Yes. I will be posting
these housekeeping
reminders into
the chat box for
everyone to see.
Once we once we
get started with
the actual conference
proceedings today.
So welcome back, welcome
to the second day,
second panel of
social justice
remade the decline
of European
welfare state in
the global context
1973 to 2009.
My name is Matthew Sohm,
my doctoral candidate
in history at Harvard.
And I'm the
co-organizers of
this conference
together with Giuliana.
We're pleased to have
you back if you were joining
us yesterday and very
happy you could make it
if this is your first
day with us.
I wanted to thank
our...
presenters and
commentators once
again for their
participation and
ongoing commitment
at this time of
truly unprecedented
challenges and
time constraints
from child care,
elder care, and the many,
many other
obligations that
people are facing
right now.
We all very much appreciate
your participation
and the chance to
continue this important and
timely conversation
in spite
of the current travel
and meeting restrictions
that we're all facing.
Today's panel:
"Recasting the European
Welfare State,"
considers three
responses to
be myriad challenges
confronting
different European
welfare states and
the European
welfare state more
broadly in the 1970s
and 80s and beyond.
And showcases three diverse
and exciting
scholarly approaches
that really illustrate
the breath of questions that
this topic takes in across
a wide variety of
geographies and
methodological approaches.
Kicking us off, kicking
off the discussion
today will be
Chelsea Shields,
who is assistant
professor of history at
the University of
California, Irvine.
Her current book project
"Offshore Attachments:
Oil and Intimacy
after Empire,"
explores how the age of
oil and the end of empire
brought renewed
intervention
in Caribbean intimate life.
She's also the co-editor
of Dagmar
Herzog's of "The Routledge Companion to
Sexuality and Colonialism,"
forthcoming in 2021.
Laurent Warlouzet
is professor of
European history at
Paris-Sorbonne University.
In his recent book,
governed in Europe in
a globalizing world,
neoliberalism and its
alternatives following
the 1973 oil crisis.
He interpreted the history
of European integration as
a contest between
social oriented,
neo mercantilist,
market oriented and
neoliberal projects,
where competition
policy played
a major role in
the assertion
of the neoliberal Europe.
Lauren Stokes is
assistant professor of
history at Northwestern
University
where she teaches
German history,
migration history and the,
and the history of
sexuality and gender.
Her first book, "Fear
of the Family:
Guest Workers,
Family Migration and
Federal Republic
of Germany," is
due out to come out
is due to come out
with Oxford in fall 2021.
If she ever manages
to leave the United
States again,
she intends to
continue her work and
her projects on
history of airports,
the history of bisexuality,
and the shell lives and
the making of
multinational. Corporation.
Finally, the
discussion today
is that co-organizers
of this conference,
Giuliana Chamedes
Associate Professor
of History at
the University of
Wisconsin, Madison.
Her first book, a
20th century crusade,
the Vatican's battle to
make Christian Europe,
was published by
Harvard in 2019.
And she is
currently working
on a book manuscript
entitled failed
globalist economic
development,
decolonisation
and the demise of
European political
hegemony 1973 to 2008.
Thank you everybody.
And without further ado,
I'd like to turn
things over
to Chelsea Shields,
who will present her paper,
"The Science of Retrenchment:
Transnational Knowledge,
Race, and the Dutch
Welfare State."
Chelsea. Thank you.
Can everyone hear me
okay. Okay, great.
So thanks so
much to Giuliana
and Matt for bringing us
all together and
for transitioning
us so seamlessly to
this online format,
it might not have been
seamless for you,
but it was definitely
easy for us.
So thanks for
that. I'm really
excited to continue
our conversation
from yesterday,
including thinking
about the history of
Europe's welfare state
from the outside in.
So if we view Europe's
welfare state
from the offshore,
What I dub the
offshore from
these typically
insular nations in
the Caribbean and
the Pacific and
Indian oceans that did not
decolonize according
to familiar models
of nation state
sovereignty,
we encounter a welfare
state that did
not necessarily
rise and fall,
but one that was
from its inception,
characterized
by a degree of
racialized and been a
racialized abandonment
with which aren't
spending demarcating
Europe's offshore margins
from its continental core.
That's of course not what
anti-colonial leaders
envisioned when they
proposed euro
caribbean integration
in the forties and fifties.
Rather anti-colonial
thinkers insisted that
economic restitution
was a fundamental part
of decolonization as we
discussed yesterday,
and inclusion in
Emerging European.
So security schemes was
one key reason why,
why
metropolitan integration
was thought to be
transformative rather
than reactionary.
And many similar arguments
proliferated in the
Dutch Caribbean,
which is the focus
of my talk today.
However, contrary to
the decolonizing ambitions,
the uneven expansion of
social welfare has
really undercut these,
these ideals of unity
and the effects are
plainly visible in
the Caribbean today.
With
the tourist economy
practically shuttered
half of Kurosawa's
population,
that's a Dutch island
in the Caribbean.
Half of Kurosawa's
population now
depends on food
banks for survival.
That is a situation
that is literally
unthinkable in the
European Netherlands.
And though the
Netherlands has agreed to
provide millionth an aid,
they've done that
with a kind of
burdensome aid
conditionality that would
allow the Dutch
parliament to retain
far-reaching oversight of
Caribbean economies
in politics.
So, so far this
Drastic curtailment
of autonomy has
prevented the Caribbean
islands from accepting
aid and has stalled
the deployment of that aid.
Though I should
note that the Dutch
did not delay in sending in
the military to
quell protests
against austerity
measures on
Curacao back in June.
In a rather
remarkable quote for
r times the Reuben
Prime Minister
recently wrote a
letter to Mark Rutte
the Dutch prime minister
saying quote, it,
it's almost as if a
Aruba has become
the country version of
the American George Floyd
and our own Chen
Req as Susan a
rubin teen murdered by
the Dutch police in 2015.
Marks she wrote, We
can't breathe like this.
So setting aside the,
the dangers of
equivalences,
the question does arise
why this patchy
extension of
the Dutch welfare state
beyond Europe's
continental borders.
And what I have found is,
at least for scholars of
US welfare Statism
or rather familiar
rationale.
Dutch administrators
have repeatedly
turn to the figure of
the uncoupled black
mother to explain
Caribbean exclusion
from the European
welfare regime.
Those citizenship does
allow people from
the Caribbean to travel to
the Netherlands to access
the welfare state,
of course, at the expense
of uprooting one's
entire life.
So the paper that
I've shared with
you all is an
effort to think
through how transnational
knowledge on
black kinship
and family life
circulated to
the Netherlands,
largely from the States
in the 19 seventies.
And that bridges my
first book project,
which looks at
how ideas about
sex and race
shaped the end of
empire and the vagaries
of the oil market and
the Dutch Caribbean.
And a second project
tentatively titled
Moynihan in Europe,
which considers how studies
of black kinship shaped
social policies
throughout the
Atlantic world,
but with a special focus
on how knowledge
traveled from
the US and the colonial
Caribbean to decolonization
or a Europe.
In the Dutch case,
studies of black kinship
found their way into
municipal social
service departments and
the Ministry of
Social Work starting
in the 1970s.
Just like in other
national contexts,
these studies cast
a so-called
culturalist markers of
difference as
really durable pathologies
that necessitated the,
the reduction of
social spending.
So that narrative that
I'm telling tells
a very different story of
the so-called
Dutch miracle.
This is the kind of
rose tinted narrative
that the reduction of
social spending in
the 19 eighties
and nineties
was achieved through
a remarkable degree
of social consensus
and was immune to
racist manipulation.
So if we turn
to the science
that informed state policy,
we see a different picture.
And indeed it's really
only but you didn't care,
would be invoices that
this idea of
consensus emerges.
So the tight
relationship between
social science and social
policy and another,
anyone's emerged
at the outset of
mass Caribbean movement
to the Netherlands.
Roughly half the
population of
Suriname left after 1973,
which was rather
unexpected.
This was when Dutch
and tsunamis leaders
announced that that country
would become independent.
And it's worth
noting that in
a kind of ironic twist,
independence was
primarily the idea
of the Dutch government
and in fact,
the progressive labor
government of yoked an
owl who wanted to
shed that country's
colonial,
The Netherlands
colonial image.
So until Ian's
feared that they
would also be
made to accept
this program of so-called
forced liberation.
And so Thousands came in
the 19 seventies fearing
the loss of their
citizenship,
they manage
to retain their
dutch citizenship,
which became all the more
valuable in the
19 eighties,
when hundreds of thousands
more until I came to Europe
following the collapse of
the oil refining industries
in on Aruba, Curacao
specifically.
So all of this is
occurring, of course,
is the Netherlands
is experiencing
its own energy-related
crisis.
And so if it's true that
consensus allowed
for growing
privatization and
social spending cuts
throughout the
eighties and nineties.
I'm asking what produced
that consensus?
One answer lies, I think in
the knowledge produced
by the welfare state.
This was a highly organized
and well-funded
enterprise that
offered huge sums
of money for
research that was deemed
relevant to policy.
And for Dutch bureaucrats
and social scientists,
the very first task was
to produce an inventory.
Those were their
terms and inventory
of Caribbean
populations that
desegregated Caribbean
born Dutch citizens
from their European
counterparts,
an index of
public services.
So fairly quickly,
already in the
early 19 seventies,
the consensus emerged
that the welfare system,
including child stipends
and public housing,
was not equipped to handle
Caribbean family forums.
So bureaucrats
and social
scientists that they
contracted pointed
to the prevalence of
single motherhood,
the informal adoption of
non-biological children
into the household,
and the so-called very
large family size
as reasons why
the welfare system was
ill-equipped for
Caribbean migration.
So one report from
the city of
Amsterdam in 1973,
just at the very onset
of this migration,
insisted that family
forms created a
dynamic of quote,
structural welfare
dependence.
So what struck me in
these studies was not
just the kind of echoes of
Moynihan that we
discussed yesterday,
but also the constancy
of citations.
And two names that emerged
more or less constantly and
state funded
research were that
Melville Hurst debits
and E Franklin Frazier
to US scholars
that proposed
divergent theories
on the origins
of the mother
centered family.
I'll be at three
decades earlier and
in a very different
national contexts.
But the utility of
this old debate lay,
at least for
dutch researchers
in it seemingly
predictive capacity.
So if matric focality was
a cultural
tradition stemming
from West African norms,
this risk of it's
this argument
than single
motherhood wouldn't
continue and it would
place further stress
on the welfare state.
However, if other
theorists were correct,
that matter and
focality was in part
a response to economic
hardship that
improved socioeconomic
position in
the Netherlands
might result
in more marriages
and what they
deemed more stable
household forums.
And this was the view
of Frazier elites.
The view of Frazier that
travelled to the
Netherlands,
his own thought was a
bit more complicated.
So what these frameworks
very strikingly
displaced prevailing
consensus among
researchers and the
Dutch Caribbean.
Chorus Apple for decades
the theory went
that it was in fact
elite white men who
were the cause of
matter focality.
So the idea was that
elite men emigrate,
white, elite white men
married white women.
And yet, whether by
consent or coercion,
they often maintained
reproductive
relationships with
women of color without
marriage, cohabitation.
So how did a Dutch
sociologist who's
a really prominent figure
in Caribbean Studies wrote,
quote, The white
man is responsible
for countless matric
vocal families,
end quote.
And this is the
way to handcuff.
And in his view,
black men merely
mimic this pattern.
And this was widely
accepted by scholars
working within the region.
So the erasure of
this perspective
in the literature resulted,
I would argue and I
kind of abstraction of
colonial history
that buried
the intimate ties that
bound to the Caribbean,
to Europe, casting
Caribbean migrants
as undeserving recipients
of state largess.
And it's no accident.
I think this
occurred at the very
moment that Caribbean
born activists insisted on
making this history
visible once
again in an
effort to defend
the welfare state and
Caribbean
entitlement to it.
Now the other effect
of this research was
that it concretize
the position
that cultural forms
were unchanging and
led by an elegy immutable.
So as accion ballet
bar reminds us,
culture can also
function like a nature.
And not least
because of this
really tight feedback loop
between social science
and social policy.
In 1996, a seemingly said
milieu for the slashing of
the welfare state globally,
Dutch authorities
cut assistance
for single parents
and in its place
emerged a far more
limited scheme
required proof of the
active pursuit
of employment,
even in cases where,
where parents had
very young children
and the home under
the age of five,
typically, the age
was set up at 16.
So any reflected yesterday
on historical memory
and storytelling.
And that has me
thinking a knew about
this story of the
Dutch miracle.
The reduction in
social spending
and the implementation of
workfare
legislation that is
touted as a successful
and more importantly,
a reproducible model of
retrenchment that created
all the good stuff,
jobs and wealth
without generating
all the bad stuff like
racial antipathy.
And of course, the imagined
foil and in this story
is the United States.
But the framing
of this story
really prevents
us, I think,
from seeing the myriad ways
that the Netherlands
learn from
us experts and to
startlingly similar effect.
And we might ask, what
are the histories we
tell about racialization
writ large,
which often focus on
historical specificity
and contingency.
Likewise occlude our
ability to see patterns
of durability
and continuity
across space and time.
So as this striking the
global movement for
black lives forces
us to reckon with
these questions.
I'm also move to ask
what if racism was not
an aberration of us
retrenchment, but
a more itinerant
feature of the
intellectual revolution
that cast welfare as
a private matter.
I'll end there. Thank you.
Thank you very
much. Just FYI.
I now turn things to
your next speaker.
Two local wild Lucy.
Ok, it's going to
give his paper on
the attempt to forge
a common European
welfare state.
Making 73. Thank
you, Matthew.
Can you all hear me?
Yeah. Okay. Great.
Thanks much too.
And thanks to Julia Na2
for this tremendous
opportunity
to share thoughts about
the welfare state in
a global context,
and that'll mean
an authentic one.
So as you already
said, Matthew,
my paper deals with
the attempt to forge
a common European
welfare state
in the 19 seventies.
That is to say
welfare state at
the level of ISI,
the European
Economic Community,
the forerunner of the
current European Union.
So in other words,
it was an attempt
and still to some extent
an attempt to build
a multinational
welfare state.
So it fits into a
broader debate about
the so-called failure
of social Europe against,
against neo-liberal,
neo-liberalism,
against neoliberal Europe.
Some ion contribution
to the debate is
based on a recent
book called
governing Europeana
globalizing world.
That's Matthew
mention, which
examined what
European economic
and social policies
in the seventies
and early eighties,
based on archives
of government,
international
organizations,
mainly that also trade
unions and business.
So what I found
consoling it is true
for a European
welfare state
is summarized
in this paper.
Sorry, which makes
basically two claims.
In terms of substance.
I didn't.
European welfare
state was partially
implemented from the
19 seventies onwards.
But that, it, it
was different from
national welfare
states as it was
mainly in addition to them
rather than a substitute,
less redistributive
and more focused on
the implementation
of common norms.
And the second claim in
terms of chronology,
I argue that this
European welfare state
was partially developed in
the 19 seventies and
that it faced
major hurdles.
But those obstacles were
different from the
neoliberal challenge,
that image a couple
of years later,
in the mid 19 eighties.
So my paper is divided
into five points
and I will put
them in the chat box
like Queen did yesterday.
I think it's probably
a mock me using.
And so as you can see
the first section,
we'll identify
the key actors.
While the following
four will each
examine one of
the four feature
of the welfare state.
So macroeconomic
coordination,
redistribution,
legislation, legislation
protecting the weakest.
And lastly, international
solidarity.
To pick that we've
already touched
upon in instead
representation.
It's a brief
chapter on actors.
Many actors took part in
the various atoms to forge
a European welfare state,
but they were divided.
So originally when
the trickier from
creating the EEC
was signed in 1957,
western European
social policies
remain exclusively
National,
Bar a few agreements
on migration,
in particular,
the Omni social
provisions inserted
in the European treaty,
where concessions made
to Italy and France.
That with only a
limited implications
in the late 19 sixties,
these contexts
to change them.
With the advent of
new leaders that we
are more interested
into promoting
social Europe.
For example, the bonds,
the new German
chancellor in 1969.
And we can also observe
a growing interest of
left-wing parties and
trade unions in the ISI,
in the European
economic community,
for example,
the European Trade
Union Confederation.
So I'm sort of an
umbrella organization
of all trade unions,
of most of the
European trade unions
at European level
was set up in 1973.
This was a notable,
it'll bite belated moved
since business actors had
been organized on
a European scale
since the 19 fifties.
So and moreover,
deep divisions
lingered over
European integration
among left-wing actress.
But still there was a kind
of moment to support
more social policy as
at the European and
at the international levels
from the late 19
sixties onwards.
So now I will turn
to the first area.
Macroeconomic policy
coordination.
Welfare states have
an indisputable
macroeconomic and
only are mainly if
budgetary and when
input monetary policies are
aimed at maximizing
full employment.
And here I will briefly
examine three atoms at
macroeconomic
coordination aim at
restoring full employment
despite the
economic crisis.
And so the last one will be
the European monetary
system set up in 1979.
It's the most
well-known, but
I will probably see
more on the first to
the 1976 projects of
European planning and
the 1978 locomotive,
so-called
locomotive absent.
So let's start with
this project of
European planning
that can seem
strange today,
but which was
not the case in
the seventies to we start
European economy or the
after the oil shock,
some prominent
left wing actors
devised an ambition,
an ambitious project.
Of setting-up a European
planning agency. So it
was invaded in 1976,
high-level report
commissioned by
the sea and penned
by three European
intellectuals
close to the trade
unions de la,
the French and the
Italian Franco attribute
B and the British
throughout Holland.
Their aim was not to set
up a kind of Soviet
style planning, of course,
but to invent a new form of
flexible and decentralized
planning system
which should take
into account
the new aims of
social policies of
the 19 seventies.
So combating waste,
the extension of
health services,
prompting the
quality of life
and also what they call
the control of Mezzo
economic films.
From mezzo economic films,
it means it's not
another expression for
what was going to stay
transnational operations
by these branches project
was never seriously
discussed in it.
Nevertheless show that
all options remain open in
1976 after the
first oil shock,
but before the
second oil shock.
And in parallel it
UK leaders met
regularly with
European economic
communities institution
and promoted
common policies such as
the common reduction
of walking
time or concerted stimulus.
Most of them failed,
but the idea of
a concerted
stimulus was taken
over by heads of
government in 1978.
That this was a
locomotive package,
a so-called
locomotive package
promoted by the OECD,
by the EEC and by the G7.
So must the, what was
called in those days,
the most industrialized
countries
in the Western world.
So it was an
attempt to organize
a concerted refresh
unary plan.
So we consulted
stimulus plan
with the countries
in surplus,
like Germany,
spending more than
those in deficit like
the UK or Italy.
Hence, the latter.
The weakest, if you want,
would benefit from
the higher level
of spending of
the stronger decision
was actually
taken by government
in 1978 and
the bone G7 to
follow this
locomotive blueprint.
But then the, the,
the 1979 second old
shop subtle Zeus
attempt triggered
the massive crisis
and even temporary deficits
of the Gemini
balance of payment.
So it definitely prevented
the Germans from accepting
any foreign induce refresh
unary policies and
swayed the only,
the only outcome in
terms of macroeconomic
coordination,
what the European
Monetary System in 1979,
very well-known
attempt at ensuring
a convergence may lead
toward Yemen stability
based policies.
But again, BMS was only
parts of the story.
So third pattern,
redistribution.
I will be very
brief because
the European welfare
states and had been,
as always been read,
are limited in terms
of redistribution
because it's really lies
at the core of national
welfare states,
of national identities.
And Here in terms
of redistribution,
we can only talk
about the CAP,
the common
agricultural policy,
and then about
regional policy
which was set up in 1975,
which was, by the way are
January registering
British policy from rich
to poor countries from
which to riches to
the poorest region
That's whose size
was relatively
modest until,
until the late 19 eighties.
For spot on legislation.
Here. In terms
of legislation,
the ESEA action was
much more important.
So we have many
example in terms
of environment,
for example.
So you have the paper my
mature on transitional
hazardous waste.
Also in terms of
gender equality
and a MacBook earlier,
delve more deeply
into the control
of multinational
case study.
Which is very
interesting because
actually in the 19
seventies everybody
wanted to control
more closely
multinationals.
So it was a point in the,
in the new international
economic order.
Even the US Carter
administration took
an interest in what
was called industrial
democracy.
There will, there was two,
there were two debates.
One on the control of
multinationals and one on
democratize, democratizing
big companies.
So they merged in
a debate around the
so-called reddening
Derek directives or
project launched in 1980.
And that trigger a
massive lobbying from
business against
this legislation
to the legislation
failed in the end.
But the mere fact that
business organization
mobilized massively
against it
and this is visibly
in Archives,
showed that it was
an important
project even though
eat, it eventually failed.
And the last
section is devoted
to the international part
of the welfare state,
which has basically
two legs.
On the one hand. We can see
elements of
international solidarity
at the e c level,
for example, with the
low MAY agreement.
But I can discuss it more.
And on the other hand, you
have, on the contrary,
more protectionist
policies,
what I call the
new mercantilist,
what equilateral
others knew
a mercantilist policies
aimed at protecting
European jobs
at the expense
of non-Western
exporting countries,
mainly in steel
and in textiles.
So the EEC was not
the only institution
to do policies.
What will the notable
would that policies
were implemented both
at the national and at
the European level
in the 19 seventies.
And to some extent
it was part
of a European
welfare state.
So to conclude, let
me stress three IDs.
First. While a European
welfare states
as progressively
emerge from the 19
seventies onwards.
But it is less
redistributive
than the national
welfare state
and more focused on
the implementation
of common norms,
especially in
areas related,
related to
cross-border trade.
Transnational issues and to
new domains which has
a gender equality
and environment.
New domains in terms
of public policy.
Second, the development of
the European
welfare state in
the 19 seventies
had been difficult,
but not sheets because
of the neoliberal threats.
Rather, its limitation
where both structural,
So the economic crisis,
the ability to move of
left-wing actors to the
European arena, etc.
And also cyclic also
with the shocks.
So in my opinion,
the neoliberal
challenge came later.
So at the national
level from
1979 onwards we Thatcher
and at the European level
in the mid 19 eighties,
first with
competition policy,
which mixed all
neoliberalism
with what we can
call Anglo-Saxon
neoliberalism.
And then with other
European policies.
And third or less points.
To link those debates
with the current debates,
ambitious projects of
European welfare state
well devised in
the 19 seventies.
Most of them were
unimplemented,
such as a come on
European stimulus or
the fiddling directive to
control
multinationals but do
projects are not forgotten.
They form a toolbox that
can be used later
on to some extent.
For example,
the recent Coby
19 crises for the EU
to step up its game
in terms of macroeconomic
coordination
and to some extent in
terms of refrigeration.
To thank you all and
thank you very much.
I nurturing things over
to Lauren Stokes
who's going
to present on the market
conforming family,
family migration, the
grandmother solution,
and the West German
welfare state.
Lori. Great, Can everyone
hear me when I fall?
I guess that thank
you so much.
And this in terms
of a transition
from an in-person
conference
to a virtual conference.
This this one I had
been a part of so far.
So really thank
you so much to
the organizers and
I appreciate being
able to take part with
people problems all
over the globe.
At so I really want to
talk today about childcare.
Perhaps a concern
many of us have.
So in 1964, the
Western States sends
around a survey to
mayors of Western
cities and they say,
what are the problems
that your city is
experiencing
related to gastric
or recruitment?
Every single mayor in
that survey mentioned
the problem that
has received virtually
no attention
in the historiography.
Childcare recruited
foreign women
from Portugal,
Spain, Italy, Greece,
Yugoslavia and Turkey.
These foreign women who
brought their
children with them.
And we don't want
to take care of
them and we don't know
who's going to do it.
So this kind of
opens up childcare
as a field of
contestation for the
western welfare state
in dealing with migration.
And a lot of these
foreigners have
a pretty time-tested idea
about how to take
care of the children.
And they start protesting.
They start sending
and petitions,
and they start bringing
in their own parents,
the grandparents
of the children
in question on tour.
To take care of
the children.
And the ad they
kind of say,
this is
the grandmother
solution to child care.
We should be able
to make use of it.
And what I found really
interesting and kind of
tracing the path of
that solution through
the bureaucracy
is that it runs up against
a West German
bureaucracy that is
absolutely convinced
that western,
in the western
welfare state
no longer really
needs the family.
And that southern
Europeans have
this pathological
dependent on the family.
So West Berlin in
particular has
a lot of female
guest workers.
And so it has
a lot of female guest
workers who've written
there to look after
their children while
they're working full-time.
And West Berlin in 1970
kind of announces,
we, if we have
this great idea,
we've decided to
accept the foreigners,
different definition
up the family and
allowed them to bring
in grandmother's on visas.
That this is debated.
But what I found
so interesting
about this was
this idea that
the grandmother was
somehow different
definition
of a family that
link German limited,
no grandmothers that
they'd never met them.
And the bureaucracy
seems unaware of this.
But I in fact
owe German women who
works full time,
over half of them use
their own mothers to look
after their children
while they were at work.
So the grandmother solution
never gets implemented
nationally.
Ask some cities clearly
extend grandmothers
visas pretty liberally.
Some cities do not
extend grandmothers
reasons very liberally.
Many of the cities that
don't give grandma
whose visas very willingly
justify this with
the idea that
there's something
weird about using
your grandmother
to take care of
your children.
And this is kind
of due to what is
called either a
Mediterranean or
a southern European
pathology.
That there could
depend on the family.
We here in West Germany
and Northern Europe
no longer are.
And Stuttgart is
particularly anti
grandmother.
And so there are
several court cases that I
trace through the
current system.
And one of these finally
reaches the highest for it.
It made 1973.
So before the oil shock,
before the end of
labor recruitment in
West Germany and across
most of the western Europe.
And in this
particular case,
there's a Spanish woman.
She came to us during
the 1961 as she
marries a fellow Spanish
gas worker in 1965.
They have three children.
In 1968, she tries
to bring her
mother with her,
that her mother obese
and a long-term
residents in order to
look after the
children so she can
keep working and
her full time job
while her husband also
works in her full-time job.
Distance obviously
appealed all the way up,
so it gets the top court.
But what I found
really fascinating
about the case when he
got to the top court was
the back of the court
ruled in her favor.
The curates and
you can have
your grandmother with you.
And we're going to give
the residence permit
to the grandmother.
And we're going to do this
because the West
German basic law,
effectively the
constitution,
states that marriage
and the family enjoy
special protection
of the state.
And so for the
court, it explains
very clearly that this
means that the state.
Needs to make sure
that the family is
a self-sufficient unit
that can take care of
its own tasks and
leave out in great
detail the fact that
the grandmothers
entry is not
justified by
for dependency.
And this really surprised
me, I should say,
the existing
literature on red,
on extended ME migration
suggested that in
Britain and France,
grandparent migration
is mostly justified by,
there's no one
else who can care
for the grandparent.
But in the West German,
thank you. 75th
career decision.
It is entirely if
the grandmother
cottons to kids wanting
to go to
kindergarten, great.
We don't want to pay for
an etic garden classroom.
The kids will need
to go to hospital
and the mother can keep
working full time.
Which is great because we
know that she's going to
keep working full time.
Because she bought
an apartment
in Madrid and she's
in a lot of debt to the
apartment in Madrid,
so we don't expect
her to go anywhere.
So they actually say
in this decision,
we're letting
the grandmother,
and because we believe
the grandmother is here,
you're more likely to
reach your savings goals
earlier and leave
Germany earlier, right?
Like the grandmother allows
him to be this little
space capsule,
your little ONE welfare
state within the
West Europe and
state that can be
transplanted
just as easily.
So I found this
a really mind
expanding quirky
when I first read it
because nothing
can expect that
had led me to
expect that this
was going to be
the justification
for family migration.
A West Germany, the kind of
fantasy that a family
could be its own.
Welfarist eight. Let's has
this as the reading
of the case suggests.
It's very it's very
based on specific imagining
if a welfare state.
So over the next ten
years after the oil shock,
as unemployment
is going up,
as West Germany is
beginning to
realize that people
aren't necessarily going
home any time soon,
the grandmother
becomes a much
more threatening figure.
And by 1983, the seat
is actually considering
a blanket the ban on
grandparent entry even
of German citizens.
Because the problem
with grandparents
is they don't speak German.
And so they'll teach
the children
Spanish or Turkish.
Then the children
will grow up and
be ticking time bombs
for the welfare state.
So in both cases,
right? Grandmother,
yes, sir.
Grandmother. Now,
in both cases
it is entirely up to see
this kind of
narrative about
the family's
relationship to
the welfare state and
what the welfare
state is going to do.
And the grandmother
precedent
also proves extraordinarily
difficult to use
if you are not
a healthy older woman who
is the grandparent to two,
who is the mother of
two full-time
working adults.
And so for
instance, in 1983
and I talk about this,
that dinky piece.
And another
grandmother brings
her keys and part of
the same corporate.
But in her case,
her daughter is
working full-time and
her son is unemployed.
And so the court says,
make a sudden look
at children at,
and this is a
particularly shocking
ruling because
the particular place where
this guy was not working,
I had for the previous.
Five to eight years have
a practice of
deporting any man who
claimed he was doing
childcare because it
was well known that
men didn't really
to childcare.
And so if a man thinks
he's doing childcare,
she's clearly
doing something
much more nefarious but
is not taking
care of children.
I'm some of the
possibilities where he has
tuberculosis and
he claims he's
doing childcare.
He's working illegally and
he claims he's
doing childcare
or he's a drug dealer and
he's planning and
he's doing childcare.
So they had for years
a policy of saying men
don't do childcare.
But then if you can do
child care and not
make us have another
grandmother in here,
moment, you could do so.
I kind of see this as
their grandmother
precedent BY what I call
market conforming
process, right?
The family has to
organize itself in
the way that is most
congenial to the elite.
Okay. I'm very comfortable
the term market
conforming because I'm
taking it from foundational
economic ideals
of the Western urban state
and take it from Big Air
hard at chancellor and
first economics
minister often refilled
responsible for
the West German
economic miracle.
It's more than
market conforming.
Is this in fact an
order liberal or
neoliberal principle
about using
the family to make
mistake not have
to take on costs.
That's a question I am not
resolved with
in my own mind.
I'm I got the
reader reports
on a book manuscript
a few weeks ago,
and they were also
not reasonable,
unlit term I could
use behind market
conforming.
So I'd be curious to hear
all of your thoughts.
And I think that this
story goes back to
this question
that actual sea
raised and that
people raised
yesterday about what
are the narratives
tell us to do.
A western state was so
committed to a
narrative whereby it
has freed itself from
using Families for welfare.
But Southern Europe and not
freed itself from using
Families for welfare.
That it was constantly in
this moment of disavowal,
right? It was constantly
describing people like
grandmothers and odds
as signs of kind
of mythology.
Rather than realizing
that probably a lot of
West German families also
had odds and grandmothers.
The difference is that they
didn't come into
the purview because
they both lived in the
same town and didn't
require visas to make
use of each other's care.
I also wonder whether
we might kind of
use this story to add,
jump into the US
welfare state.
And I'm willing to
Cooper's excellent
account of
family values and this
kind of alliance that
she sees between
religious conservatives
and liberals in
the US around the family
as a provider of welfare.
Professor from
what I can see,
catholic social workers
and politicians are
the most strong advocates
of family migration
rates in West Germany.
And I wonder to what
extent they are kind of
in correspondence with
an order liberal idea.
The family ads as a
provider of welfare.
And I'm still thinking
through all of that,
so I'm looking forward
to talking with all of
you, but thank you.
Thank you very much.
Learn. Finally, I'd like to
turn things over to
my co-organizers.
Juliano was going to
provide today's
commentary on the papers.
Juliano. Thank you
so much, Matthew,
and thank you to all of you
for participating and to
our three panelists for
extraordinarily
stimulating pieces.
So I'm going to
provide kind
of a brief summary
for those who may
have joined a
little bit later
of what I took to
be the the central
claims of the three papers.
And then I'd like to
pose some questions for
all of the panelists
that I hope will
push forward
the conversation
on today's themes.
So I'll start with
Chelsea is paper.
So through our analysis of
the Netherlands in
the 19 seventies
and 19 eighties,
Chelsea shells is strongly
encouraging us to look
at the interrelationship
between
migration and
migration, excuse me,
racism and the rise of
social scientists
as policy advisors
in our search for
an explanation as to
why the Dutch welfare state
retrenched and the
late 19 eighties
and early to mid 990s.
She especially
highlights in
the story of that
retrenchment.
The ways in which
programs for immigrant
welfare were
terminated and
vulnerable categories
like single working
mothers were
severed from its
deep benefits.
At the same time, chelsea
really importantly shows
that this retrenchment did
not Bill uncontested.
And she lifts up the agency
of Sir enemies until
an anchor myths.
Know what's causing
that. Oh, here,
let me take care
of it, sorry, R1.
And she lifts up
the agency of activists
from the Caribbean in
pushing back as they
specifically denounced
dutch but also
transatlantic racism
and protested
the lopsided social
scientific efforts to
scrutinize
the intimate and supposedly
a barren sexual lifestyles
of non-white immigrants
on Dutch soil.
And she uses these these
stories to dry out
a causal explanation for
the fall of the welfare of
seed and the kind of
reaction that ensued.
I'll turn next to
Lauren because they
think they're
the most kind of
parallels in
conversations happening
between these two papers
first and then
I'll close with,
with, while losing
lauren Stokes,
shift our attention
to West Germany in
the 19 sixties
and 19 seventies.
And it's really interesting
how many parallels
there are two.
Chelsea story.
Her focuses on how
West Germany work to
protect state funded
childcare for native
born German children and
diminish the amount of
state assistance
provided to
the children of immigrants
and guest workers.
In the process, she shed
light on what she was
just talking about, the
grandmother solution.
The decision on the part of
many local German
governments to issue
somewhat longer
term visas to
grandmothers so
that they could
care for grandchildren
rather than having.
To stay, do so.
As in Chelsea is story.
One justification
offered for
this move was that
migrate families
were somehow
different from
Western ones.
And therefore that
they themselves
would be happier with,
with a solution of this
sort that effectively
freed the state from
any responsibility
towards these children.
So in big picture turns,
Stokes and shields
converge on an idea
that we also started
discussing yesterday,
which is the rise of
the doctrine of private
responsibility or
self-help as a doctrine
that started displacing,
alter conception of
state responsibility
over public health
preschool care and more.
And furthermore,
they make the claim
that this doctrines
very emergence
was intimately
bound up with Western
fears that migrants
on European soil
would abuse or
overburden pre-existing
welfare state.
So I'm very
curious to see how
our conversation around
this very interesting,
provocative
point goes today
and in the following days,
moving now to
whoever loses paper.
What Jose brings
our attention to
the institutional story of
the European
Economic Community.
And he argues that in
response 101968, the ISI,
which had previously
been conceived in
rather narrow terms as
an institution for the
promotion of free trade,
was push to expand its,
its mission, excuse me,
and become in Egypt
for the promotion
of a range of
policies from
modest forms of wealthy
redistribution.
I'm at the regional
level within Europe
to gender equity and I'm
certain forms of
environmental protection.
He also paints a very
mixed picture in
which the European
community
and ultimately the EU,
would become this sort of
hybrid creature
which displayed
simultaneously socially
oriented policies,
neo mercantilist ones,
and market
oriented policies.
Ultimately, he
does agree with
many other scholars
who have been
charging for years the rise
of neoliberalism in Europe.
But he sees
neoliberal momentum
as threatening
the project of
a European welfare
state considerably
later than many other
scholars chart that key.
He puts that as a
story that really
starts in the mid 19,
eighties and 990s.
So to kick off
the conversation
and wrap up my comments,
I'd like to ask all
three panelists
to elaborate on
three issues.
First, the question
of periodization.
Second, the
apparently rather
narrow question
of definitions,
specifically the definition
of the welfare state.
And third, the
question of who
shapes history and how so,
how we select our
historical actors and
actresses and what sort
of causal power we
attribute to them.
So regarding
the first question
of periodization.
Question is really simple,
but I'd love to just have
all three of the
panelists provide
their answer to
what they see as
a pivotal moment in
the history of state
welfarism in Europe.
A second key point
that I'd love to
hear everybody reflectance,
sorry, correct Baby,
is the extent to which
the panelists See
the welfare state itself as
a fundamentally progressive
or conservative
institution.
So we have myriad
studies on how
to define and understand
the origins of the
welfare state.
And some of those
studies really
emphasize the origins of
state welfarism
in Bonaparte
is for bismarck in terms as
a project which
from its inception
was seeking to buy
the acquiescence of
lower working classes by
essentially separating
certain categories
of society is worthy of
protection and
others as unworthy.
So I'm curious
to hear all of
the three panelists
reflect on basically
how they see
the welfare state
itself before we
even start talking
about its dismantling.
And then finally
a third question.
Um, who shapes history and
how I'd be curious
to just have
the three panelists
reflect on how they chose
their key historical
actors and actresses,
and on what kind of
role you see
your key figures
as playing in the story
of European
state welfarism.
So if you could kind of
give us, I don't know,
a condensed vision of
the causal story
that you see
yourself as telling
in your scholarship.
I think that could
be really terrific
in jump starting
our conversation.
Okay, with that,
I'll hand things
over to the panelists.
Thank you so much.
I can I can say two things
if you want to think.
So, two thoughts.
One about what is
the welfare state?
I think something about
West German history
is that in the period
when it was West Germany,
and the most obvious
counterpoint
is East Germany, right?
And so what's German?
And bureaucrats
are constantly
saying like, well,
we have mothers at
the home and they're
in East Germany.
They make women go to
work and they have
a Communist welfare
state with all of
its overbidding
totalitarian implications.
And so one thing
that has been
interesting about
looking at the
welfare state,
kind of looking not east,
west and south has
been to see how it,
how it appears different.
Just when you you look
in that direction.
But I'll just, I'll
make that point.
The, the overarching
narrative of
German history.
So based on this
Capitalists,
Communists fight in
the post-war period.
That looking at
it in a Western
perspective is
actually shifted.
My thoughts on
second thought
about periodization
and maybe
also who shapes history.
In the years I've been
working on this project,
I've always said I ever
got family migration
to Germany.
People always say, Oh,
so you look at
the problems that
Turks create for
the welfare state.
And I say everyone
creates problems were
the welfare state
the current knew this.
And what I was actually
shocked to find
because of the
ideas I came in
with is that it's
really not until
the mid 1990s
that turk core Islam
even appears as a
welfare state category.
It really, you really seed
Mediterranean
and southern as
the problem categories
starting in
the late fifties all the
way to the mid eighties.
And so I think that that
does also shift
our periodization
simply in terms of
maybe embedding it
in a longer
history of How do,
how do Germans look
at Southern Europe?
How did Germans over
the Mediterranean
history the continues today
in various ways that I'm
sure you can all fill
in for ourselves.
And so in particular,
there is a kind of,
I mean, haven't traits
the intellectual
citation practices
necessarily as
much as I showed,
but there is a practice of
German intellectuals
kicking up on kind of
Italian north-south
stories and
kind of picking up on
the social scientists that
northern Italian
intellectuals write
about Southern
Italy and saying,
oh well, southern Italy
and Canada
metallurgy or just
becomes everything south
of the Apps, right?
For a certain kind
of German social.
Just so that it's
an interesting story
about periodization
simply because it says,
this isn't actually
a story about Islam.
This is a story about Islam
actually stepping into
a longer history of
internal European stories.
I gives interesting
to be in
this conference about
the global south.
And I realized,
like my actors
are just starting looking
at Southern Europe.
And then they kind of
turn the world into
their southern Europe in
some ways in the
eighties and nineties.
So, yeah.
Yeah, I'm happy to pick up.
Thanks for those
excellent questions,
Julianna,
I think as far as to
state as either a kind of
progressive or
conservative formation,
I guess I would say.
It's both an
lens and it certainly takes
on this progressive bent
when it's no longer there.
That people
really yearn for
its progressive potential
once it's dissolved.
But I think it's
the inception
of the Dutch welfare
state and in
65 occurs rather leave it
spearheaded by the
labor government.
And it was really
at its core,
it kind of conservative
effort to retain
the value of
the nuclear family
by providing them
presumably male
breadwinner or with
a basic income in the
case of unemployment,
would it did, however,
was not that.
Six years later
divorce laws
were relaxed and
it turns out that
women wanted to leave
relationships that were
based on economic
dependence.
So it had this
paradoxical effect of,
of kind of producing
a liberalization,
of so-called liberalization
of household norms.
All the while though,
this was attended by
really punitive
measures and
invasive measures
whenever women
would appeal to
the welfare state.
Neighbors could actually
make complaints
to the Ministry
of Social Work
about fraudulent claims.
So social workers would
go into homes and
count the number of
toothbrushes that they saw.
They could look
for male shirts
hanging on closed lines.
So those are, those,
strike me as really
conservative and kind of
reactionary manifestations
of a welfarists regime.
At the same time
though, the, these,
these material supports
were extremely
consequential for
the people who
relied on them and
especially people,
Dutch citizens coding from
the carrot in who were
struggling to get dutch
language acquisition,
were struggling to
find employment like
many other people were in
the Netherlands
at that time.
And so one question that,
that I think it was
Sam Moines who raised
the scholarship
of Giordano bail.
Can I yesterday,
one question that
she raises is,
we tend to think
of colonial states,
for example,
as being uniquely
supported by
taxonomy is a colonial
states cannot do
their work without this
vigorous gradation
of people and slotting
people into categories.
And she's asking,
looking at these
twin developments of
decolonization
and the growth
of the European
welfare state.
How different
is the welfare
state, the colonial state?
Because it also needs
these categories
to, to administer itself.
And this was
certainly the case.
This is why I turn to
social scientists,
because this was one
of the reasons why
the Dutch state turned
to social scientists was
to make sense of
the Caribbean family and to
put it into terms and
categories that
could be legible to
social workers into those
administering the
Dutch welfare state.
Thanks Chelsea. Do you
want to maybe
take the mike?
Tell me. I'm afraid.
We can maybe my time.
And unfortunately
we can't Maria.
Okay. So add that
there may be again,
Gen Ben and I can open up
that conversation
with everyone else.
Charter. So as I mentioned,
we're going to we're
going to have
questions and answers.
If you can.
Message me, Matthew some
privately that you want
to get into the queue
for questions,
please do so.
Right now we have
a first question
from Sarah Lawrence.
Any Tara And please
unmute your video
before you
introduce yourself.
Thank you. Yes.
Thank y'all.
Can you hear me?
Yeah. Calculating.
First of all,
I have to introduce myself.
I'm saddled with and see me
teach international
history.
And the University
of trade though
the School of
International Studies
at the University
of printer.
And I'm a Gemini professor.
So what I will
talk about and
for European
Communities, this story.
And therefore my
question is for Laura,
I will ask the question.
Any case I hope you
will be able to
activate is my laser on
and answer yesterday.
So I Well, thanks.
First of all, thanks
to the organizers for
inviting me for
this conference.
It is really, it is
really a foreign Yang,
I'd say is really
a great opportunity to
talk about a concept
via Europe as being kind
of the prototype of
the welfare state
and the failures of
the welfare state is
a challenging topic today.
I was also
especially struck by
this idea of the demise
of European
political hegemony,
which is the topic of
Juliana spoke and I'm
really looking forward to
hear more about that.
In the 19 seventies
there was,
I believe that attempt to
recover really after
decolonization,
this political
hegemony stressing
European exceptionalism
unless it
was called back then.
You're, probably,
most of you are
familiar with
Francoise Duchenne,
who came in 1972 with
this idea of Europe as
a civilian, civilian power.
This idea of
normative Europe
exploiting social justice.
A new attention
to the poor.
And the new, a social
dimension that later also
became exporting democracy
and exporting human rights.
I mean, later in
the late 19 seventies
and eighties.
And this claim neurons
paper deals with it
had actually some
succesful like
great success in
the mid 19 seventies around
the convention in 1975.
And in this popularization,
interrupt us the
best friend,
the third world
that was resonating
with the New International
Economic Order and
the best of the
new international
economic order.
Order. Then I come
to my question.
In the 19 eighties
and especially
after the second
enlargement.
So go, goes historiography,
at least Europe, it became.
And we increasingly
inward-looking.
And I would like us.
So my question
to Lauren as,
how do you think
that it's kind of
a traditional view of
historiography
scene in the,
in the successive
enlargements
of the Mediterranean
enlargement
in the 19 eighties
and then eventually find
out because
enlargement after
the end of the Cold War.
How do you think
that this plays with
the picture that
you gave in?
And you're thinking
that this success
of the European community,
then European Union in
admitting new members
ultimately weekend
that the essence
of the welfare
state per second.
Do you think that
this is kind
of an interpretation
that is where
dengue or do you think that
actually there were
other reasons,
more kind of in the
mindset behind that.
They adopt
neoliberal mindset
that developed in the
19 nineties. Thank You.
Can I answer? Can you hear
me by the way, please?
Please answer.
Okay. Grateful for
I tried to rapid.
So abouts star
has questioned,
which is linked to
the question of
periodization that
Julia and I raised.
In my case studies.
The pivotal moment
was 1979 to
some extent because it's
the second oil shock.
Close some doors.
And we can
decisively the many,
the most ambitious project
of European welfare state,
even though some
of them continued.
And the role of enlargement
in weakening the
welfare state.
So the question
of Saddam is
really hard to gauge
because on the one hand,
enlargement reinforce
redistributive policies.
Cohesion Policy,
aware, strengthened in
the late 19 eighties due
to the thousand
enlargements.
And then in the 19
nineties due to the East,
Central and Eastern
European enlargement.
But on the other hand,
there was this narrative
about the fact that
the larger the
market becomes,
the more difficult it is to
build an ambitious
welfare state.
So I don't have a
definitive answer.
In the short term.
In the late 19 eighties,
the Spanish and
Portuguese
enlargement were not
seen as opportunities
to weaken the EU,
the European social,
social status.
The most problematic a
actual what Thatcher
and her allies in,
in other countries such
as the Netherlands.
Then let me pick up
Joanna's question
about the definition
of the welfare state
because in eliminating it
was this project
of setting-up
a European welfare state,
progressive or
conservative.
So form, form.
Many, let's say moderates,
left-wing actors.
It was progressive,
but for left-wing
socialist,
communist, it was not,
it was a conservative
projects.
They, they didn't
want to take part
in social Europe
because for them it
was sort of a collaboration
with the capitalist class.
So the French
Communist Party,
but also part of
the British Labour,
part of the trade unions
did not support the B's ID
of building social Europe
in the 19 seventies.
The British
trade unionists,
so for example, the
rattling directive
as an attempt to,
to two, increase
the collaboration
between the workers
and the capitalists.
So that's really hindered
the project of
social era that,
that's really divided
the social movement in,
into it was really
a key, a key point.
And then your last question
about who shapes history?
How do we select
the actors?
As you said, my,
my book with an
institutional history.
So I'm interested
in the, in
the decision-making
process why
I'm studying European
institutions.
In so doing, I use
archives from national,
international,
and transnational
actors because
I think that it's
a bit futile to
do divide between those
three restaurants.
So my book is
complimentary to
other studies of
intellectual history
such as those of,
of, of Queen.
Book with a more global
outlook such as age,
gender, Gaby, nice
studies and others.
And also I should
have mentioned
that's my e3 case,
National case studies
where France,
Germany and Britain for
scientific reasons,
but also for
practical reasons.
I mean, it's impossible
to study all actors,
all trade unionist,
all, I don't know,
all government,
all business
organizations
over 15 years.
So that's all I can say.
Flora, fauna. Thank you.
Unless the other
presenter is 12e.
Now move to the
next question.
Okay. Next up in the
queue is Charles Maier.
It's a very stimulating
and my question I
guess is sort of a
general question.
I worry about.
I mean, these
are all right to
focus on the
seventies and I think
laws notion that the notion
that the crack
down comes down,
comes later is,
is revealing.
But the long term,
it seems to me is important
what the long-term
history of
the welfare state
and I think it
indicates is that one
it's, it's governs.
So by unintended
consequences
that every social policy.
Introduced will have
unintended consequences.
Susan Peterson's
book on welfare,
welfare in the 19 twenties
framed France and
Britain showed
that the fact
the very conservative
Catholics provisions
in France empowered women
more than the male,
the male head of
household policy
that the British
trade unions as far
and so we're going to
constantly have a
different perspective
depending upon
which group we
schematize is
inside or outside.
Is the. And that I
think is that I
think should really
replace the question of,
is this progressive or
conservative which
Giuliana opposed?
Because it is both as, as,
as Professor Shields
said, but it is also,
it's both because the one
we're always going to
judge act differently.
I think so. I would,
I would just say
all, you know,
all states categorize
all states
have to denominate
and find categories.
And that's the lesson
of James Scott,
who in part not just
colonial states.
I think we're all doing it.
And the one question
I would like to leap,
I guess. Chelsea,
a nutshell.
See the grandmother
Laura Lawrence
is, it makes me,
when I've dealt with
over many years,
listening to women,
trying to find
their role and
generally upper-class
bourgeois women.
The question of
school closing
and school hours is
such an important component
of family provisioning.
Is there any distance?
Can any reflection in
these debates
on, well, well,
the welfare state, I mean,
where women have to
take care of kids.
When schools
closing in Germany,
they they close early in
France that closed
one on a weekday.
And so if any of this is
reflected in terms of
these these debates,
so thank you.
Thank you to the papers.
Can you hear me?
Alright? Yeah, thank
you for that question.
It does get some play.
I think this actually,
yes, as you say,
German in Germany,
schools aren't
half-day in general.
And of course, one
of the reasons
that West Germany
ends up recruiting
so many female
guest workers
is because they
do this cost
benefit analysis and they
say We'd have
to invest a lot
more in school provisioning
and kindergarten
provisioning if
we were going to recruit
more German mothers,
Western Front mothers
into the work force.
So this is one
of the reasons
that the recruitment
for women is So in fact
high in the western
welfare state.
And I have various pieces
of evidence to show that.
And then at the
curious thing
bigger than of
course, is just that.
Then these women gets here
and they bring their kids.
And I have a lot of
individual examples
of Spanish women,
Greek women, Italian
women, Turkish women.
Actually saying, can we
have all they school?
So one of my
favorite example is
a group of Spanish families
who decide that
they're going to
do a sit in strike
at the local
Catholic church.
They go in during
the German language mass
and they sit there for
three days because
they would
like the school in their
town to have more,
longer hours so that
the Spanish women who
are mostly working in
the local canning and
this case Factory at.
Don't have to worry
about there work.
And that particular
strike is successful.
I think one of the
interesting things about
categorization is
that one of the things
the categorization does
I know in my case,
and I imagine Chelsea,
you might see this in
her kidneys as well,
is that it functions
to depoliticize.
So of course, you could
have looked at that,
spent those Spanish them
and going on strike
for a longer school
day and said, oh,
this is a problem
that's shared by
German women and
static twin men and
all women with children
in this national space.
But that wasn't
what happened.
Of course, the local
officials kind of said,
well, it's finished,
woman do that, right?
They did at kind
of the category
prevented it from becoming
a larger area, will
have a boycott.
And I think that that's
an interesting thing that
these racialized
categories work.
I think that's an
interesting work that
racialized
categories perform
within welfare states.
Like what demands become
properly political
and subject to
contestation and what
demands become not
political or not heard
as things up for
contestation.
And, and yet there is
actually an article
that argues that
the reason that some places
in Germany have
all these school
now and those
tend to correlate fairly
closely with where there
are high percentages of
corridors in
the population.
And that I can say
more about that,
but school provisioning
and in favor of it,
can I say a few words about
unintended consequences?
Yes, of course. And then
I'll say a few words
about that, please.
And then if Chelsea
wants to address
the question,
the question
directed at her
after that would be great.
Okay. Just a few
words to say
that Paul Pierson
showed that
unintended consequences
are very important in
the European arena because
it's more difficult for
national actors to,
to, to control very
well to the
decision-making process.
And for example, in terms
of gender equality.
So I have my
little daughter,
we were talking
about childcare.
So in terms of
gender equality,
for example, the
provision on,
on gender equality were
inserted in the treat
your firm in 1957 by
the French for economic
purposes because
they thought that the,
the wage of French walkers
was higher than the wage of
the other female
walkers in the easy
because supposedly
the French welfare
state was stronger.
And then when they realized
that it was not the
case in the 19 sixties,
they simply lose
their interest in
gender equality.
Provisions.
Then the Belgian
lawyer, which were,
was interested in promoting
gender equality for,
let's say, social purposes.
To come those
same provisions and develop
the key slow at the
European court of
justice that's
build a new field
of oblique Paul T
on gender equality.
Whereas it was not
the purpose of
the treaty of the teacher
from a regional
provision 1957.
And we can say the same
for environmental
policy that was
not foreseen
uttering the Treaty
of Rome in 1957.
Yeah. Thank you warn
for raising this
point about
categorization functioning
to depoliticize.
And I think
that's absolutely
true in the Dutch case.
So returning to Julie
on his question about
how do we choose our
historical actors?
I think, although
you maybe didn't
hear too much
of it in this talk are in
the version of the paper,
but the larger chapter
from which it's
drawn does a lot
more with the activism
of people coming from
the Caribbean to
the Netherlands.
And I've received
the question
and other, other forums.
Why are you turning
to the women
who were perhaps trying to
seek welfare and what
were their needs of Ives.
And the reason that I,
that I'm focusing on
the activism in the social
sciences because these were
actually the political
demands that women and
Caribbean families
seeking redress
for the welfare state
we're trying to make.
They were trying to
speak the language of
the state with its
obsession with
social science to
make demands and to
make an argument for
extending the
welfare state.
And in that
process, actually
redefining what it
meant to be Dutch.
That you could see
the formative contributions
of the Caribbean not
only to European wealth,
but also just the
fact that someone
can be simultaneously
Caribbean and Dutch.
And so they tried,
they tried quite
literally to seize
the means of knowledge
production in
order to show that
just like uncoupled
white mothers
whose numbers were
increasing in
the Netherlands at the
very same time that
the sexual
revolution on did
assumptions about
traditional families
in Europe itself.
They tried to o, that
black women coming to
the Netherlands also had
deep interiority
and complex reasons
for pursuing
uncoupled motherhood.
And this was, I'm
thinking now of the work
of Roderick Ferguson,
permanent queer of color
critique theorist,
who says that,
you know, the,
the sociologies ation of
sexuality constant be
ascribed the truth of
sexuality for black
and racialized others,
to exterior factors
like neighborhood
arrangements,
household forms,
gender formations.
There's no kind of
interiority afforded for
people like single mothers,
black single mothers.
And so what these scholars
and activists
tried to do in
partnering with
social scientists was
to say that there was not
only kind of
rich life worlds
for the people who
were being reduced and
decentralized by
the dominant
knowledge structures
that the Dutch
welfare state.
But that in fact,
for all of these
historical reasons
that connected to the
Caribbean, to Europe,
that the welfare
state should
be expanded to include
those at the margins
whose historical
exploitation
had provided its wealth.
Thank you. Think carefully.
We have a question
from Quincy.
Hi, everybody.
Thanks. Really,
really great papers.
I have one
question for Laura
and then a kind of
a meta question
for the panel.
A question for Laura
about the European
Development Fund.
Where do you see that
in your story of
the European
Economic Community
having or not having
a welfare state function.
Course that was in
the treaty in 1957.
And Neil mercantilism
was part
of the European project
long before a low Matt.
Do you see that sort
of relationship
to oversee territory?
And in the frame
when you talk
about welfare state or not,
then the meta question
is about periodization.
It seems to be kind of
the operating premise
of this workshop that
the 19 seventies were a
kind of a hinge point
for the first attack on
the welfare
state in Europe.
And so far I'm not totally
convinced of that.
I mean, it seems to
me that the 990s
are really the time
when the sort of
ideological foundations of
the welfare state
can challenge
most curiously
and effectively.
And in that sense,
talk there kind of
a question further
onto because it
seemed to me that
the debate about
the social charter
and the social chapter
and the Maastricht Treaty,
which is then
very importantly
opted out of by
Great Britain,
becomes a kind
of a battlefield
for social Europe are now.
And I wonder if it
isn't a bit false
to sort of narrativize,
pick the debate about
the European
welfare state as
the Fed rises and
falls at a time
at Maastricht.
When in a way,
Maastricht really
kicked that off.
But I wonder if I could
question for the panelists.
Do you see in your own work
the seventies as a kind
of roots attack on
the welfare state,
actual attack on
the welfare state?
Or would you place
the timeline a
bit differently?
So I will can I
stop, please?
Yeah. Right.
Thank screen for
the questions til I'm
sorry. It's dinner
time in Europe.
So I'm a little rotor
is having dinner right?
Close to the, close
to the room where,
where I am.
But anyway, so
you're right, queen,
there was this European
development firm.
So in the E, c to
the two to explain
it clearly,
the EEC was founded in 1957
around free market
rules may Ni,
But there was also
an agreement to
associate the sixth
country of the EC width,
the former French and
Belgian colonies.
Use of free trade
area between friends,
between Europe, the
ISI, and Africa many.
And there was a small
European development fund
to fund development
project in Africa.
So it can be, again,
this comes back to
union S question
about whether
with four set was
progressive or conservative
because it can be seen
as helping poor
African countries too.
Setup development
projects in
which all six countries
were involved.
There are, for example,
there is a really
interesting book
by Martin trample on how
German companies took on
the opportunity
of the European
development from two,
to penetrate the market
of former French colonies.
But on the other hand,
you can argue that it's
matter of
neo-colonialism project.
But then in the
19 seventies
it evolved because
the luminaire
agreement there
is this statics fund.
I'm I mentioned it
in my, in my paper.
The statics is an
international fund
designed to stabilize
the export earnings of
basics products of
the poorest country.
And this is, this can
be seen as a direct
response to the,
the New International
Economic Order.
Demand for international
free trade rules.
And also in the Convention,
the 1975 Lome Convention
to this was a new,
a new agreement between the
ISI and former French,
Belgian, and
British colonies
of Africa and
the Caribbean.
Also in the, in the
Lumia agreement,
there was inverted the
trade preferences,
meaning that the
associated countries
had enjoyed free access
to the European market.
But the reverse was
not true anymore.
In theory, that's,
was very generous.
But in practice, while
those associated
country could
not export a lot of,
of industrialized of
HIV boots to Europe anyway.
So it's, it's, it's
difficult to assess to
what extent it was really
a big, a big concession.
But there is this kind of
mixture between new
mercantilist and social,
socially oriented
vision in the
Lumi agreement,
probably more in the
Lumia Agreement of 1917
February background than
in the Yemen dihydrogen.
And also all of
these took place
before 1979,
again, 19791980.
Then you have the you
have the decision
by Reagan to
stop the aid to,
to, to stop the
north-south dialogue.
There you have
the debt crisis
of southern country in
the 19 eighties through
the 19 seventies where I'm
much better environment to
talk about developing
ambitious no sauce project.
But Giuliana will
probably talk a
little bit more
about that later.
So perhaps Quinn is
picking up on the
fact that I've
conspicuously not
addressed Julie
on this question
about periodization.
I find this, this
question a bit tricky.
I mean, the standard
narrative of
the Dutch welfare
state is that
in the seventies there,
it's realized that
there's a major problem,
that 13% of the
workforce is on
disability and social
spending and it's
like a third of the
national expenditures.
And that's no
longer tenable.
In the aftermath of
the 73 oil embargo.
At the same time
that labor is
becoming much
more expensive.
But that the solutions to
those problems
were sought in
the eighties through cuts,
not dissolution of welfare,
just cuts to wages that
could create new jobs.
Jobs were part-time work.
Most of those jobs are
still occupied by women.
I think even today, 70% of
part-time labor is female.
And the Netherlands
very strikingly.
And then in the nineties
is when you see
the true privatization
key industries,
telecom, housing,
all become privatized
in that time period.
And the major
centerpiece legislation
of the welfare state
gets kind of cut
and then recast it
as a new law called the
Work and welfare law.
So classic kind of
workfare legislation.
But if we, if we send
for the Caribbean,
in the offshore Caribbean,
who's part of
the history of
the European welfare state.
We see maybe a
slightly more
complicated picture.
Because as I was saying at
the outset of my
talk, I mean,
these faces were
always really
unevenly integrated
into the European
welfare state.
So to the extent
that there was a kind
of rise and fall.
I mean, if I had to choose
a signal moment for,
for the, the Dutch
welfare state,
I might actually pick
an unconventional,
you're 1969 because
this is a time when
the welfare state in
Europe seems to
be performing
very well and there's
broad consensus
behind its policies.
And in 69, there was
a massive uprising on
Curacao that draws
attention to the
inequities of
material and
economic dimensions,
political dimensions
throughout this
commonwealth kingdom,
it was a moment when
people were demanding
increased Dutch
accountability for
the economic affairs
of the islands.
And it was a moment
when things could have been
different and Word
and still the,
in the aftermath
of the uprising,
we see very familiar
reports produced that
deliberately obscure
the structural origins
of inequality and
turn once again,
the Caribbean household
form to explain
not only labor unrest,
but also poverty.
So I would say, you know,
maybe if we center
Caribbean narratives
as the sites of
offshore Europe,
we don't quite see a
welfare state that
rises and falls in
quite the same way.
Yeah, I'll be super
quick because
I see we're now
well over time.
But I tend to agree
with at Chelsea
about like it
depends on where
we're looking
from in terms what was
the welfare state
even as it edits
hate whenever
their fate was.
And that depends on kind of
where we're looking at.
So certainly in
Germany too,
story is the nineties
and early two
thousands or the,
the momentum like workfare.
And the moment of
add various cuts
and retrenchment and
logics of moral hazard.
But if you look at
migrant workers,
at those logics are
all present in the
sixties already.
And so how do we
understand that?
We understand that
as a migrating logic
or do we understand that is
and the kind of
racialized compact
of the welfare state
are eroding so
that the weight,
the weight working class,
the need and
working class is
also subject to BC,
logics of surveillance
and moral hazard app.
I don't know, quake
on a narrative,
I thought story,
But I guess.
The question is from
whose perspective
a retelling it.
And this may be
also goes to
the point that was
made yesterday by a
few of the panelists
in terms of
and we want to tell
a story where neoliberalism
is disrupted,
break and the
welfare state.
But a lot of
those practices
exist beforehand.
And I'd argue this before,
but I don't think
anyplace that
has workfare
legislation and
the 990s didn't
previously try it
on foreigners on
the national body.
I don't know
that means yet.
But I think that
that's true.
I think we'd find that
that was broadly true.
So one that
demoralizing, No.
Thank you. I on Anat
demoralizing note.
Thank you. Thank
you, Lauren.
Thank you. To all
the speakers.
I think we're going to
have to wrap things up.
Now we have one
question still and
stack from Stefan,
Ted slough.
So I've asked if he
could rate the question
in the chat box
and we'll think about it in
the next few days.
I also wanted to
mention that we'll have
some extra time
at the end of
Friday for more informal
discussion socialization.
So this will be
an opportunity to
bring up any sort of
pressing questions
that you weren't able
to get around to
or that we ran out of time
for. So apologies for that.
And thank you once
again to Lauren,
Chelsea luv island
to Juliana.
And thank you everyone
for attending and
we'll see you all
again tomorrow.
Same time, same
virtual place.
12, 13. Thank you.
