The Independent Variable Problem. Welfare Stateness as an Explanatory Concept.

自变量问题。

• 批准号: 499033181
• 负责人: Dr. Katharina Kunißen
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Arbeitsbereich Sozialstrukturanalyse
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Publication Grants
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2021-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/499033181?language=en
• 关键词: Independent; Variable; Problem.; Welfare; Stateness

When examining the extent to which welfare state policies are responsible for different outcomes for individuals in different countries, an empirical operationalisation of the welfare state or of specific elements of social policy-making is required. As discussed in this project, some substantial problems arise concerning prevalent operation-alisation practices. Essentially, these problems all relate to one key issue: while there is a great number of contri-butions addressing the measurement of differences between welfare states per se and as a dependent variable, there is a distinct lack of feasible recommendations when it comes to the operationalisation of welfare stateness as an independent variable. In light of the great number of studies assuming an effect of welfare policies on other social phenomena, the lack of standardised proceeding we encounter in this context surprises. Still, instead of following a comparable and somewhat formalised approach, scholars implement very different operationalisa-tions.To this date, there is no systematic test of how such varying proceedings may affect results and their comparabil-ity. Similarly, a detailed conceptual discussion on which features of the welfare state are relevant for the explana-tion of specific outcomes is missing.This contribution fills both gaps. First, it unravels the pitfalls of existing approaches, demonstrating how strongly empirical results vary depending on the chosen operationalisation. Second, it proposes a way to standardise pro-ceedings by deducing four distinct conceptualisations of welfare stateness as independent variable: The Respon-sive Welfare State, the Enabling Welfare State, the Normative Welfare State and the Assessed Welfare State. As a result, the operational choices are limited in a theoretically meaningful way to indicators that correspond to each concept.In an empirical test, this procedure proved to be very useful in overcoming the “independent variable problem”: they narrow down relevant facets of welfare stateness and their functions and thus serve as guidelines for the theoretical derivation of relevant analytical perspectives, their empirical operationalisation and the interpretation of result.

在研究福利国家政策在多大程度上对不同国家的个人产生不同的结果时，需要对福利国家或社会政策制定的具体要素进行实证操作。正如本项目中所讨论的，关于普遍的操作实践，出现了一些实质性的问题。从本质上讲，这些问题都涉及到一个关键问题：虽然有大量的贡献解决福利国家本身之间的差异的测量和作为一个因变量，有一个明显缺乏可行的建议，当谈到福利国家作为一个自变量的操作。鉴于大量的研究假设福利政策对其他社会现象的影响，我们在这方面遇到的缺乏标准化的程序令人惊讶。尽管如此，学者们并没有遵循一种可比较的、某种形式化的方法，而是采用了非常不同的操作方法。到目前为止，还没有系统的测试来证明这种不同的程序如何影响结果及其可比性。同样，关于福利国家的哪些特征与具体结果的描述相关的详细概念讨论也缺失了，这一贡献填补了这两个空白。首先，它揭示了现有方法的陷阱，展示了经验结果如何根据所选择的操作而变化。第二，通过推导出四种不同的福利国家概念：响应型福利国家、赋能型福利国家、规范型福利国家和评估型福利国家作为自变量，提出了一种改进福利国家的方法。因此，在理论上有意义的是，业务选择仅限于与每一概念相对应的指标，在一次经验性试验中，这一程序证明对克服“自变量问题”非常有用：它们缩小了福利国家的相关方面及其功能，从而为相关分析视角的理论推导提供了指导，他们的经验操作和结果的解释。