(revised 9/27/2009) TransAtlantic Masters Program Political Science 745 Fall 2009 Varieties of Democratic Capitalism in Europe and North America Tuesdays and Thursdays 5:30-6:45 Global Education Center 3024 John D. Stephens Center for European Studies 3211 FedEx Global Education Center Office hours: Mondays and Tuesdays 3:30-5 962-4634, 932-1168 Email: [email protected] Course Description: The course will examine the development of different types of welfare states in Europe and North America. The course will be structured around the concept of "welfare states regimes", as defined in Gøsta Esping-Andersen in his path breaking book, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. We will also explore how the three welfare state regimes defined by Esping-Andersen interlock with different "labor market regimes", systems of wage bargaining and employment and labor relations, and, in turn, how these labor market and welfare state regimes constitute elements of different "varieties of capitalism". The course moves back and forth from broad conceptual issues to examination of developments in five countries which represent the different welfare state types: the United States and Britain as liberal welfare states, Sweden as a social democratic welfare state, Germany as a Christian democratic welfare state, and Italy Southern European or Mediterranean welfare state. The course will focus above all on how social and political forces shaped the development of the economic policies aimed at securing economic growth and employment and of social policies aimed at providing social security, combating poverty, and effecting redistribution. In addition, we will examine how demographic and international economic pressures of the past two decades have transformed the regimes. For the European countries, by far the most important "international economic pressure" has been the process European integration, so we will devote several sessions to understanding the impact of this historically unique development. Teaching Methods and Evaluation: The course alternates between lectures and discussion. Three or four students will lead each discussion section. The student's grade in the course will depend on four elements: two take home exams (20% each), one essay (40%), and class participation. The October trip to Washington, DC is a course requirement but will be graded on pass/fail basis, that is, it will not affect your grade if you complete the trip. The essay examines the welfare state regime of one country not covered in the course comparing it to both the general type of welfare state regime it represents (liberal, Christian democratic, Mediterranean, or social democratic) and the specific representative (US, UK, Germany, Italy, or Sweden) which we have studied in2depth. The essay can cover any country in North America or Europe including all current members of the EU and Switzerland and Norway. The essay should be 5000 words long. Readings: You should purchase the following books at the Student Store: Gøsta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton University Press, 1990 (0-691-02857-5) Gøsta Esping-Andersen et al., Why we need a New Welfare State, Oxford, 2002 (90-19-925643-8) Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers, Families That Work, Sage, 2003 (0-87154-356-7) Evelyne Huber and John D. Stephens, Development and Crisis of the Welfare State, University of Chicago Press, 2001 (0-226-35647-7) Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work, Princeton University Press, 1993 (0-691-03738-8) Ronald Tiersky and Erik Jones, Europe Today: A Twenty-first Century Introduction, 3rd Edition, Rowman and Littlefield, 2007 (978-0-7425-5501-3) Most of the other readings are on e-reserve, e-journals, in Blackboard, or available on the internet. The articles marked "e" are on e-reserve. The articles marked "b" are in Blackboard. For this course in comparative social policy, we have the unique opportunity this fall that the Obama health care plan, the most significant piece of social legislation in the United States since the 1960s, is currently under consideration. It is a course requirement that all students follow the discussion of the legislation in the news media. We will discuss the politics of the legislation when we discuss the American welfare state. For all of the countries we study, the European Industrial Relations Foundation website (http://eiro.eurofound.ie/) is an excellent source for information on industrial relations, the economy, and government policy. The Journal of European Social Policy is also an excellent source for up to date information on social policy developments in Europe. Course Session Calendar August 25 Introduction August 27 Lecture: The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism Esping-Andersen, Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6 John Myles and Jill Quadagno, "Political Theories of the Welfare State," Social Service Review, March, 2002. b Read pages 34-41. We will read the rest latter. Maurizio Ferrera, “The Southern Model of Welfare in Social Europe.” Journal of European Social Policy, 1: 17-37, 1996. b Huber and Stephens, Chapters 1-2.3 September 1 Discussion September 3 No class. I will be at the APSA meetings. September 8 Lecture: Party Systems and Governmental Structures S.M, Lipset and Stein Rokkan, "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments." Pp. 1-64 in S.M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan (eds.), Party Systems and Voter Alignments, Free Press, 1967. (concentrate on pages 26-50) b Ellen Immergut, "The Rules of the Game: The Logic of Health Policy Making in France, Switzerland and Sweden." In Sven Steinmo, et al. (eds.), Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, Cambridge, 1992 e September 10 Discussion September 15 Lecture: Wage bargaining and the Varieties of Capitalism Peter Hall and David Soskice, "An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism.' In Peter Hall and David Soskice (eds.) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford, 2001. b Huber and Stephens, Chapter 4. September 17 Discussion September 22 Lecture: United Kingdom Hopkin in Tiersky and Jones Martin Seelieb-Kaiser, “Social Democratic reforms of the welfare state.” In Martin Powell (ed.), Modernising the Welfare State: The Blair legacy. Policy Press, 2008. Francis G. Castles, “The English Speaking Countries.” In Herbert Obinger, Chris Pierson, Francis G. Castles,