Introduction to the special issue on social services as critical infrastructure
Taking stock of the promises of the social investment state
Publication date
2023-07-27
Document type
Editorial oder Vorwort
Author
Reiter, Renate
Organisational unit
Publisher
Sage Publishing
Series or journal
European Journal of Social Security
ISSN
Periodical volume
25
Periodical issue
2
First page
107
Last page
114
Part of the university bibliography
✅
Language
English
Keyword
Critical infrastructure
implementation
Policy capacity
Resilience
Social investment state
Social services
Welfare state in Europe
Abstract
This Special Issue focuses on social services as the critical infrastructure of the social investment model of the welfare state. It addresses social services as a research topic that is still underexposed in comparative welfare state research and examines this topic with a systematising intention in a broad European comparative and methodologically diverse perspective. It brings together different strands of scholarly discussion that have hitherto been poorly connected – social services, critical infrastructure, social investment and the welfare state's capacity to strengthen social resilience through providing social services. The authors of the Special Issue undertake a critical examination of the development of the capacities to implement social service policies in different European welfare states and different service sectors over the last two decades. Taken together, the articles illustrate that – in practice and in contrast to the expectations of academic proponents of the social investment paradigm – there is (still) a bias towards investing, in particular, in those services which are anticipated as having significant economic and social ‘pay offs’ (e.g. early childhood education and care). Furthermore, the articles identify implementation challenges that pose severe obstacles to the realisation of the social investment model.
Version
Published version
Access right on openHSU
Metadata only access