Call for Papers: Social Risks and the Role of the State
In 2012, the 8th Transatlantic Dialogue will take place on 6–9 June at the Radboud University Nijmegen (http://www.8tad.org/). This conference, organized jointly by European and American networks of scholars in public administration (EGPA and ASPA), aims to strengthen cooperation between European and American academics. The theme of the 8th Transatlantic Dialogue is ‘Transitions in Governance’. The conference hosts six workshops on major themes in this significant development. One of the workshops will be on:
Social risks and the role of the state
Over
the past century, dealing with social risks has become one of the prime
tasks of government. What were formerly seen as strictly private and
random misfortunes (death, illness, unhappiness) are now seen as
calculable risks that the state is at least partly responsible for. All
advanced welfare states have recognized – to different degrees and in
different ways – the social right to protection against the risks of
unemployment, disability, disease, homelessness and old age. Social
policy is essentially the governance of such risks. Institutional
arrangements have been developed accordingly.
However, these arrangements are now increasingly untenable. Whereas popular demands to squash all elements of risk out of our lives and to take precautions at every turn are growing, the means for states to deliver on such expectations are increasingly limited, not only because of shrinking public budgets but also because the dampening of risks for some imposes ever greater demands on others. Moreover, the risks at the time of a mature welfare state can be expected to differ from those of the formative days of the modern welfare state. Some of the old risks may indeed have been resolved but new types of social risks may have emerged as a consequence of recent socio-economic transformations of post-industrial societies. This workshop deals with the issue of how policymakers, service providers and professionals reconcile the rising and changing demands to deal with social risks within the limits of current institutions. We invite papers that deal with these old and new social risks from the perspective of social risk governance and management. How do these new social risks relate to the core tasks and institutional makeup of organized service providers? What are promising theoretical and analytical perspectives to analyze contemporary transitions in social risk-constellations and what are promising avenues and strategies for social policy reform? Finally, what do these new risks mean for new public management and new public services?
Co-chairs:
Prof.dr. Ed Jennings (University of Kentucky, USA): ed.jennings@uky.edu;
Dr. Jan-Kees Helderman (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands): j.helderman@fm.ru.nl
