Workfare or Activation: A comparison of Labour Market Policy and Social Assistance Policy in Britain and Germany between 1979 and 1999

In my research project, I want to find out how passive and active unemployment policies develop in two different European welfare states under similiar circumstances. The question I shall examine with regard to my two cases is: does the liberal British welfare tradition lead to a more repressive strategy to reintegrate unemployed people into the labour market than in Germany which is characterised by a conservative welfare tradition? My assumption is that one has to distinguish between two policy fields of unemployment compensation. In labour market policy which is characterised by unemployment insurance, I assume a rather repressive strategy in Britain, whereas in social assistance policy enhanced pressure on unemployed people is further established in Germany. As I want to distinguish not only low and high pressure on the unemployed but also consider where these pressures take place (in passive or active policies), four different strategies can occur which I define as deactivation (passive low, active low), activation (passive low, active high), workfare (passive high, active low) and learnfare (passive high, active high).

In the literature the chosen terms are used in very different ways to describe aspects of labour market policy and social assistance policy. Clear definitions can rarely be found. For that reason it seems to be appropriate to use the terms as the defined idealtypes, which are described by six indicators (general conditions of entitlement; duration of entitlement to benefits; benefit levels; job search requirements; entitlement to in-work-benefits, quality of active measures). The first three indicators measure the pressure on unemployed people in passive unemployment compensation systems, the last three in active schemes.

From a historical institutionalist point of view different ideas, institutions and interests might explain the differences between the two cases. But ideas and interests have been rather similiar in Britain and Germany in the last 20 years. Both countries have seen ideological change, a reorientation of ideas, away from Keynesianism to a supply side economic policy. This new policy which included spending cuts and an enhanced pressure on unemployed people, has been occupied firstly by the conservative parties, but later on also by the social democrats. Therefore the different results can be best explained by distinctive institutions and traditions, for example the political system, the institutional legitimacy of the social security systems and the structure of the target groups of the different systems of unemployment compensation.

The last request of this project is to show what the development of unemployment compensation means for the European Social Model. Although there are different ideas about the constituting elements of this social model an agreement on one basic European characteristic is reached between most authors: the requirement of the citizens to the state to guarantee a socio-cultural minimum income, to decrease unequality of income and to create if possible full employment. Therefore an unemployment compensation system which is oriented on the type of activation lies in the heart of the European Social Model. Even more clear becomes the European element in the unemployment compensation systems of both countries when compared with the United States. For that reason a comparison of the chosen indicators for the actual situation is planned in order to show that a too pessimistic view on the erosion of the European Social Model is not appropriate.