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Ideational Leadership in German Welfare State Reform Sabina Stiller Sabina Stiller Ideational Leadership in German Welfare State Reform How do major reforms occur in notoriously resilient welfare states? This book argues that ‘ideational leaders’ have had an important impact How Politicians and Policy Ideas on structural social policy reforms in Germany. The argument is based on in-depth case studies of individual reforms in health care, pensions and states welfare changing Transform Resilient Institutions unemployment insurance since the early 1990s. Moreover, the book offers Ideational Leadership in German Welfare State Reform Ideational Leadership in German Welfare a long-term perspective on policy change in these fields and in another area which has recently seen considerable reforms, family policy. The study concludes that this traditionally Bismarckian welfare state has embarked on a path of ‘hybridization’ that confronts German politics with growing societal divisions. Ideational Leadership in German Welfare State Reform provides new insights into how policy ideas and leadership have shaped social policy trajectories and the state of the German Sozialstaat. Sabina Stiller is assistant professor in Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. “This is a first-rate book that lends great insights into the transformation of social policy in Germany. It uses an innovative theoretical approach that highlights the role of ‘ideational leadership’ in explaining institutional change, an important new concept in the literature.” Vivien A. Schmidt, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration, Boston University isbn 978 90 8964 186 1 www.aup.nl Amsterdam University Press Amsterdam University Press omslag sabina stiller_156x234mm.indd 1 19-11-09 09:29 ideational leadership in german welfare state reform CHANGING WELFARE STATES Advanced welfare states seem remarkably stable at fi rst glance. Although most member states of the European Union (EU) have undertaken compre- hensive welfare reform, especially since the 1990s, much comparative wel- fare state analysis portrays a ‘frozen welfare landscape’. Social spending is stable. However, if we interpret the welfare state as more than aggregate so- cial spending and look at long-term trends, we can see profound transfor- mations across several policy areas, ranging from labour market policy and regulation, industrial relations, social protection, social services like child care and education, pensions, and long-term care. Th is series is about tra- jectories of change. Have there been path-breaking welfare innovations or simply attempts at political reconsolidation? What new policies have been added, and with what consequences for competitiveness, employment, in- come equality and poverty, gender relations, human capital formation, and fi scal sustainability? What is the role of the European Union in shaping na- tional welfare state reform? Are advanced welfare states moving in a similar or even convergent direction, or are they embarking on ever more divergent trajectories of change? Th ese issues raise fundamental questions about the politics of reform. If policy-makers do engage in major reforms (despite the numerous institutional, political and policy obstacles), what factors enable them to do so? While the overriding objective of the series is to trace tra- jectories of contemporary welfare state reform, the editors also invite the submission of manuscripts which focus on theorizing institutional change in the social policy arena. editors of the series Gøsta Esping-Andersen, University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain Anton Hemerijck, the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid − wrr) Kees van Kersbergen, Free University Amsterdam, the Netherlands Kimberly Morgan, George Washington University, Washington, USA Romke van der Veen, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands Jelle Visser, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Ideational Leadership in German Welfare State Reform How Politicians and Policy Ideas Transform Resilient Institutions Sabina Stiller Cover illustration: J.M.W. Turner, War. Th e Exile and the Rock Limpet, ex- hibited 1842, oil on canvas, 79,4 x 79,4 cm, Tate Britain, London Cover design: Jaak Crasborn bno, Valkenburg a/d Geul Layout: V3-Services, Baarn isbn 978 90 8964 186 1 e-isbn 978 90 4851 174 7 nur 754 / 759 © Sabina Stiller / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2010 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (elec- tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Table of Contents Acknowledgements 7 1 Introduction 9 . Sources of Welfare State Persistence . Major Welfare State Reforms Do Occur . Ideational Leadership and Structural Reforms . Structure of the Book 2 Ideational Leadership: Key to Overcoming Welfare State Resistance to Change 21 . Situating IL Among Reform Explanations . Contributions from the Leadership Literature . Contributions from the Ideational Literature . IL as a Joint Concept . Aspects, Mechanisms and Effects of IL . IL and Theorizing on Gradual Institutional Change . Conclusion 3 A Bird’s-Eye View of the German Welfare State 45 . Germany as Prototype of the Bismarckian Welfare State . Sources of Resilience: Political Institutions and Policy Legacies . How Have German Governments Responded to Pressures? . General Patterns of Change in Major Programmes . Conclusion 4 Transformation of Health Care Policy? The Legacy of Minister Seehofer 75 . A Sketch of Statutory Health Insurance in the Early s . The Structural Health Care Reform Act . Seehofer’s Role: A Minister ‘Taking on the Sharks’ . The Health Care Reorganization Acts . The Role of Minister Seehofer: Fighting Against the Tide . Conclusion 5 Transforming Public Pensions: the Riester Pension Reform 111 . The Reform Process: Chronology, Actors and Policy Positions . Tracing Ideational Leadership . Assessing the Role of Ideational Leadership . Conclusion 6 Transforming Unemployment Policy: The Hartz IV Reform 145 . The Reform Process: Chronology, Actors and Policy Positions . Tracing Ideational Leadership . Assessing the Role of IL . Conclusion 7 Conclusion 181 . Family Policy: From Familialism Towards Reconciliating Work and Family Life . Transforming Bismarckian Principles . Towards a New Hybrid Welfare State Edifice List of Abbreviations 201 List of Interviewees 203 Notes 205 Bibliography 235 Index 249 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements This book started out as a (much lengthier) doctoral thesis at the Depart- ment of Political Science of Radboud University Nijmegen. In its present form, it is a shorter yet extended story of how ideational leaders have managed to transform the German welfare state. This conversion pro- cess was not simple at times, but as one of my thesis supervisors, Kees van Kersbergen, told me some time ago, ‘schrijven is schrappen’: writing means cutting down on words. The result is an account of reform pro- cesses that reflects much more on the contemporary shape of the German Sozialstaat than I could do in my thesis, and which also sheds light on recent developments in family policy. It is impossible to acknowledge everyone who has been of help in the process of preparing a book, but I will give it a try. I am particularly grate- ful to Jelle Visser and Anton Hemerijck for encouraging me to rewrite my thesis for the ‘Changing Welfare State’ series published by Amsterdam University Press. Anton, I am indebted to you for your insightful com- ments on how to turn my thesis into more of a ‘story’. And I appreciate your patience during the whole process, which took place during a rather unpredictable time period: before, during and after my maternity leave for my son Simon. When working on a book, you surely benefi t from a supportive working environment and I could consider myself fortunate in this respect, both with my former colleagues at the Centrum voor Duitsland-Studies, and my current colleagues at the Department of Political Science and Administra- tive Science at Radboud University Nijmegen. Let me thank you for your collegiality at all times, intellectual stimulation, and helpful comments and suggestions all along. My thanks also goes to my thesis supervisors, Michiel de Vries, Kees van Kersbergen, and Bob Lieshout for their support, encour- agement, and constructive comments on the main arguments of my thesis, which still form the core of the present book. Moreover, I am grateful to Monique Leyenaar, Karen Anderson, Vivien Schmidt, Herbert Obinger and others for their comments and constructive criticism of my thesis. As it would have been difficult to write about the context of German reforms while being in the Netherlands, I spent a fair amount of time in Germany: mostly for interviews but also as a visiting researcher during a two-month stay at the Zentrum für Sozialpolitik (ZeS) of the University of Bremen. I would like to thank all the people I interviewed for sharing their thoughts and inside knowledge about reform processes in their of- fices in Berlin, Hannover, Bochum, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Bonn, Bremen, Leipzig and Nuremberg. At the ZeS, I would like to thank Gisela Hege- mann-Mahltig for enabling my stay, as well as Eric Seils, Herbert Obinger, Petra Buhr
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