55:11–28.

————. 1994. The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the Waron Poverty. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Republican National Committee. 1994. Contract with America: The BoldPlan by Rep. Newt Gingrich, Rep. Dick Armey, and the HouseRepublicans to Change the Nation. New York: Times Books, RandomHouse.

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Shalala, Donna. 1994. “Hearings on the Work and Responsibility Act.” InWelfare: A Documentary History of U.S. Policy and Politics, eds.Gwendolyn Mink, and Rickie Solinger, 578–86. New York: New YorkUniversity Press.

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Shapiro, Virginia. 1990. “The Gender Basis of American Social Policy.” InWomen, the State, and Welfare, ed. Linda Gordon, 36–54. Madison,WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.

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Somers, Margaret, and Fred Block. 2005. “From Poverty to Perversity:Ideas, Markets, and Institutions over 200 Years of Welfare Debate.”American Sociological Review 70:260–87.

Steensland, Brian. 2006. “Cultural Categories and the American WelfareState: The Case of Guaranteed Income Policy.” American Journal ofSociology 111:1273–326.

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Weaver, R. Kent. 2000. Ending Welfare as We Know It. Washington, D.C.:Brookings Institution Press.

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DANIEL BELAND

Gender, Ideational Analysis,and Social Policy

Abstract

An increasing number of social scientists have argued that idea-tional processes can have major consequences on politics andpolicy. Focusing on social policy, the present article explains howstudents of gender have contributed to the contemporary literatureon ideational processes. As suggested, all researchers interested inthese processes would benefit from engaging with the gender litera-ture because it draws our attention to at least three broad issuesneglected by many non-feminist scholars: (i) the intersectionbetween categorical inequalities and policy ideas; (ii) the role ofidentities and gendered cultural assumptions; and (iii) the relation-ship between welfare regimes and ideational processes. Overall,the main objective of this article is to favor a more fruitfuldialogue between students of gender, on one hand, and otherpolicy scholars who also explore the role of ideational processes,on the other.

Introduction

This special issue of Social Politics draws attention to thefact that many students of gender and social policy have systemati-cally analyzed the role of ideational categories and processes.Unfortunately, their important contribution to the broader social


science debate on the role of ideas in policy and politics has yet tobe fully recognized. The main objective of this article is to explorethis contribution in order to frame a constructive dialogue betweenstudents of gender, on one hand, and the growing number of policyscholars who explore the role of ideational processes, on the other.As shown in this essay and the other articles of this special issue, allideational scholars could benefit from drawing on the existing scho-larship on gender and social policy, which directly contributes to theongoing debate on the role of ideational factors in policymaking.This contribution is especially valuable because students of genderpay attention to major issues that other ideational scholars shouldtake more seriously than they typically do. These issues include theintersection between ideas and inequalities, the role of identities andgendered cultural assumptions, and the relationship between welfareregimes and ideational processes.1

Although ideational analysis is only one component among othersof the contemporary literature on gender—some feminist scholarsare less interested in ideas and discourse than in the genderedeconomy or political institutions, the contributions of this specialissue remind us that gender analysts have a lot of interesting thingsto say about ideational processes. From the study of policy para-digms (Jenson 2009; Knijn and Smit 2009), to the analysis ofcultural framing (Stryker and Wald 2009) and the discussion aboutthe potential interdependence of causal factors (Padamsee 2009), theabove articles demonstrate once again the fact that gender research-ers are making a direct contribution to the broad literature onideational processes. Their contribution adds to the ideational litera-ture not only because it offers fascinating and detailed empiricalstudies about the role of ideas, culture, and discourse in policychange, but because it points to major issues like the relationshipbetween ideas and categorical inequalities often neglected by otherideational scholars.

Three Social Politics articles offer good examples of the ways inwhich ideational processes affect politics and social policy. First,drawing on the work of Foucault (1984) and Williams (1976),Fraser and Gordon (1994) explore the changing meanings of theidea of dependency in the United States from the colonial era to thecontemporary debate on welfare reform. By historicizing this idea,Fraser and Gordon (1994: 5) attempt “to defamiliarize it, to renderexplicit assumptions and connotations that usually go withoutsaying (e.g. assumptions about human nature, gender roles, thecauses of poverty, the sources of entitlement, and what counts aswork and as contribution in society).” Their history of the idea ofdependency in the United States is grounded in the assumption that

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“terms used to describe social life are also active forces shaping it.”(Fraser and Gordon 1994: 5) Second, referring to the work of Fraserand Gordon and others, Haney (1997; see also Haney 2002)suggests that welfare regimes embody particular conceptions of needthat change over time. For Haney (1997: 210), “Welfare states notonly engage in the re/distribution of benefits, they also articulate his-torically specific interpretations of need. (. . .) Because welfare pol-icies and practices define social conceptions of need, they draw uponand shape women’s identities in complex ways.” Haney’s analysis ofthe transformation of social policy in Hungary since the mid-1980sillustrates the changing nature of the interpretations of need inwhich concrete social programs are grounded. Third, Adams andPadamsee (2001: 2) make the case for a “culturalist conceptualiz-ation of gender regimes.” For these two feminist scholars, culturalmeaning has “its own emergent logic, which cannot be read off ofor deduced from social position or interests.” (Adams and Padamsee2001: 13) For them, “discursive approaches can (. . .) illuminate theways in which networks and groups of actors are created andbounded by signifying processes, and how the manipulation of signsincorporates some subjects and excludes or actively repels others.”(Adams and Padamsee 2001: 14) Overall, Adams and Padamseeshow that welfare regimes are largely, but not exclusively, aboutsigns—clearly an ideational factor, in the broad sense of the term(see also the debate between Padamsee and Admas [2002] andBrush [2002]). This is an excellent example of how gender scholarsexplore the vital role of ideational processes in the construction andreproduction of welfare regimes.

Interestingly, with the partial exception of the Adams andPadamsee piece, these three articles do not explicitly articulate theirtheoretical claims as a contribution to the broader social science lit-erature on ideational processes. This situation complicates the poten-tial dialogue between feminist and “non-feminist” ideationalscholars. Yet, as this special issue demonstrates, it is increasinglycommon for gender analysts to explicitly engage with the broaderideational literature. As shown below, prominent gender scholarslike Jenson (1989, 2004), Lewis (1992, 2002), Lister (2003), Mahon(2006), Jenson and Mahon (1993), Orloff (1999) and White (2002)have helped to advance our general knowledge of the relationshipbetween ideational processes and social policy. This article stressesthe key contribution of such gender researchers while pointing to theneed for a more extensive dialogue between these students of genderand other policy scholars interested in ideational processes.Although the present article is too short to cite and engage with allthe gender scholarship relevant for the study of ideational processes

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in policy and politics, I will make the case for attending to the con-tribution of gender analysis to the general study of these processes,focusing primarily on the issue of social policy change.

Ideational Processes

Reacting to the domination of the concept of path dependence insocial policy research (e.g., Hacker 1998; Myles and Pierson 2001;Pierson 1994, 2000; for a critical discussion see Orloff 2005), insti-tutionalist scholars have recently put forward systematic accountsabout the origins of policy change (e.g., Beland, 2009; Clemens andCook 1999; Hacker 2004; Streeck and Thelen 2005; Thelen 2004).2

In contrast with accounts exclusively centered on material interestsand/or political institutions, a growing number of social scientists(including institutionalist researchers) argue that, under many cir-cumstances, it is hard to understand either stability or changewithout turning to the role of ideational factors (e.g., Anderson2008; Beland 2009; Bhatia and Coleman 2003; Blyth 2002;Campbell 2004; Cox 2001; Hall 1993; Palier and Surel 2005;Parsons 2003; Peters, Pierre and King 2005; Schmidt 2002, forth-coming; Somers and Block 2005; Taylor-Gooby 2005). This discus-sion about the relationship between ideational processes and policychange builds on the broader social science literature on the politicalrole of ideas and related factors like culture and discursive frames(e.g., Beland and Cox forthcoming; Beland and Hacker 2004;Berman 1998; Camic and Gross 2001; Campbell 1998; Dobbin1994; Edelman 1971; Jenson 1989; Lieberman 2002; Mehta forth-coming; Pedriana and Stryker 1997; Steensland 2006; Stone 1997;Surel 2000; Weir 1992).

In the strict sense of the term, ideas constitute “claims aboutdescriptions of the world, causal relationships, or the normativelegitimacy of certain actions” (Parsons 2002: 48). To these ideas, wecan add cultural assumptions and categories (Steensland 2006;Orloff 1999) and frames (Beland 2005; Campbell 1998). Takentogether, ideas, cultural symbols, and discursive frames constitutekey ideational processes that help actors give meaning to their world(Parsons 2007; see also Steinmetz 1999). This is why many idea-tional scholars generally support the sociological claim that theworld is a social construction (Berger and Luckmann 1967), whichdoes not mean that material factors are unimportant. On one hand,concrete changes in material conditions can affect the assumptionsthat actors have about the world. On the other hand, ideational pro-cesses shape their perceptions of such a world.


There are many different types of ideational processes, but in thefollowing discussion, I focus on three central processes while asses-sing their potential impact on policy change: (i) the construction ofpolicy problems; (ii) the formulation of policy alternatives; and (iii)the political framing of existing policies and new reform imperatives(Beland 2009).3 At the broadest level, these three kinds of ideationalprocesses largely correspond to political scientist John Kingdon’s dis-tinction between the problem, the policy, and the political streams(Kingdon 1995; see also Beland 2005). Consequently, although suchideational types overlap, they each point to a specific aspect of thepolicy process: problem definition (problem stream), policy formu-lation (policy stream), and political mobilization (political stream).In concrete policy episodes, these three streams and ideational typesare closely related but, for the sake of analytical clarity, I here presentthem separately. Overall, this threefold ideational typology stresses thediversity of ideational processes and their complex interaction withother explanatory factors, especially institutional and material ones(Padamsee 2009). Although significant ideational processes like politi-cal ideologies (Freeden 1978, 2003; Lewis 1992) or discourses(Foucault 1984; Haney 2002) are not addressed due to limited space,the following discussion should give a flavor of how gender analysiscontributes to the contemporary ideational literature.

Problems

The social construction of the problems that may enter the policyagenda is a key aspect of the policymaking process to which femin-ists and non-feminist scholars have long paid direct attention (e.g.,Boussaguet and Jacquot 2009; Kingdon 1995; Mehta forthcoming;Revue francaise de science politique 2009; Rochefort and Cobb1994; Stone 1997; White 2002). At the most general level, theanalysis of social policy must take into account prevailing beliefsabout what the perceived problems of the day are (Kingdon 1995).The construction of these problems and attempts to push them onthe policy agenda involve political struggles over the very definitionof such problems, which is generally contested (Stone 1997).

In the field of social policy at least, the construction of policy pro-blems is often about what Mills (1959) describes as “sociologicalimagination.” This well-known concept refers to the capacity ofindividuals to perceive clearly the relationship between their ownfate and the broad historical, political, and social forces that shapeit. In this case, problem construction is about perceiving privatetroubles as social problems, which makes them worthy of politicalattention and helps actors push them on the policy agenda. This

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was, of course, a key insight of the second-wave feminist movement,which famously claimed that “the personal is political.”

Policy analysts have explored the process of problem definition inthe example of the crystallization of the concept of unemployment inthe late nineteenth and early-twentieth century. By stressing the invo-luntary nature of joblessness, this concept transformed the perceptionof joblessness altogether. From a purely individual and moral issue,joblessness became a significant collective problem and, largelybecause of that, a policy issue worthy of both political attention andstate action. Although concrete economic shocks like the GreatDepression reinforced the legitimacy of this concept, unemployment isat least, in part, an ideational construction stemming from debatesamong economists and social reformers (Walters 2000).

Feminist scholars have also done much to explore the ideationalprocesses involved in the construction of social and economic pro-blems (Boussaguet and Jacquot 2009; Revue francaise de sciencepolitique 2009). For example, take the gendered concept of depen-dency analyzed by Fraser and Gordon (1994). According to them,the meaning of this socially constructed problem has changedseveral times since the nineteenth century. Tracing the genealogy ofmajor concepts and perceived problems like unemployment anddependency is thus a major aspect of the growing ideational litera-ture on policy change, as change is more likely to occur after keyactors have identified and analyzed the problems they seek toaddress. Fraser and Gordon draw attention to the close relationshipsamong categorical inequalities, relationships of power and hierarchy,and the social construction of policy problems. For example, this isthe case of their historical analysis of changing conceptions ofdependency, which reflected and reinforced changing class, gender,and racial relations, for example, moving from a situation in whichthe economic dependency of wage-earners—mostly men, on theiremployers and social superiors—was taken for granted to one inwhich wage-earning men were assumed to be independent anddependency was marked as the status of women and most people ofcolor—and simultaneously pathologized (Fraser and Gordon 1994).

Importantly, under many circumstances, political actors and thegeneral public become aware of socially constructed economic andsocial problems through changing—and socially constructed—statistical indicators such as unemployment, fertility rates, andpoverty rates and “focusing events” like perceived catastrophes orunexpected electoral outcomes that attract widespread media cover-age (Kingdon 1995). Moreover, in areas where the state has longbeen active, policy problems are perceived through the lens of exist-ing policy legacies and possible grievances about their functioning


and impacts. In other words, the problems of the day are frequentlyseen in the mirror of policy-learning processes through which actorsdraw lessons from existing policies to assess their effectiveness andpotential ways to improve or replace them (e.g., Bennett andHowlett 1992; Bothfeld 2008; Hall 1993; Heclo 1974; King andHansen 1999; Rose 2004; Sabatier 1988). Debates about the effec-tiveness of the existing policies are instrumental in shaping the per-ception of the problems that political actors seek to address throughtheir reform proposals (Weir 1992: 18).

In most of the traditional policy literature, policy learning isdepicted as a rationalistic and technocratic process unrelated to cat-egorical inequalities, power, hierarchy, and political struggles. Yet,in recent years, a growing number of scholars have challenged thisvision of policy learning to emphasize its social and political con-struction (Beland 2006; Fischer 2003; King and Hansen 1999).Most students of policy learning—including feminist scholars—agreethat, when existing policies are seen as ineffective for handlingmajor problems, actors may feel the need to revise or even replacesuch policies (e.g., Abrar, Lovenduski and Margetts 2000; Bothfeld2008; Jenson 1986; Mazur 2003; Skocpol 1992). For example,when civil society experts and advocates discover that existing socialprograms negatively impact fertility rates, they can make a case forpolicy change (Jenson 1986). Therefore, policy learning can helptrigger policy change and, in the field of social policy, learning pro-cesses frequently involve gendered categories. For instance, the learn-ing processes surrounding the concept of social investment hasreflected changing gender relations—mothers’ employment, mostnotably (e.g., Dobrowolsky and Lister 2008; Dobrowolsky andSaint-Martin 2005; Jenson 2004). In short, many learning processesregarding social policy are gendered.

Alternatives

As far as the policy stream is concerned (Kingdon 1995), one ofthe main roles of ideational processes is to provide experts and poli-ticians with policy alternatives that frequently reflect shared assump-tions about how to solve the problems of the day (Hall 1993).According to Blyth (2002), during times of stability, existing insti-tutional settings help actors define their goals and their interests inorder to design relevant policy alternatives to address the problemsthey face. In periods of acute uncertainty, however, prevailing insti-tutional frameworks are weakened and actors frequently turn to newpolicy ideas in order to master this uncertainty and put forward newpolicy alternatives and blueprints. Once embedded in particularinstitutional settings, these ideas can serve as “cognitive locks” that

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are instrumental in reproducing policy institutions over time (Blyth,2002). Overall, even beyond episodes of perceived crisis, ideationalprocesses help actors and make sense of their interests (e.g.Blyth 2002; Hay forthcoming; Jenson 1989; King 1973; Schmidtforthcoming; Steensland 2006; Stone 1997; Weir 1992; for adifferent perspective on this issue: Padamsee 2009). This remark isimportant because it is typically in the mirror of their perceivedinterests that actors design and/or select specific policy alternatives(Blyth 2002).

The scholarship on paradigms—gendered and otherwise—hasbeen influential in regard to the analysis of policy alternatives.According to political scientist Peter Hall (Hall 1993: 279), policyparadigms are cognitive belief systems that articulate the goals ofpolitical actors with policy alternatives and instruments aimed ataddressing concrete social and economic problems. For Hall (1993),paradigm shifts occur only when the hierarchy of policy goals heldby key policy actors is transformed. In other words, a paradigm shiftis a change in the actor’s goals that can strongly influence policydevelopment. In his 1993 article, Hall builds on Thomas Kuhn’swork on scientific revolutions (Kuhn 1962) to define paradigmshifts. Such a scientific analogy is problematic because the policy-making process is a political rather than a purely technocratic affair(Muller, 2005).4 Furthermore, beyond its scientific overtone, theconcept of paradigm may suggest that the policy ideas held byexperts and political actors are truly coherent philosophical con-structions. This is a major issue because policymakers typicallyborrow from various sources in order to construct specific policyalternatives. More generally, the policy assumptions they share donot necessarily take the form of a coherent paradigm (Wincott forth-coming). In fact, some scholars argue that the concept of policyparadigm is typically more adapted to the study of economic ideasthan to the analysis of social policy debates, which do not alwaysinvolve the explicit clash between broad and well-defined theories,as is often the case in economics (Palier 2008).

Despite these cautionary remarks, the concept of policy paradigmis a useful analytical tool for students of gender and social policy(e.g., Jenson, 1989; Lewis 2002; O’Sullivan 1999). For example,these scholars have drawn on the concept of policy paradigm touncover the changing status of gender equality as a policy goal incontemporary societies. The idea that policy actors can share rela-tively stable assumptions and goal hierarchies over time is a keyinsight that can improve our understanding of the relationshipbetween gender and policy change. Ito Peng’s analysis of the 1990sparadigm shift in Japanese social policy provides ground to this


claim. According to Peng (2003), organizations like the Women’sCommittee for the Improvement of Ageing Society successfullymobilized to change the traditional vision of social care, which, inturn, helped trigger a paradigm shift that altered the social policygoals and priorities of Japanese state actors (Peng 2003). In thisspecial issue of Social Politics, Knijn and Smit (2009) refer to theconcept of policy paradigm to compare and contrast three distinctcontemporary discourses about the reconciliation of work andfamily life. As they suggest, each of these three paradigms featuresspecific assumptions about social risks, the relationship between thestate and society, and the public–private dichotomy. Jenson (2009)studies the convergence of policy ideas surrounding the concept ofsocial investment, which has become increasingly influential acrossthe advanced industrial world since the 1980s. For her, the shiftfrom “social protection” to “social investment” points to a reconfi-guration of contemporary citizenship regimes. Jenson’s analysis(Jenson 2009) contributes to the contemporary debate about thetransnational diffusion of ideas and its impact on policy change, anissue also discussed in the recent literature on gender and social care(Mahon 2006; White 2008).

Perhaps one of the most systematic uses of the concept of para-digm in the literature on gender and social policy is Jane Jenson’searlier work on protective legislation in France and the United Statesbefore 1914 (Jenson 1989). In contrast with Hall (1993), who expli-citly draws on her contribution in his 1993 article, Jenson does notfocus exclusively on economic ideas, and she uses the term societalparadigm, which refers to “a shared set of interconnected premiseswhich make sense of many social relations. Every paradigm containsa view of human nature, a definition of basic and proper forms ofsocial relations among equals and among those in relationship ofhierarchy, and specification of relations among institutions as well asa stipulation of the role of such institutions.” (Jenson 1989: 239)For Jenson, these assumptions help political actors choose betweenpossible policy alternatives.

More similar to George Steinmetz’s (1993) social-regulation para-digms than to Hall’s policy paradigms (Hall 1993), societal para-digms are explicitly related to the formation of group identities andthe reproduction of categorical inequalities. Jenson’s idea of societalparadigm has perhaps even more in common with the non-Marxistconcept of ideology formulated by British political theorist Freeden(1978, 2003). Moreover, the concept of “universe of political dis-course” formulated by Jenson and Mahon (1993: 79) in their workon Swedish social democracy has a very similar meaning to the oneof societal paradigm: “The terrain on which actors struggle over

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representation is the universe of political discourse, a space in whichidentities are socially constructed. The universe of political discourseencodes an accepted set of meanings about who the legitimate actorsare, the place they hold in politics, the appropriate site of politicalstruggle, and the form of social relations ought to take.” (For amore systematic discussion on the concept of “universe of social dis-course”, see Padamsee 2009). Overall, Jenson’s concept of societalparadigm is especially useful for the analysis of the gender-socialpolicy nexus, which is largely about the interactions among con-structed, gendered identities, categorical inequalities, and relationsof power and hierarchy.5

Interestingly, the concept of societal paradigm illustrates a keycontribution of the scholarship on gender to the ideational literature:the emphasis on the relationship between ideational processes andcategorical inequalities. Such social inequalities refer to dichotomouscategories like black/white and female/male (Tilly 1998). Althoughsome ideational researchers like Lieberman (2002) pay direct atten-tion to categorical inequalities, most of the non-feminist policy lit-erature on ideas remains largely silent about such inequalities. Bypointing to the interaction between ideational processes, categoricalinequalities, and policy change, students of gender relations such asJenson could push non-feminist ideational scholars to pay closerattention to categorical inequalities, including gendered ones.

Beyond such a study of paradigms, students of ideational pro-cesses and social policy have turned to the analysis of deeplyembedded cultural assumptions to explain both political behaviorand policy development (e.g., Dobbin 1994; Lipset 1996; Lubove1986; Pfau-Effinger 2005; Steensland 2006). For example, Germansociologist Birgit Pfau-Effinger (2005) argues that cross-nationalvariations in shared cultural beliefs can explain prominent differ-ences between national welfare states. According to her, a country’sdominant cultural assumptions “restrict the spectrum of possiblepolicies of a welfare state.” (Pfau-Effinger 2005: 4) In his recentwork on welfare reform in the United States, Steensland (2006)adopts a similar culturalist perspective to show that the politicalweight of cultural assumptions prevalent in the US society helpedprevent the enactment of a potentially transformative welfare reformduring the Nixon presidency.

The role of cultural categories is at the heart of much of the con-temporary scholarship on gender and social policy. For example, intwo widely cited articles, Lewis (1992, 1997; for a discussion seeOrloff, 1997) stresses the impact of gendered cultural assumptionslike the “male breadwinner model” on the development of welfareregimes in advanced industrial societies. This type of work illustrates


once again how some gender scholars have systematically exploredthe ideational and cultural embeddedness of welfare regimes, anissue related to social inequality that is often neglected by non-feminist researchers (i.e., students of welfare regimes seldom payclose attention to ideas and students of ideas do not typically engagewith the regime literature). But the study of regimes is not the onlyway in which cultural assumptions and their consequences for socialinequality have become a key aspect of the scholarship on genderand social policy. In her work on gender inequality and welfare statedevelopment, for instance, Orloff (1993, 1999), like other feministscholars, emphasizes the key role of “cultural assumptions and ideo-logical preferences about gender difference” (Orloff 1999: 322),noting that such assumptions and preferences may change over time,as in recent shifts from policies stressing women’s caregiving role tothose that promote mothers’ employment (Orloff 2006).

Overall, some of the most cited scholarship on the gender–socialpolicy nexus is about deeply embedded cultural assumptions influen-cing the design and selection of concrete policy alternatives as wellas the construction of welfare regimes. Clearly, while drawing ourattention to cultural assumptions and the ideational component ofwelfare regimes, this work also reminds non-feminist ideationalscholars that the processes they explore are closely related to categ-orical inequalities and gendered power relations, issues to whichmany of them pay scant attention. From this perspective, the litera-ture on gender and social policy enriches ideational analysis bypointing to the role of—and the interaction between—culturalassumptions, social inequalities, and policy regimes.

Frames

As far as the political stream is concerned (Kingdon 1995), ideascan take the form of cultural and discursive frames that actors use tochallenge or justify existing policy arrangements (e.g., Beland 2009;Campbell 1998; Schon and Rein 1994). These frames “appear typi-cally in the public pronouncements of policy makers and their aides,such as sound bites, campaign speeches, press releases, and othervery public statements designed to muster public support for policyproposals” (Campbell 1998: 394). Discursive frames are part ofmost political battles and the competition between these framesand between the actors using them points to what TasleemPadamsee (2009) refers to as the “multiplicity of discourses” presentin a society at any given moment.

As suggested by the social movement literature, career politiciansare not the only actors who engage in cultural and discursiveframing (e.g., Benford and Snow 2000; Oliver and Johnston 2000;

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Schneider 1997). The work of Pedriana and Stryker (1997) on thesymbolic struggles surrounding civil rights in Philadelphia in the late1960s perfectly illustrates how social movements can use framingprocesses to bring about policy change. In their detailed study, thesesociologists show how civil rights activists transformed the con-straints of the legal discourse prevailing at the time into a valuablepolitical and ideological resource that would ultimately help themreshape the law. Throughout their analysis, they “identify diversesymbolic packages that opponents and supporters used to frame [acivil rights plan], its meaning, and the desirability of its enforcement.[They] identify cultural strategies actors used to try to stabilize ortransform law by drawing on equal opportunity values and languagethat law already incorporated” (Pedriana and Stryker 1997: 637).Their account backs the claim that framing processes can stronglyinfluence political struggles and help bring about policy change. Inthis special issue, Stryker and Wald (2009) provide even moreground to this claim through an analysis of the central role of cul-tural framing in contemporary US welfare reform, showing that pol-itical struggles over cultural meaning were significant for the 1996welfare reform. As evidenced in their article, cultural framing canbecome a powerful factor in the politics of policy change.

To further illustrate the role of frames in politics and policychange, let me discuss three ways in which political actors canmobilize them. First, frames can take the form of a public discourseused by specific political actors to convince others that policy changeis necessary. This is what political scientist Robert H. Cox (2001)calls “the social construction of the need to reform” and what politi-cal philosopher Nancy Fraser (1989) has called the “politics ofneeds interpretation.” From this perspective, discursive frames canhelp convince political actors and the general public that existingpolicy legacies are flawed, and that reforms should be enacted tosolve perceived social and economic problems. Thus, policy learningcan feed framing processes in the sense that experts, officials, andinterest groups can publicly voice their negative assessments of exist-ing policies to convince other actors that the time has come toimprove or even replace them. But “social learning remains analyti-cally distinct from framing activities in part because learning canoccur without the emergence of a public discourse about the need toreform. An autonomous set of evaluative activities, social learninggenerally predates and, in only some cases, informs framing pro-cesses” (Beland 2006: 562). Overall, discursive frames help actorsmake a case for policy change, and this activity generally involves apublic discussion of the meaning and performance of existing policylegacies.


Second, these frames help political actors convince other groupsand individuals to form a coalition around a concrete proposal orvision for change. As discussed above, ideational processes partici-pate in the construction of interests and the ranking of policy goals.In this context, particular political actors can use frames and politi-cal discourse to influence the way other actors see their interests andidentify with shared policy goals. From this perspective, policydebates are largely about the construction of interests, policy goals,and identities, without which political coalitions can hardly survive.Although concrete quid pro quos between key political actors are amajor aspect of coalition building (Bonoli 2000), frames can helpsell concrete policy alternatives to the public and build a strongercoalition around them. On one hand, politicians can “speak to theirbase” and argue that the measures they support are consistent withthe broad ideological principles that cement their existing coalition.On the other hand, ambiguous policy ideas and proposals can makemany different actors believe that they have an interest in supportinga complex policy alternative, which can lead to seemingly paradoxi-cal coalitions (Palier 2005).

Third, political actors can mobilize framing processes to countercriticism targeting the policy alternatives they support. Thus, onemight expand Weaver’s notion of blame avoidance strategies(Weaver 1986) to take on a discursive form. For instance, officialsmay blame economic cycles for higher unemployment rates to con-vince the public that their decisions are not at the origin of thisnegative situation. Policymakers can also frame policy alternatives ina way that diverts attention away from their actual departure fromwell-accepted political symbols or policy paradigms. For example,since the 1980s, Swedish politicians have referred to enduringlypopular idea of “social democracy” to legitimize forms of policychange that are arguably closer to neoliberalism than to traditionalsocial democratic ideals (Cox 2004). Blame avoidance frames suchas these have a preventive component because political actors usethem to shield the policy alternatives they support from criticism(Beland 2005: 11).

Scholars interested in the gender–social policy nexus have longanalyzed discursive and framing processes (Tannen 1994), and theirpotential impact on policy change (Lewis 2002). A good example ofthis type of scholarship is the research of Hobson and Lindholm(1997) on the mobilization of Swedish women during the 1930s. Inorder to understand this mobilization, the authors bridge the powerresource approach and the sociological scholarship on socialmovements. Their analysis of women’s mobilization emphasizesthe role of what they call “discursive resources,” a concept that

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“acknowledges that social groups engage in struggles over the mean-ings and the boundaries of political and social citizenship. Thisincludes the cultural narratives and metaphors that social actorsexploit in their public representations as well as the contesting ideo-logical stances that they take on dominant themes and issues on thepolitical agenda.” (Hobson and Lindholm 1997: 479) For these twoscholars, ideational processes clearly serve as powerful framing toolsin struggles over gender and social policy change. Once again, thisdiscussion of the gender scholarship points to the relationshipbetween ideational processes and categorical inequalities, a majorissue that is frequently overlooked in the general ideational literatureon policy and politics. By pointing to this key relationship, studentsof gender and social policy make a strong and original contributionto this ideational literature.

The work of sociologist Myra Marx Ferree on the German andthe US abortion debates is another fascinating example of how gen-dered framing processes can play a central role in policy debates. Inher comparison between the feminist arguments for abortion rightsin Germany and the United States, Marx Ferree convincingly arguesthat “Although both privacy and protection are part of the feministrepertoire of discourse available to speakers in both countries, theyare selectively advantaged differently in each country. In the UnitedStates the discursive opportunity structure privileges individualprivacy, and in Germany state protection is institutionally anchoredin the discourse.” (Ferree 2003: 306) Referring to the “institution-ally anchored ways of thinking that provide a gradient of relativepolitical acceptability to specific packages of ideas,” the concept ofdiscursive opportunity structure is a significant contribution to theideational scholarship on policy change, as it suggests that framingprocesses “do not exist in a vacuum.” (Ferree 2003: 308–309)Although national cultures are never ideologically cohesive(Quadagno and Street 2005), frames are culturally resonant—andmore effective politically—when they draw on a society’s dominantcultural repertoire, which forms the symbolic backdrop of nationalpolicy debates (Beland 2009). The issue of cultural resonance (Ferree2003) points to the above-mentioned role of culture in policy devel-opment. Through framing processes, political actors can draw onexisting cultural resources to promote—or oppose—policy change.

Conclusion

Before offering a synthetic overview of the claims about the roleof ideational factors in policy change discussed above, it is crucial tokeep in mind that these factors are not the only potential source of


policy change (e.g., Beland 2009; Jenson 2009; Parsons 2007), andthat a number of economic and institutional forces may constrainthe impact of such factors on policymaking (e.g., Campbell 2004;Walsh 2000). In other words, as Padamsee (2009) argues, ideationalfactors interact—and can become interdependent—with other typesof explanatory factors.6 As she puts it, the challenge that lies aheadfor ideational scholars is to explore not only the interaction but alsothe interdependence of such explanatory factors. “The study of ideasas important to policy development (. . .) is not fundamentally aboutde-legitimating causal arguments that came before; it is about fillinggaps in our understanding of policy making by understanding theinterdependence of discursive and other types of processes.”(Padamsee 2009)

Drawing on Kingdon’s (1995) distinction between the problem,the policy, and the political streams, we mapped the potentialrole of distinct types of ideational factors (see also Beland 2005,2009). First, regarding the problem stream, ideational processesaffect the perception of the social and economic problems thatare at the center of the debate over state intervention and policychange (Mehta forthcoming). Diagnoses about these problems arerelated to policy learning processes, according to which actorsreflect on the concrete impact of existing policies. Second, as faras the policy stream is concerned, in periods of crisis and beyond,ideational processes help actors master uncertainty, assess whattheir interests are, and select policy alternatives accordingly (Blyth2002). Such processes can take the form of paradigms or othertypes of interrelated assumptions that help actors set their priori-ties and design appropriate policy alternatives to address the pro-blems they perceive (Hall 1993; Jenson 1989). Finally, concerningthe political stream, such processes can take the form of discur-sive frames used to construct the need to reform (Cox 2001),build reform coalitions (Blyth 2002), and deflect blame forunpopular or controversial measures (Weaver 1986), among otherthings. Depending on the policy episode at stake, only some ofthese ideational factors may interact among themselves and withother types of explanatory factors to significantly affect policychange. This is why students of policy change do not necessarilyneed to factor in all these different processes to explain a specificepisode of change. Knowing the different ways ideational pro-cesses can explain policy change while interacting—and evenbecoming interdependent (Padamsee 2009)—with other forcessuch as institutional and material structures, however, is essentialfor a full understanding of the relationship between these pro-cesses and policy change.

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Beyond these general remarks, this article stresses the need for amore extensive dialogue between students of gender relations andother ideational scholars. As suggested, students of gender havemade a valuable contribution to the analysis of ideational processes.Yet, this contribution is not always fully acknowledged by otherideational scholars. Although part of this problem is probably thereluctance of some feminists to explicitly use the ideational cat-egories found in the general policy literature and in most of thework on gendered ideas and social policy cited above, the unwilling-ness of some “non-feminist” scholars to engage with feminist scho-larship is a factor here (Orloff 2009).

Clearly, ideational scholars can learn from the existing literatureon gender and social policy in a number of important ways.Recognizing that many students of gender have explored the role ofideational processes in policymaking, ideational scholars can drawon the existing gender scholarship to enrich their conceptual frame-work. As argued, this is true largely because gender researchersdraw our attention to at least three major issues on which thegeneral ideational literature on policy change seldom focus. First,the existing ideational research on gender and social policy generallytakes a more systematic look at the intersection between categoricalinequalities and the policy ideas than the rest of the ideational scho-larship. Second, in addition to help bring inequality to the center ofideational analysis, some of the gender literature reviewed above stres-ses the central role of identities and gendered cultural assumptions inthe politics of ideas and social policy. Third, and perhaps even moreimportant, some of the feminist authors cited above explore therelationship between welfare regimes and ideational processes.Interestingly, students of ideas and social policy seldom engage withthe scholarship on welfare regimes, and they would gain from payingattention to the work of authors like Lewis (1992; 1997) and Adamsand Padamsee (2001), who have explored the ideational side of suchregimes from a gender perspective. Overall, non-feminist scholarsinterested in ideational processes would be well advised to take thesethree original contributions into account when they analyze theimpact of ideas, culture, and discourse on policy change.

As evidenced in this article and in the other contributions to thepresent special issue, “non-feminist” scholars interested in ideationalanalysis can learn a great deal from the gender literature discussedabove. This is true because students of gender have long made adirect and important contribution to the general study of ideationalprocesses, something that the articles of this special issue continue toexemplify while paving the way to future scholarship. It is hopedthat this article and the special issue as a whole will facilitate the


dialogue between feminist and non-feminist scholars regarding thenature and the policy impact of ideational processes.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Silke Bothfeld, Angela Kempf, AnnOrloff, Tasleem Padamsee, Bruno Palier, and the four Social Politicsreviewers for their useful comments and suggestions. This work wasundertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada ResearchChairs Program.

NOTES

Daniel Beland is a Professor of Public Policy at the University ofSaskatchewan, Diefenbaker Canada Centre, 101 Diefenbaker Place,Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 5B8. Tel: þ1 3069661272; Email:[email protected].

1. For a general discussion about the concept of welfare regime seeEsping-Andersen (1990, 1999); O’Connor et al. (1999). Other contri-butions to the welfare regime literature are cited elsewhere in this article.

2. On the policy change debate see Capano and Howlett, 2009; Clasenand Siegel, 2007.

3. Other ideational typologies are available in the literature (e.g., Blyth2001; Campbell 2004; Goldstein and Keohane 1993; Mehta forthcoming;Schmidt 2002). Mehta’s typology also starts from Kingdon’s work (1995)but departs from it significantly.

4. This is in part why Pierre Muller and the other members of the“French school” of policy analysis use the term referentiel rather than“paradigm” to define the assumptions that inform the policymakingprocess (Muller 2005). For an English-language, critical discussion of the“French school”, see Genieys and Smyrl (2008).

5. Like Hall’s policy paradigm, however, Jenson’s concept of societalparadigm is subject to the above-mentioned remarks about the relative lackof coherence of the policy assumptions that many social policy actors hold(Wincott forthcoming).

6. Readers interested in the methodological and theoretical implicationsof this claim should consult Padamsee’s contribution to this special issue ofSocial Politics (Padamsee 2009). On the four types of explanation in politi-cal analysis (i.e., ideational, psychological, institutional, and structural/material), see Parsons (2007).

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