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

在研究福利国家政策在多大程度上对不同国家个人的不同结果负责时，需要对福利国家或社会政策制定的特定要素进行实证操作。正如本项目所讨论的，在普遍的操作实践中出现了一些实质性的问题。从本质上讲，这些问题都与一个关键问题有关：虽然有大量的贡献解决了福利国家本身和作为因变量之间差异的测量，但当涉及到作为自变量的福利国家的操作时，明显缺乏可行的建议。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标准化程序的缺乏令人惊讶。然而，学者们并没有遵循一种可比较的、某种程度上形式化的方法，而是采用了非常不同的操作方法。到目前为止，还没有系统地测试这些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解释具体结果相关的详细概念性讨论也缺失了。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，展示了根据所选择的操作方式，实证结果的差异有多大。其次，它提出了一种标准化程序的方法，通过推导出作为自变量的福利国家的四种不同概念：反应性福利国家、赋能性福利国家、规范性福利国家和评估性福利国家。因此，从理论上讲，业务选择仅限于与每个概念相对应的指标。在实证测试中，这一过程被证明在克服“自变量问题”方面非常有用：它们缩小了福利国家及其功能的相关方面，从而为相关分析视角的理论推导、实证操作和结果解释提供了指导。

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.