​Welfare state reform “from Below”: Democratization of Social Policy via Social Work Representation of Weak Interests, a joint project between the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (TH Köln) and the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE).

At the core of the research project lies the question of to which extent the needs and interests of the (employable) long-term unemployed and their family members are taken into account in social policy reform processes at the federal, state, and local level in Germany. A particular focus in placed on the role played by social work actors. Specific policy phases — problem definition, agenda setting, policy formulation, and implementation — are examined in the project, which is located at the interface between welfare state research and social work sciences.

Team

​​​​

Global Dynamics of Long-term Care Policies, within the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1342 Global Dynamics of Social Policy, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

The project focuses on the comparative study of long-term care systems and policies and has three research goals: First and foremost, it would focus on examining how long-term care systems have evolved from their introduction to the present with regard to their inclusiveness and scope of benefits. In this regard, particular attention will be paid to the public coverage of the risk of dementia. Second, the temporal and spatial patterns of inclusion, exclusion, and benefits dynamics will be described and explained, focusing on the actors, ideas, and institutions that play a crucial role in these processes. Finally, horizontal linkages, such as those arising from the transfer of ideas or migration movements, are explored on the one hand through comparative case studies of South Korea and Taiwan. On the other hand, vertical linkages between international organisations and states in care policy are assessed through case studies of Uruguay and Chile.

Team