Sonja Blum

Bielefeld University · Faculty of Sociology

The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has ignited a remarkably active research community, one of its main contributions being distinct narrative elements—including settings, characters, and plots. Yet, while the plot constitutes a core element of narrativity, it has received less attention vis-à-vis other narrative components. Existing classificatio...

Background: While current public policy scholarship can take advantage of a decades-long accumulated knowledge base on the relationship between evidence and policy, it is hard to keep the overview across different literatures. Over time, the ever more differentiated branches of public policy research have developed their own perspectives, languages...

Based on an original data set of early childhood education and care/school closures and reopenings, this article presents a fuzzy-set ideal-type analysis of pandemic childcare-policy responses in 28 European countries and explores the complex empirical variety of these policies across Europe. The analysis shows that European countries cluster into...

Coupling lies at the heart of Kingdon’s argument about why an issue rises or falls on the policy agenda, yet it remains one of the most theoretically challenging concepts within the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF). Consequently, empirical studies often focus on stream evolution rather than the more abstract notion of their confluence, and ‘windows...

Scholars may be diversely engaged in boundary-crossing work, either staying more confined in academic settings, or reaching out to the policy world. Despite growing theoretical attention, there is little empirical knowledge on the extent to which scholars indeed engage in boundary-crossing activities, and the conditions that foster or jeopardize th...

Narratives play an essential role in fast-paced policy making that occurs during crises. The COVID-19 pandemic brought numerous disruptions of normality, including school closures, which were intensely debated in narratives by many policy actors. Two shutdowns of New York City's public school system affected over 1.1 million students. This article...

Lehre in und nach der Pandemie, Digitalisierung, Umgang mit ChatGPT und prüfungsrechtliche Fragen – aktuell besteht kein Mangel an Debatten rund um die politikwissenschaftliche Hochschullehre, die unsere Disziplin stark beschäftigen. Der Arbeitskreis Hochschullehre in der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft möchte zusammen mit dem Vorstan...

The International Network on Leave Policies and Research has been producing an annual review of leave policies and related research since 2005. The review covers Maternity, Paternity and Parental leaves; leave to care for sick children and other employment-related measures to support working parents; and early childhood education and care policy....

Coupling refers to interactions between evolving public problems, policy alternatives, and political developments that increase the likelihood that an issue will gain attention to rise on the policy agenda and be set on the decision agenda for possible adoption.

The relevance and impact of political scientists’ professional activities outside of universities has become the focus of public attention, partly due to growing expectations that research should help address society’s grand challenges. One type of such activity is policy advising. However, little attention has been devoted to understanding the ext...

KEYWORDS: Narrative; Stories; Language; Policy process; Political strategy; Social construction

Early childhood education and care services (ECEC) and schools were closed in most countries worldwide to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting more than 90% of school children. Despite the global recourse to this containment measure, there was significant cross-country variation in its design. In this chapter for the forthcoming "Research Handboo...

Coupling lies at the heart of Kingdon’s argument about why an issue rises or falls on the policy agenda, yet it remains one of the most theoretically challenging concepts within the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF). Consequently, empirical studies often focus on stream evolution rather than the more abstract notion of their confluence, and ‘windows...

Featuring contributions from leading international scholars of social policy, this Research Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of conceptual and methodological developments in leave policy research, as well as state-of-the-art findings on leave policy determinants and outcomes globally. The topic of inequality is placed at the centre of th...

Leave policies have played a role alongside other measures in helping parents and other carers to manage increased care demands created by COVID-19 containment policy response. Based on information collected through the Annual Review of Leave Policies and Research 2020, this chapter explores where and what (new) leave legislation has been enacted t...

Parenting leaves can be provided universally to all parents, but often they are selective for particular groups. The long-neglected question of leave inclusiveness has been put centre stage in leave policy research. In this concluding chapter, we pay specific attention to this issue by, first, discussing both extant research on inclusiveness and re...

Today, we can look back at nearly 150 years of parenting leave development. The developments in leave policies have been of different timing, intensity, and character, bringing a tremendous diversity in leave policy design worldwide and creating a vibrant research field. This Research Handbook on Leave Policy: Parenting and Social Inequalities in G...

https://www.bpb.de/themen/deutsche-einheit/lange-wege-der-deutschen-einheit/511525/die-systeme-sozialer-sicherung/

The International Network on Leave Policies and Research has been producing an annual review of leave policies and related research since 2005. The review covers Maternity, Paternity and Parental leaves; leave to care for sick children and other employment-related measures to support working parents; and early childhood education and care policy. T...

Welche Policy-Bilanz war von der vierten Regierung Merkel zu erwarten? Einerseits unterschied sich die Konstellation von früheren Großen Koalitionen; andererseits wiederholte sich ein Merkmal der vorherigen Regierungsperioden, nämlich das Re(a)gieren im permanenten Krisenzustand. Dieser Beitrag ordnet die Policy-Entwicklungen ein und diskutiert ihr...

Dieser Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die Policy-Forschung im Bereich der Familien- und Gleichstellungspolitik. Dabei liegt der Fokus auf der Schnittmenge zwischen beiden Politikfeldern, nämlich den Kinderbetreuungspolitiken (v. a. öffentliche Kinderbetreuung, Elternzeit und Elterngeld) und auf der vergleichenden Policy-Forschung zu Ländern des...

La recherche sur les systèmes de conseil stratégique dans le monde a montré que les sources de conseil historiquement dominantes, traditionnellement situées au sein du gouvernement, sont de plus en plus complétées par d’autres acteurs et des connaissances extérieures. Cependant, la grande majorité des recherches se sont concentrées sur le contexte...

Research on policy-advisory systems worldwide has shown that historically dominant sources of advice traditionally located in-house to the government have been increasingly supplemented by other actors and outside knowledge. However, the vast majority of research has concentrated on the anglophone context. Yet, countries with a consensus-seeking, n...

Zusammenfassung Wohlfahrtsstaaten gleichen ökonomische Ungleichheiten nicht nur aus: Sie schaffen diese auch, indem sie stratifizierend wirken und verschiedenen Bevölkerungsgruppen unterschiedliche soziale Rechte gewähren. Durch Reformen werden neue soziale Rechte geschaffen oder bestehende modifiziert; es werden Gruppen neue soziale Rechte gewährt...

Mit den Kita- und Schulschließungen waren Familien und Kinder in der Corona-Pandemie besonderen Belastungen ausgesetzt. Doch lediglich partiell lassen sich die getroffenen Maßnahmen im Bereich der Bildungs- und Betreuungspolitik mit „Notwendigkeiten“ der Pandemieeindämmung oder „uneindeutigen Interessen“ begründen. Vielmehr entspricht der Fall den...

The consensus-seeking nature of Germany’s civic epistemology and largely absent structural incentives for advisory work of academics may imply an overall comparatively lower engagement. Yet, German political science stands in the tradition of a ‘watchdog’ of democracy, and the past decades bear witness of continued involvement in societal and polit...

This is a response to the commentary by Robert C. Schmidt in this journal, in which the author suggests that for specific problems such as climate change or the current pandemic, decisions on policies should be made by scientific experts rather than by politicians. We argue that such ideas, which were brought up in the late 1960s and reconsidered m...

Die COVID-19 Pandemie entwickelte sich seit März 2020 zu einer umfassenden Herausforderung für Gesellschaften, Gesundheitssysteme, Staaten und Volkswirtschaften weltweit, so auch in Deutschland. Politik und Verwaltung hierzulande reagierten schnell und durchaus entschlossen. Dabei öffnete sich mit der „Corona-Krise“ ein Gelegenheitsfenster. Dennoch...

Neben umfassenden Eindämmungsstrategien stellen sozial- und wirtschaftspolitische Maßnahmen einen zentralen Bestandteil der staatlichen Reaktionen auf die Corona-Pandemie dar. In Zeiten umfassender Krisen ist das politische Krisenmanagement gefordert, eine „überzeugende Erzählung“ des zugrundeliegenden Problems und der gewählten Lösungen zu liefern...

The International Network on Leave Policies and Research has been producing an annual review of leave policies and related research since 2005. The review covers Maternity, Paternity and Parental leaves; leave to care for sick children and other employment-related measures to support working parents; and early childhood education and care policy. T...

The book revisits the stage of formulating policy solutions by investigating the basic political dimensions inherent to this critical phase of the policy process. It focuses attention on how policymakers craft their policy proposals, match them with public problems, debate their feasibility to build coalitions and dispute their acceptability as ser...

It is obvious that old age does not everywhere start at age 65; it did not always start there where it does today; and most likely it will not start there in the future. (Gál and Monostori 2017, p 77) Introduction In public policy studies, today the view prevails that there are neither objective problem situations, nor can there be direct and unamb...

Policies, measures, and proposals are constantly developed, but they require the connection to a ‘problem’ (or several ones) to be transformed into ‘solutions’. An essential element in achieving such binding of problem and solution concepts is rhetoric. Yet while problem-policy connections are crucial within the Multiple-Streams Framework (MSF), it...

This thematic issue aims to deepen the theoretical as well as empirical knowledge on the inclusiveness of social rights, focussing on the revelatory case of parenting-related leave policies. This editorial defines (leave) inclusiveness and discusses extant research on varying entitlements and eligibility criteria in the field of parenting leaves. I...

While the historical origins of the Western welfare state can be traced back to the late 19th century and industrialisation, its rise is particularly connected to the 20th century, when the provision of welfare became a genuine function of governmental activity. This chapter starts by discussing definitions and common denominators of the 20th centu...

Zur Bekämpfung der COVID-19-Pandemie wurden in den meisten Ländern der Welt ab Mitte März 2020 die frühkindlichen Bildungs- und Betreuungseinrichtungen (ECEC) sowie Schulen geschlossen. Betrachtet man die Kita- und Schulschließungen in internationaler Perspektive, so weisen sie allerdings – trotz des weltweiten Einsatzes dieser Präventionsmaßnahme...

The focus of this article is on family policy reforms in four European countries - Austria, Finland, Portugal, and Slovenia - between 2008 and 2015. These years were marked by the 'Great Recession', and by the rise of the social investment perspective. Social investment is an umbrella concept, though, and it is also somewhat ambiguous. This article...

In den letzten Jahren wurde in der deutschen Politikwissenschaft (und darüber hinaus) eine intensive Debatte über die gesellschaftliche und politische Relevanz der Disziplin geführt. Dabei blieb allerdings die faktische politikberatende Rolle mindestens genauso umstritten wie die normative Seite dieser Tätigkeit; und auch innerhalb der vergleichend...

From mid-March 2020, childcare services and schools were closed around the globe in the fight of the COVID-19 pandemic. This situation, unprecedented in the history of modern welfare states, brought striking cross-country differences in pandemic childcare-policy responses. They varied particularly in the re-opening phase – both in being more lenien...

The International Network on Leave Policies and Research has been producing an annual review of leave policies and related research since 2005. The review covers Maternity, Paternity and Parental leaves; leave to care for sick children and other employment-related measures to support working parents; and early childhood education and care policy. T...

https://www.staatslexikon-online.de/Lexikon/Policy

At least since the turn of the 21st century, the high dynamics of European welfare systems have come to the forefront of comparative welfare state research, sounding the bell for a new phase of the discipline, which had previously focused more on continuity than change. Welfare landscapes of European countries are not set in stone: They follow comp...

Published ten years after the first edition, this new Handbook offers topical, and comprehensive information on the welfare systems of all 28 EU member states and their recent reforms, giving the reader an invaluable introduction and basis for comparative welfare research. Additional chapters provide detailed information on EU social policy, as wel...

Narrative stories are crucial to policy change, as they decisively contribute to how policy problems and policies are defined. While this seems to apply for social policy in particular, narrative stories have remained under-researched and not systematically compared for this area. In this article, we theorise on narratives in social policy by focus...

The International Network on Leave Policies and Research has been producing an annual review of leave policies and related research since 2005. The review covers Maternity, Paternity and Parental leaves; leave to care for sick children and other employment-related measures to support working parents; and early childhood education and care policy....

German pension policy experienced a shift in the early 2000s, when public pensions were cut back, the retirement age raised, and private, publicly subsidized pension provision stipulated. Within a coherent reform narrative, those reforms were grounded on arguments of a ‘demographic time bomb’, a no-longer-affordable public pension scheme, and the r...

This article analyzes eligibility for parental-leave benefits in twenty-one European countries. It distinguishes four ideal-type approaches to how leave-related benefits are granted (in-)dependent of parents’ labor market position: universal parenthood model, selective parenthood model, universal adult-worker model, and selective adult-worker model...

There is limited knowledge about eligibility for leave in general, and about leave rights of parents less securely attached to the labour market in particular. Consequently, social inequalities in access to leave rights remain hidden, which may be particularly pronounced in countries where stable employment is a principal condition to exercise leav...

There is limited knowledge about eligibility for leave in general, and about leave rights of parents less securely attached to the labour market in particular. Consequently, social inequalities in access to leave rights remain hidden, which may be particularly pronounced in countries where stable employment is a principal condition to exercise leav...

Introduction There are pronounced differences in eligibility for statutory leave, especially how countries grant leave rights in relation to parents’ labour market position. This is highly relevant for the effects that various Parental Leave systems may have, as the interaction of policy design and inequalities in the labour market may lead to ineq...

This volume brings together contributors from 18 countries to provide international perspectives on the politics of parental leave policies in different parts of the world. Initially looking in depth at the politics of care leave policies across Europe, the US, Latin America and Asia, the book moves on to consider a variety of key issues in depth,...

There is limited knowledge about eligibility for leave benefits in general, and about leave rights of parents less securely attached to the labour market in particular. Consequently, social inequalities in access to leave benefit rights remain hidden, which may be particularly pronounced in countries where a certain duration or form of employment i...

en Since the economic crisis, many welfare states reformed their social security systems to cut social expenditure, even in policy fields protecting the most vulnerable, such as family policy. Using qualitative content analysis, this article systematically examines reforms pursued in Finnish family policy 2007–2017, and establishes the direction an...

Dieses Lehrbuch gibt einen einführenden Überblick über Entwicklungslinien der Politikfeldanalyse sowie die wichtigsten theoretischen und methodischen Zugänge. Behandelt werden zentrale Begriffe (z.B. Akteure, Institutionen, Steuerungsinstrumente) ebenso wie der so genannte "Policy-Cycle" und verschiedene Erklärungsansätze für politische Veränderung...

Two problems are discussed in the—surprisingly unconnected—literatures on the multiple-streams framework (MSF) and on knowledge utilization. In the MSF, the concept of coupling has been overlooked, namely the mechanisms of linking between the problem, policy, and politics streams. In the knowledge-utilization literature, it is discussed whether pol...

Since 2010 and the onset of the economic crisis, Finnish governments have pressed for structural reforms, including unpopular cuts to family benefits and services. This article analyses the government discourse used for legitimating some of these reforms: the cutbacks in child benefit and the restriction of full-time childcare. It also assesses whe...

Scientific advisory systems take different forms in different countries, as do the contents, styles and methods of policy analysis. Bringing the two dimensions together, we find significant cross-country variances in the interface of policy analysis and policymaking. In this chapter, we explore these variances, thereby focusing on academic policy a...

Die Familienpolitik in Deutschland ist politikfeldanalytisch ein interessanter Fall, weil sie einer der sozialpolitischen Bereiche ist, für die seit den 2000er Jahren transformativ-radikaler Policy-Wandel identifiziert wurde (Mätzke/Ostner 2010; Henninger/von Wahl 2010; Blum 2012). Familienpolitische Regelungen und Leistungen betreffen einen sehr g...

Based on the country chapters in the present volume, this contribution has two objectives: First, it gives a structured overview on the diversity of policy responses that have been adopted since 2007 in European Welfare Systems (EWS). Thereby, we cover the policy areas of labour market, pensions, health, long-term care, family policy and social ass...

Crisis—What crisis? With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to state that the fiscal and economic crisis since 2007 has not shown an extensive influence on the German welfare system. It has to be kept in mind that the main crisis of the German welfare state lay already in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the country was internationally portra...

Throughout Europe families have felt the effects of the economic crisis that began in 2008. This report describes their experience in the aftermath of the crisis, up to the present. It looks in detail at developments in 10 Member States that were selected to represent different types of family policy regime, ranging from those with the most ‘enabli...

The situation for women and men in the labour market differs everywhere in Europe, but the nature and the extent of these differences vary significantly between countries — for example, with regard to employment rates, gender-related wage differentials and working hours. First and foremost, these variations have been traced back to country-specific...

Within context of the comparative welfare-state research, Austria has been described traditionally as a prime example of a conservative regime type. The areas of family policy and childcare policy do not deviate from this general characterisation. For example, regarding the provision of childcare for children under the age of three, Austria was lag...

The economic crisis has significantly challenged national welfare states and has often led to retrenchment. The question arises how countries have reacted to the crisis in the area of family policy – not directly connected to rising unemployment and also not as demanding for state spending as for example the pension system. This article analyzes fa...

Im internationalen Vergleich der familienpolitischen Leistungen nimmt Österreich einen Spitzenplatz ein. Gleichzeitig zeigt sich in den letzten Jahren verstärkt, dass diese Leistungen gemessen an verschiedenen Indikatoren – z.B. in den Bereichen Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf, Geburtenrate, Kinderarmut – teils nicht zu den gewünschten Ergebnis...

Family policies have recently been raised high on the political agendas for action in many welfare states and have constituted a major reform area. This is especially the case in Germany and in Austria, where the literature has identified surprisingly far-reaching reforms, particularly in the fields of parental leave and childcare services. This ar...

This comprehensive study, part of the International Library of Policy Analysis, brings together for the first time a systemic overview of policy analysis activities in Germany. Written by leading experts in the field – including informed practitioners – it outlines the development of the discipline, identifies its role in academic education and res...

Today, policy analysis is not only one of the most important sub-disciplines of political science in Germany, but also an integral part of the international discipline and has contributed significantly to scientific debates, theory and methods developments. This introductory chapter develops the argument and the structure of the book, basic concept...

Policy analysis today is not only one of the most important sub-disciplines of political science in Germany, but it is also an integral part of the discipline internationally and has contributed significantly to scientific debates, theory and methods developments. This introductory chapter gives a short overview of the discipline of policy analysis...

Die Familienpolitik stellte während der letzten Jahre sowohl in Deutschland als auch in Österreich eines der Politikfelder mit der höchsten Reformtätigkeit dar. Für die vergleichende Wohlfahrtsstaatsforschung kam dies überraschend, war doch regelmäßig auf die Reformunfähigkeit der sogenannten konservativen, familialistischen Wohlfahrtsstaaten v.a....

Wenige politikwissenschaftliche Theorieansätze haben im medialen und politischen Sprachraum solche Beliebtheit entfalten können wie das Vetospielertheorem. Berichte über „Parteiblockaden“ oder „Reformstau“ werden heute gern um das entsprechende Fachvokabular ergänzt. So schimpfte der Juso-Vorsitzende Böhning in Richtung der Bundesländer: „Es kann n...

In Kapitel 5 werden zunächst die Grundlagen einer Familienpolitik der Europäischen Union kurz beschrieben: ihre Voraussetzungen (5.1.1), Akteure und Institutionen (5.1.2) sowie Instrumente und Steuerungsmöglichkeiten (5.1.3). Vor diesem Hintergrund wird die ‚europäische Familienpolitik‘ inhaltlich untersucht (5.2.1) und anschließend überprüft, welc...

Alle Begriffe, die im Fokus dieses Kapitels stehen, wurden bereits in dem einen oder anderen Zusammenhang angesprochen. Wir haben gesehen, dass die theoretischen Ansätze der Politikfeldanalyse den politischen Akteuren (4.1) unterschiedliche Handlungsspielräume und Gestaltungsfähigkeiten zugestehen. Einige Ansätze gehen davon aus, dass das Handeln p...

Anknüpfend an die auf den letzten Seiten formulierte, positive wie negative Kritik am Phasenmodell der Politiksetzung, kann festgehalten werden: Der Policy-Cycle bietet Orientierung und Strukturierung, aber Ursachen und Erklärungen für politischen Wandel liefert er nicht. Werfen wir einen Blick zurück auf die grundlegende Fragestellung der Policy-F...

Der vom griechischen polis, dem Stadtstaat der Antike, abgeleitete Begriff „Politik“ entzieht sich einer einheitlichen und endgültigen Definition. An den klassischen Wortursprung anknüpfend bezeichnet Politik das Handeln des Staates und das Handeln in staatlichen Angelegenheiten. Spezieller meint Politik in modernen Demokratien ein aktives Handeln,...

In diesem Kapitel wird mit dem Policy-Cycle das wohl am häufigsten angewandte und einflussreichste Modell der Politikfeldanalyse behandelt. Dies soll einerseits Auskunft darüber geben, wie sich politische Prozesse sinnvoll untersuchen und analysieren lassen. Andererseits wollen wir uns über das Phasenmodell hinausgehend dem Ablauf und den Dynamiken...