General description

Insight in theory-building, concept-formation, and the design of empirical inquiry in the larger field of comparative social research and comparative welfare state development more specifically.

Learning outcomes

Students will be equipped with skills necessary for advanced research of welfare systems:

The class focuses on the crucial interface between theory-building and concept formation on the one hand and comparative empirical inquiry of welfare state development on the other. In doing so, it addresses the following questions:
•How have comparative welfare state researchers conceptualized variation among European welfare state?*
•What are the main explanatory approaches accounting for this variation?*
•How have comparative welfare state researchers produced theoretical and empirical knowledge about the various European welfare states; how have they arrived at generalization about welfare state development?
•What is the rationale of theory-building, concept-formation and empirical inquiry in the following variants of comparative welfare state research:
a.Comparative case studies of countries and national “models”, “regimes”, or “varieties”
b.Overarching trends of welfare state development in large-n studies of the long-term development of OECD-countries’ welfare states
c.In depth inquiry in institutional and political dynamics in single-case studies of countries and policy fields in countries
d.Theory and research below the nation state: Comparisons across policy fields, regions, or instances of major social reform
e.Galton’s problem and globalization: How can one study international interconnectedness?
f.Temporality in the study of comparative welfare state development: studying institutional change as path dependent development or through comparisons across time

* These two questions will be addressed in merely a short recap-session, as they are also subject of the course "C2 Theories of Welfare States - Extension Module"

Contents

This class seeks to acquaint students with major concepts and approaches in comparative welfare state research. Students will read examples of the major empirical approaches in the field of comparative welfare state development and discuss the crucial conceptual and methodological decisions that lie beneath these particular forms of producing knowledge about welfare state development. They will furthermore discuss advantages and potential drawbacks of the different ways of engaging in comparative welfare state research.

Evaluation and evaluation criteria

Numeric 1-5.
Grades: 70% paper & 30% active participation Paper: preparation of a research seminar paper (20.000 signs) in one of the areas covered in the course. This paper can be a commentary on basic conceptual, theoretical, and empirical choices underlying the argument of a specific study in the field of comparative welfare state development, or it can be a review article on basic issues of conceptualization, measurement and theory-building in a sub-literature (e.g. the literature on comparative pension retrenchment, internationally comparative on activation, family policy change, etc.). Active participation: participation of the students in the discussions and debate during seminar and the distance learning.

Study materials

Examples of the different kinds of comparative inquiry will be drawn from the journal article literature. If necessary, they will be provided on-line in Moodle.

Textbooks explaining the methodological and conceptual issues include the following

King, Gary, Robert O Keohane, and Sidney Verba (1994): Designing Social Inquiry. Scientific Inquiry in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

George, Alexander L., and Andrew Bennett (2004): Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press.

Ragin, Charles (1987): The Comparative Method. Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Berkeley, Ca: University of California Press.

Full reading list will be announced at the beginning of the course.

Belongs to following study modules