The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society has published a critical report and collection of policy briefs investigating the effect of recent hard times on the social contract.
The publications, written by political scientists and legal experts, provide a timely analysis of the challenges that recent austerity measures will impose on welfare states across the globe.
Download the report: The Social Contract in Hard Times
This report is accompanied by a series of policy briefs, which approach the issues from a diverse range of perspectives.
Policy Briefs Crisis and the Welfare State: The Need for a New Distributional Agenda
Professor Bea Cantillon, Consultant to the OECD, the EC, and the Belgian government
Bea Cantillon argues that European social policymaking should focus on a redistributional agenda and improve efficiency to overcome the challenges faced by restrictions on public spending and the increasing costs of the new social risks we currently face.
Towards a Global Social Contract: The Challenge of Hard Times
Lucie White, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
In the wake of the recent OECD report into the failure of the major donor nations to meet their own foreign aid commitments, Professor White presents a personal view of her experiences on the ground in sub-Saharan Africa to question what it would take to pressure weathier nations into adopting a more globalized vision for social welfare provision.
'Loyalty Benefits' and the Welfare State
Michael Shalev, Professor in Sociology and Political Science, Hebrew University
This policy brief examines the role of loyalty benefits in the Middle East and questions whether their continued resistance to welfare retrenchment could prove instructive for public spending in countries facing similar fiscal pressures.