This paper examines the influence of the Troika on the retrenchment and reform of social security in Ireland during its bailout between 2010 and 2013. To do this, it draws on data from in-depth interviews with senior civil servants and civil society organisation staff who met with the Troika as part of their quarterly missions to Ireland during this period. The key themes which emerged from these interviews include the largely domestic origins of social security retrenchment and reform; the surprising, and distinctive, positions adopted by the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF); the extent of the Irish government's room for manoeuvre in this area, and the ways in which the Irish government defended social security against proposals for additional cuts put forward by the Troika. The paper concludes by arguing that the scope for domestic decision-making was heavily constrained, yet non-trivial, and that the Troika's influence comprised not only ‘powering’ but also ‘persuasion’.

This article seeks to assess the extent to which international retirement migrants (IRMs) living in Spain make use of public elder-care services, as well as how public officials deal with their demands. The data stems from qualitative interviews with 19 social workers in ten communities characterised by a sizable population of retirement migrants. We found that substantial numbers of retirement migrants remain in Spain well after dependency sets in. This necessitates the development of complex strategies to obtain care by means of social networks, voluntary associations, and private care providers. A certain reluctance to engage with Spanish social services may explain the fact that these services are accessed only as a last resort when all other options have failed. However, the entire process of evaluating the needs of, and granting public care services to, retirement migrants is plagued by difficulties. Social workers cite the lack of a common language as a significant obstacle, together with insufficient information on claimants’ health, economic and family situations (many IRMs are not registered as residents in Spain). The familistic rules governing Spanish social services and the recent reductions in public budgets due to the economic crisis constitute additional barriers to the adequate protection of IRMs.

We conducted a vignette experiment involving 470 Norwegian front-line workers to investigate whether their decisions to sanction non-compliance of activation requirements varied with the ethnicity of the welfare claimant. This is the first vignette experiment on ethnic discrimination in the administration of activation programmes in Europe. The study shows that front-line workers did not sanction claimants with a North African name more often than claimants with a native Norwegian name. However, among front-line workers who had experience with the relevant activation programme, a male claimant with a North African name was sanctioned less often than a male claimant with a native Norwegian name. Thus, we find some degree of reverse discrimination on the part of experienced front-line workers. This finding is contrary to a similar US vignette experiment that detected discrimination (not reverse discrimination) with regard to claimants with an ethnic minority name. The most likely explanation for the difference concerns the different institutional-cultural contexts within which Norwegian and US social policy programmes operate.

Social impact bonds are payment by results contracts that leverage private social investment to cover the up-front expenditure associated with welfare services. The introduction of private principles and actors through outcome-based commissioning has received a great deal of attention in social policy research. However, there has been much less attention given to the introduction of private capital and its relation to more established forms of quasi-marketisation. This paper examines what effect private social investment has on outcome-based commissioning and whether the alternative forms of performance measurement and management, that social impact bonds bring to bear on service operations, demonstrate the capacity to engender: innovation in service delivery; improved social outcomes; future cost savings; and additionality. This paper draws on an in-depth study of four social impact bonds in the UK context, as the welfare regime at the vanguard of this policy development. The findings suggest that the introduction of private capital in outcome-based commissioning has had a number of unique and unintended effects on service providers, operations and outcomes. The paper concludes by considering whether social impact bonds represent a risk or an opportunity for public service reform both in the UK and further afield.

The literature addressing attitudes about social policy and the welfare state has been telling us for decades that welfare interventions are supported by those individuals who benefit from a specific measure. The diffusion of ‘demanding’ active labour market policies (ALMPs), however, challenges this relationship. Using a novel dataset, I analyse which individual- and country-level factors explain public support for demanding ALMPs in five Western European countries. The results show that labour market risk and ideological orientation influence public attitudes towards these ALMPs. Thereby, unemployed individuals sympathising with the political right are more strongly opposed to demanding measures than employed individuals with the same political preferences. Moreover, aggregate support is found to be correlated with the country's ALMP legacy, varying from high levels in Germany and the UK to low levels in Denmark and France. The findings suggest that most ALMPs are in fact implemented despite the opposition of their beneficiaries.

Policies of citizen involvement in health and social care have given rise to a variety of organisational forms, which address citizens in different capacities and differ in their demands as to the representativeness, performance and competence of those involved. Apparently, the policies draw on different institutional logics. Based on extant studies, partly the author's own research from Norway, this article sheds light on three purposefully selected cases of citizen involvement. Two models of democratic consultation encompass a dominant model of involvement in Norway (advisory bodies of service users) and a model more prevalent in UK (panels of the general public). These are both embedded within a logic of democracy. A third emergent model of involvement is one in which citizens with experience as service users are engaged as workers in service providing organisations. This model resembles an idea of co-production. However, when involvement is organised as user-employment and paid work, the model rather seems rooted within the logic of the market – the labour market of service workers. The rise of this model suggests a shift in institutional embedding of citizen involvement. The analysis of these models provides a framework of distinguishing dimensions between different models of involvement.

The aim of this article is to investigate the argument that choice and competition will unleash entrepreneurial innovation in free schools. Free schools were introduced as a subset of the Academies by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition government, following the general election in 2010. The government made it possible for non-state providers to set up their own independent, state-funded schools in order to create more choice, competition and innovation. We conclude that a higher level of substantive innovation is taking place in regards to management practices than in respect of curriculum and pedagogical practices. Innovation in curriculum and pedagogical practices is very limited. Creating a free school offer that seems to differ from other schools appears to be done through marketing and branding rather than innovation. We argue that parents, OFSTED, and the relative isolation of free schools constrain innovation from taking place.

In recent years, various pro-natalist policies have been adopted in Singapore and other high-income Asian countries with low fertility, aiming at raising fertility rates. Previous studies were mainly focused on the impact or outcome of the policies. This paper, however, aims to identify the most influential groups in determining Singapore's total fertility rate (TFR) and evaluate the targeting of pro-natalist measures adopted by the government. We first reveal the changing age-parity-and-marital-status composition of women at childbearing age, and further conduct an elasticity analysis to assess the roles of different subgroups of women in changing the TFR. Our results show that compared to other groups, the 20–29-year-old single women and the married childless women aged 30–34 (‘married’ throughout this paper includes women who are or have been married) are more influential in determining the TFR and should be the potential pro-natalist target groups. However, Singapore's pro-natalist policies are more in favour of third and higher-order births. Such mismatch indicates that, if more efforts are devoted to facilitating marriage and first births in these potential groups, the TFR may be increased effectively. In order to achieve a long-term and significant fertility reversal, it calls for a long-term and integrated policy package.

The relationship between Holyrood and Westminster is an evolving one where there is some evidence of policy divergence. Underpinning policy approaches are different views of social citizenship, with the Holyrood approach maintaining elements of the post-1945 welfare settlement. The place of refugees and asylum seekers within these differing approaches is currently underexplored. This article looks at the Scottish and UK Governments’ views of social rights and how they apply to asylum seekers and refugees. It suggests that despite refugee ‘policy’ being at least partly reserved, the Scottish Government has been able to take a different approach from that of Westminster, an approach underpinned by these differing welfare outlooks.

The social risk literature examines the extent to which states have provided social protection against the ‘old’ social risks of the post-war era and the ‘new’ social risks affecting post-industrial capitalist states. In this paper the contingency of the provision of informal care to people aged 65 and over is discussed. The paper deconstructs the concept of social risk to determine the characteristics and processes which contribute to states recognising specific contingencies as social risks which require social protection. This conceptualisation is applied to make the case that care-related risks associated with the informal care of older people should be recognised and treated as social risks by states. Data from a qualitative study of the English care policy system provide empirical evidence that informal care-related risks are recognised, but not treated, as social risks in England. The findings reveal informal carers, and the older people they care for, receive inadequate and inconsistent statutory protection against the poverty and welfare risks they face. Furthermore the design and operationalisation of the English care policy system generates risks for care relationships.