Sessione 30 - Welfare and sustainability: moving beyond trade-offs?

Coordinatori / Coordinatrici di sessione: Jean-Michel Bonvin (Università di Genova), Francesco Laruffa (Università di Bremen)

Abstract:
The welfare state emerged as a set of institutions for allowing people to have a decent life in capitalist societies – it was not meant to make the latter sustainable. Social policy thus implicitly relies on growing economies and on the exploitation of nature. The challenge today is that of building an eco- social welfare state, which, instead of adapting to capitalist societies is called to transform them, promoting simultaneously justice and sustainability. This process involves three dimensions. 

First, an eco-social welfare is confronted with the challenge of using income support, the provision of social services and taxation as tools to improve overall eco-social sustainability. This calls for solutions that promote a sustainable and fair use of cash benefits and services, while at the same time reducing unsustainable consumption (e.g. taxing luxury goods). 

Second, an eco-social welfare has to move beyond the traps of activation programs that tend to promote a specific view of agency geared towards economic productivity and competitiveness, which is barely in line with sustainability objectives. The challenge is therefore to transform agency support so that it encompasses a wider view of human agency beyond marketable activities, embracing a post-productivist understanding of empowerment. 
Third, an eco-social welfare should support democratic citizenship and rely on democratic practices, thereby rejecting paternalistic-technocratic approaches that demand beneficiaries to comply with institutional expectations of productivity. Involving citizens in the design and implementation of welfare can thus help challenge the view of welfare as a tool for recommodification and economic competitiveness. 

For the time being, these three dimensions raise more challenges than they provide solutions.

Accepted paper:

• Shifting the gaze in climate change and welfare state debates in Norway: A proposal for a relational global view di Erika Gubrium (Oslo Metropolitan University)
• Eco-social policies in a multilevel setup: from Brussels to Berlin di Katharina Zimmermann (University of Hamburg), Matteo Mandelli (Università degli Studi di Milano)
• The global paradigm shift towards active ageing and beyond: an analysis of policy documents by international organisations di Kaitlyn Juryung Cho (University of Oxford)
• Post-fordist aspirations and welfare transformations in the era of sustainability: early reflections from a broken steel city in Southern Italy di Maristella Cacciapaglia (University of Milan)