Shifting Solidarities : Trends and Developments in European Societies [1st ed.] 9783030440619, 9783030440626

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Shifting Solidarities Trends and Developments in European Societies

Edited by Ine Van Hoyweghen Valeria Pulignano · Gert Meyers

Shifting Solidarities

Ine Van Hoyweghen · Valeria Pulignano · Gert Meyers Editors

Shifting Solidarities Trends and Developments in European Societies

Editors Ine Van Hoyweghen KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium

Valeria Pulignano KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium

Gert Meyers KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium

ISBN 978-3-030-44061-9 ISBN 978-3-030-44062-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © Shutterstock/diez artwork This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

It has been quite a challenge to write a book on solidarity in European societies at a time when this notion suddenly, after being neglected for years, was back in the spotlight. For several decades, solidarity has not been much “en vogue”. Practices of solidarity have long been taken for granted in most European countries with universal health care and solid welfare institutions. This has dramatically changed in recent years, however. Against the backdrop of the global economic crisis, climate change and migration, we hear renewed calls for solidarity with increasing frequency. At the European level, solidarity gained heightened attention as well, because the various crises affecting the European Union have increasingly put the idea of European solidarity at risk. We must therefore ask ourselves whether we need to fashion a new future for this old concept and if so, how we should do this. Is there still room for solidarity within and across Europe? Are there any major shifts in the ways in which we speak, think about and act in solidarity? This book is the product of an original, focused series of international seminars (the “Solidarity Lecture Series”) which took place between 2014

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and 2017 at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO) at KU Leuven, Belgium. The seminars engaged scholars at the Centre for Sociological Research to bring in some of the most outstanding scholars in the field (e.g. Steinar Stjerno, Glenn Morgan, Pearl Dykstra, Colin Crouch, Craig Calhoun, Amade M’charek, Steffen Mau, Klasien Horstman, Barbara Prainsack) to discuss the future of solidarity and its shifting character within contemporary European societies. The seminar series offered a unique opportunity to discuss shifting solidarities in a wide variety of social domains, including work and labour markets, welfare states, migration, biomedicine, health care, religion, culture, family, gender and more. The major aims and questions undergirding this volume reflect the content of the aforementioned discussions. The present volume provides the most up-to-date collection of essays about the “shifting” character of solidarity in a current era of profound social, economic and political transformations in European societies. We greatly appreciate the hard work and scholarship of the authors and their co-authors who contributed to this book. Their different perspectives have provided multifaceted insights into the complex issues arising in this field. Many colleagues working in and outside of Europe have contributed to this volume through giving comments and feedback after lectures and presentations. We can hardly thank all of you, but we are deeply indebted to a few special people. Our discussions with Barbara Prainsack and Liz McFall greatly helped us to develop our “shifting solidarities” approach. Luca Marelli, Wim van Oorschot and Kim Hendrickx were so kind to comment on the Introduction, which has benefited from their insights. We acknowledge the valuable input made by the CeSO Solidarity Lecture Series Working Group members in the early part of this project, in particular Jan Van Bavel, Wim van Oorschot and Bart Meuleman. We thank Marina Franckx for secretarial assistance and Martine Parton for support in the university accounts department. We are thankful for the editorial assistance from the team at Palgrave Macmillan and the anonymous reviewers. We also wish to acknowledge the support of the Belgian Network of Science, Technology & Society (B.STS),

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funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), for the organisation of the Solidarity Lecture Series. Finally, we would like to thank KU Leuven for allotting us precious research time to write books. Last but not least, we extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to our families, for all of their love and solidarity, throughout our work on this book. Leuven, Belgium December 2019

Ine Van Hoyweghen Valeria Pulignano Gert Meyers

Contents

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Introduction: Shifting Solidarities in European Societies Ine Van Hoyweghen, Gert Meyers, and Valeria Pulignano

Part I

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Welfare, Labour and Migration

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Working on Solidarity Colin Crouch

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Solidarity ‘at Work’ in Times of Change Glenn Morgan and Valeria Pulignano

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Social Europe: A New Integration-Demarcation Conflict? Bart Meuleman, Sharon Baute, and Koen Abts

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Economic Fluctuation and Shifts in Popular Solidarity with Unemployed People Wilfred Uunk and Wim van Oorschot

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Contents

Part II

Biomedicine, Healthcare and Technology

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Individualising Solidarities Liz McFall

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Shifting Solidarities: Personalisation in Insurance and Medicine Barbara Prainsack and Ine Van Hoyweghen

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Automating the Welfare State: Consequences and Challenges for the Organisation of Solidarity Wim Van Lancker

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Shifting Organisational Solidarity in Health and Social Care Ecosystems Ezra Dessers and Sam Pless

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Part III

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Family, Religion, Gender and Culture

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Enacting Solidarity Rudi Laermans

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Shifts in Intergenerational Solidarity: Eldercare in the Turkish Community of a Belgian City Veerle Draulans and Wouter De Tavernier

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Religion and Solidarity: The Vicissitudes of Protestantism Dick Houtman, Anneke Pons, and Rudi Laermans

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13 World Population Explosion, Migration and Solidarity in Europe Jan Van Bavel

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Index

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Notes on Contributors

Koen Abts is Assistant Professor at Tilburg University and Research Fellow at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO) at the KU Leuven, Belgium. His research interests include resentment, attitudes, populism and Euroscepticism. Sharon Baute is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Research Fellow at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven. Belgium Her research focuses on public attitudes towards European integration and particularly towards the EU’s social dimension. Colin Crouch is Professor Emeritus at the University of Warwick, UK, and an external scientific member of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne. Ezra Dessers is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), and Research Manager at HIVA—Research Institute for Work and Society, KU Leuven, Belgium.

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Notes on Contributors

Wouter De Tavernier is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Social and Cultural Psychology, KU Leuven, Belgium. Veerle Draulans is Associate Professor at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, Belgium. Dick Houtman is Professor of Sociology of Culture and Religion at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, Belgium (personal website: www.dickhoutman.nl). Rudi Laermans is Professor of Social Theory at Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, Belgium. Liz McFall is Chancellor’s Fellow based in the Edinburgh Futures Institute and Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Bart Meuleman is Professor and Head of Department at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, Belgium. His main research interests are cross-national comparisons of value and attitude patterns and cross-cultural survey methodology. Gert Meyers is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO) at KU Leuven, Belgium. Glenn Morgan is Professor of Management at the University of Bristol, UK. Sam Pless is Doctoral Researcher at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, and Lecturer-Researcher at the Health Innovation Expertise Centre, University College Leuven-Limburg, Belgium. Anneke Pons is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology of Culture and Religion at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, Belgium. Barbara Prainsack is Professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna, Austria, where she directs the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Solidarity (CeSCoS). She also holds a professorship at the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine at King’s College London, UK.

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Valeria Pulignano is Professor in Sociology at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO) at KU Leuven, Belgium. Wilfred Uunk is Researcher at the Chair of Sociology 1 at the University of Bamberg, Germany. Jan Van Bavel is Professor of Demography and Family Sociology at Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, Belgium, and is conducting research on long-term trends in social and demographic reproduction in Europe. Ine Van Hoyweghen is Professor of Sociology of Biomedicine and Science and Technology Studies at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, Belgium. Wim Van Lancker is Assistant Professor of Social Work and Social Policy at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, Belgium. Wim van Oorschot is Professor of Social Policy at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, Belgium.

Abbreviations

ADM AI BNES CCN CFI DNA EU GDP GDPR GP HGP IT NTU OCMW OECD OLS PES RMSEA SCP

Automated Decision-Making Artificial Intelligence Belgian National Election Survey Cultural Changes in the Netherlands Comparative Fit Index Deoxyribonucleic Acid European Union Gross Domestic Product General Data Protection Regulation General Practitioner Human Genome Project Information Technology Non-Take Up Openbaar Centrum Voor Maatschappelijk Welzijn (Public Centre for Social Welfare, BE) Organisation for European Co-operation and Development Ordinary Least Squares Public Employment Service (SW) Root Mean Square Error of Approximation Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (Social and Cultural Plan Bureau, NL)

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SDP TLI TUC UK UN US

Abbreviations

Social Democratic Party Tucker-Lewis Index Trade Union Confederation United Kingdom United Nations United States of America

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 5.1

Second-order CFA model measuring attitudes to Social Europe (Note: N = 1402, Chi2 = 168.257, df = 61, RMSEA = 0.035, SRMR = 0.045, CFI = 0.954, TLI = 0.942. All parameters are significant at the p < 0.001 level [Source BNES 2014]) Trends in economic measures (primary, left axis) and solidarity with the unemployed (secondary, right axis), 1975–2010 (percentages, except for GDP [in thousands])

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List of Tables

Table 4.1

Table 4.2 Table A.1 Table A.2 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 9.1 Table 11.1

Question wording and frequency distributions of items measuring support for Social Europe (N = 1403; weighted for age, gender and education) OLS regression models explaining Social Europe and its dimensions Descriptive statistics for the structural positions and social dispositions Measurement of egalitarianism Descriptive statistics of included variables Multi-level (linear) regressions of solidarity with the unemployed (N = 48,771 individuals, 24 waves) Estimated economic cycle effects by individual-level characteristics Organisational solidarity in a care ecosystem context An obligation-based typology of solidarity

66 75 83 84 104 107 108 183 205

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1 Introduction: Shifting Solidarities in European Societies Ine Van Hoyweghen, Gert Meyers, and Valeria Pulignano

In 2019, the European Commission launched a social media campaign (“#ThisIstheEU”) promoting the idea of the European Union (EU) as caring for its citizens’ everyday lives (@EU_Commission, 5 May 2019). Against the backdrop of growing Euro-criticism and Euro-scepticism, solidarity became the key issue in this campaign, underpinning the EU’s major policies (e.g. aid development, civil rights, economic innovation), which are “all about solidarity”. Solidarity was presented here as the core building block of the EU. In a similar move, EU Presidents revive and place solidarity centre stage as one of the core “shared European values” (@CharlesMichel, 2 July 2019), as “the glue that keeps our Union together” (Juncker, 2016). I. Van Hoyweghen (B) · G. Meyers · V. Pulignano KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] G. Meyers e-mail: [email protected] V. Pulignano e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_1

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Solidarity has been an indispensable idea underpinning the European project. If someone reads the official documents of the EU, one finds a clear commitment to the social responsibility of Europe (Mau, 2007). The concept of solidarity is first mentioned in the Treaty of Rome of 1957, and it entered the Charter of Fundamental Rights in 2000, together with other rights such as liberty, equality, justice and citizenship. The EU Treaties explicitly refer to solidarity in a number of provisions, including the values and objectives of the European Union. These treaties refer to solidarity in two ways: as a quality ascribed to European institutions as a kind of central virtue and as a quality tied to the specific EU policies designed to enact “European solidarity” (Karagiannis, 2007). However, this does not necessarily correspond to a unified self-understanding among Europeans (Wallerstein, 2008; Wieviorska, 2012). On the contrary, various (recent) crises—such as Brexit, revived xenophobia, the migration crisis and the economic crisis—have revealed how competing views of solidarity exist in Europe. The success of populist parties in several countries (e.g. France, Belgium, Hungary, the UK, Italy), the Brexit, and the mobilisation of Eurosceptic and xenophobic protests across Europe has raised concerns about “European solidarity” being at risk. This is equally true in regard to the economic and financial crisis which severely hit many European countries as of 2008. Cases such as Greece and Italy have been flagged as blatant cases of a thorough lack of solidarity on the continent. Under the rubric of “the Internal Market”, the European Union is said to spread neoliberal internationalism, increasingly acting, in the words of Wolfgang Streeck, as “an Empire” (Streeck, 2019). Despite various attempts by European institutions to reinvigorate solidarity, both discursively (as stated in campaigns such as #ThisistheEU), legally (as stated in the “solidarity clause” of the Lisbon Treaty) and practically (with policy initiatives such as “the unique European Social Model” [European Commission, 2000]), a deficit of solidarity has increasingly become apparent whenever Europe is faced with humanitarian and political crises (Balibar, 2010; Habermas, 2017). In times of crisis, however, we might not only witness the erosion of solidarity but at the same time

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calls for solidarity by various (new) social and political actors and movements. How, then, will European societies deal with tolerance of difference, respect for otherness and striving for social bonding? This book delves into these questions by understanding the “shifting solidarities” currently faced by European societies.

Solidarity in European Welfare States Solidarity has been a pivotal concept in the history of European societies (Stjerno, 2009). Since its first use in the political vocabulary of the developing nation-states in the mid-nineteenth century, the concept has been powerful in its inception of promoting collective action conjuring up images of unity in pursuit of social justice (Featherstone, 2012; Scholz, 2008). Entangled with notions of nation and class, solidarity was devised as a strategic invention to encourage the (national) welfare state to address the pressing “social question”, i.e. inequality, by promoting social redistribution (Donzelot, 1984; Rosanvallon, 1995). The institution of the welfare state has been designed to guarantee security and trust through social redistribution based on the notion of risk and technologies of insurance (Ewald, 1986). The objective of these solidarity arrangements is to guarantee its members access to a predefined set of benefits (medical care, income compensation). To achieve this, the costs of the arrangement are shared by the community. Likewise, solidarity has been anchored in dominant political ideologies of social democratic and Christian democratic parties (Fiegle, 2003; Stjerno, 2009). In the postwar decades of strong economic growth, welfare states extended their scope and objectives. This process resulted in diverse regimes of welfare state capitalism (Esping-Andersen, 1990), resembling the variegation of the political economies of welfare state capitalism (Streeck, 2009). Thus, solidarity has been historically embedded in different social institutions in European welfare states, including trade unions and systems of collective bargaining (Doellgast, Lillie, & Pulignano, 2018), welfare states (Van Oorschot, 2008), social policies (Baute, Abts, & Meuleman, 2019)

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and insurance (Lehtonen & Liukko, 2015). As a leading principle, solidarity has been a key element of the “moral infrastructure” of European welfare states (Hinrichs, 1995). Although—and mainly because—solidarity is embedded in the core institutions of European welfare states, it has been affected by major societal developments in the past decades. Developments such as individualisation, globalisation, marketisation, migration and digitalisation are fundamentally changing the ways in which our European societies are organised and our lives are lived. In late-modern consumption societies (Bauman, 2001; Giddens, 1991), people are increasingly socialised to be “individuals” (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2001; Rosanvallon, 2013). Group ties are less clear and more “liquid” as the result of individual choices and people no longer belong to pre-established communities (Bauman, 2000). At the same time, our lifeworlds are becoming more and more global at a steady pace. Since the 1980s, welfare states have been undergoing strong reforms, involving the rise of barriers of entry and the decrease of benefit coverage, thereby introducing new legitimatisations for the welfare state, transforming the social question again (Beck & Grande, 2007; Rosanvallon, 1995). Moreover, processes of European integration are said to contribute to the establishment of Europe as one of the largest “single markets” in the world, diminishing the traditional sovereignty of (nation) states (Streeck, 2014). Partly as a result of this, our lifeworlds are increasingly played out in market terms, challenging democratic institutions and the redistributive dynamics of solidarity (Habermas, 2013; Sandel, 2012). In advanced welfare states, scholarly work has shed light on the increasing poverty rates, diminishing welfare services as well as the resulted increasing social unrest with regard to the increase of inequalities in growth between labour (the foundation of growth and welfare state taxation) and ephemeral speculative capital (Piketty, 2013). Demographic, family as well as migration fluxes have further affected traditional social balances and classical interdependencies of solidarity within welfare states’ labour markets and social security systems. On top of this, technology and digitalisation are changing “how we work, live, and think” (Mayer-Schönberger & Cukier, 2013; Van Dijck, Poell, & De Waal, 2018). Data technologies and processes of digitalisation establish new forms of differentiation (Mau, 2019), and for some this gives

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way to new forms of exclusion (O’Neil, 2016), undermining the practices of solidarity through the welfare state (Eubanks, 2018). Moreover, these forms of established welfare state solidarity are challenged beyond the (strictly) social question. As climate change attests, the issue of ecology has become pertinent now that we have entered the Anthropocene (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000; Urry, 2011), forcing us to reconsider “with whom” (i.e. with other species, with the planet earth/Gaia) solidarity has to be established (Latour, 2018). All these developments raise important questions about solidarity: If European societies are undergoing important transformations, how will this affect solidarity? Looking at Europe, it is far from clear what the “nature of the beast”1 will look like. Although the European Union may potentially extend and deepen solidarity (in spite of difficulties of governing Europe), some argue that the “European solidarity” it generates will suffer from a democratic deficiency, which can be counterproductive for the future of European solidarity (Habermas, 2013). The inclusion of the concept of solidarity into the discourse of emerging global movements, as well as its adoption by new nationalist discourses, has mirrored and magnified these uneasy questions. For some, the present crises and new social risks may be expected to open up new forms of solidarity. New actors have entered the social landscape mobilising novel manifestations and visions of solidarity, such as those of a human solidarity, based on a shared humanity or human nature, in its diverse guises (Derpmann, 2015; Scholz, 2008; Turner, 2006), a cosmopolitan solidarity (Beck & Grande, 2007; Calhoun, 2002) or a cosmopolitical solidarity (Hendrickx & Van Hoyweghen, 2018; Latour, 2004; Stengers, 2011). How can we imagine/perform a solidarity beyond the welfare state? The new social movements we are now dealing with everywhere—from Extinction Rebellion to the Yellow Vest movement, from Viktor Orban to the “Sardines”— all seem to be instances of the search for a rebellious “we” evolving from a mode of solidarity (Latour, 2012), defined against the traditional welfare states’ form of institutionalised solidarity. What we experience are increasing tensions between old and new institutionalised forms of solidarity, and solidarities expressed in new social movements. For some, this appears to be in fact a major new dimension of solidarity: “the intensification of its multiplicity” (Karagiannis,

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2007)—or, in other words, the ever-increasing number of solidarities in current European societies. A recent report from the EU, based on a Horizon 2020 project’s cross-national survey in European countries, shows there is clear citizen support for policies to assist the vulnerable and reduce inequalities, even if solidarity is nuanced, conditional and often fragile. Attitudes vary across policies and States: while welfare solidarity receives strong support, solidarity for migrants is more contested. Solidarity actions are largely conducted at national levels but there is also evidence of transnational—European—activities by civil society organisations. Regardless of the perils and fragilities that surround solidarity in contemporary societies, the report concludes that solidarity is well “alive and active in Europe” (European Commission, 2018).

On Spirits and Zombies–Bringing Solidarity Back Alive? Contemporary manifestations of solidarity thus seem to be continuously pondered, questioned and altered. To what extent will societal changes in European societies entail “the end of solidarity” (if at all)? Will we rather experience the emergence of new ways of organising social relations so that new interdependencies will be created? And (if any), what do these new forms of solidarity look like? These are the questions posed in this volume in order to get to the heart of the matter, which is to develop a more sustained understanding of today’s “shifting solidarities”. In trying to understand “the contemporary” (Agamben, 2009), solidarity is often considered to be something that is endangered, in crisis, and at risk of extinction. This is how social scientists tend to point to the disruptive potential of societal transformations—notably, contemporary capitalism (Vallas, 2012), globalisation (Sassen, 2014) and digitalisation (Zuboff, 2019)—in relation to solidarity. As such, the sociologist Bauman (2013: 1) argued that “the spirit of solidarity is currently in exile”. This frightening claim is resonant with daily media and public debates on the lack of solidarity in the context of the various crises affecting European societies. But if, as mentioned above, new forms of solidarity are in the making, why have social scientists not seen these?

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In his reflexive modernisation thesis, Beck argues how our social science concepts, like the “nation-state” or “class”, have become “zombie categories”, that is, categories that are dead but yet kept alive in their use by scholars to describe the growing fiction of traditional social institutions (Beck, 2002; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2001). Could it be that sociologists have been “blind” (Latour, 2004) to solidarity, dazzled by the zombie categories of, e.g. the nation-state? For Latour (2000, 2003, 2004; Latour & Ewald, 2003), we may be “blind” to contemporary configurations of solidarity for (at least) three reasons. First, because these new forms of solidarity seem to transgress the nation-state framework, as they increasingly proliferate on a trans- or supranational (Ong & Collier, 2005) and a local level (Oosterlynck, 2017). Second, because these claims for solidarity are no longer limited to merely human or social forces but are configured around non-human, e.g. technological forces, such as, for instance, genetic technologies (Nowotny & Testa, 2010). Finally, because these manifestations play out in the hybrid assemblages between knowledge, markets, states and lifeworlds, which also makes it difficult to locate them in the public or private sphere. Conventional uses of solidarity, such as the institutionalised form of welfare state solidarity, may thus obscure these critical shifting dynamics, while preventing solidarity from adequately being described. According to a range of authors like Beck and Latour, we need to address new sociological tools in order to be able to describe the shifting manifestations of solidarity to make them visible (again). In this volume, we argue that the broad range of manifestations of solidarity illustrate that European societies are currently experiencing “shifts in”—rather than an “abolition of ”—solidarity. We emphasise that to understand the scope of solidarity in today’s societies, it does not suffice merely to claim that solidarity “fled into exile” (Bauman, 2013) or has become “a living dead” (Beck, 2002); rather, we need to explore the ways in which solidarity is shifting by studying the sources and manifestations of solidarity within European societies. This implies the study of the actors, forces and processes performing these “shifting solidarities”, while addressing the spaces, temporalities and sites of today’s (dis)-enactments of solidarity/ies. To understand if and how the spirit of solidarity can be brought “back from exile” is at the core of this volume. To substantiate

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its main theme of “shifting solidarities”, the following sections engage in a conceptual discussion of solidarity, clarifying our approach of “solidarities on the move”, and illustrating its sources, manifestations and sites in European societies through the different contributions of this book.

Solidarity—What’s in a Name? Many social scientists consider solidarity to be a fundamental concept of social and political thought. However, they also mention its complex and ambiguous nature. In fact, the concept of solidarity can be used in various contexts, ranging from a political catchphrase to a key concept of modern sociology. A broad range of acts, values and expressions of thoughts go under the name of solidarity. After a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, solidarity emerges in many forms: people give shelter to endangered people, collect money for the restauration of damaged goods or change their Facebook profile picture as an “act of solidarity”. The burning of the Notre Dame in Paris on April 15, 2019 is a case in point. Quickly after this medieval church caught fire, Parisians gathered around the Île de la Cité, praying and singing songs. At the same time, thousands, probably even millions, expressed their solidarity with the Parisians, the French, the “old continent”, or the whole of “Christianity” (@VaticanNews, April 15, 2019). In the days after, many people sent money for the Notre Dame’s restauration, leading to an advanced bidding between the richest families of France who wanted to show who was “most solidaristic” with the “Lady of Paris”. In the meantime, Twitter users criticised the media for giving more attention to the burning of Notre Dame than to the Amazon rainforest fires—why was there not the same level of outrage for these fires? This broad array of manifestations of solidarity shows how hard it is to define solidarity by referring to only one substantive meaning. In the social sciences, the notion of solidarity is both ambiguous and at the same time theoretically under-defined. Kurt Bayertz, for example, highlights how its theoretical meaning is often “overshadowed by its appellative function” (1999: 4):

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The phenomenon of solidarity lies like an erratic block of stone in the moral landscape of modernity. Its routine use is well-established, but nevertheless it remains something of a foreign body. Because of its range and importance it is immense, and at the same time unapproachable. The geologists in this landscape – the modern moral philosophers – have taken it for granted now and then, but on the whole they have simply found ways of getting round it: they were certainly unable to do anything to remove this block. (Bayertz, 1999: 9)

Most historical overviews of solidarity refer to the Roman law concept of “in solidum” and to pamphlets by French and German revolutionary thinkers (Fiegle, 2003; Laitinen & Pessi, 2015; Prainsack & Buyx, 2017; Schmale, 2017). In his study of the history of the political idea of solidarity, Stjerno (2009) shows how solidarity has been embedded in the classical political ideologies of the Marxist labour movement and Christian democratic and social democratic parties. With the rise of the social sciences in the late nineteenth century, solidarity emerged as an object of study (Bourgeois & Croiset, 1902). The founding fathers of the social sciences linked the concept of solidarity to the key developments of their time in an effort to understand modernity. After the birth of sociology, solidarity thrived as the disciplinary characterisation of “the social” (Martucelli, 1999). Growing out of the historically complex roots of religion, politics and knowledge, solidarity took on a number of hardly straightforward meanings. Moreover, many of us still struggle to define it today. Is solidarity a political project or a social condition? Is it a matter of feelings and faith or a rational option in a secular world? Are its social functions mostly of a cohesive type, or does it rather intensify group differences? Although many meanings are ascribed to it and no conceptual agreement is in sight, many would agree that solidarity is one of the features intrinsic to any definition of society (Mau, 2007). However, the notion of “solidarity” is not used consistently in the literature. It is applied to a wide range of different actors, individuals, groups and other collective entities, institutional arrangements and legal norms in policies. As argued by Prainsack and Buyx (2017: 1), the only thing most authors agree on is that they treat solidarity as a “pro-social” notion. For

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some, this vagueness of solidarity is expressed as criticism; it could potentially be used in support of virtually anything. However, as observed by Bayertz (1999), its vagueness can also be functional: its imprecise status has possibly even supported its popularity. The more imprecise its assumptions and implications, the more casually it appears to be used. This open character has actually enabled the frequent and routinely deployed political mobilisation of “solidarity” (Baldwin, 1990; Scholz, 2008). Finally, the concept of solidarity can be easily conflated with other social science or political-philosophical concepts such as justice, fairness, social coherence, altruism or friendship. Solidarity is a catch-all phrase, at risk of becoming “too meaningful” (Meyers & Van Hoyweghen, 2015). This makes a substantive definition of solidarity hard, if not impossible (Greiner, 2017; Mau, 2007; Prainsack & Buyx, 2017). Recent scholarly work has identified different typologies of solidarity, both in its sources and manifestations (e.g. Bayertz, 1999; Lahussen & Grasso, 2018; Laitinen & Pessi, 2015; Offe, 2007; Oosterlynck, Loopmans, Schuermans, Vandenabeele, & Zemni, 2015; Prainsack & Buyx, 2017; Scholz, 2008). Regardless of their differences in terms of scope and approach, these typologies share some commonalities, with at least four recurring key elements (Lahussen & Grasso, 2018; Prainsack & Buyx, 2017). First, an important element is the notion of mutual responsibility. For example, in the conception of Bayertz (1999: 3), solidarity entails a mutual responsibility between the individual and society, where each individual vouches for the community and the community vouches for each individual. This mutual responsibility indicates a certain obligation of the individual towards the community with certain benefits of the community towards the individual. This is in line with Stjerno (2009: 2), who defines solidarity as the preparedness to share one’s own resources with others, be it directly by donating money or time in support of others or indirectly by supporting the state to reallocate and redistribute some of the funds gathered through taxes or contributions. This preparedness to share one’s own resources with others is defined by Prainsack and Buyx (2017) as the enacted commitment to accept “costs” (in the widest sense of the word) to assist others.

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Secondly, scholarly work tends to emphasise that solidarity always entails both a descriptive and normative aspect (also phrased as an objective and subjective dimension (Bayertz, 1999), or a factual and value element). Solidarity not only features an objective/factual relation of providing assistance, but also requires motivation on the part of the benefactors, or a specific moral commitment. This means that even institutionalised arrangements of solidarity require a subjective dimension: the mobilisation of the capacities of the citizens for solidarity. The institutional relations will only survive in the long run if they are backed by motivational support and constantly reproduced. Utilitarian expectations alone can hardly bolster solidarity; solidarity also requires a normative appeal (Habermas, 2001). Solidarity thus entails the capacity to summon as a “we”, where a “common cause” is recognised by a group of people as worthy of collective concern and action (Stengers, 2014). What people value in the world as worthy of collective action is often expressed as a “similarity with others” (Prainsack & Buyx, 2017), whom we consider ourselves to have things in common that matter in a specific context or practice. Thirdly, scholarly work tends to discern three different levels of solidarity within social reality, reflecting the micro-, meso- and macrolevel (e.g. Bayertz, 1999; Offe, 2007). For example, Prainsack and Buyx (2017) distinguish three tiers of solidarity, ranging from interpersonal to more formal levels of solidarity. As a first tier, interpersonal solidarity takes place between concrete individuals who are willing to carry costs for each other based on a recognised and “relevant” similarity. These practices of solidarity can range from strangers waiting for a bus who update each other about delays or neighbours all contributing to a spontaneous BBQ to partners providing intensive medical care for their terminally ill spouse. A second tier is group-based practices of solidarity, directed to members of a group, for example, people with a particular disease (Rabeharisoa, Moreira, & Akrich, 2014; see also Rabinow, 1994). The third and most formal tier involves contractual and other legal manifestations of solidarity, as can be found in welfare states or insurance

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contracts. These “levels” of solidarity are not always to be clearly attributable to one and only one tier; the tiers of solidarity are tightly interwoven. The last recurring key element, finally, pertains to the analysis of the group-boundedness of solidarity (Lahussen & Grasso, 2018). This means that solidarity might be, more often than not, a particularist commitment—in the sense that every solidaristic group has an “outside”. This aspect is mostly discussed in approaches stressing the transformative political work through the mobilisation of solidarity, usually taking place via coalitions and alliances, among other forms of struggle of power relations. Solidarity and its complexities when realised in struggle has been theorised in much feminist thought (Butler, 2015; Gibson-Graham, 2006) as well as in science and technology studies (Latour, 2004; Stengers, 2014). Scholarship in this field is critical to approaches that ground solidarity in an abstract and universalistic identity politics, such as a communitarianism based on diversity in a shared identity (Putnam, 2007), or approaches of a “human solidarity” (Scholz, 2008). Universalism is attractive since it tends to dissolve all identityrelated boundaries. However, such possibility of a solidarity for all of humanity might entail a flattening of difference between people under a single umbrella of solidarity, running the risk of reinvigorating essentialist solidarities—particularly in light of historical affinities to differentiate between people, e.g. based on a biological universalism (Van Hoyweghen, 2018). This aspect of the inclusionist/exclusionist character of solidarity is particularly relevant in the context of contemporary manifestations of solidarity in European societies. A novel aspect within contemporary forms of solidarity is its pluralisation: that is, the systematic transformation of solidarity into solidarities (Karagiannis, 2007). The above conceptual clarifications highlight that we are dealing with a complex and multifarious phenomenon. The exploration of these features is a necessary step towards an understanding of solidarity in a way that makes sense to current European societies (hence the book’s quest of “shifting solidarities”). In the next section, we will explain our approach of “solidarities on the move”.

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Solidarities “on the Move” Our starting point is that a narrow modernist framing of solidarity no longer captures the complex and multiple entanglements and engagements of people (Beck, 2002; Latour, 2004). This requires a rethinking of the spatial and temporal registers to capture today’s intricate engagements of solidarity. For Oosterlynck et al. (2015), such registers can be situated in the local “everyday places and practices in which people engage across ethnic and cultural boundaries”. Interesting here is the notion of “practices”, as the concrete places where these spatial and temporal registers in enactments of solidarity take place. Prainsack and Buyx (2017) take a similar approach of a “practice-based approach” to solidarity, while scaling up from the micro-level to the meso- and macro-level. A practice-based approach to solidarity understands values as enacted in practices in order to manifest solidarity (through acts/action). Echoing this literature, we take a pragmatic stance in this volume and present theoretical and empirical research that studies situated practices of “shifting solidarities”. Such a practice-based approach to solidarity conceptualises solidarity not as a social fact sui generis, but as an outcome emerging from manifold practices. Moreover, we renounce the idea of solidarity as arising (or disappearing) spontaneously and inexorably from historical evolution or societal developments. On the contrary, solidarity must be actively and continuously practised through present historical circumstances: it becomes a continuous, “practical critique that takes the form of a transgression” (Foucault 1984, 45–47, in: Panu, 2007). Therefore, rather than becoming preoccupied with the necessity of a blueprint we insist on engaging in sociological research tracing these practices of “shifting solidarities”. The contributions in this volume are consistent to this, in the sense that they do not focus on one single meaning of solidarity. Solidarity does not refer to a unified phenomenon with an unchangeable quality; instead, it involves a diversified and transformative process—with polarised outcomes, such as controversies on, e.g. exclusive vs. inclusive solidarities. Accordingly, “shifting solidarities” serves as a heuristic device to study changing societies while reflecting on how societies “stick” together. Contemporary debates on solidarity tend to be grounded either

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in excitement about opportunities for societal change or in worries about the loss of solidarity in some societal domain. This reflects the different and broad domains of relevance for studying “shifting solidarities”. For example, within the field of health care, the issue at stake is whether “personalised medicine” (e.g. the tailoring of prevention and diagnosis to individual characteristics of patients) will reconfigure solidarity as a basic principle in public health care. Likewise, with the emergence of the gig economy (e.g. DHL messengers, Uber drivers, Amazon fulfilment packers), scholars in labour studies question how the terms and conditions of this new service economy will work for workers. In the field of welfare state studies, the European Social Model (European Commission, 2000), one of the cornerstones of solidarity, may contribute to a sense of European citizenship, but it may also prove to foster a sense national identity. The emergence of personalised medicine, the migration crisis in Europe, the Notre Dame fire in Paris and the growing gig economy may seem to be unrelated events at first sight. Yet, they all come with observations and claims on shifting practices of solidarity. “Shifting solidarities” is a means to understand how our contemporary societies are undergoing changes, while not pinpointing/stabilising what solidarity exactly is. Solidarity is on the move, and this makes it relevant to study this “erratic block of stone” (Bayertz, 1999) in the process of shifting.

Shifting Solidarities as a Sociological Inquiry of European Societies The present volume tackles these crucial questions by offering a first collection of social scientific studies tracing “shifting solidarities”. In particular, the contributions show different spaces, temporalities and sites of “shifting solidarities” and relate it to a broad range of contemporary societal developments, socio-economic and political forces, and (discursive) actor framings. The chapters focus on these sources, articulations and consequences of “shifting solidarities” in different domains of social life (e.g. welfare, work, health care, culture, religion, family and gender). In Part 1, Welfare, Labour and Migration, the contributions start with contextualising solidarity within the framework of the social struggle

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for welfare and social redistribution. The chapters examine how solidarity underpinning the European welfare states is facing some important shifts, demonstrating the “fragile, changeable, even meretricious” character of contemporary solidarity (Crouch, this volume). A first crucial shift is the changing field of industrial relations and trade unions. As Morgan and Pulignano argue, solidarity is shifting away from its traditional combination of inclusive (i.e. the working class) and exclusive (i.e. gendered division of labour) inception, as typical of (post-) Fordist labour relations. Through a historical analysis of shifts in welfare state solidarity in Denmark, Germany and the UK, the authors point to the path dependencies that have characterised forms of solidarities based on both national welfare state and collective industrial relations systems. However, new self-organising workers movements are emerging within the gig economy, and their grassroots nature questions the role of the traditional trade unions’ organisation when dealing with shifting solidarities on the job. The contribution of Meuleman, Abts and Baute builds on one of the major drivers challenging today’s solidarity, i.e. the process of European integration. Their concern is not with labour and national welfare structures per se, but with the attitudes of citizens towards “Social Europe”, defined as the European-level social policymaking that affects social welfare in the various countries. The idea of Social Europe crosses national borders and organises solidarity between citizens of different European countries. Studying citizens’ attitudes towards Social Europe is therefore crucial to assess the extent to which a solidaristic support for (a) Social Europe exists. Developing Social Europe also demands that attention is paid to with whom we want to be in solidarity. This is at the core of Uunk and Van Oorschot’s contribution, which builds on deservingness theory to question how macro-economic measures, in particular unemployment rates, affect the popular solidarity of the employed with the unemployed. The authors observe that in times of higher unemployment rates, unemployed people are considered to be more deserving than others. This is why popular solidarity, conceived here as the support for welfare state solidarity, fluctuates with the tides of macro-economic developments. In Part 2, Biomedicine, Health Care, and Technology, the contributions address the domain of health and health care with particular attention

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to the role of new digital technologies in re-configuring solidarity. As McFall argues in her introductory note, we have to pay attention to the “individualisation of solidarity”, notably personalisation and algorithmic, automated decision making. The chapters elucidate the changing, technologically mediated, role of solidarity in health care and welfare state practices, and its broader social and political impact. In Chapter 4, Prainsack and Van Hoyweghen study how personalisation (on the basis of behavioural, genomic and other data and technologies) affects the practices of medicine and health care. Moving beyond social scientific scholarship criticising these new trends for increasing the risk of discrimination/stratification and warning of a decline in solidarity, the authors analyse two practices in insurance and healthcare to illustrate the workings and effects of data-driven personalisation. They demonstrate how personalisation in health care does not simply reduce solidaristic practices of pooling risks, but involves the formation of new ways of classifying people and types of groupings, opening up opportunities for new forms of solidarity in Europe. Shifting the lens from health care to broader welfare state policies, Van Lancker discusses how digital technologies affect worker’s rights and welfare state solidarity. Van Lancker points to two points of vulnerability from the perspective of worker’s solidarity: the precarious status of workers in the platform economy and the automation of traditional welfare benefit decision making and allocation. These processes of automation invite in-depth reflection on how digital technologies shift existing forms of welfare state solidarities. Dessers and Pless tackle the issue of organisational solidarity in a study on how care organisations deal with the changing demands for elderly care. The authors argue that organisational solidarity is challenged in the health and social care sector by an ageing population and complex chronic illnesses, calling for organisational solidarity to become inter- and cross-organisational because care involves multiple horizontally distinct players in a fragmented service sector. In Part 3, Family, Religion, Gender and Culture, the contributions deal with issues related to demographic dynamics, changing family constellations, and religion in multicultural societies. Laermans (this

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volume) remarks, in his introductory note, how the three chapters of the third part represent the different levels of sociological description— micro, meso and macro—inviting reflection on the double hermeneutics (Giddens, 1993) of social scientific concepts, especially the concept of solidarity. By presenting a case of intersectionality and solidarity in care, Draulans and De Tavernier illustrate the difficulty of Turkish migrant women in a Belgian community to use formal care provisions to support informal elderly care by family members. The authors observe the first signs of a shift in intergenerational solidarity to personal motivation as the main source of taking care of elderly family members, rather than as the result of solidarity as explicit cultural pressure. The chapter of Houtman, Pons and Laermans takes up Durkheim’s and Weber’s disagreement on religion’s capacity to produce communities and solidarities. Based on a qualitative study of different forms of Protestantism in a Dutch community, the authors reiterate what is at stake in this volume, i.e. that solidarity in (here, orthodox and liberal protestant) communities comes in different forms and shapes and that “misplaced notions of a real solidarity” are better abandoned altogether. Finally, Van Bavel challenges the “ticking time bomb” narrative which is often used in popular media to frame migration in European societies to support restrictive migration policies. The size of the migration problem is strongly exaggerated in this discourse and the framing of accepting immigrants as a matter of solidarity is not productive, Van Bavel argues. This illustrates how solidarity is (re-)constructed in the way it re-proposes features of an inclusive (“us”) and exclusive (“them”) solidarity. As such, the final chapter of this book is a plea against solidarity as a productive framing of the migration crisis in Europe.

Note 1. See Derrida’s (1992) “monstrosity’s” characterisation of the persona of Europe in his essay on European self-identity (in: Marelli & Testa, 2017).

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Part I Welfare, Labour and Migration

2 Working on Solidarity Colin Crouch

Solidarity, these chapters reveal, is a fragile, changeable, even meretricious phenomenon. Its sister, integration—best seen here as the means whereby newcomers and outsiders become eligible for entitlement to solidarity—is even more so. The Polish labour and social movement that took solidarity as its name—Solidarno´sc´—split into warring factions soon after the fall of the communism against which it had united in struggle. If we think seriously about what it means to exercise solidarity, its elusiveness should come as no surprise. As Morgan and Pulignano point out here (Chapter 3), solidarity can be given either a rationalistic or more moral meaning. Under the former, solidarity is offered because the parties to it recognise a shared material interest. That is a strong basis, but such solidarity will disappear as soon as the shared interest itself disappears or is completed. Easily perceived shared material interests do not really require an appeal to solidarity; they are enough in themselves to produce co-operation. In these circumstances, such an appeal only becomes necessary if there is need for C. Crouch (B) University of Warwick, Coventry, UK © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_2

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a moral component: if there is anxiety that some members of the group may defect to pursue their interests alone, or will not have the patience to stay the course with co-operation. In other words, an appeal to solidarity is a signal that rationally perceived material interests will not be enough, or at least will need to be maintained over a longer term than they can confidently be perceived. Solidarity may even demand action that might conflict with individually perceived interests. This leads us to consider solidarity as closer to its usual meaning, based on moral feelings of concern, or at least perceptions of long-term shared interests. Although the latter is strictly speaking a rationalistic interpretation, taking a long-term view implies suspending short-term advantage, which usually requires moral support. Solidarity should therefore be, and in practice usually is, restricted to its moral form. It is a value to which appeal is made, often rhetorically. Such values are sustained by feelings. But feelings are vulnerable to change, and moral sentiments often prove weaker than perceived material interests when these contradict the sentiments. Unlike material interests, the strength of moral bases is difficult to estimate. They might turn out to be superficial expressions of commitments that disappear as soon as they are challenged, or they might have a strength and profundity that leads people to sacrifice and death. Until individuals and groups are put to the test, it is very difficult for observers, even the individuals themselves, to predict how a professed moral basis will determine actions under pressure. This probably explains why social science tends to prefer rational choice approaches to the study of human behaviour over Durkheimian ones—even if the former are palpably misleading. The rhetoric of appeals to morality is also in itself ambiguous, depending on whether it is a self-regarding appeal that others should behave themselves in ways that suit our preferences, or a potentially self-denying, inwardly addressed appeal telling ourselves to behave in ways that might not suit our preferences. Solidarity shares in this ambiguity. If a sense of a shared community, mixed with clear shared material interests, has already been established, then an appeal to all members of that community to act together can be an example of the former, self-regarding moral appeal designed to prevent defections: ‘We know who we are; let us stay together!’ If instead solidarity is being invoked to call for co-operation

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with a group that is not part of a strong existing identity, it becomes a morality of the second kind: ‘We must express solidarity with that group!’ Or, in other words, we ought to act as though we share an identity with that group. The former, more self-centred approach, is clearly more powerful than the latter, as the sentiment is reinforced by, rather than needing to stand against, a rationally perceived material community interest, but from which there is fear that some will defect. While this might be weaker than direct appeals to material interests that do not need such reinforcement, it will usually be stronger than calls for solidarity with outsiders to the existing community. This difference between two kinds of moral solidarity is at the heart of an observation made by all contributors to this part: that solidarity is both inclusionary and exclusionary. In drawing a line around those who should be included within an appeal to solidarity, one is also indicating who should be excluded from it. Solidarity based on the appeal ‘We know who we are; let us stay together!’ is potentially, though not necessarily, exclusionary. That based on the appeal ‘We must express solidarity with that group!’ is inclusionary, though it might still express limits to the range of groups to which reference is being made. From here arises the frequent finding that the practitioners of the strongest solidarity are sometimes fierce opponents of extending the circle of those about whom they care. This is a paradox if one sees a capacity for solidarity as a general quality that communities or individuals might possess, a capacity that they can extend in new directions as required. It is not a problem if one focuses on the identity of the group included within the existing circle of solidarity rather than on the concept itself. History gives us examples of both, often within the same group. Coal miners, normally living in small, often isolated occupational communities and engaged in highly dangerous work, unsurprisingly demonstrated a particularly strong capacity for solidarity. They then often contributed that quality to the wider industrial and political labour movement in which they played a major role, serving as emblems of the class-wide solidarity that has been such a fundamental value for that movement. Their strong, potentially exclusionary, community-based solidarity was capable of extension to inclusiveness. However, there have also been many examples of miners’ community-based solidarity being

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exclusionary. There were sometimes intense rivalries between different mining regions, and miners often had little time for workers in what they regarded as ‘soft’ industries. Their communities were also usually heavily patriarchal, women being included only as dependents of their husbands and fathers. Today, mining communities—or more often exmining communities—are proving to be valuable recruiting grounds for the advocates of xenophobic, exclusionary politics, such as the Alternative für Deutschland, the British Brexit movement, the Rassemblement National in France, and Donald Trump’s form of Republicanism. The situation is not difficult to understand once one grasps the mercurial quality of solidarity. Meulemann, Baute and Abts (Chapter 4) report that respondents identifying themselves as of the political left are more supportive of the idea of Social Europe than other voters. This is another example of the extension of the concept of solidarity from an initial to a wider base, in this case out from the national bases in which most left movements have had most of their experience of welfare states, trade unions and other institutions. It is an extension of inclusiveness stemming from the left’s basic commitment to egalitarianism. But there are other voices on the contemporary left, of which Meulemann et al. are fully aware, who argue that, welfare states and industrial relations systems having been achieved through the solidarity of a national community, European integration is a threat to a solidarity that must remain national—and therefore exclusionary. The Nordic welfare states and labour movements have been major examples of the importance of national at least as much as class solidarity, developing as they did in societies with a high degree of ethnic homogeneity based on a geographical isolation and generally inhospitable climates that for decades reduced immigration to very small numbers. However, the social democratic governments of these countries also became the world’s leading contributors to overseas development aid. Their sense of solidarity may have been nationally rooted, but its egalitarianism made it capable of a very general extension. That same openness later led these countries to become the most welcoming to refugees fleeing the conflicts and natural disasters of the Middle East, North Africa and Iran. But this relatively sudden dilution of the same ethnic

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homogeneity that had assisted the strength of solidarity also produced demands for exclusion and demonstrated the limits to the extension of solidarity. Xenophobic and neo-Nazi movements have flourished in the Nordic lands, far more than in southern Europe (with the exception of Italy). These movements have drawn particularly strong support from the working-class electoral base of social democracy. Everything depends on the kind of test to which solidarity is being submitted. It was one thing for Swedish workers to accept that a small part of their taxes would go to fund development projects in Africa was one thing; to ask them to live alongside and welcome into their welfare state growing numbers of people arriving at short notice from very different cultures has been a different challenge. Similarly, Uunk and Oorschot (Chapter 5) demonstrate the vulnerability to changes in economic conditions of feelings of solidarity with the unemployed among Dutch people. Unlike most of the countries of western Europe, the British were never really invited by their political leaders to feel any kind of solidarity with people in the rest of the European Union. The European flag was almost never flown in public; the country opted out of the Schengen agreement, which implied a certain level of shared citizenship; even politicians favourable to EU membership would make political capital out of complaining about the EU, and rarely spoke of a need to work through it to achieve goals. Not surprisingly a majority of voters came to see it as meaning nothing more than a source of immigrants and silly rules. It was therefore not surprising that in the referendum of 2016 on the country’s continued membership of the EU the leading supporters of remaining made virtually no mention of any shared interests with other European countries or joint projects with them, let alone solidarity, and concentrated instead on the economic damage that the country would incur if it left. British attachment to the EU, such as it was, never involved appeals to share a Europe-wide solidarity. This is not an issue for the British alone, though they have been an extreme case. Solidarity with one’s nation (potentially though not necessarily an exclusionary appeal) has long been, along with religion, the most powerful form of solidarity beyond people’s immediate family and community. These appeals have been supported, often for several centuries, by powerful authorities of state and church, wielding massive resources

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and, at times, able and willing to reinforce their moral appeal with threats and actions of extreme violence. Few other causes have been to rival these capacities. Class, historically the left’s proposed alternative solidarity basis, never had anything resembling such resources at its disposal, except in the state-socialist countries. There the cynicism of its official use soon became obvious and was eventually reinforced by a return to nationalistic appeals. Solidarity is essential to any movement or campaign that needs to mobilise people beyond their immediate concerns. It can work, as many examples have shown us, but those needing to use it have to be aware of its vulnerabilities and unreliable qualities, and therefore of what they might need to do to deploy it effectively and without illusions. The chapters in this part will be useful to them.

3 Solidarity ‘at Work’ in Times of Change Glenn Morgan and Valeria Pulignano

Introduction The decline of solidarity at work is central to understanding the multiple crises being faced by societies and social order in the current period. Traditional conceptions of post-war Western economies saw social solidarity, the trade union organisations and political parties which grew out of it, as underpinning the Fordist accumulation regime during the 1960–1970s. This regime was supported by mass consumption through rising wages and a welfare state that provided basic services of education, health and welfare plus mechanisms for managing transitions between work, unemployment, sickness and old age (Aglietta, 2000; Boyer, 1990). However, huge transformations in work have occurred since the 1980s which have G. Morgan (B) University of Bristol, Bristol, UK e-mail: [email protected] V. Pulignano KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_3

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replaced the Fordist model of production and undermined the role of trade unions, social democratic parties and the welfare state as a protective social settlement. The decline of social solidarity, understood as the willingness and capability to organise with others for collective goals (Heckscher & McCarthy, 2014), has been both a cause and effect of these processes. Whilst empirical instances of this declining solidarity abound in the current era, there has been relatively little scholarly reflection given to the concept of solidarity per se, and its shifting relationship to work and labour in general. Heckscher and McCarthy (2014: 628), for example, argue that ‘solidarity has been rather neglected as an academic topic because it is very hard to analyse’ whilst Godard suggests that it has been discussed mainly through a focus on empirical contextual factors such as shifts in political, legal and market conditions but with limited reference to the concept of solidarity in wider social theory or to its historical instantiation in distinctive institutional environments, societal and organisational norms and cultural traditions (Godard, 2008; Wilde, 2007). The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to interrogate the concept of solidarity and how it can contribute to the analysis of work and labour in the current period. The chapter consists of two parts. In the first part, we frame our understanding of the concept of solidarity in industrial relations and labour studies. We argue that solidarity requires the bonding and bridging of potential divides between groups and the creation of various levels of shared interest, moral norms and cognitive frames. ‘Bonding’ elements emphasise sameness and similarity within the group and the strength that this gives the group to act together. ‘Bridging’ implies the efforts made to convince others outside the initial group that they share more than they do not share, and therefore it is possible to bridge those gaps and create a wider basis of solidarity and potentially a more powerful collective movement (Putnam, 2001). This process of bonding and bridging involves the interaction between on the one hand actors’ efforts to build shared ideologies and shared organisations that embed and reproduce shared ideologies (i.e. through trade unions and political parties) and on the other hand the material conditions of workplaces and communities and the degree to which these encourage a shared sense of (collective) identity and solidarity. It is the combination of the two aspects—strong

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ideological and organisational cohesion on the one hand, and high levels of shared experience and interdependence at work and in communities, that provides the conditions for social solidarity. How this combination develops in practice relates to distinctive institutional legacies. For this reason we narrate the histories of a small number of selected nation states in Europe to illustrate how solidarity has been socially and institutionally embedded in distinctive ways. In the second part, we draw out our more general conclusions on the conditions for solidarity. We indicate three necessary conditions of existence of solidarity: a shared material context (which may bond work and community), an organisational structure and an institutional frame. Finally, we reconsider the shifting nature of solidarity by applying our conditions and framework to the current era, and in particular reconsidering whether there might be an emergence of new forms of labour solidarity both in the national and in the international arena as new forms of work appear. In the conclusion, we discuss possibilities for further research on shifting solidarities.

Solidarity in Industrial Relations and Labour Studies The most recent explicit discussion of solidarity in industrial relations and labour studies has been that of Heckscher and McCarthy (2014). They define solidarity as ‘a communal sense of obligation to support collective action’. They further distinguish between on the one side the group identity to which the duty is owed, and on the other side the content of that obligation. This leads them to identify the way in which solidarity is constructed by bonding and bridging among people within specific communities, and consequently how it unfolds through two fundamental forms—craft solidarity and industrial solidarity. Craft solidarity is based on shared occupational status where entry to the occupation is controlled by the occupational group itself which defends its position through collective action. By contrast, industrial solidarity is based on factory interactions and forms of conflict with managers over control and wages. Heckscher and McCarthy argue that both of these two forms of solidarity are declining because of the changing nature of work, the

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decline of traditional factories and the threats to the standard employment contract from part-time, temporary and outsourced employment. They argue that ‘something new has been rising’ which they describe as ‘collaborative solidarity’ based on ‘a form of interaction and morality structured as something like the relationship of friendship but looser and wider’ (Heckscher & McCarthy, 2014: 649). The focus is on the capacities and capabilities that are emerging from new forms of social media that facilitate ‘collective actions different from the “brute force massing” of industrial unionism’ and can create coordinated yet decentralised ‘swarms’ of actors that can be ‘effective in situations that require, as it were, guerrilla action, with rapid adaptation and local innovation’ (Heckscher & McCarthy, 2014: 649). Heckscher and McCarthy’s definition of solidarity is, in our view, quite narrow, leading to an over-emphasis on decline on the one side and ephemeral novelty on the other. We therefore argue that it is necessary to explore more deeply the nature of solidarity, its sources and forms as a specific institutional configuration that contributes to a path-dependent process of change, as regimes of accumulation, production and consumption themselves evolve. Therefore, we expect the nature and impact of solidarity on institutions to shift when the (material) conditions which have underpinned it change because of wider transformations occurring in the economy and society. Our theoretical assumption is that the more diverse and heterogeneous work situations become, the more difficult it is to develop a shared meaning structure that can activate a sense of solidarity and a form of collective action. Therefore, the agency of particular individuals, groups and organisations to make solidarity meaningful in new contexts is crucial. They can do this by drawing new symbolic, discursive and narrative connections between the present and the past, developing new narratives, reviving and sustaining memories (McBride & Martinez Lucio, 2011; Rowbotham & McCrindle, 1986; Spence & Stephenson, 2009) that bridge and bond across group boundaries even when workplace and community settings shift to become more diverse, as in the current period. However, we also emphasise that solidarity and the resources available for agents to revive or sustain solidarity are also crucially embedded in organisations and institutions, e.g. in trade unions

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or in laws on collective bargaining, works councils, etc. These may maintain an importance even when material conditions are changing. It is the interaction between existing organisations and institutions, changing material conditions and the significance and power of solidarity as discourse and practice which contributes to framing the social context where actors understand solidarity as grounded in their own experiences of it. Solidarity is therefore understood as a value dimension reflected in a dialectic between on the one hand the material conditions in which groups are placed (and which offer various possibilities for solidarity and engaging in collective action), and on the other hand the meaning structures within which solidarity is understood by the actors. One aspect of this is that solidarity is both the basis for purposive instrumental action, e.g. to gain rights and benefits at work or to achieve political power and representation and the basis for moral and ritualistic action to reinforce the sense of collective identity, e.g. through the enthusiastic performance of activities, which achieve nothing for the individual but are expressive of the collective, for example in relation to labour movements such as May (or Labour) Day marches and associated cultural artefacts such as flags, banners and slogans, referencing and mythologizing past struggles, victories and defeats. Solidarities are therefore often invisible until they are enacted in struggles over pay, conditions, rights, etc. or remembered and reinforced by rituals and symbols. Without this visibility being made meaningful across the wider community that is addressed by the discourse of solidarity, the phenomenon may atrophy and dissolve, leaving organisations and institutions emptied of real meaning and social energy. The inter-relationship between material circumstances and meaning structures is therefore mediated through the maintenance of solidarities and the collective institutions which are formed to embed solidarity within particular contexts. The following section illustrates different ways in which solidarities have been produced and maintained in a range of Western European societies; this is followed by an effort to abstract from the cases a more detailed understanding of the forces at work in the development of solidarity as a prelude to considering how solidarity might be being reshaped by current changes in work.

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Insights of Solidarity from Western Europe In the first part of the twentieth century, labour unions in Western Europe used class solidarity to define and enact themselves as legitimate and meaningful political agents. The idea of class solidarity became the strategy labour pursued to overcome market fragmentation and individualism as well as to supplant alternative sources of worker identification, such as religion, ethnicity or localism and ‘early’ corporative worker organisations. We use histories of a selection of European countries (i.e. Denmark, Germany and the UK) in the post-war period to illustrate how solidarity evolved and was shaped. Countries have been selected based on their diversity in capitalist and welfare state systems in accordance with existing typologies (i.e. Esping-Andersen, 1990; Hall & Soskice, 2001) as well as on the diversity in trade union structures and their linkages with social democratic parties and the role of political coalitions between labour, capital and the state in shaping governance in each country. The development of the working-class solidarity in Denmark, Germany and the UK arose from workers recognising that they operated under the same pressures of economic exploitation. Building these bridges across industries and occupations, however, was complex and they could easily collapse, e.g. in the UK when the 1926 General Strike to support the miners disintegrated as major groups of workers such as railway employees returned to work, leaving the miners to fight on alone. Thus, whilst they were able to recognise their differences ‘from the other class’ (capital) and build organisations on the basis that they could only improve their life conditions by collective action, strikes and mutual aid, ‘the dull compulsion of economic relations completes the subjection of the labourer to the capitalist’ in Marx’s words (Marx, 1990; ch. 28). The worker always faced the necessity of earning a wage in order to survive and maintaining solidarity through collective action (strikes, etc.) could mean poverty and starvation for whole households, making longterm collective action extremely difficult. Therefore, solidarity developed through ‘class’ as the common objective (material) position of workers in the production process but it was embedded in particular contexts and particular politics which affected how the organisational and institutional supports for forms of bonding and bridging across groups evolved.

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Forms of solidarity emerged out of the ‘collective effervescence’ (Durkheim, 2013) generated by struggles and strikes as well as through painstaking processes of organisation. Strikes and demonstrations created a sense of belonging and an understanding of common interests as well as a sense of common language and identity. Trade unions and political parties created strong subcultures with internal cohesion and solidarity. This is evident in Germany where in the late nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century the Social Democratic Party (SDP) became the most important political expression of Marxism. Solidarity was used by the SDP in Germany with a meaning close to how it was used in the Marxist ideology resembling the idea of unity and association. This was the case at the end of the nineteenth century, when internal struggles risked challenging the very idea of unity and solidarity in Germany. In West Germany, a strong trade union movement re-emerged after 1945 organised primarily by industrial sectors. Through a series of reforms in the following decades and building on past institutional legacies in terms of craftwork and apprenticeships and high levels of employee skill, German manufacturing industry based its competitive strategy around a model of skilled work, supported by a well-developed training system, permanent employment, works councils and consultation. This combination of factors contributed to the strength of German manufacturing in exporting—as described by Streeck (1992)—in terms of diversified quality production. Its ability to continue to export has been dependent on keeping quality high and constraining costs. Part of this has revolved around the planned introduction of new technology as agreed between employers and employees. But it was also crucial that trade unions and employers proved able at key points since mid-1980s to engage in voluntary restraint on wages to keep costs competitive. Also, since mid-1980s there has been a gradual extension of non-standard employment in the German context, not just in terms of the expansion of service sector employment through the legalisation of part-time and temporary contracts but also in terms of a differentiation with German manufacturing firms separating off the core employees from those on limited contracts. This went hand in hand with the increased use of outsourcing in Eastern and Central Europe and China and consequently a lack of growth

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of employment numbers within German manufacturers and their local supply chains (Streeck 2008). The extent of segmentation between insiders and outsiders in the German economy has been subject to growing debate as wage inequalities have increased (Baccaro & Howell, 2017; Thelen, 2014) and although German unions eventually supported minimum wage legislation after years of opposing it (Bosch, 2018), the growing heterogeneity within the German labour force has undoubtedly weakened wider notions of solidarity. Since the German reunification in 1990 and the social and economic cost of integrating East German workers, solidarity has been under strain, exacerbated more recently by migration internal to the EU from the Central and Eastern European states and by asylum seekers external to the EU seeking entry to Germany. Arguably, the German unions emphasised bonding by protecting their members sometimes at the expense of those outside their protection. As employers were put under pressure to reduce labour costs, trade unions protected their existing members whilst allowing the gradual expansion of temporary and part-time jobs both inside manufacturing and in the growing service sector, leading to greater inequality in the society overall. By contrast, in Denmark, class struggle and worker organisation developed relatively late compared to Germany. Yet, collaboration between trade unions and employers and the first negotiated regulation of conflict followed very soon. The language of the Danish Socialist Democratic Party was radical and socialist, but not revolutionary, and the programmes at the end of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries concentrated on concrete reforms and the need for universal suffrage helping to bridge from the workingclass movement into the substantial number of smallholders, farmers and independent artisans that existed in the small towns and agricultural communities outside Copenhagen. From the beginning of the twentieth century, social democratic leaders in Denmark (and generally in Nordic countries) gradually developed the idea of bridging not just across different working-class groups but also by establishing alliances with smallholders and artisans who also sought state support for aspects of the welfare state (Baldwin, 1990). This pragmatic development contributed to establishing the basis for a broad concept of solidarity, as including the relationships between different classes in the language and discourse

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of solidarity. This constituted the basis for the development of ‘corporatism’, characterised by centralised agreements where strongly organised peak (national) level union confederations could mount solidaristic appeals that influenced wage structures and social policies (Martin & Thelen, 2007). Social democratic parties and trade unions contributed to the construction of regimes of solidarity in two ways. On the one hand, they helped put in place social policy regimes that, once institutionalised at the level of the state, fostered ongoing support for redistributive solidarity and norms of relative egalitarianism of rewards in society (EspingAndersen, 1990). On the other hand, as part of an active politics of coalition building, these parties promoted visions of social justice, that left an imprint on national collective imaginaries. For example, as Stjernø (2005) notes prior to the Second World War, social democratic parties in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries used the term solidarity primarily to refer to class solidarity but, after, they developed discourses of solidarity, which saw solidarity as a national value. As indicated, this accounted for the forming of political coalitions between the two major classes (labour defined broadly and capital identified with a small number of very wealthy families). It also let the two classes embrace a model of social order and economic welfare that provided for rising living standards without fundamentally threatening the very wealthy. In short, differently from Germany and the UK, Denmark moved explicitly to promote generous social programmes and advance ideals of social justice (including gender equality) (Thelen, 2014). In the UK, wage competition often took precedence over national appeals for social justice during the 1960s and 1970s (Hall, 2017). The failure to establish strong institutions of corporatism (Crouch, 1977) combined with the rapid growth of powerful local shop stewards capable of bringing manufacturing plants to a halt and the use of strategic strikes in a range of industries led to a failure to invest in renewing and reinvigorating the material base of solidarity other than in a few places such as defence industries and aerospace. Solidarity had been reduced to very narrow instrumental interests among groups that could act together within industries and sectors either through local strategic strikes or through national strikes and there was a lack of wider bridging. Bonds and bridges across similar groups of employees increasingly

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weakened, leaving workers dependent on the power they could exert directly over the employer. Bridging between groups was no longer much in evidence and legislative changes to reduce trade union power and the ability to show solidarity through secondary picketing was gradually curtailed, beginning with the Wilson Labour government’s 1969 White Paper In Place of Strife and extended under the Heath Conservative government’s Industrial Relations Act. The 1970s proved a decade of crisis and fragmentation for trade unions and the Labour Party as it struggled to develop Prices and Incomes Policies to reduce inflation and manufacturing costs. The UK government embraced neo-liberalism as an alternative to a failed corporatism in the Thatcher years, removing a range of trade union rights, reducing welfare payments and disciplining unemployed workers back into low paid work, privatising key parts of the public sector, reducing state expenditure on public services and infrastructure, freeing the financial markets from regulation and allowing free movement of capital across borders, cutting personal and corporate taxes. Further reductions in trade union power through legislation were enacted and considerable government support went into ensuring that strikes in steel and mining were smashed. Alongside this, temporary and flexible employment rose in the retail and personal services sector. Contracted out social and public services grew, based on lowering labour costs by providing low paid, low skilled jobs with irregular hours. The conditions to identify ‘sameness’ and to develop a sense of solidarity were weakened by these UK work conditions. The above cross-national comparative analysis illustrates that solidarity takes on distinctive features which in turn contribute to shape the form solidarity actually takes (e.g. collective action, strong welfare programs, strikes, etc.) within distinctive institutional and social national contexts. The evolution of solidarity as described is path dependent according to the nature and form of capitalism, its social relations and distinctive politics within particular national contexts. However, this path dependency is also influenced not just by the institutional and organisational forms which retain, at least for a time, their own capacities for sustaining solidarity even when some of the material conditions in workplaces and communities have started to disappear. It is also influenced by how actors can renew and revive solidarity by developing new identities and new

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definitions of boundaries, inclusions and exclusions. Solidarity depends on a definition of ‘us’ as distinct from ‘them’. The ‘us’ can be, for example, an occupational group, a factory location, a religious or national identity, distinguished from ‘them’. ‘Them’ in relation to work might be employers or other workers who may take ‘our’ jobs. These distinctions are socially constructed and institutionally embedded in the social, economic and political forces, which as we have illustrated have affected the histories of different nation states, and thereby they cannot be conceived as pre-given and natural. How is a common ‘we’ imagined and rooted in discourses, rituals, institutions and social practices? What does this mean in terms of what ‘we’ want and can achieve in relation to employment and work? And who is excluded from this and what are they excluded from? In the following section, we will draw from the comparative analysis developed in this section and illustrate the conditions under which the institutionalisation of solidarity occurs. We identify three conditions: a shared material context (which may bond work and community), an organisational structure and an institutional frame.

Conditions of Solidarity as Path Dependencies Based on our comparative historical analysis of path dependencies in national solidarities, we are now able to be more specific about the conditions underpinning solidarity. Firstly, there are the social and material conditions of solidarity associated with face-to-face relations, embedded in work and local settings. Durkheim’s term ‘collective effervescence’ (2013) captures this dimension of solidarity by describing bursts of intense feelings of shared purpose that bring people together. Effervescence is reflected in the ease and speed with which other actors may be drawn in to feel solidarity and to participate in a movement that has arisen because of an affront to moral expectations. However, as quickly as people are engaged, they may just as quickly disengage as the passion and promise of a particular movement dissipates over time. Historically, sociologists have identified the different material conditions of solidarity at work with a number of phenomena that were visible

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and central in expressions of solidarity and its institutionalisation (see, e.g., Bulmer, 1975 and also Ackroyd, 2015 for a retrospective account of the flourishing of these studies in British sociology in the 1950s and 1960s focusing on sectors such as mining, steel, fishermen as well as communities—pit villages). These studies repeatedly show that solidarity among some actors is accompanied by a strong sense of their degree of separation and difference from other groups in the workplace due to status, gender, work conditions and occupation. The driving force of these material objective and subjective conditions is embedded in the particular forms of capitalist expansion that have existed at certain junctures and their impact on economic activity, organisational structures, technological developments and production processes. As these conditions change, older forms of social solidarity may be put under pressure (Streeck, 2008). The case of the UK is emblematic of this. As we have illustrated above, the conditions to identify ‘sameness’ and to develop a sense of solidarity were weakened in the UK by the worsening of the working conditions following the increase in the imbalance of power between capital and labour during the Thatcher period. Secondly, there is the organisational institutionalisation of solidarity when actors from different work and community settings decide that they are part of a collective identity that can act in solidarity over issues at a variety of workplaces. The formation of trade unions linking across localities and workplaces based on industries, crafts or just on ‘general’ solidarity is a central part of this. Organisations are sustained by the rise of a cadre of officers and activists who sustain and develop the union through struggles for trade union recognition, closed shop agreements, the check-off system, works councils, collective bargaining processes, etc. These organisational forms are not necessarily complementary; indeed they may become conflicting both in terms of relations in the workplace but also more widely in competing for members. The forming of national confederations to represent and articulate social solidarity, therefore, can vary from contexts where there is one main body, such as the TUC (Trade Union Confederation) in the UK, to situations where there are three or four union confederations as in France with differences based on party and/or confessional affiliation.

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Thirdly, there are the political movements which are formed to ensure that societal institutions provide support for the expression of solidarities, for example at the level of trade union rights, such as the legal right to union membership, rights of collective bargaining, rights to withdraw labour strike and at the level of forming a welfare state that builds on and reinforces solidarities. The cross-country comparison has illustrated that the establishment of workers’ rights in Denmark and Germany represented a crucial condition for the democratisation and the institutionalisation of the collective. The three levels at which the conditions underpinning solidarity lie are independent yet interconnected. For example, during Fordism, in a number of developed economies, including Denmark, Germany and UK, a relatively high integration and interconnection of the various levels with the variants of mass production occurred. Work in large manufacturing plants with assembly line technology defined most of these contexts with some variation in skill levels and in the role of small and medium-sized enterprises. There were relatively high levels of unionisation and union organisation supported by institutions which recognised collective bargaining and regulated labour markets, as particularly the Danish and German cases show. From the 1960s, however, this pattern began to change away from mass factories to service sector employment leading to the multiplication of workplaces and occupations yielding to the greater difficulty of connecting workers together. Over the last decades, the rate of change has speeded up by the development of more self-employment, outsourcing and privatisation together with the development of platform-based employment systems. These changes are related to declining trade union membership as core manufacturing industries decline and disappear. Trade unions and their collective organisations have responded by trying to redefine solidarity away from groups, which share the same work location and the same work conditions to become more inclusive of the self-employed by bonding and bridging among the dispersed workforce and temporary and part-time employees (Heery, 2009). They have also sought to broaden the notion of solidarity to include women, young people and foreign workers (Kirton & Green, 2005). These efforts, however, have been hampered by changes at the level of institutions supportive of trade

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unions and collective solidarities. Rolling back laws which facilitated solidarity and replacing them with systems which maximise employer discretion make it more difficult for existing trade unions to build new forms of solidarity (Baccaro & Howells, 2017; Hyman, 1999; Simms, 2012). With this caveat in mind, in the following section we will develop a forward-looking perspective on labour unions and industrial solidarity in future European labour markets.

Solidarity, National Identity and the Transnational Era As indicated in the previous sections, the institutionalisation of solidarity has been underpinned by material, organisational and institutional conditions which evolved within the sociopolitical and economic context featuring the formation of the nation state. Changes in the nature of work, the decline of trade unions as organisational entities, and the undermining of the institutionalisation of laws supporting solidarity have fundamentally changed the context within which ‘solidarity’ as a discourse and a set of practices can be made meaningful to social actors. In this respect, it is important to note that the growth of labour mobility across different nation states in Europe has also been a major factor in the debate on solidarity. In particular, labour migration both from within the EU and from outside creates tensions about the ‘we’ who are in solidarity. Most obviously, right-wing parties and others have labelled migrants as ‘outsiders’, not as part of ‘our’ solidary community. On top of all the other problems of sustaining solidarity with regard to workplace, organisational and institutional changes, this introduces a new dimension into the debate about the meaning of solidarity and who is included or excluded. The Danish experience is illustrative in this regard. As indicated, the process whereby the welfare state and the rights of labour and of trade unions was built in Denmark can be seen as a distinctive form of bonding groups together in ways which reinforced labour solidarity and national identity. Specific ideals of social justice, which were originally embraced in the common idea of the working-class struggling for a common goal, were in turn used to bridge other divides and were built into the imagery

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of the Danish nation state at the same time as they were being institutionalised into the frameworks of national social programmes. However, this overlap can be problematic precisely because the bonds and the identities constructed are also exclusionary. Incorporating immigrants into the Danish system, for example, has proved difficult during times and spaces characterised by the ascendance of a neoliberal rhetoric, which downplays issues of social justice and emphasises market-oriented values as at the core of contemporary processes of marketisation and financialisation. Similar tensions have emerged in varying ways in the UK and Germany. The problem is not just whether or how solidarity mechanisms can be expanded to include migrant labour; it is also the case that the nationalist and populist rhetoric is employed to argue that migrant labour’s presence in varying ways undermines solidarity and therefore the solution is to close borders. The irony is that after twenty years of seeing neoliberal politicians and thinkers such as Mrs—‘No such thing as society’—Thatcher attack social solidarity in favour of individualism, social solidarity is now invoked by the same right-wing supporters of neoliberalism as a core value that is being undermined—not by neoliberal policies and austerity but by the presence of migrant labour responding to the incentives of the market. These tensions play out differently depending on how solidarity has been institutionalised in particular nation states. This indicates again the importance of considering solidarity as evolving in a path-dependent way shaped by the nature and form of capitalism and the distinctive politics within specific social and institutional contexts. Redistributive solidarity through welfare, a core characteristic of the Scandinavian societies, for example, may be more fragile by virtue of how it sharpens the symbolic boundaries between benefit recipients (particularly those of a migrant background) and other citizens. Conversely, in the liberal economies of Europe, as in the UK, which rely heavily on means testing for social assistance, support for redistribution has not shifted much despite three decades of rising income inequality. This does not imply, however, that within the UK strong solidarity with immigrants exists (McGovern, 2007). On the contrary, migration was a defining issue in the UK’s June 2016 referendum on EU membership, which ended with Brexit. This indicates that rising levels of economic insecurity, linked to

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the loss of jobs for nationals, may also challenge redistributive solidarity (Oesch, 2013). Indeed, one of the best predictors of welfare chauvinism (also referred to as ‘welfare state nationalism’ i.e. the notion that welfare benefits should be restricted to certain groups, particularly to the natives of a country as opposed to immigrants) is the extent to which an individual feels economically vulnerable (Mewes & Mau, 2012). Therefore, it may be argued that the role that solidarity plays in political debate is not only influenced by the discourses of political parties, the mass media and social movements but also by material conditions such as employment conditions and rates of unemployment, wage levels and the degree of economic prosperity of a country (see also Uunk and Van Oorschot, this volume; Meuleman, Baute, and Abts, this volume). A variety of factors have therefore contributed to undermining solidarity in the twenty-first century: reduction in social spending programs by national governments; rising economic insecurity among workers; backlash against the ‘elite’ institutions and individuals (see recent summaries of the vast emerging literature on populism, Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017; Muller, 2017) as well as against groups of precarious ‘outsiders’; changes in social identity towards increasingly individualized notions of the self e.g. being a ‘self-entrepreneur’, a ‘consumer’ and a ‘self-reliant’ individual, militating against programmes of generous redistribution and collectivism in favour of incentivizing the individual. Overall, these undermining features of solidarity have moved forward at the expense of institutions and processes supporting solidarity and collective action. They have deepened the ‘fissures’ in the employment relationships (Weil, 2014). These fissures have taken the form of subcontracting, labour hire, franchising and disguised employment relationships, such as the emergence of digital platforms. In particular, developments around the expansion of the platform economy have spread rapidly in the UK context with relatively little regulatory or other constraints and to different degrees have emerged in Germany and Denmark (Thelen, 2014). One aspect has been the creation of a vast army of ‘white van’ delivery drivers being used by big online retailers such as Amazon and Tesco through contractors such as DPD and TNT who spend their days in relative isolation and away from other drivers, often where they are in theory self-employed effectively competing with each

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other. As self-employed, they have no rights to sick pay or holiday pay even though the discipline exercised over them in terms of how many parcels to deliver and in what timescale is tight. It is also worth noting that employment expansion in small start-ups particularly in IT and creative industries has increasingly emerged. Again, notions of solidarity are unlikely to surface where employees are in small workplaces, frequently job-hopping and moonlighting with their own projects. Over the last two decades (and particularly since the 2008 financial crash), employment growth in the UK has mainly come from the expansion of these jobs in services, creative and digital industries. Employment conditions have become more diverse and work locations more varied. Large collective workplaces are declining. Organisationally, trade unions have lost members and lost power because of institutional changes. Thus, these new forms of work have rendered labour more precarious by progressively eroding the dominance of the standard employment relationship as the ‘typical’ contractual form through which social protection, as the result of the dependence to wage labour, was guaranteed in the advanced economies over the past four decades. Labour unions’ struggles to maintain and even extend membership under the current transformations in the organisation of work and the employment relationships have proved unsurprisingly hard but nevertheless not impossible even in those contexts which were classified as particularly hostile to union organising. For example, although solidarity in the UK has almost completely collapsed in the terms we discussed earlier in this chapter, union membership remains in some areas. Some parts of the private sector still engage in collective bargaining whilst the shrinking public sector also retains some areas of trade union membership and bargaining. Moreover, some sense of solidarity among zero-hours workers and among the growing group of ‘fake’ self-employed in digital platforms have started to emerge. For example, following Deliveroo’s workers manifestation of discontent in August 2016 in London, struggles by Foodora ‘bike-riders’, denouncing their bad pay and working conditions, have flared up among London, Paris, Berlin and Turin (on Deliveroo workers, see Cant, 2019; Drakhoupil & Piasna, 2019). These protests indicate that even though individuals in these jobs work alone and may be designated as ‘self-employed’, a form of solidarity emerges from other

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common features of platform work of this sort. One of these conditions is, for example, that working time is 24/7, meaning that workers do not know whether they will actually work and when, as the management decides to accept, modify or even delete the shifts, at any time. Therefore, we may argue that these material conditions could contribute to solidarity in a limited way. Similarly, forms of solidarity may be extending as a result of processes of European economic integration since the 1990s, where institutional structures have emerged for the cross-national representation of workers (i.e. European Works Councils) and for social dialogue at both inter-professional, sectoral and company level. These structures have often served as expression of workers’ collective responses to transnational mergers and related restructuring measures by allowing some form of consultation and negotiation with the workforce (Pulignano, 2006). Erne (2008) argues that it is only in multinational companies, where labour representatives have known each other before through European Works Councils, that we have witnessed effective cross-border collective action. With the trans-nationalisation of business activities, it is clear that workers are increasingly subject to pressures originating beyond state boundaries. To address these concerns, unions are compelled to enter the supranational arena, supported in this exercise by the existence of some transnational institutions that may foster a sense of collective belonging and identity. Through transnational engagement, however, each union caters in the first place to the interests of its own constituency (Erne, 2008). From this perspective, cross-border union cooperation may be regarded as a combined effort to service national workforces rather than an exercise in transnational solidarity. Therefore, the current range of transnational institutions may not suffice. Inclusive forms of workers solidarity are required as an equally essential factor complementing requiring coalition building across unions and among organisations representing workers and their communities (Doellgast, Lillie, & Pulignano, 2018). Particularly relevant here are, for example, building inclusive forms of collective action that incorporate migrants and minorities, and other labour market outsiders most at risk of experiencing precarity and exploitation at work. Overall, this suggests that we need labour

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nowadays looking upwards to closing gaps in the institutions which underpin the material conditions of solidarity. Welfare states, labour markets and collective bargaining are all important institutions which allow the building of inclusive forms of solidarity across the workforce and within the labour movement more generally.

Conclusions In this chapter, we have illustrated that solidarity is underpinned by three conditions: a shared material context (which may bond work and community), an organisational structure and an institutional frame. These conditions emerge from the examination of the distinctive path dependencies in the evolution of solidarity in a selected group of different nation states. It is our contention that whilst recent transformations in work have challenged these path dependencies, this is not the end of solidarity. As we have illustrated in this chapter, what is required is both a recognition of what remains and an understanding of what may be emerging. In the latter respect, there are developments around precarious work and around transnational trade unionism that deserve further consideration. Devising meaning structures that will make sense of the diversity of current work settings and the diversity of identities within the workforce will require new inclusive visions of solidarity adhering to renewed and revived principles and patterns of behaviour that support mutual aid and collective action (Doellgast et al., 2018). Solidarity is a contested concept and is often used in ways which conceal how particular groups’ interests are marginalised whilst others’ interests become the taken-for-granted measure by which solidarity is conceived. In that sense, any reconstruction of ideas of solidarity must examine issues of gender, race and ethnicity and around issues of intergenerational justice . Organisations such as trade unions have deeply embedded structures that may make it difficult for them to reorient their ideas of solidarity but there are indications that this reform is ongoing. Further work identifying new forms of solidarity and comparing results across different sectors and nation states will be essential to moving this agenda forward.

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4 Social Europe: A New Integration-Demarcation Conflict? Bart Meuleman, Sharon Baute, and Koen Abts

Introduction Since the 1970s, the concept of the Western welfare state and its concrete manifestations in specific social policies have become substantially challenged by, among others, a trend towards globalisation. In European societies, European integration is the most visible instance of globalisation that affects the social protection systems of the member states. Although the European project started out as an economic endeavour (Rhodes & Mény, 1998; Scharpf, 2002), the European Union (EU) has gradually assumed considerable authority in social policy as well (Leibfried, 2015). The EU has taken various regulative actions in the domains of equality B. Meuleman (B) KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] S. Baute University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands K. Abts Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_4

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and working conditions, for example, and a considerable share of the EU-budget is devoted to regional redistribution. Furthermore, supranational constraints to the member states’ fiscal and budget policies have put limits to the redistributive options available to the national welfare states, especially during the economic crisis (Giubboni, 2014; Heise & Lierse, 2011). The concept of ‘Social Europe’ refers precisely to the variety of European-level policy measures that, directly or indirectly, affect the social welfare of citizens in the various member states (Martinsen & Vollaard, 2014). Social Europe thus comprises market-making policies as well as regulative actions in the domains of equality, working conditions, health and safety (Falkner, 2010). The increasing importance of Social Europe constitutes a veritable shift of the boundaries of solidarity along geographic, socio-economic and institutional lines. Ferrera (2005) understands European integration as a process of de-bounding and de-structuring of the national welfare state. Whereas social sharing builds on closure, European integration rests on opening the boundaries of the national welfare state. The basic spatial architecture of social citizenship is at stake: Social Europe affects the territorial reach of solidarity, the identity of its constituent communities and the ultimate source of legitimate authority for the creation and enforcement of social rights. Social Europe implies a solidarity shift that could create new structural conflicts between winners and losers of European integration. The (dis)advantages of Europeanisation are distributed unequally and citizens are differently affected by Social Europe depending on their socio-economic position and their social attitudes (Bartolini, 2005; Ferrera, 2005; Kriesi et al., 2008). This chapter attempts to shed light on this emerging conflict on the issue of Social Europe from the perspective of the welfare state.1 Using data of the Belgian National Election Survey (BNES) 2014, we investigate whether citizens’ attitudes towards Social Europe reflect a new conflict between winners and losers of European integration. Concretely, we analyse whether various dimensions of attitudes towards European-level social policymaking are patterned along structural positions (such as education or occupation) and/or subjective dispositions (e.g. economic concerns, identities or socio-economic attitudes).

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Theoretical Background Social Europe: De-Bounding and De-Structuring the National Welfare State To understand the relevance of the solidarity shift Social Europe sets off, it is necessary to investigate the origin and character of the national welfare state. The creation of national welfare states has not only affected the economic sphere but was also instrumental for the process of nation building. In this sense, Ferrera (2005) speaks about ‘bounded structuring’: the national welfare state provides an internal structuring that levels market inequalities and pacifies class conflicts, but at the same time restricts the circle of solidarity and creates a community of national citizens (i.e. external bounding; Ferrera, 2005; Rokkan, 1975). Europeanisation challenges this nationally bounded design of the welfare state fundamentally. European integration started out as a project with open economies and closed welfare states, in which economic growth resulting from market liberalisation would preserve the autonomy of the nationally bounded welfare states (Giubboni, 2014; Rhodes & Mény, 1998; Scharpf, 2002). However, the idea of separate tracks for the economic and social arena soon turned out to be impossible, because both domains are intrinsically intertwined. The implementation of EU competition rules and the four freedoms of circulation (goods, capital, services and persons) inevitably erode national social sovereignty and destructure the national membership boundaries. The freedom to provide services in other EU member states, for example, has introduced international competition in the market of (semi-)private insurance schemes (e.g. second-pillar pension arrangements). The freedom of movement of workers initiates new migration movements. Combined with the principle of non-discrimination of EU-nationals, this enabled the provision of social benefits to nationals residing outside the country or to foreign newcomers who did not contribute to the national welfare schemes. Besides, the supranational constraints to the member states’ fiscal and budget policies—intensified with the new rules of the Stability Pact and the Fiscal Compact—limit the redistributive options available to the national welfare states (Giubboni, 2014; Heise & Lierse, 2011).

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The EU thus has gradually and increasingly assumed authority in social policy domains over and beyond what is directly tied to the creation of a common market (Leibfried, 2015). The concept of ‘Social Europe’ refers to European-level social policymaking that affects the social welfare of citizens in the various member countries (Martinsen & Vollaard, 2014). Social Europe comprises market-correcting policies as well as regulative actions in the domains of equality, working conditions, health and safety (Falkner, 2010). Furthermore, a considerable share of the EU-budget is devoted to interregional redistribution by means of structural funds (aiming to reduce regional disparities in income, wealth and opportunities; Allen, 2010). Also, the use of the open method of coordination to harmonise national policies in the areas of health, pension reform and social inclusion can be subsumed under the umbrella term Social Europe (Pochet, 2005). Following Ferrera (2005), European integration should be understood as a process of de-bounding and de-structuring of the national welfare state. Whereas social sharing builds on closure, European integration rests on opening, blurring the spatial demarcations and closure practices that nation states have built to protect themselves. The ‘scope of justice’—i.e. the question who is included in the moral community and subject to fair redistribution—is at stake (Opotow 2001; Wenzel 2000). The first steps towards European-level social policymaking could be seen as the seeds of processes of re-bounding and re-structuring at a higher level of decision-making (Ferrera, 2005: 43). Yet, current evolutions might also lead to a destabilisation of long-standing patterns of institutionalised solidarity. In this sense, Europeanisation not only creates and expands common markets, but also constitutes a fundamental solidarity shift (Münch, 2010).

The Multidimensional Character of Social Europe Given that Social Europe comprises a variety of policy principles and instruments, we assume a multidimensional perspective. We distinguish four faces of Social Europe that can be ordered from less to more intrusive to the bounded nature of the national welfare state (for a more

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detailed argumentation, see Baute, Meuleman, Abts, & Swyngedouw, 2018b). The first and least intrusive aspect of Social Europe relates to efforts by the EU to facilitate an upward convergence of the social policies of the member states. This is mainly obtained through binding and non-binding EU social regulations, for instance in the fields of health and safety at work, working conditions and equality (Falkner, 2010). The regulatory angle of Social Europe does not contradict the basic principles of national welfare states, but rather reinforces national-level social protection. In addition to social regulations, the open method of coordination was introduced to facilitate an upward convergence of social standards through mutual learning and peer pressure (de la Porte, 2013). A second aspect of Social Europe, member state solidarity, involves financial redistribution between the EU countries (Sangiovanni, 2013). Currently, member state solidarity is implemented through various structural funds, which aim to reduce regional disparities in income, employment, investment and growth within the EU (Allen, 2010). The fiscal aid to Eurozone countries, which overturned the ‘no bailout clause’ during the European sovereign debt crisis, is also considered as an instrument of international redistribution (Bechtel, Hainmueller, & Margalit, 2014). In essence, member state solidarity provides financial assistance from more affluent regions to poorer ones, on top of existing forms of institutionalised solidarity within member states. This face of Social Europe thus requires financial solidarity that crosses the border of the national welfare states but does not erode the autonomy of member states to implement national social policies. A third cornerstone of Social Europe is the development of an EUwide social citizenship (Faist, 2001; Magnusson & Stråth, 2004; Schall, 2012). This implies that EU citizens acquire access to other member states’ social security schemes and that already-earned social security rights are transferrable between member states. Currently, EU citizens are entitled to equal social benefits and services as nationals, but there is no European standard as the amount, scope, type and duration of benefits depend on the country of residence (Gerhards & Lengfeld, 2015: 141). The creation of an EU-wide social citizenship space that coincides with the EU’s territorial borders operates according to a dynamic that

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strongly opposes the logic of the nationally bounded welfare states (Ferrera, 2005). The fourth and most intrusive face of Social Europe involves policy instruments that establish interpersonal solidarity bonds between citizens from different EU countries (Sangiovanni, 2013). Such policies have not yet been implemented but are debated in the form of a European unemployment insurance scheme (Dullien, 2013), a European minimum income benefit (Baute & Meuleman, 2020; Peña-Casas & Bouget, 2014) and a European child benefit (Levy, Matsaganis, & Sutherland, 2013). Such European social protection schemes would introduce new redistributive mechanisms and would enforce a more direct financial solidarity between EU citizens. Current proposals for interpersonal solidarity include a basic level of contributions and benefits based on a low common denominator between member states, that could be topped up by the member states with national payments.

Winners and Losers of European Integration: A New Integration-Demarcation Conflict? To varying degrees, the different forms of Social Europe open up and redraw the boundaries of the national welfare states. These emerging processes of de- and re-bounding have the potential to “disturb the existing distribution of material resources and life chances among natives” (Fererra, 2005: 229) and could create a new structural conflict between winners and losers of European integration. After all, the (dis)advantages of Europeanisation are distributed unequally and affect citizens differently, depending on their socio-economic position, social experiences and ideological orientations (Bartolini, 2005; Ferrera 2005; Kriesi et al., 2008). Drawing on the seminal work of Kriesi, the emerging conflict between winners and losers of Social Europe can be conceptualised as a new cleavage between proponents of integration and advocates of demarcation (Kriesi et al., 2006, 2008). The losers of Europeanisation are expected to seek protection and favour the maintenance of national boundaries (demarcation), while the winners of Europeanisation are more likely to support the opening of the national boundaries and socio-economic

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deregulation (integration). As the Brexit referendum shows, this emerging integration-demarcation conflict has a large potential for political mobilisation and can reshape the national political space (Katsanidou & Otjes, 2016). Due to the complexity of Social Europe, the conflict between winners and losers of European integration is not a dichotomous one but crystallises in a highly complex set of different positions regarding the role the EU should play in social policy. A crucial dimension structuring the possible policy options refers to the spatial architecture of solidarity, ranging from ‘defensive re-bounding’ (i.e. reactivating the boundaries of the national welfare state and returning from the path towards European integration) versus ‘European re-bounding’ (i.e. strengthening the so-called EU social dimension) (Ferrera, 2005). The middle position on this continuum implies a merely regulatory role for the supranational level. The nature of the integration-demarcation conflict can furthermore differ considerably across countries. In the strong welfare states of Northern and Western Europe, fear might arise that Europeanisation will result in a downward harmonisation and a deterioration of the quality of social benefits and services. In the less extensive welfare states of Eastern and Southern Europe, on the other hand, individuals might hope that European-level social policy will enhance the level of social protection. Empirical studies indeed reveal that support for EU welfare responsibility varies across nations: generous national welfare provisions seem to obstruct support for EU-level social policymaking (Baute & Meuleman, 2020; Burgoon, 2009; Gerhards, Lengfeld, & Häuberer, 2016; Mau, 2005; Ray, 2004).

The Impact of Structural Positions and Social Dispositions The backbone of the theoretical arguments developed above is that individuals’ support for Social Europe is contingent on whether they are among the so-called losers or winners of the process of Europeanisation. The losers of globalisation are those persons who see their opportunities protected by national boundaries, and who perceive weakening of

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national boundaries as a threat to their life chances, social status and social security. The winners from globalisation, by contrast, are those who benefit from the new opportunities arising from globalisation and who see their life chances enhanced (Kriesi et al., 2008, pp. 4–5). The winner/loser status can be defined in terms of the structural positioning of individuals in the social hierarchy. High-skilled groups who are employed in sectors with a strong international component are in a position to benefit from the mobility options Europeanisation offers. Lower educated classes—especially those employed in locally embedded sectors that are opened up for international competition—have far less exit options. Furthermore, socio-economically vulnerable groups whose security hinges on national welfare arrangements might more often fear that Europeanisation leads to a loss of social protection (Baute, Meuleman, Abts, & Swyngedouw, 2018a). In sum, we hypothesise that lower educated persons (H1a), production workers (H1b), those with a lower income (H1c) and persons making use of welfare benefits (H1d) are less supportive of Social Europe. However, the perceived consequences of European integration are not only a matter of structural positions, but are mediated by social experiences, identities and normative preferences. Drawing on the literature on Euroscepticism, we identify various social dispositions—in particular, economic concerns, socio-economic attitudes and identity—that are expected to influence support for Social Europe. First, following the utilitarian approach, support for Social Europe can be primordially seen as a matter of economic interests and concerns (Abts, Heerwegh, & Swyngedouw, 2009; Gabel, 1998; McLaren, 2007). In this view, the legitimacy of European integration hinges on the cost-benefit appraisals citizens make about the economic impact of the European project on themselves and their social environment. Yet, one cannot take for granted that social groups who are objectively losers of the European project also subjectively feel that economic interests are threatened. The subjective winners/losers thesis therefore stresses the importance of subjective evaluations of economic conditions rather than of objective social structural variables. An additional distinction can be made between egocentric and sociotropic economic concerns. Egocentric economic

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concerns relate to the experience that the individual economic and financial situation is unfavourable or might become so in the near future. The sociotropic variant refers to concerns that the economic situation of the collective (e.g. the interest of the own social group or the nation) is being threatened (Gabel, 1998). We hypothesise that egocentric (H2a) as well as sociotropic economic concerns (H2b) decrease support for Social Europe, although previous research indicates that sociotropic concerns have a more decisive impact on attitudes towards European integration than egocentric perceptions (McLaren, 2002). The opposition between integration and demarcation is furthermore crosscut by a left/right conflict about the desirability of redistribution and the role of the government (Roller, 1995; Hooghe & Marks, 1999, 2008). The idea of supranational policymaking is founded on the premises that too much economic inequality is harmful for societies, and that the government should intervene actively in reducing such inequalities. In that sense, support for equality-reducing measures—that are today organised primarily at the national level—could spill over to support for Social Europe (Baute, Meuleman, & Abts, 2019). A few existing studies on this topic confirm that support for redistribution within countries (Kleider & Stoeckel, 2018) and support for increased social spending (Beaudonnet, 2014) are indeed conducive to support for financial solidarity between EU member states. A larger number of studies have focused on the relationship between left-right ideology and support for Social Europe and have found that left-leaning persons are more enthusiastic about the Europeanisation of social policy (Ciornei & Recchi, 2017; Gerhards & Lengfeld, 2015; Gerhards et al. 2016; Ray, 2004; Vandenbroucke et al. 2018). Therefore, we hypothesise that individuals with egalitarian views (H3a) and those at the left of the political spectrum (H3b) show greater support for Social Europe. Finally, identity and a sense of belonging are crucial elements in citizens’ willingness to share with others (Börner, 2013). Often, the solidarity circle is confined to those who are closer to ‘us’, while the ‘other’ are seen as undeserving of social welfare (van Oorschot, 2000). Therefore, one could expect that individuals who identify strongly with the nation would oppose the de-bounding of the national welfare state,

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while those with a strongly developed European identity would favour establishing solidarity bonds across boundaries of member states (Baute, Abts, & Meuleman, 2019; Berg, 2007; Ciornei & Recchi, 2017; Gerhards & Lengfeld, 2015; Kuhn, Solaz, & van Elsas, 2018; Stoeckel & Kuhn, 2017; Mau, 2005). In the Belgian case, the competing presence of national and subnational identities (i.e. Belgian national versus Flemish/Walloon regional identity) adds an additional layer of complexity to this scheme. The dominant representation of Flemish identity tends towards the ethnic ideal type, that views identity as a static cultural heritage that is passed on along blood lines and considers outgroup members as a threat. The Walloon and Belgian identities, conversely, rather follow the logic of the republican representation, that conceives the nation as a dynamic contract and is more open to newcomers who are willing to accept the basic rules operative in a particular territory (Billiet, Maddens & Beerten, 2000). Because of the presence of a strong ethnic component in the Flemish identity, we expect that strong identification with Flanders over Belgium decreases support for Social Europe (H4a), while this is not the case in Wallonia (H4b).

Data and Methods Data Set: The Belgian National Election Study To test these hypotheses, we analyse data from the 2014 Belgian National Election Study (BNES) organised by the Institute for Social and Political Opinion Research at the University of Leuven (ISPO-KU Leuven) (Abts et al. 2015). A register-based probability sample of Belgians entitled to vote in the 2014 elections was surveyed by means of computer-assisted personal interviews (response rate 47%). Upon completion of this faceto-face interview, respondents were asked to fill out a 20-page dropoff questionnaire containing a module gauging attitudes towards Social Europe. Applying the principles of Dillman’s Tailored Design Method (Dillman, Smyth, & Christian, 2014), we were able to convince 74% of the respondents to fill out and send back the drop-off questionnaire

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(N = 1403). To correct for differential non-response, post-stratification weights for gender, age and education are used during the analyses.

Indicators Attitudes towards Social Europe —Following our multidimensional conceptualisation of Social Europe (Baute et al., 2018b), we distinguish between four attitudinal dimensions that refer to a specific aspect of supranational intervention in social policy and are measured by multiitem measurements (see Table 4.1 for exact question wording and frequency distributions). For the regression analysis, we construct indices containing the mean score of these items. To measure support for social regulations, we use respondents’ evaluations of four obligations imposed by the EU on employers to protect health and safety at work, maximum weekly working hours, minimum terms of paid leave and minimum terms of maternity leave. Attitudes towards member-state solidarity are operationalised through three items referring to redistribution between the richer and poorer EU member states. These items relate to supporting member states in economic difficulties, the size of international money transfers and the necessity for solidarity between EU member states. Opinions about EU social citizenship are measured by four items concerning citizens’ views regarding towards the access of EU citizens to social benefits and protection in Belgium. One item concerns the principle of non-discrimination, two items relate to prioritizing nationals and one item refers to the conditionality of social protection. Lastly, the dimension of interpersonal solidarity is measured by means of two items referring to support for EU measures to reduce income disparities and support for a system of solidarity among all EU citizens. Structural characteristics—We study educational attainment, occupational status and (subjective) income and benefit as indicators of winner/loser status. Educational level is measured by respondents’ highest level of education completed, distinguishing between (1) lower secondary education or less, (2) higher secondary education and (3) tertiary education. We use the occupational class scheme developed by Oesch (2006)

Social regulations

D30_2

D30_1

Below are a number of measures that the European Union has taken in recent years. Can you indicate for each of the following measures whether it is a (very) good or a (very) bad thing that the EU has taken these measures? A very bad A bad thing Neither good A good thing A very good thing nor bad thing The EU 0.22 1.33 9.42 58.71 30.32 imposes a number of obligations on employers to protect the health and safety of workers The EU 1.68 9.39 25.40 43.60 19.93 prohibits a workweek of more than 48 hours (including overtime) for workers in the EU member states

Table 4.1 Question wording and frequency distributions of items measuring support for Social Europe (N = 1403; weighted for age, gender and education)

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D30_5

D30_4

The EU posits that workers in the EU member states are entitled to paid leave for a period of at least 4 weeks The EU obliges all EU member states to provide at least 4 months of paid maternity leave to women who gave birth 1.28

0.17

5.92

2.17

20.67

14.68

42.87

53.23

(continued)

29.26

29.76

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Member state solidarity

D33_2

D33_1

Table 4.1 (continued)

The following statements are about solidarity between member states of the To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Completely Disagree Neither agree Agree disagree nor disagree Rich EU 6.34 28.3 37.62 25.59 countries such as Belgium should always support other member states that experience serious economic difficulties Too much tax 2.49 13.9 43.73 33.11 money is going from the prosperous EU countries to the poorer EU countries 6.76

Completely agree 2.15

European Union.

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EU social citizenship

D15_3

D15_1

D33_3

(continued)

The solidarity 2.06 9.03 37.54 42.83 8.54 between the richer and poorer EU countries should not be broken Now we would like to ask your opinion on whether EU citizens should have access to social security in Belgium. By EU citizens we mean people who have come to Belgium from other EU member states and live here. Social security provides citizens with an income in case of illness, unemployment and disability. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Completely Disagree Neither agree Agree Completely disagree nor disagree agree EU citizens 10.49 27.83 30.32 26.58 4.77 should receive the same social facilities as Belgians In the 4.10 22.41 25.15 36.31 12.03 allocation of social benefits Belgians should have priority over EU citizens

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Interpersonal solidarity

Q121_7

Q121_3

D15_5

D15_4

Table 4.1 (continued)

EU citizens 1.37 6.91 17.32 45.65 should first have a job before they gain access to social services Let’s support 2.54 10.27 22.23 33.39 the poor in our country first, before we help the poor coming from other EU countries To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Completely Disagree Neither agree Agree disagree nor disagree A system of 2.50 13.44 23.00 54.43 solidarity between all EU citizens needs to be established The EU 1.50 18.04 27.75 43.98 should take measures to reduce income differences between all EU citizens 8.73

Completely agree 7.63

31.58

28.75

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that not only includes a vertical dimension (hierarchy of the position) but also distinguishes between different logics of work (e.g. technical versus interpersonal) and is therefore well-suited to study post-industrial class structures. Concretely, we distinguish between (1) self-employed professionals and large employers, (2) small business owners, (3) technical (semi-)professionals, (4) production workers, (5) (associate) managers, (6) clerks, (7) sociocultural (semi-)professionals, (8) service workers and (9) those who have never worked and can therefore not be categorised in one of the previous groups. Subjective income is measured by means of the respondents’ assessment of their household income (not enough, just enough, enough, more than enough). Dependency on the national welfare state is measured by a dummy variable flagging whether the respondent or a household member made use of welfare benefits in the past two years. Finally, we also include age (in years) and gender in the models. Social dispositions—Egocentric economic concerns are measured by means of two items capturing whether people assess that their personal or familial economic situation has deteriorated in the recent years (Q96— ‘Please try to remember your standard of living five years ago. Compared to your current situation, do you feel things have gotten worse, have gotten better, or remained the same?’ and Q116—‘To what extent have the incomes or employment of you or your family members been affected by the current economic crisis?’). Socio-tropic economic concerns are gauged by asking the respondent they ‘expect the economy will evolve in the next five years?’ (five-point scale from ‘strongly deteriorate’ to ‘strongly improve’). To measure (sub)national identity, we use the so-called Moreno question (Moreno, 2006) that invites respondents to position themselves on a 5-point continuum ranging from exclusively Flemish/Walloon to exclusively Belgian. To indicate positions on the socio-economic cleavage we employ egalitarianism as well as left-right positioning. Egalitarian values are measured by a sum scale of three five-point Likert items regarding the need to reduce income differences and the role of the government herein. Higher values represent more egalitarian views. Political left-right self-placement is measured on an 11-point scale from 0 (left) to 10 (right). More information regarding the question wording and descriptive statistics of these items can be found in Appendix to this chapter.

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Results Measuring Support for Social Europe As a first step in this analysis, we employ second-order confirmatory factor analysis to verify whether the items in the BNES are appropriate measurements of citizens’ attitudes towards Social Europe. In the secondorder factor model, we define four first-order latent variables—representing the various faces of Social Europe—that are measured directly by the indicators shown in Table 4.1. In addition, we specify a second-order factor that underlies the four separate dimensions of Social Europe, and thus captures the common denominator of support for the various aspects of supranational social policymaking (see Fig. 4.1). This analysis makes it possible to study whether the different faces of Social Europe can be discerned in the public opinion of Belgian citizens and at the same time reveals how strong the common component of support for Social Europe is (Baute et al., 2018b). After the inclusion of one error correlation,2 the model fit is good: the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) equals 0.035, which is well below cut-off point 0.060. Furthermore, the comparative

Fig. 4.1 Second-order CFA model measuring attitudes to Social Europe (Note: N = 1402, Chi2 = 168.257, df = 61, RMSEA = 0.035, SRMR = 0.045, CFI = 0.954, TLI = 0.942. All parameters are significant at the p < 0.001 level [Source BNES 2014])

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fit index (CFI) and the Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) are sufficiently close to 1. This implies that the second-order factor model proves an adequate description of the observed correlations between the 13 items. The first-order factor loadings (see Fig. 4.1) give an indication of the measurement quality of the survey items. The factor loadings are (in absolute terms) generally larger than 0.40, and in 9 out of 13 cases even larger than 0.60. This implies that the items share a considerable part of their variance with the latent variables they are purported to measure and that the amount of random measurement error in the items is acceptable. Item q121_7 has a loading just below 0.40 but is kept in the model so that we can continue working with a multi-item measurement of interpersonal solidarity. In other words, the items are sufficiently valid and reliable indicators of the four latent variables. These results indicate that the four dimensions of Social Europe—social regulations, member state solidarity, EU social citizenship and interpersonal solidarity— are reflected in the opinion structure of the Belgian citizens. Support for Social Europe is clearly multidimensional: endorsing that the EU attempts to harmonise national welfare states by imposing minimum standards can be separated from supporting transfers between member states or organising solidarity between individuals across national borders. The four separate dimensions should not be seen as completely independent but are interrelated instead. This is evidenced by the fact that a second-order factor (i.e. general support for Social Europe) can be identified that taps into the communality of the four dimensions. The secondorder factor loadings express the amount of overlap between general support for Social Europe and the specific dimensions and vary considerably in strength. First-order factor member state solidarity has the highest factor loading. This factor loading equals 1,3 which implies that member state solidarity overlaps completely with second-order factor support for Social Europe. Apparently, citizens’ opinions on whether richer member states should support the less affluent ones coincides fully with their general views on Social Europe. In the public’s eye, member state solidarity is the primary aspect of Social Europe. This is not completely unexpected, as the EU’s various structural funds, which redistribute money from the more-affluent to the less-affluent member states, are the kernel

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of existing Social Europe. EU social citizenship shows a strong connection with the second-order factor as well. The second-order factor loading equals 0.613, implying that views on granting social rights to EU migrants are for almost 40% determined by one’s general outlook on Social Europe. Social regulations and interpersonal solidarity are much more loosely connected with the second-order factor (with loadings of 0.332 and 0.363, respectively, implying that just over 10% of the variance of these factors is shared with the general factor). General support for Social Europe apparently does not strongly determine preferences for social regulations and EU-wide interpersonal solidarity. Social regulations and interpersonal solidarity are not central issues in the integrationdemarcation conflict around Social Europe. A plausible reason for this finding is that social regulations strengthen rather than challenge nationally bounded welfare. Concrete forms of interpersonal solidarity have not been established at this point, making this issue too abstract to create a clearly crystallised political conflict.

Determinants of Support for Social Europe To investigate whether citizens’ opinions reflect an emerging conflict between winners and losers of European integration, we estimate the impact of a series of structural characteristics and social dispositions on support for Social Europe (see Table 4.2). We start with a OLS regression model explaining support for Social Europe in general (based on a mean score of the four respective indexes) but subsequently also highlight the differences with models analysing the four different dimensions of Social Europe. The structural characteristics are of little relevance in explaining general support for Social Europe. Regarding occupational position, only the small business owners and the group that has never worked deviate significantly from the production workers (i.e. the reference category). Differences between other occupational categories are too small to be significant, rejecting H1b. Furthermore, persons who perceive their income as insufficient or who make use of welfare benefits do not hold significantly

Age Gender Male (ref. cat.) Female Education Lower secondary or less Higher secondary Tertiary (ref. cat.) Occupation (Oesch class scheme) Self-employed prof. & large employers Small business owners Technical (semi-)professionals Production workers (ref. cat.) (Associate) managers Clerks Socio-cultural (semi-)professionals Service workers 0.15 0.05 0.17 0.11

−0.13 −0.05 0.01 −0.12

0.09 −0.02 0.14 0.02

−0.03 0.12

−0.50*** −0.02

0.19

−0.49*

0.01

−0.21* 0.04

−0.47*** −0.37***

−0.12*

−0.01

−0.14 −0.05

0.17**

−0.06

Social regulations

−0.31*** −0.28***

−0.02

0.04

Social Europe

EU social citizenship

Table 4.2 OLS regression models explaining Social Europe and its dimensions

0.12

0.30* 0.08 0.31**

−0.08 0.30*

0.28

−0.33*** −0.27***

−0.06

0.07*

Member state solidarity

−0.08 (continued)

−0.13 −0.21* −0.17

−0.03 −0.31*

−0.07

0.10 −0.05

−0.02

0.12***

Interpersonal solidarity 4 Social Europe: A New Integration-Demarcation Conflict?

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Never worked Subjective income Not enough (ref. cat.) Just enough Enough—more than enough Benefit use in household No (ref. cat.) Benefit use in household Improvement in standard of living Experienced impact of the crisis Not at all (ref. cat.) A bit Strong to very strong Expectation economy

Table 4.2 (continued)

−0.14

0.13 0.16

−0.05 −0.02

−0.19** −0.05

0.04 0.12

−0.01 0.02

−0.08 0.01

Social regulations

0.25*

Social Europe

−0.04 −0.06

0.07 0.03

0.07 0.21

0.24*

EU social citizenship

−0.11 −0.02

0.04 0.02

0.05 0.08

0.50***

Member state solidarity

0.10 0.11

−0.06 0.03

0.01 0.02

0.03

Interpersonal solidarity

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−0.12 −0.12

−0.49***

−0.28***

1302 0.18

0.30 0.27* 1293 0.13

0.21 0.16

0.23**

−0.09 0.16***

−0.24*** 0.18***

−0.06

0.20***

−0.13 −0.09

0.30***

−0.23*** −0.13*

Social regulations

1293 0.15

0.43* 0.35**

−0.23**

−0.29***

−0.52***

−0.15* 0.02

0.34***

−0.20** −0.13*

1293 0.10

0.25 0.03

−0.11

−0.19*

−0.42***

−0.20** 0.08**

0.13*

−0.22** −0.19**

Member state solidarity

1296 0.11

−0.06 0.13

0.03

−0.11

−0.22*

−0.22*** 0.20***

0.09

−0.05 0.08

Interpersonal solidarity

Note ***p < 0.001; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05. Results are weighted for age, gender and educational level

(strongly) deteriorate remain stable (strongly) improve (ref. cat.) Political left-right placement Left Center (ref. cat.) Right Egalitarianism National identity More to only Flemish/ Walloon Equally Flemish/Walloon than Belgian More to only Belgian Region Flanders (ref. cat.) Wallonia Interaction identity x region Wallonia*more Flem/Wal Wallonia*Equally Flem/Wal N R2 (adjusted)

Social Europe

EU social citizenship

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different opinions on Social Europe compared to those in a more prosperous financial situation (rejecting H1c and H1d). This pattern refutes the hypothesis that especially individuals confronted with material hardship and active in occupations that are vulnerable for international competition are opposed against social integration. The only structural indicator that does have a sizeable impact is education. As expected, lower educated display lower levels of general support for Social Europe (confirming H1a). Persons with a lower secondary degree (or lower) and a higher secondary degree score, respectively, 0.31 and 0.28 standard deviations lower than those with a tertiary degree. Clearly, the lower educated show stronger opposition against opening up the national boundaries of solidarity. As none of the other indicators of socio-economic status has a substantial effect, it is unlikely that this educational gradient of support is driven by material self-interest, however. Besides improving prospects on the labour market, education also leads to the socialisation of tolerant values and openness for change. The various indicators of economic concerns convey a similar message. The two indicators of egocentric economic concerns—the perceived evolution of one’s standard of living and experienced impact of the economic crisis—are not significantly related to general support for Social Europe. Contrary to hypothesis 2a, concerns for the personal material well-being do not translate into opposition against supranational involvement in social policymaking. Conversely, the sociotropic variant of economic concerns is a relevant predictor of attitudes towards Social Europe. Persons who think that the economy (rather than their own position) will deteriorate (−0.23) or remain stable (−0.13) are significantly less positive about EU-level social policymaking (confirming H2b). Resistance against a European social project is thus rooted in concerns about economic prosperity of the nation rather than in personal cost-benefit calculations. The relevance of group-based consideration rather than individualist arguments is also evident from the impact of (sub)national identities on support for Social Europe. Interestingly, identification interacts with region of residence (Flanders vs. Wallonia) in a meaningful manner. In Flanders (the reference category), an outspoken effect of identification is found. Flemish residents who identify with Flanders (−0.49) or who

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feel equally Flemish as Belgian (−0.28) are considerably more critical of a European social project compared to the residents who identify with Belgium in the first place (see H4a). In French-speaking Belgium, the relationship between (sub)national identity and support for Social Europe is significantly weaker and virtually non-existent: residents in Wallonia who identify primarily with this subnational category (−0.19) or who feel equally Belgian as Walloon (−0.01) do hardly differ from persons who identify with Belgium in the first place (H4b). This finding can be understood from the predominantly ethnic social representation of the Flemish identity that conceives outgroups as a threat and is therefore critical to open up boundaries of solidarity. In Wallonia, where the dominant representation of identity is republican in the first place, such gradient is not found. Probably the most consistent predictors of general support for Social Europe relate to ideological stances on the socio-economic leftright cleavage. Persons valuing a more equal distribution of economic resources are significantly more likely to endorse involvement of the EU in social policy (confirming H3a). Furthermore, those who position themselves left on the political spectrum have more positive attitudes towards Social Europe than those in the political centre, while support for Social Europe is weakest at the right-hand side of the political spectrum (confirming H3b). Clearly, the integration-demarcation cleavage does not cross-cut the socio-economic left-right cleavage completely but is—to a certain extent—aligned with it. That the European social project is especially welcomed by the political left illustrates how preferences regarding the role of government and redistribution can spill over from the national to the supranational level (Baute, Meuleman, et al., 2019). Table 4.2 shows similar explanation models for each of the four first-order dimensions of Social Europe. The deviating patterns provide insight in the differential nature of the various faces of Social Europe. In the second-order CFA (Fig. 4.1), member state solidarity was identified as the most visible aspect of Social Europe for the general public. Not surprisingly, the predictors of support for member state solidarity largely mirror those for support for Social Europe in general: A low educational level, sociotropic economic concerns, a strong Flemish

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identity and a rightist position on the socio-economic cleavage form an obstacle to supporting solidarity between European member states. Support for EU social citizenship—that is, providing EU migrants access to the national welfare system—follows a partially different logic. For this dimension, the impact of education and (sub)national identity is most outspoken, while preferences for egalitarian redistribution are irrelevant. The question whether EU migrants should be allowed into the national solidarity circle appears to be foremost a cultural issue rather than a socioeconomic one. Support for social regulations shows a yet another logic. The idea that the EU imposes minimum standards for social policy is significantly less popular among the self-employed and employers—i.e. the occupational categories that traditionally oppose market regulation by the government, irrespective of the governmental level. Furthermore, social regulations are considerably more supported in Wallonia than in Flanders. Interpersonal solidarity, finally, shows the least outspoken pattern of predictors. This form of solidarity is not structurally patterned but is instead mainly related to ideological positions (left-right placement and egalitarianism). The fact that this form of solidarity does currently not exist at the level of the EU and is not strongly politicised can explain the weak predictive power of this model for interpersonal solidarity.

Conclusion and Discussion Over the last decades, the EU has become increasingly involved in social policymaking. The growing importance of Social Europe challenges the nationally bounded character of contemporary welfare states. This chapter investigated whether this solidarity shift creates a new structural conflict between losers (who favour demarcation of the national boundaries) and winners (who favour integration) of Europeanisation. To answer this question, we analysed public opinion data from the Belgian National Election Study 2014 measuring various dimensions of attitudes towards Social Europe. Our results reveal meaningful variation in citizens’ opinions related to Social Europe. Using a novel measurement instrument, four different

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attitude dimensions can be distinguished, each referring to a different aspect of supranational social policymaking. These four dimensions are not independent, but can to some extent be collapsed into a general pro vs. contra Social Europe dimension. Interestingly, we find that member state solidarity is the primary face of Social Europe for the Belgian public. Citizens have redistribution between states in mind when they think about a shift of solidarity arrangements towards the supranational level, rather than interpersonal solidarity, imposing social regulations or granting EU migrants access to the national welfare state. The question whether the general dimension of support for versus opposition against Social Europe can be considered as a new integrationdemarcation cleavage requires a nuanced answer. On the one hand, attitudes towards Social Europe are not strongly embedded in social structure or egocentric economic concerns. Citizens’ stance on Social Europe cannot be understood as a simple function of one’s socio-economic status and self-interest. The European question is thus not a straightforward dichotomous conflict between objective winners and losers of Europeanisation. This point is also illustrated by the finding that education—a variable with a strong cultural component—is the only background characteristic with a consistent impact on attitudes towards Social Europe. On the other hand, the absence of social structural effects does not imply that there is no potential for a political conflict on the issue of Social Europe. However, rather than objective positions, the so-called subjective experiences and social dispositions shape one’s stance on Social Europe. Sociotropic concerns about the future of the economy as well as a strong Flemish identity (i.e. a subnational identity strongly aligned with the ethnic ideal type of citizenship) are clear obstacles to support an expansion of the solidarity circle beyond the nation state. On the contrary, persons with egalitarian views who define themselves as left of the political spectrum are stronger supporters of supranational solidarity arrangements. So far, however, the opposition between integration of European welfare systems and demarcation of national welfare has not been an issue of strong political mobilisation in Belgium. The harmonisation of welfare systems through social regulations, for example, is supported by a very large proportion of the population. Debates

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on interpersonal solidarity between citizens from different member states have only started recently and have not led to clearly crystallised attitude patterns in the population yet. Our results show, however, that the redistribution between member states (member state solidarity) is most likely to become the prevalent issue of political conflict—at least in affluent EU member states. Because of the nature of this specific distributional mechanism, we assume that the definition of winners and losers strongly coincides with national boundaries and is conditional of the country’s level of prosperity. International comparative research is needed to verify to what extent these Belgian findings generalise to other, especially less affluent, EU member states.

Notes 1. Our conceptualisation of Social Europe is not exhaustive, as we for instance do not include the social dialogue or collective bargaining at the EU-level, which can also be considered as important components of Social Europe. Given our focus on the welfare state, however, these aspects are beyond the scope of this contribution. 2. Modification indices suggested to add an error correlation between items d30_4 and d30_5. The error correlation between these two items measuring social regulations is theoretically justified, as both items deal with particular forms of leave for employees. 3. Because the estimate for standardised loading slightly exceeded one (i.e. the estimate is inadmissible) we constrained it to one.

Appendix See Tables A.1 and A.2.

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Table A.1 Descriptive dispositions

statistics

for

the

structural

positions

and

social

Variable

Mean/%

S.D.

N

Age Gender Male Female Educational level Low Middle High Occupation (Oesch) Self-employed professionals and large employers Small business owners Technical (semi-)professionals Production workers (Associate) managers Clerks Socio-cultural (semi-)professionals Service workers Never worked/exercised a profession Subjective income Not enough Just enough Enough to more than enough Benefit use in household No Yes Improvement in standard of living Impact of the crisis Not at all A bit Strong to very strong Expectation economy (Strongly) deteriorate Remain stable (Strongly) improve Ideology Left

51.7

17.53

1403 1403

49.18 50.82 1403 27.37 32.22 40.41 1380 2.39 9.64 4.93 18.33 7.9 13.91 17.9 15.36 9.64 1400 6.21 29 64.79 1401 75.95 24.05 2.93

0.84

1401 1400

27.64 53.29 19.07 1381 38.45 34.76 26.79 1364 27.42 (continued)

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Table A.1 (continued) Variable

Mean/%

Centre Right Egalitarianism National identity More to only Flemish/Walloon Equally Flemish/Walloon than Belgian More to only Belgian Region Flanders Wallonia

36.29 36.29 3.76

S.D.

0.74

N

1403 1389

24.48 35.06 40.46 1403 65.07 34.93

Table A.2 Measurement of egalitarianism Variable

Item

Responses

Mean (S.D.)

Factor loading

Q52_1

The differences between classes ought to be smaller than they are at present The differences between the high and the low incomes should stay as they are The government should reduce income differentials

1= completely disagree 2 = disagree 3 = neither agree, nor disagree 4 = agree 5= completely agree

3.90 (0.88)

0.673

3.79 (0.93)

0.617

3.60 (1.03)

0.651

Q52_2 (recoded)

Q52_3

Note Egalitarian values are measured by an index of the mean score on three items. Citizens were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale to what extent they agree or disagree with the following statement; (1) the differences between classes ought to be smaller than they are at present, (2) the differences between the high and the low incomes should stay as they are and (3) the government should reduce income differentials. Responses were recorded with high scores signifying egalitarian values

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5 Economic Fluctuation and Shifts in Popular Solidarity with Unemployed People Wilfred Uunk and Wim van Oorschot

Introduction With the consequences of the financial crisis and the globalisation of labour markets, unemployment is (again) one of the most important social problems in Europe. Preventing and reducing unemployment is therefore a priority goal set in all of its welfare states, with a closely connected goal of assuring the living standards of unemployed people by means of unemployment benefits and social assistance. With this, redistributive questions about the social protection and attached social obligations of unemployed people have revived. In these debates, the unemployed as a group cannot reckon on the unconditional solidarity of the

W. Uunk (B) University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] W. van Oorschot KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_5

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general public. This is clear from studies undertaken in the earlier crisis periods of the 1980s and 1990s, which have shown that the provision of welfare to unemployed people tends to be a highly contentious issue (e.g. Furnham, 1983; Maassen & De Goede, 1989). In all European countries, the group of unemployed people easily falls victim to negative images among the public and in the mass media. They tend to be seen as a lazier and less responsible and perseverant group of people than other benefit claimants, and are therefore readily blamed for their neediness, while often also large sections of the population perceive them as benefit scroungers (Eardley & Matheson, 1999; Furnham, 1983; Furaker & Blomsterberg, 2003; Golding & Middleton, 1982; Houtman, 1997; Hills, 2015; Larsen, 2002; Maassen & De Goede, 1989). No wonder that in rank orders of popular welfare deservingness the unemployed often take in a relatively low position, compared to e.g. elderly people, disabled workers and single parents (Coughlin, 1979; Larsen, 2006; van Oorschot, 2006). Despite the overall negative image towards the unemployed, research has also shown variation between social categories in the levels of popular solidarity with the unemployed (with, e.g., the lower socio-economic groups showing higher levels of solidarity than their counterparts), and between social contexts (e.g. in countries with higher unemployment rates the public usually shows higher solidarity). Examples of this variation can be found in Blekesaune and Quadagno (2003), Jeene and van Oorschot (2013), and van Oorschot and Meuleman (2014). However, very little is known about whether, how and why popular solidarity with unemployed people shifts over time. Although there are some exemplary longitudinal studies (e.g. Becker, 2005; Hills, 2015; Jeene, van Oorschot, & Uunk, 2014; Macleod, Montero, & Speer, 1999; Sihvo & Uusitalo, 1995), there is a general lack of knowledge on the dynamics of welfare attitudes over time, let alone on the solidarity with the unemployed (but see Maassen & De Goede, 1989). This is a pity because it may be assumed that welfare attitudes generally, and solidarity opinions among them, react to changing socio-economic, political and institutional developments in society (e.g. Blekesaune, 2007; Erikson, MacKuen, & Stimson, 2002). In particular, knowledge is lacking on whether such changing macro-factors affect opinions of different

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social groups in society in the same way (e.g. when all groups react to an economic downturn or recession in the same manner), or that effects differ in function of the socio-economic situation of groups (e.g. when economically more vulnerable groups react less negatively on economic downturn than other groups). In other words, whether there are ‘parallel publics’ (Gonthier, 2016), or not. That is, whether socio-economic, political and institutional changes affect the welfare attitudes of groups with different social positions to the same degree, at the same time and in the same direction, or whether effects differ between social groups (Enns & Wlezien, 2011; Gonthier, 2016). In this chapter, we aim to contribute to filling this knowledge gap by addressing the questions (1) how, in Dutch society, popular solidarity with the unemployed has changed over time in the studied period 1975–2010, (2) how macroeconomic conditions (in specific, economic downturn and unemployment rate) have driven these changes and (3) whether and how macroeconomic conditions affect solidarity with the unemployed differently across social groups. Our focus on the effect of macroeconomic conditions is relevant from a social policy perspective, since the occurrence of several economic crises may have weakened or strengthened popular solidarity with vulnerable groups in society such as the unemployed and may thus have affected the social legitimacy basis for policy reforms. But it is also relevant from a theoretical perspective, since one of the theories explaining welfare solidarity is that it is people’s economic situation and prospects that drives solidarity with other people (Kangas, 1997). Our analysis uses longitudinal, repeated cross-sectional survey data from the Dutch survey Cultural Changes in the Netherlands 1975 –2010 (CCN). The Netherlands is an interesting setting to study since in its comprehensive welfare state, institutionalised solidarity (i.e. solidarity as de facto re-distribution between risk and income categories through social and fiscal welfare policies) with vulnerable groups is relatively high and as such provides a conservative test of the effect of changing macroeconomic conditions on popular welfare solidarity (solidarity manifested in public opinion on welfare provision) with the unemployed. Prior research for this country on the same data set (two newest waves 2008 and 2010 excluded) showed that economic downturn, and to a weaker extent the unemployment rate, negatively affected solidarity with

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the unemployed (Jeene et al., 2014). Whether economic downturn and unemployment affect welfare opinions of distinct social categories differently and whether economic conditions interact in their effect on welfare solidarity (e.g. whether higher unemployment makes for a more positive effect in economic better times) is not known, however. In the remainder of this paper, we discuss why one can expect that macroeconomic context factors may affect solidarity with the unemployed generally and why such effects might differ between social groups, we then explain our data and methods, followed by a presentation of our findings, and finally, we will draw some general conclusions.

Economic Factors Influencing Popular Solidarity with Unemployed People In the literature to date the main country characteristics that are mentioned as factors that may influence welfare attitudes of citizens are economic (e.g. Blekesaune & Quadagno, 2003), institutional (e.g. welfare retrenchments; Uunk and van Oorschot, 2017), and cultural (e.g. a right-wing political climate, Jeene et al., 2014). As set out above, in this study we will concentrate on the effect of changing macroeconomic conditions on solidarity with the unemployed, in specific changes in wealth (economic downturn) and the unemployment rate. How will these factors influence solidarity with the unemployed? To note, we are more interested in the short-term fluctuations than longer-term trends, since from earlier analyses of the data we know that in the longer run of about thirty years the average solidarity with the unemployed did not change much in The Netherlands (Jeene et al., 2014).

Unemployment Rate The economic factor most often included in previous studies on solidarity with unemployed people regards the unemployment rate, although opposing hypotheses have been formulated regarding its effect. First, it can be expected that generally the popular solidarity with

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the unemployed is higher when unemployment is higher. Two main mechanisms for this are suggested, referring to risk position and risk attribution. These mechanisms sound similar yet rely on opposing theoretical assumptions of the sources of welfare solidarity. The first mechanism, concerning risk position, is based on considerations of self-interest: when unemployment is high, people are more concerned that one may be affected oneself by unemployment, or that it may affect family and friends (Blekesaune & Quadagno, 2003; Bryson, 1997). In this way, with a higher unemployment rate unemployment benefits become more of a personal interest for larger sections of the population, and under that condition people can sympathise more closely with the needs of unemployed people as well. According to deservingness theory, this leads to higher solidarity levels (van Oorschot, 2006). The second mechanism, concerning risk attribution, assumes that when unemployment is higher, people are less inclined to internal attribution or victim-blaming. That is, they believe to a lesser extent that unemployed are themselves to be blamed for their unemployment (Eardley & Matheson, 1999; Gallie & Paugam, 2002). It is known from deservingness theory that external attribution leads to higher solidarity, since in that case neediness is regarded less as a matter of personal responsibility (van Oorschot, 2006). However, from the same self-interest perspective on welfare solidarity one may expect a contrasting effect, namely that a higher unemployment rate negatively affects solidarity with the unemployed. This argument states that solidarity with unemployed people is lower when unemployment is higher because the general public, from a taxpayer’s perspective, would then worry more about the increased costs that are involved in providing benefits and services for a larger number of unemployed. This ‘increased burden’ effect would fit with the idea of an overloaded middle class that is usually reluctant to accept any (extra) welfare spending on the needy (Galbraith, 1992). Empirical tests of the relation between the unemployment rate and solidarity with the unemployed point in the direction of the first prediction of increased solidarity in times of higher unemployment for populations at large. In an analysis of Australian time series data over a twenty-year period, Eardley and Matheson (1999) found a relatively

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strong negative correlation of −0.60 between the annual unemployment rate and the proportion of people expressing ‘not wanting to work’ (internal attribution) as a reason for unemployment. A time series analysis of Dutch opinions found that when unemployment skyrocketed in the early 1980s, public opinion changed drastically in favour of unemployed people: they were seen less as morally deviant, and the idea that unemployed people misuse benefits dropped substantially. At the same time, Dutch people’s worries about becoming unemployed increased (Maassen & De Goede, 1989). Cross-national studies show similar findings. Analyses of ISSP data from several waves in the 1990s found that in European countries with higher unemployment rates the public tends to be slightly less supportive of cuts on unemployment benefits (Fraile & Ferrer, 2005), and higher national rates of self-reported unemployment were positively related to people’s support for government to provide a job for everyone and a decent standard of living for the unemployed (Blekesaune & Quadagno, 2003). Jeene et al.’s, (2014) analyses of the same Dutch CCN data set as we use reported a positive effect of the unemployment rate on solidarity with the unemployed as well, but this effect disappeared once reckoning with economic growth. Given the above empirical findings and the described mechanisms of risk position and risk attribution, the hypothesis we suggest is that the unemployment rate positively affects the popular solidarity with unemployed people (Hypothesis 1a). However, with the ‘parallel publics’ debate in mind, we are also interested in analysing whether this general effect differs between social groups. With reference to the above discussion of possible counteracting effects, we expect that the positive effect of the unemployment rate on solidarity with the unemployed may be stronger among more vulnerable groups, that is, groups with a higher risk of being confronted with unemployment of themselves, of family members and/or of colleagues and acquaintances (Hypothesis 1b). We expect a weaker effect among less vulnerable groups, or perhaps even a negative effect since the ‘increased burden’ thesis may apply to the middle echelons of society and better off. In our analyses, we will regard people with lower educational level, lower income level, the unemployed and disabled workers as more vulnerable.

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Economic Situation Fluctuation in the economic situation is the second condition we focus upon. Although a country’s unemployment rate and its economic wealth tend to be (negatively) correlated to a degree, they do not necessarily co-vary closely: unemployment rates rise mostly sometime after economic downturn and often top when the economy is already on the rise again. Timing disregarded, there may also be periods of jobless economic growth, economic downturn without large consequences for unemployment, economic upswing combined with demographically induced larger labour supply, and such like. Substantively, the two economic factors may also have distinct effects on opinions regarding the unemployed. This indeed shows in the research literature. While, as we have seen in prior studies, the unemployment rate seems to affect solidarity with the unemployed positively, economic downturn seems to affect solidarity with needy groups, including the unemployed, negatively (Jeene et al., 2014). Several mechanisms are suggested to underlie this negative effect of economic downturn. One regards the impact of economic downturn on the household economy (Alt, 1979; Sihvo & Uusitalo, 1995), making people more concerned about their own income and less willing to give to others. It is also suggested that in more troubled economic situations opinion-makers more strongly emphasise economic problems and the related need for welfare cutbacks (Sihvo & Uusitalo, 1995). And, also here one could assume that the middle classes fear to act as net payers of a high welfare burden resulting from a possible larger number of benefit claimants. However, a contrary mechanism suggested is that in better economic circumstances people have more confidence in successfully taking personal responsibility for their circumstances, while when the economy is more contracted this confidence may reduce, leading to a more positive attitude towards government protection generally, spilling over to solidarity with the unemployed (Blekesaune, 2007) Existing time series studies tend to find that economic downturn is associated with less generous welfare opinions. In their time series analysis of Finnish opinions, Sihvo and Uusitalo (1995) find that in economic low times people support less government spending on pensions, child

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allowances, housing allowance, sickness benefit and unemployment benefit. And Goul Andersen (1999) shows that general support for the welfare state dropped in Denmark during the crisis of the 1980s. He notes a similar effect in Norway, but in Sweden the relationship was not found. The study by Jeene et al. (2014) for the Netherlands on time variation in the popular deservingness of pensioners, disabled workers, sick workers, unemployed people and social assistance claimants also showed an economic downturn effect: lower GDP growth is accompanied by seeing the specific benefits for each of the groups as less insufficient, which the study takes as an indicator of a lower popular deservingness of the groups. In addition, the study finds that Dutch people actually reacted to a downward or upward change in the economic situation, irrespective of the overall level of the country’s wealth. From these empirical findings and the above theoretical arguments, we hypothesise that economic downturn has a negative effect on solidarity with the unemployed (controlled for the unemployment rate) (Hypothesis 2a). However, here as well, one might expect a difference in this effect between social groups. Less vulnerable groups may regard themselves as net payers of an increasing welfare burden more so than vulnerable groups do, and therefore react more strongly with a restriction of their solidarity towards unemployed when the economic situation gets worse. This implies that the negative effect of economic downturn on solidarity with the unemployed would be stronger among middle and high socioeconomic groups than among low socio-economic groups (Hypothesis 2b). A counterargument is that the less vulnerable groups may still be more capable of carrying the burden of economic crises than the more vulnerable groups, and therefore can afford to support spending for the needy in times of economic distress. Further, we do not want to rule out that some vulnerable groups, especially the disabled and pensioners, would also reduce their solidarity with the unemployed in times of economic crisis, in case in such circumstance they would perceive a stronger competition for welfare resources with the unemployed (see on resource competition between groups of beneficiaries, e.g. Jeene, van Oorschot, & Uunk, 2013).

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A final expectation concerns a possible interaction effect of the unemployment rate and the economic cycle on solidarity with the unemployed. One may expect that an unemployment rise in economic good times creates a stronger positive effect on solidarity than in economic bad times—which implies a positive interactive effect of the unemployment rate and GDP (Hypothesis 3). The reason is that in economic better times one can afford solidarity with the unemployed more, and more unemployment can make for more solidarity. However, a rise in unemployment during economic bad times may not increase solidarity with the unemployed as the non-employed will be threatened in their income situation (the effect of unemployment rate may actually be negative). Note, however, that the argument of self-interest—solidarity because of own or family’s risk of unemployment—would imply the reverse pattern (a more positive effect of unemployment in economic worse times) since in economic worse times the risk of becoming unemployed oneself are greater than in economic better times.

Individual-Level Factors Influencing Solidarity with the Unemployed Although we are primarily interested in the effects of contextual economic factors on popular solidarity with the unemployed, we also include the effects of characteristics of individual people. Firstly, because we want to control for possible composition effects, that is, differences in opinions over time may not only exist because of differences in economic conditions, but also because certain social groups with specific opinions may be more numerous in one time period compared to another. In this regard, we will especially include the variable whether people are unemployed or not, since this will show whether the effect of the unemployment rate is there because it affects the number of unemployed in society, and thus would have an indirect effect on the general solidarity level. Or whether it is a genuine context effect, that is, whether, irrespective of the number of unemployed in a specific year, the unemployment rate affects solidarity with the unemployed among the employed and

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unemployed alike.1 A second reason for including individual-level variables is that we want to analyse cross-level interaction effects, that is, see whether the effects of unemployment rate and economic situation on solidarity are different for groups with a different degree of socio-economic vulnerability. In our selection of individual-level variables, we are limited by our data. There are only few variables available for all years of data collection: sex, age, educational level, household income and activity status (employed, unemployed, disabled for work, pensioner, other). In an additional analysis, we also include political stance (as self-reported position on a 1–5 left-right scale), although this variable is not (fully) available for three (1979, 1981, 2010) out of the 24 data years (see robustness analyses section). We expect that some of these variables may have specific effects on people’s solidarity with the unemployed. Based on selfinterest motivations we expect that unemployed people may be more solidaristic, especially compared to employed people. We also expect that people, who are in a more risky socio-economic position generally, such as those with lower educational level, and with lower household income, are more solidaristic. As for people who are on pension or disabled for work there may be contradictory expectations. On the one hand, they are in a more vulnerable socio-economic position and would perhaps for this reason be more solidaristic towards unemployed people, but on the other hand, they may perceive a competition with unemployed people regarding the allocation of welfare (‘the more needed for the unemployed, the less there will be for us’) (see also Jeene et al., 2013). Apart from the possible pensioner effect, we do not have a clear expectation for age. As for sex, we have contradicting expectations. On the one hand, it is known that women generally show more solidarity in regard to the social protection of vulnerable groups (Deitch, 2004). But on the other hand, in the period that we analyse, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, labour market participation of Dutch women was low, which could mean that compared to men they are less insecure about the risk of unemployment and therefore less solidaristic. Finally, regarding political stance, as is common in welfare attitudes research we expect to find that left-wing people are more solidaristic than right-wing people towards vulnerable groups generally, in this case towards the unemployed.

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Data and Methods Data Set To test our hypotheses, we analyse annual fluctuations in solidarity with the unemployed using data from all 24 waves of the Cultural Changes in The Netherlands (CCN) survey, collected between 1975 and 2010. The CCN is a random probability sample of the Dutch public aged 16 and over, commissioned by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) (for details see: https://www.scp.nl/ Onderzoek/Bronnen/Beknopte_onderzoeksbeschrijvingen/Culturele_ veranderingen_in_Nederland_CV). Each wave consists of approximately 2000 respondents. Respondents with any missing value for age, sex, education level, activity status and solidarity towards unemployed are excluded (in total making up for 3% of the sample), which leaves us with a sample for analysis of 48,771 respondents.

Measures Dependent Variable Our dependent variable is peoples’ solidarity towards the unemployed. For measuring this we use the following question that is repeated in all CCN waves: ‘I will give you a list of social benefits. Could you tell me for each of these if you think they are sufficient or insufficient?’ The listed social benefits are the Dutch disability benefit for workers, universal old age pension, unemployment benefit, social assistance benefit and the sickness benefit (or: sick pay for workers). Here, we focus on the unemployment benefit. Respondents were given the option ‘sufficient’ and ‘insufficient’ as answers. We consider the ‘insufficient’ answer as indicating a higher solidarity with the unemployed (score 1 on the dependent variable), compared to the ‘sufficient’ answer (score 0). The response code ‘too good’ was offered when the respondent refused to choose between the sufficient and insufficient category. Since only few respondents chose this response code, and since it indicates low rather

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than high welfare solidarity, we included this code in the ‘sufficient’ category.2 People who answered ‘don’t know’ (19%) were assumed to be indecisive and were coded 0 on the solidarity variable (for a further discussion, see the robustness section in the Appendix). People who did not answer the particular question at all were omitted from the analyses (less than 1%). Jeene et al. (2014) employed the same coding when using this data set, so this improves comparability with their results.

Independent Variables—Individual Level As explained above, we include the following individual-level variables: – Age: Age of the respondent, in years.3 – Sex: Gender of the respondent, where men are the reference category. – Education: Education is measured as the highest level of education completed. This was originally measured in seven categories and is recoded into three categories: low (primary, lower vocational and intermediate secondary), middle (intermediate vocational and higher secondary), and high (higher vocational and university). – Income: Income is measured in the survey as the household income in income categories, yet the precise measurement (gross or net, and over what time period) varies across waves and therefore we rely on the relative distribution of income in each year. We decided to measure three income levels (low, medium and high) based on the frequency distribution for each year, and identified the 5–15% lowest incomes and 5–15% highest incomes (remaining category is medium income). Missing values for income (19%) are included as a dummy variable. – Activity status: Activity status indicates whether respondents are in paid employment (reference group), disabled, pensioners, unemployed or in an ‘other’ status (including students and homemakers). – Political stance: Political stance is only added in a separate, additional analysis because information is not available for the 1979 and 1981 waves, and only for half of the 2010 wave respondents. It is derived from a single question on left-wing or right-wing self-placement on a five-point scale (1. being very left-wing, to 5. being very right-wing).

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Independent Variables—Year Level We include three economic measures at the year level: wealth (GDP), economic downturn and the unemployment rate. – Wealth: Wealth is measured as gross domestic product (GDP) per head (in constant prices, constant Power Purchasing Parities, in 2010 dollars). – Economic downturn: Economic downturn is measured as annual negative change (in percentages) in the above GDP measure. – Unemployment rate: The unemployment rate refers to the percentage of the population aged 15–65 that is unemployed, that is without a job of 12 hours a week and over. All measures are obtained from OECD Stat Extracts (http://stats.oecd. org/) and accessed on 1 November 2016. The OECD unemployment rates are derived from the Dutch Labour Force surveys, aggregated by age and sex. We use current economic measures (t = 0), since we expect the public to have an immediate understanding of the economic situation due to, for example, price levels and media coverage (the timing issue is further discussed in the Robustness section in the Appendix). Correlations at the year level (N = 24) between the three measures are −0.17 for GDP and economic downturn, −0.56 for GDP and unemployment rate and −0.08 for economic downturn and unemployment. Only the GDP-unemployment rate correlation is statistically significant (p < 0.01). Table 5.1 shows the descriptive statistics for the dependent and independent variables. Note that the negative average score on economic downturn (−2.45) actually denotes economic growth over the period of investigation.

Modelling Strategy We use multilevel regression models to estimate effects of our independent variables on the outcome of solidarity with the unemployed. The multilevel specification is needed because the yearly responses are not

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Table 5.1 Descriptive statistics of included variables N Variables at individual level Solidarity with the 48,771 unemployed Age 48,771 Woman 48,771 Education Low 48,771 Middle 48,771 High 48,771 Income Low 48,771 Middle 48,771 High 48,771 Missing 48,771 Activity status Employed 48,771 Unemployed 48,771 Pensioner 48,771 Disabled for work 48,771 Other 48,771 38,247 Political attitude (right-wing)a Variables at year-level GDP level 24 Economic downturn 24 Unemployment rate 24

Range

Mean

Standard deviation

0–1

0.23

15–96 0–1

43.41 0.53

0–1 0–1 0–1

0.48 0.30 0.22

0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1

0.07 0.64 0.10 0.19

0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 1–5

0.45 0.03 0.12 0.04 0.36 3.00

0.98

24.07–46.37 −4.53–0.78 3.044–14.02

33.67 −2.45 6.57

6.72 1.41 3.10

17.02

Source Cultural Changes in the Netherlands, 1975–2010 (own calculations) a Political attitudes not asked in years 1979 and 1981, and for only half of the sample in 2010; these 3 years are excluded

independent. We assume individuals (level 1) to be nested in years (level 2) and use linear (regression) models. Although the dependent variable is dichotomous—and logistic models are the common choice of researchers to analyse such variables—linear models provide unbiased estimates of the effect of a variable on the odds, and allow for a comparison of effect sizes between models and between subsamples. We estimated the multilevel linear regression models in Stata (version 13) using the xtmixed command.

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Findings Figure 5.1 shows the longitudinal picture of solidarity towards unemployed in the Netherlands in the 1975–2010 period, as well as the development of the three economic measures (GDP level, economic downturn, unemployment rate) for this period. Solidarity towards the unemployed fluctuates to a considerable extent over time and the variation is statistically significant (as assessed by an ‘empty’ multilevel regression model): 7% of the total variation is due to variation by year. Although this is relatively low, suggesting that solidarity with the unemployed depends more on citizens’ personal characteristics than on the year in which they live, it nevertheless suggests that year-level factors may have affected popular solidarity. The steep rise in solidarity in the early 1980s 50

35%

30%

40

25% 30 20% 20 15% 10 10% 0 2010

2006

2008

2004

2002

2000

1997

1998

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1989

1988

1987

1986

1985

1983

1981

1980

1975

1979

-10

5%

0% GDP

Downturn

Unempl

Solidarity

Fig. 5.1 Trends in economic measures (primary, left axis) and solidarity with the unemployed (secondary, right axis), 1975–2010 (percentages, except for GDP [in thousands])

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during the oil price induced recession and subsequent high unemployment levels and the recent increase in it as from 2004 during the last economic banking crisis seem to indeed suggest economic cycle effects. Yet, is hard to decipher on basis of these figures which factor is more important (unemployment rate or economic downturn?), and what the specific direction of effects is (does solidarity boom with or after economic recession?). Moreover, the steep rise in solidarity with the unemployed in the mid-1990s is not accompanied with large economic changes, so that the question is whether economic cycle effects are statistically significant at all. Table 5.2 shows the economic cycle effects on solidarity with unemployed people derived from multilevel regression models. Model 1, that controls for age and sex, shows that the economic measures have the predicted effects. A higher unemployment rate increases solidarity towards the unemployed (which supports Hypothesis 1a), and economic downturn decreases solidarity (which supports Hypothesis 2a).4 A higher level of GDP, on the other hand, raises solidarity with the unemployed. Unreported analyses show that economic downturn has a smaller effect (beta = −0.05) than the unemployment rate (beta = 0.12) and GDP level (beta = 0.12). Modelling the economic downturn and unemployment rate simultaneously or separately does not change results as the two measures correlate only weakly (see data section). Note that Model 1 reports no significant effect of age on solidarity with the unemployed, while being a woman has a positive effect. Model 2 of Table 5.2 adds the individual-level variables education, income and activity status to the model, as part of the economic cycle effects may be indirect and running via these socio-economic variables. For example, a higher unemployment rate may increase solidarity with the unemployed because the share of unemployed in the population increases, and because individual unemployment affects solidarity with the unemployed (a compositional, or indirect causation explanation). Model 2 shows that adding these individual-level variables does not affect the economic cycle effects, as these effects remain practically the same as in Model 1 (this also holds when adding the individual-level variables one by one). So, economic downturn, the unemployment rate and GDP level seem to have genuine contextual effects. Economic downturn

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5 Economic Fluctuation and Shifts in Popular Solidarity …

Table 5.2 Multi-level (linear) regressions of solidarity with the unemployed (N = 48,771 individuals, 24 waves) Model 1

Constant Age Woman Education Low (ref.) Middle High Income Low (ref.) Middle High Missing Activity status Employed (ref.) Unemployed Pension Disabled Other GDP level Economic downturn Unemployment rate Unempl. rate x GDP Loglikelihood Individual-level variance Year-level variance

Model 2

Model 3

b

se

b

se

b

se

−0.207** 0.001 0.027**

(0.051) (0.001) (0.004)

−0.163** −0.001 0.022**

(0.053) (0.001) (0.004)

0.043 −0.001 0.021**

(0.075) (0.001) (0.004)

−0.060** −0.107**

(0.005) (0.005)

−0.061** −0.108**

(0.005) (0.005)

−0.023** −0.040** −0.033*

(0.007) (0.009) (0.008)

−0.023** −0.040** −0.034**

(0.007) (0.009) (0.008)

(0.012) (0.007) (0.010) (0.005) (0.001) (0.005) (0.003)

(0.012) (0.007) (0.010) (0.005) (0.002) (0.004) (0.016) (0.000)

(0.004)

0.008** −0.016** 0.018**

(0.001) (0.005) (.003)

0.143** −0.031** 0.112** −0.003 0.009** −0.015** 0.018**

−26311.3 0.415**

(0.001)

−25849.3 0.411**

(0.001)

0.143** −0.031** 0.112** −0.003 0.001 −0.010* −0.036* 0.002** −25844.5 0.411**

0.030**

(0.004)

0.031**

(0.005)

0.025**

(0.001)

Source Cultural Changes in the Netherlands, 1975–2010 (own calculations) *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01

decreases solidarity with the unemployed and this holds independent of one’s own income; the unemployment rate raises solidarity independent of activity status (so, the unemployment raises solidarity both for unemployed and employed persons; also see Table 5.3).5 The socio-economic individual-level characteristics tested in Model 2 are relevant predictors of solidarity with the unemployed, notwithstanding. We find that a higher education and a higher income decrease solidarity with the unemployed. Also, unemployed persons themselves are more likely to support the unemployed compared to employed persons,

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Table 5.3 Estimated economic cycle effects by individual-level characteristicsa By education Low education (ref) Middle educationb High education By income Low income (ref.) Middle income High income Missing By activity status Employed (ref.) Unemployed Pension Disabled Other

GDP

Economic downturn

Unemployment rate

0.009 0.009 0.007*

−0.016 −0.015 −0.013

0.019 0.016* 0.016

0.008 0.008 0.008 0.009

−0.022 −0.015 −0.021 −0.009*

0.020 0.018 0.015 0.015

0.009 0.010 0.009 0.009 0.009

−0.016 −0.015 −0.009 −0.028 −0.016

0.018 0.019 0.014 0.021 0.018

Source Cultural Changes in the Netherlands, 1975–2010 (own calculations) a Effects are estimated by estimating for each combination of economic measure and individual-level variable an interactive effect. E.g., in the upper-left three cells the GDP by education interaction is modeled (other interactions excluded), and effects are estimated for all underlying categories of education. Model 2 (Table 5.2) functions as the baseline model, to which interactions are added b Significance of estimate indicates a significantly different effect than of the reference group *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01

and the same holds for disabled persons. However, pensioners display weaker solidarity. These findings are in line with earlier research (e.g. Jeene et al., 2014). Comparing the relative sizes of effects (not shown in Table 5.2), we find that the economic cycle effects are stronger than most individual-level effects. The relative effect of the unemployment rate (0.12) is stronger than the strongest individual-level determinant (being higher educated; −0.11), and also stronger than being unemployed oneself (0.05). The relative effect of economic downturn (0.05), on the other hand, is moderate in size and close to other individual-level effects (being unemployed, disabled, income). Model 3 of Table 5.2 tests whether the unemployment rate and the GDP level interact in their effect on solidarity with the unemployed. We indeed find a positive interactive effect, confirming Hypothesis 3. That

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is, the effect of the unemployment rate becomes more positive as the economy is at a higher level (measured by GDP). Table 5.3 reports results of models that test the interactive effects of the economic cycle measures by relevant individual-level characteristics (education, income and activity status). We hardly find any evidence for our interaction hypotheses (1b and 2b), which predicted a less positive unemployment rate effect and a more negative economic downturn effect for higher than for lower socio-economic groups. The only (significant) interactive effect observed is that of the unemployment rate by education: The effect of the unemployment rate seems—as expected due to the greater job stability and larger tax burden of higher socio-economic groups—smaller for middle and higher educated (for the latter group not significantly so) than for the reference group of lower educated. However, these differences are weak in size. Also note that the effect of the unemployed rate seems larger for the unemployed than for other groups (e.g. the pensioners), as we predicted (Hypothesis 1b), yet these differences are not statistically different.

Conclusions and Discussion Our analyses of longitudinal cross-section data from the Netherlands on the effects of macroeconomic changes on solidarity with the unemployed have shown that the unemployment rate and economic downturn affected this solidarity. In the period of investigation of 1975–2010, when the unemployment rate was higher, solidarity with the unemployed was stronger, while economic downturn (as measured by negative economic growth) coincided with weaker solidarity. These economic effects cannot be attributed to compositional effects of individual characteristics, such as e.g. individual employment or unemployment, and therefore represent genuine contextual effects. With reference to our theoretical arguments, the economic effects may be interpreted from self-interest, risk attribution and media exposure. A higher unemployment rate increases the likelihood for oneself or family members to become unemployed and as such may strengthen solidarity with the unemployed (self-interest), and when unemployment is higher, people

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are less inclined to internal attribution or victim-blaming (risk attribution). Economic downturn—a phenomenon which does not perfectly coincide with high unemployment rates—may lower solidarity with the unemployed because the middle and high classes may fear to act as net payers of a high welfare burden resulting from the larger number of benefit claimants (self-interest), and also because opinion-makers more strongly emphasise economic problems and the related need for welfare cutbacks (media exposure). As we explained, the above economic effects have been noted before in the empirical literature and are as such not new findings. Yet, our longitudinal test of these effects, including individual-level controls, is new to the literature and can be seen as more convincing evidence for the existence of such economic effects than evidence from crosssection, country-comparative analyses (because of issues of causality) and from longitudinal analyses without appropriate individual-level controls (because of the potential issue of ecological fallacies). Another advancement upon the relevant research literature is that we tested the ‘parallel publics’ idea (Gonthier, 2016), that is whether the economic effects were the same for social groups of varying socio-economic position, as the idea suggests, or distinct. This is an important addition since the selfinterest theory of welfare solidarity leads one to expect that the economic situation will influence some people’s solidarity levels stronger than for others. In particular, we expected from this theory that for higher socioeconomic groups the effect of the unemployment rate on solidarity with the unemployed would be weaker (less positive) than for lower socioeconomic groups and the economic downturn effect stronger (more negative). Our analyses did not provide evidence for such cross-level interactive effects, with the exception of a somewhat smaller positive effect of the unemployment rate for middle and higher educated than for the group of lower educated. That is, for most groups alike, whether having better or worse job and economic prospects, the above economic effects are similar in size and direction. That economic effects on solidarity towards the unemployed are similar for distinct socio-economic groups may come as a surprise for the self-interest theory, and might (alternatively) be explained by counteracting mechanisms such as the ability of higher socio-economic groups to

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pay the tax burden of welfare and to be solidaristic, and the greater general solidarity with fellow citizens of higher educated groups. However, it may be too early to dismiss the self-interest theory as one should more carefully distinguish groups by their risks of unemployment. Among the group of employed persons, for example, there are persons with permanent positions and with flexible job positions and it would be interesting to sort out whether the economic cycle effects are distinct for these groups. Generally, our finding of lacking interaction effects supports the findings of others who have analysed possible differences in how welfare attitudes of social categories react to changing economic circumstances. Gonthier (2016) discusses such findings, which are mostly based on cross-sectional data, and reports on his own analyses of ESS data using waves of 2006–2012, that also support the ‘parallel publics’ idea. Our study contributes uniquely to the issue because of its time perspective of 35 years. Our analyses did show one important interactive effect, yet not of an economic measure with an individual-level characteristics, but an interaction among the economic measures. It proved that the positive effect of the unemployment rate was greater during higher levels of GDP—in more recent years—than during low levels of GDP. This may be interpreted by the fact that during economic bad times (low GDP level), higher unemployment may threaten the income situation of people more severely, lowering their solidarity with the unemployed people. In economic better times, on the other hand, one can afford solidarity with the unemployed more, and more unemployment can make for more solidarity. Thus, it seems that arguments of self-interest apply more under some conditions than other. Future studies could improve upon the current analyses by using longitudinal panel data and by investigating the timing of economic cycle effects, as well as by pooling data for a greater number of countries in order to raise power at the year level. Also, one wonders whether the patterns observed in this study holds for other countries. Studies for other European countries suggest positive macro-level unemployment and negative downturn effects on solidarity with the unemployed, yet it is unknown whether and how in other countries economic measures interact in their effect and whether and how they interact with

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individual-level determinants. The observed weak differences in the economic effects across distinct socio-economic groups may be particular for a comprehensive welfare state as the Netherlands, where economic vulnerabilities are comparatively low. In other contexts, with greater population heterogeneity in economic vulnerability and lower levels of social protection, the reactions to economic downturn and unemployment may be more sharply divided between social categories.

Appendix: Robustness Analyses We performed several analyses to check whether results were robust with distinct specifications. Results are available upon request with the authors. – ‘Don’t knows’ on solidarity measure: We checked whether omitting the ‘don’t know’ answers (19%) from the ‘sufficient’ category influenced our findings. This hardly did so; only the effect of economic downturn varied somewhat more across social categories (notably a less negative effect for middle and higher educated than for lower educated), yet with the same pattern as displayed in Table 5.3. To preserve statistical power, we decided to keep the ‘don’t know’ answers in our analyses (coded as ‘sufficient’). – Lagged effects of economic cycle factors: Lagged measures (t = −1, t = −2) for economic downturn and unemployment rate displayed a weaker effect for economic downturn, but still a strong effect for the unemployment rate. This indicates that the effect of economic downturn is more immediate than that of the unemployment rate. – Political stance: Including political stance in our models did not change economic cycle effects (and accompanying interactions). Political stance in itself has an effect though (which is moderate in size): holding a more right-wing political stance lowers solidarity with the unemployed (also see Jeene et al., 2014).

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– Analyses per time period: We also tested whether cross-level interactive patterns (in specific with the unemployment rate) were more prominent in one period than the other. We did this because Model 3 of Table 5.2 showed that the unemployment rate has a distinct effect in beginning years than later on (effect became more positive over the years). Findings were inconsistent; e.g. while before 1993 the unemployment rate effect was weaker among higher income groups (significantly so), the reverse was true from 1993 onwards. We think this inconsistency may have to do with the power at the year level that is reduced when analysing only certain subperiods.

Notes 1. Although the same argument could be made with respect to economic downturn (economic downturn decreases welfare solidarity indirectly through a decrease in household income), our measure of income is a relative one (distribution within each year) and does not capture the change in household income over years (also see data section). 2. That people feel that a certain benefit level is insufficient could partly be a reflection of the (perceived) actual level of benefit. But for the short term opinion fluctuations that we analyse this is probably not the case, since actual benefit levels are related to worker’s previous wages or to the minimum wage level, both of which do not show the drastic fluctuations in time that we do see in our dependent variable. 3. We do not use age categories or a non-linear age specification since we also model the pensioner status. 4. Additional analyses indicate that the economic downturn effect is likely to reflect the effect of economic crisis years rather than of economic boom years. So, it is more economic crisis than boom that affects solidarity opinions towards the unemployed. 5. As noted before, we use a relative income measure per year so that an indirect effect of economic downturn via (household) income was unlikely to start with (each year has about the same share of ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ people).

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References Alt, J. E. (1979). The politics of economic decline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Becker, J. (2005). De steun voor de verzorgingsstaat in de publieke opinie, 1970– 2000. Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. Blekesaune, M. (2007). Economic conditions and public attitudes to welfare policies. European Sociological Review, 23(3), 393–403. Blekesaune, M., & Quadagno, J. (2003). Public attitudes toward welfare state policies: A comparative analysis of 24 nations. European Sociological Review, 19 (5), 415–427. Bryson, C. (1997). Benefit claimants: Villains or victims? In R. Jowell, J. Curtice, A. Park, L. Brook, K. Thomson, & C. Bryson (Eds.), British social attitudes, the 14th report (pp. 73–88). Aldershot: Ashgate. Coughlin, R. (1979). Social policy and ideology: Public opinion in eight rich nations. Comparative Social Research, 2(1), 3–40. Deitch, C. (2004). Gender and popular support for the welfare state: Crossnational trends in a period of restructuring. Paper presented at the Annual Conference ISA-RC19 ‘Welfare State Restructuring: Processes and Social Outcomes’, Paris. Eardley, T., & Matheson, G. (1999). Australian attitudes to unemployment and unemployed people. Sydney: Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Enns, P., & Wlezien, C. (Eds.). (2011). Who gets represented? New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Erikson, R., MacKuen, M., & Stimson, J. (2002). The macro polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fraile, M., & Ferrer, M. (2005). Explaining the determinants of public support for cuts in unemployment benefits spending across OECD countries. International Sociology, 204, 459–481. Furaker, B., & Blomsterberg, M. (2003). Attitudes towards the unemployed: An analysis of Swedish survey data. International Journal of Social Welfare, 12(3), 193–203. Furnham, A. (1983). Attitudes toward the unemployed receiving social security benefits. Human Relations, 36 (2), 135–150. Galbraith, J. (1992). The culture of contentment. Harmondworth: Penguin Books.

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Gallie, D., & Paugam, S. (2002). Social precarity and social integration. Brussels: European Commission. Golding, P., & Middleton, S. (1982). Images of welfare: Press and public attitudes to poverty. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Gonthier, F. (2016). Parallel publics? Support for income distribution in times of economic crisis. European Journal of Political Research. https://doi.org/10. 1111/1475-6765.12168. Goul Andersen, J. (1999). Changing labour markets, new social divisions and welfare state support. In S. Svallfors & P. Taylor-Gooby (Eds.), The end of the welfare state? responses to state retrenchment (pp. 13–33). London: Routledge. Hills, J. (2015). Good times, bad times: The welfare myth of them and us. Bristol: Policy Press. Houtman, D. (1997). Welfare state, unemployment and social justice: Judgements on the rights and obligations of the unemployed. Social Justice Research, 10 (3), 267–288. Jeene, M., & van Oorschot, W. (2013). ‘The relative deservingness of the unemployed in the eyes of the European Public’. In L. Halman & W. Arts (Eds.), Value contrasts and consensus in present-day Europe: Painting Europe’s moral landscapes. The Hague: Brill, chapter 5, pp. 95–116. Jeene, M., van Oorschot, W., & Uunk, W. (2013). Popular criteria for the welfare deservingness of disability pensioners: The influence of structural and cultural factors. Social Indicators Research, 110 (3), 1103–1117. Jeene, M., van Oorschot, W., & Uunk, W. (2014). The dynamics of welfare opinions in changing economic, institutional and political contexts: An empirical analysis of Dutch deservingness opinions, 1975–2006. Social Indicators Research, 115 (2), 731–749. Kangas, O. (1997). Self-interest and the common good: The impact of norms, selfishness and context in social policy opinions. Journal of Socio-Economics, 26 (5), 475–494. Larsen, C. (2002). Unemployment and stigmatisation: The dilemma of the welfare state. In J. Goul Andersen & K. Halvorsen (Eds.), Unemployment and citizenship: Marginalisation and integration in the Nordic countries (pp. 55–72). Bristol: Policy Press. Larsen, C. (2006). The institutional logic of welfare attitudes. Aldershot: Ashgate. Maassen, G., & De Goede, M. (1989). Public opinion about unemployed people in the period 1975–1985: The case of The Netherlands. The Netherlands’ Journal of Social Sciences, 25, 97–113.

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Macleod, L., Montero, D., & Speer, A. (1999). America’s changing attitudes toward welfare and welfare recipients, 1938–1995. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 26 (2), 175–185. Sihvo, T., & Uusitalo, H. (1995). Economic crises and support for the welfare in Finland 1975–1993. Acta Sociologica, 38, 251–262. Uunk, W., & van Oorschhot, W. (2017). How welfare reforms influence public opinion regarding welfare deservingness: Evidence from Dutch time-series data, 1975–2006. In W. van Oorschot, F. Roosma, B. Meuleman & T. Reeskens (Eds.), The social legitimacy of targeted welfare: Attitudes to welfare deservingness (pp. 149–166). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. van Oorschot, W. (2006). Making the difference in social Europe: Deservingness perceptions among citizens of European welfare states. Journal of European Social Policy, 16 (1), 23–42. van Oorschot, W., & Meuleman, B. (2014). Popular deservingness of the unemployed in the context of welfare state policies, economic conditions and cultural climate. In S. Kumlin & I. Stadelmann-Steffen (Eds.), How welfare states shape the democratic public: Policy feedback, participation, voting, and attitudes (pp. 244–268). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Part II Biomedicine, Healthcare and Technology

6 Individualising Solidarities Liz McFall

In April 2019, the United Nations Special Rapporteur (UNSR) on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, published a damning report on the consequences of the social protection policy pursued by the Department for Work and Pensions in the UK. It might seem to some observers that the Department of Work and Pensions has been tasked with designing a digital and sanitized version of the nineteenth century workhouse, made infamous by Charles Dickens, rather than seeking to respond creatively and compassionately to the real needs of those facing widespread economic insecurity in an age of deep and rapid transformation brought about by automation, zero-hour contracts and rapidly growing inequality. (UNSR, 2019: 5)

The term ‘digital workhouse’ is an evocative description of some of the worst outcomes that have been associated with the adoption of datadriven innovations for the provision of social protection and health L. McFall (B) University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_6

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services in a number of European nations. It signals how recent European welfare reforms are beginning to reconfigure solidarity in an individualised mode, a mode where an individual’s characteristics, lifestyle and history are to be taken into account in service allocation. Philip Alston is the highest profile of a range of critics who have framed this as a reactivation of the ancient distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor but this time around it is data-driven automated decisionmaking tools that are being used to determine entitlement (Dencik, Redden, Hintz, & Warne, 2019; Eubanks, 2018). This section of the book explores the potential consequences of these changes. Van Lancker’s chapter addresses the stakes of having entitlement to social benefits judged by an algorithm rather than a human directly while the chapters by Prainsack and Van Hoyweghen, and by Dessers and Pless, demonstrate how related trends are playing out in the health and social care sectors. Since the 1980s, the strong commitment to the socialisation of risk that typified European post-war settlements has given ground to an increased privatisation or individualisation of risk. For around a century ‘welfare state’ arrangements combining features of welfare, democracy and capitalism in moderately redistributive social policy models have been common across Europe, particularly in the richer nations. These policy arrangements are so closely connected, at both practical and conceptual levels, to the idea of solidarity that they have become almost interchangeable (Baldwin, 1990). But the concept has a longer and more interesting history than this suggests. Solidarity in the Roman law of obligations referred to the unlimited liability of each individual member within a family or community to honour common debts (Bayertz, 1999; Prainsack & Buyx, 2017). This sense of ‘common cause’, as Prainsack and Van Hoyweghen put it, has remained as a unifying theme as the concept’s meanings in practice have shifted. In the early nineteenth century, solidarity was a political ideal, a rallying cry or communal goal to aspire to. By the end of the nineteenth century, the word had started to acquire a more defined shape as a mode of governance, one that could be conducted through infrastructures and techniques of welfare provision, particularly, as Prainsack and Van Hoyweghen explain, through the mechanism of insurance. In Francois

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Ewald’s (1991) analysis, insurance allows the task of determining fault to be set aside in favour of distributing the burden across a community of contributing members. Solidarity became something to be achieved through insurance and its capacity to organise interdependence rather than calculate individual responsibility. Through most of the twentiethcentury solidarity worked across Europe as a means of defining the context, limits and justification of state intervention and the conceptual grounds for social legislation designed to absorb the greater risks faced by certain members of society. This political settlement did not survive the century. Beginning in Britain in the 1980s, the tide turned to the New Right. State provisions were to be ‘rolled back’, safety nets to be reduced while the scope of individual responsibilities—and choices—was to be enlarged. This long, historical trend had shifted the grounds of the debate about solidarities, about how risk and responsibilities should be distributed between individuals and societies, long before big datafication made the oxymoronic process Zsuzsanna Vargha (2017) calls ‘mass personalisation’, a routine feature of the platform economy. By the 1990s, the most basic human desires for decent housing, health care, education and security were increasingly cast as a matter of individual market-based choices, not solidaristic social policies. As the tech industries began their unrelenting ascendance in the 2000s, they were abetted by an environment already primed for the choosing, enterprising individual. Equipped with data permitting analyses on scales that are at once intimate and super-massive, dynamic and historical, scattered and integrated, big tech promised a new way of addressing stubborn, difficult and expensive societal problems—a revolution that could transform ‘how we live, work and think’ as the techno-utopians Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier (2013) put it. The sovereignty states once held over data, evident in the word stat(e)istics, has been transcended by the small handful of giant corporations that have the means to harness big data. Governments have struggled to stay with the pace, to understand the processes and consequences of datafication and to govern the sector. At the same time, they have steadily turned towards big tech to find individualised solutions to the problems posed by welfare policies.

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These problems can be found across all the sectors where states have developed solidaristic welfare-based solutions from prisons to housing, schools to transport. The cases presented in this section—in health, in social care and in employment—all share the challenge Van Lancker identifies, of balancing fiscal capacity and popular support in a context of increasing demand. In health and social care, this presents as the challenge of providing accessible, quality, affordable care to meet the needs of growing, ageing and sicker populations. The success of Internet-based services, from Amazon to Apple, is predicated on allowing individuals to help themselves to services, to become their own curators, their own experts, selecting the services they want, in their own time. This redistributes some of the costs and labour of production on to the individual while cultivating a sense of a personalised, bespoke experience based on the internet’s capacity to remember individual transaction histories, where you’ve been, what you’ve bought, listened to, watched and searched for. Adapting this model to lower the costs and labour involved in welfare provision by placing a greater burden of responsibility on the individual is a particularly alluring proposition for the European governments that have been operating austerity policies since the Global Financial Crises of 2007–2008. Adopting ‘big tech solutionism’ (Morozov, 2013) for complex, social problems necessarily means further individualising them because the automated personalisation of offers to mass audiences is among the defining affordances of big tech. Between them, the three chapters highlight how two of the main tendencies towards the individualisation of solidarity—personalisation and algorithmic decision-making—can be identified in the sectors of health and social care and social protection. In the context of health and social care, governments across Europe have responded to funding and delivery challenges with ‘connected’, ‘precision’, and ‘personalised’ health strategies that have big data and digital innovation at their core. As Prainsack and Van Hoyweghen explain, while personalised medicine once referred to matching drug treatments to genetic markers it has since broadened to incorporate all sorts of practices that aim to tailor health services to the individual characteristics of patients. Personalised health is closely linked to that of integration, which

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Dessers and Pless describe as one of the solutions designed to enable care systems to increase communication and coordination between care providers, reduce the unnecessary costs of duplication of services and enhance continuity of care for patients moving from one care setting to another. ‘Personalised’ and ‘integrated’ care are propositions with a certain appeal. Putting the patient at the centre of care decisions that remember and recognise individual histories and integrate across medical, health and social care settings suggests humanising reforms. But as the authors point out, the discourse of personalisation can obscure the role of datafied and automated processes that do not so much recognise individual humans as unique persons, as series of data points are used to group them as having similar care needs or risk categories. When resources are scarce, this means they are likely to be targeted to those groups judged most likely—or in sectors like social protection, most worthy—to benefit but without the individual ever knowing how a decision was made, what kinds of information were used or even whether a human was involved in the decision. The use of automated decision-making systems in social protection is a paradoxical dimension of individualisation. Here the position of the individual, their entitlement or qualification for services is made more personalised, more specific to their own histories through the introduction of non-human decision makers. The failure of the Swedish Public Employment Service’s use of an automated process to verify entitlement described by Van Lancker and similar documented problems in the UK’s experiments with machine learning systems for the detection of benefit fraud have not deterred governments from developing automated decision-making systems. Both humans and machines make questionable decisions about welfare entitlement of course but automated decisionmaking systems introduced in a context of austerity may also replace the organisation of welfare solidarity through bureaucratic systems of crosschecking and appeal (Eubanks, 2018; UNSR, 2019). Humans, as Prainsack and Van Hoyweghen point out, can be asked to explain and be held accountable but even where there is the will to investigate a mechanised decision there is not necessarily the means to interrogate a proprietorial, black-boxed algorithm.

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Across the three chapters, individualising currents in which common cause is becoming more conditional on individual’s characteristics, lifestyle and history, are central to the shifts in solidarity. What is also clear is that current conditions are not ‘settled’, public commitments to solidaristic provision, particularly universal health care, remains strong across Europe. Practically and organisationally it is not clear that attempts to personalise solidarity along the lines of contemporary experiments in self-tracking using insurance mechanisms can succeed in spheres like health care (McFall, 2019). It is possible even in a datafied context to articulate new forms of solidarity that recognises our shared vulnerability.

References Baldwin, P. (1990). The politics of social solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bayertz, K. (Ed.). (1999). Solidarity. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Dencik, L., Redden, J., Hintz, A., & Warne, H. (2019). The ‘golden view’: Data-driven governance in the scoring society. Internet Policy Review, 8(2). http://doi.org/10.14763/2019.2.1413. Donzelot, J. (1988). The promotion of the social. Economy and Society, 17 (3), 395–427. Eubanks, V. (2018). Automating inequality: How high-tech tools profile, police, and punish the poor. New York: St Martin’s Press. Ewald, F. (1991). Insurance and risk. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (pp. 196–210). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mayer-Schönberger, V., & Cukier, K. (2013). Big data: A revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. McFall, L. (2019). Personalizing solidarity? The role of self-tracking in health insurance pricing. Economy and Society, 1–25. http://doi.org/10. 1080/03085147.2019.1570707. Morozov, E. (2013). To save everything, click here: The folly of technological solutionism. New York: Public Affairs.

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O’Malley, P. (1996). Risk and responsibility. In A. Barry, T. Osborne, & N. Rose (Eds.), Foucault and political reason (pp. 189–208). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Prainsack, B., & Buyx, A. (2017). Solidarity in biomedicine and beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. United Nations Special Rapporteur (UNSR). (2019). Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his visit to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland United Nations General Assembly (A/HRC/41/39/Add.1). Vargha, Z. (2017). Performing a strategy’s world: How redesigning customers made relationship banking possible. Long Range Planning, 1–15. http://doi. org/10.1016/j.lrp.2017.03.003.

7 Shifting Solidarities: Personalisation in Insurance and Medicine Barbara Prainsack and Ine Van Hoyweghen

Introduction: Personalisation— The end of Solidarity? The Lure of Personalisation Personalisation has become a buzzword in medicine and healthcare. Having become popularised in the aftermath of the Human Genome Project (HGP), when Personalised Medicine meant the matching of drug treatments to genetic markers of groups of people, the notion has since broadened to include a much wider range of practices, and wider ranges of data (Prainsack, 2017a; for a history of this first “big biology” project, see B. Prainsack (B) University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] I. Van Hoyweghen KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_7

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Hilgartner, 2017). Many policy reports and academic papers now subsume all practices under the label of Personalised or “Precision” medicine that seek to tailor prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring more closely to individual characteristics of patients (NAS, 2011; see also Juengst, McGowan, Fishman, & Settersten, 2016). Such individual characteristics are not only captured in the form of molecular—e.g. genomic or proteomic—information, but also in the form of information on lifestyle and other social and personal characteristics (Ausiello & Shaw, 2014; Weber, Mandl, & Kohane, 2014). The “targeting” of healthcare to individual characteristics and needs is hoped to make healthcare more effective, and to spare people and societies the side-effects and cost of interventions from which they would not benefit. Personalisation, understood in this way, has not only become a foundational paradigm1 in the context of medicine and healthcare, but it has also started to act as a guiding principle in many other public and commercial domains. It works through many different technological practices, including digital apps, social media (e.g. Bennett & Segerberg, 2012), big data analytics and artificial intelligence to aid diagnosis, treatment choice and behaviour change (e.g. Krittanawong, Zhang, Wang, Aydar, & Kitai, 2017). It brings together different types of information to calculate consumer scores that are sold to companies and public administration (Dixon & Gellman, 2014; see also Van Lancker, in this volume). Practices and technologies of personalisation permeate everyday life in many societies in the world. From marketing and pricing of consumer goods to public policy to education and social care, personalisation seems to be an attractive way to deliver services and goods. The more a company knows about the preferences and habits of its (actual or potential) customers, for example, the more effectively it can tailor advertisements, products and services to individuals. The more governments know about the practices of citizens the more effectively they can match communication and services to them, and the more effectively they can steer their conduct (Straßheim & Beck, 2019). On the demand side, many people do not merely want to buy a car that drives them from A to B, or a phone that they can communicate and entertain themselves with. These

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products are marketed to them as opportunities to express their “individuality”—for which the items need to be personalised. This is not only true in high-income countries, where the personalisation of goods and products helps people articulate their favourite image of themselves. Also in low- and middle-income countries, the personalisation of services, including healthcare and energy (Lee & Song, 2019), and products such as smartphones, can function as vicarious luxury. The way in which personalised consumer goods can make people feel seen puts a shiny gloss over the fact that some of their fundamental needs remain unmet. In sum, in many societies, personalisation has long stopped to be a trend, but it has become a dominant paradigm in neo-liberal markets (Çaliskan & Callon, 2009; Fourcade & Healy, 2013; Rosanvallon, 2013).

Personalisation and Solidarity: Do They Go Together? In this chapter, we will look at personalisation in two domains—insurance and healthcare—to explore its effects on solidarity. We understand solidarity as the capacity to summon as a “we”, where a “common cause”, or an important commonality in other ways, is recognised by a group of people as worthy of collective concern and action (Callon, 2007; Stengers, 2014; Van Hoyweghen, 2018). When we enact solidarity, we are expressing a (shared) commitment to accept the “costs” (in the wide sense of the word) of supporting others with whom we consider ourselves to have things in common that matter in a specific context of practice (Prainsack & Buyx, 2017). Where practices of personalisation enter into areas of public service provision, personalisation is often seen to threaten solidarity (e.g. McFall, 2019; Meyers & Van Hoyweghen, 2018). This is especially the case when personalisation is taken up within institutions that are organised according to solidaristic principles—the paradigmatic example being universal healthcare. The process of dynamically stratifying people into (ever smaller) groups, and using these “personalised” classifications not only for treatment and other clinical purposes but to determine different levels or kinds of contributions that people need to make to the financing of the system, is seen as breaking up the idea of risk

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and income solidarity that have characterised many welfare state institutions. In its ideal form, the Western-European Welfare State is an organised, institutionalised system of risk and income solidarity. It has developed from group solidarity among workers, to solidarity between workers and employers, to solidarity between larger social groups. In return for a regular contribution that is determined according to their ability to pay (income level), people are entitled to benefits or services to protect them against the risks of sickness, old age or unemployment (Pestieau, 2006; Ter Meulen, Arts, & Muffels, 2001). Solidarity, here, implies risk pooling where those with “good luck”—namely those for whom the risks that insurance seeks to cover do not materialise—carry (part of ) the costs of those who experience these harms. Today, the use of datasets that capture ever wider aspects of people’s bodies and behaviours to stratify them into more granular and more dynamic groups according to their “personalised” profile is typically seen as a threat to the idea of risk and income solidarity. Put differently, while solidarity, in the “traditional” welfare state, has been based on linking individuals to the collective through the insurance technique of “risk” (Ewald, 1986), how can solidarity be enacted when individuals are now linked to the collective through other mechanisms? What happens when these mechanisms are the data-driven dynamic assembling and (re-)assembling of groups, sometimes drilling down to individual levels and creating “groups of one” (see also Batten, 2018; Walls, Forkus, & Coria, 2019)? Can these new forms of dynamic classifications be(come) the source of collective concern and action, and of solidarity? If, as outlined above, we understand solidarity as the capacity to summon as a “we”, where a “common cause” is identified as the thing that a group of people can recognise as a shared characteristic and thus consider worthy of collective concern and action (Callon, 2007; Prainsack & Buyx, 2017; Stengers, 2014; Van Hoyweghen, 2018), then the question emerges in this context whether this “common cause”, and thus a commitment to support others with whom we share such a common cause, is threatened by current developments of personalisation. Practices of de-solidarisation through personalisation are not only problematic in the sense that they make invisible what people have in common, but

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also because the very categories and data that are used for the personalisation (of clinical predictions, or insurance premiums) are often not visible to the people affected by it. The latter situation could be seen to remove another ground for collective action. At the same time, however, we argue that personalisation on the basis of individual characteristics and behaviours captured in digital data can give rise to new forms of solidarity. We all have in common that our bodies and lives are datafied; that we have very little control over who will benefit from the use of our data, and how. These commonalities could give rise to collective action. We will conclude our chapter by arguing that, where people’s fundamental needs and interests are concerned, we need a return to the original idea of solidaristic risk pooling: In determining how much people need to contribute to the system, our institutions and policies should deliberately ignore individual differences to avoid undue exclusion and social injustices.

Shifting Solidarities: Personalisation in Private Insurance Developments in big data analytics and wearable technologies are generating a growing interest in predictive health data (genetics, lifestyle, environmental data) in private insurance. These innovations promise the reduction of insurance costs and more accurate (i.e. personalised) pricing through the personalisation of premiums and products (Blassime, Vayena, & Van Hoyweghen, 2019; McFall & Moor, 2018). Proponents of personalisation in insurance emphasise its potential to support healthy lifestyles, for example, to promote more responsible driving, or make people more accountable for their behaviour (Ernst & Young, 2016; Swiss Re 2017). At the same time, data-driven personalisation in insurance has been met with some alarm over the last years. The fear that it could also mean increased targeting, discrimination and exclusion seems plausible for an industry based on the classification and assessment of risk groups (Van Hoyweghen, 2014). Unlike in most social insurance

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arrangements, private insurance (such as life and car insurance) differentiates between risk groups through the process of risk selection: Insurance clients are charged a premium that statistically reflects the level of risk they bring into the insured pool according to the principle of “actuarial discrimination”. This principle implies that private insurance charges higher premiums, or excludes applicants, if the risk that these clients represent (e.g. medical conditions, age, profession, disability) is statistically higher than average.2 To avoid that people are excluded on unfair grounds, many countries have issued anti-discrimination and data protection regulation in place that prohibit the use of particular protected categories in insurance.3 For example, at the EU level, the use of race and ethnicity must be used in insurance pricing according to anti-discrimination legislation (Gellert, De Vries, de Hert, & Gutwirth, 2013). More recently, the EU Gender Directive has forbidden gender as a classification factor in private life, disability and car insurance (Rebert & Van Hoyweghen, 2015). Solidaristic risk pooling is legally enforced here as these laws forbid the use of protected characteristics (e.g. race, gender) in making an insurance pricing decision. National law often extends this prohibition of discrimination to additional protected characteristics, such as place of residence, or even the vulnerabilities resulting from someone’s economic situation (Drechsler & Benito Sánchez, 2018).

“We Are All Genetic!”—A Rally for Genetic Solidarity in Insurance When the use of genetic testing took off in the context of the Human Genome Project in the late 1990s, one of the most contentious debates regarding its social impact was to be found in the field of private insurance. Should insurers be allowed to use genetic information as a means to select suitable candidates for insurance? The issue was a key concern within debates during the development of genetic non-discrimination legislation worldwide (Quinn, de Paor, & Blanck, 2014). Underlying this fear of genetic discrimination has been a deterministic vision of genes

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as ultimate causal constituents of human health and disease. The location of a fundamental difference between humans, seemingly inscribed in the biology of our genes, and any policies based on such information, also evoked shared memories of eugenics. Moreover, fear of genetic discrimination was linked to a deep-rooted understanding of insurance as an instrument of solidarity, and not one of discrimination. The possible advent of a “genetic underclass” was considered an exemplary case of the decline of an ethos of solidarity, expressing wider concerns of social exclusion against the background of the retrenchment of European welfare states. Within these framings, genetic discrimination became defined as an issue requiring particular attention and special treatment in the public policy arena. Genetics-specific patient groups have fuelled regulatory action by raising awareness through public media, political campaigns and lobbying. Their quest for non-discrimination also aligned with the agendas of national and international institutions as well as human rights organisations and led to the development of important legislation on this topic. In Europe, the Council of Europe’s “Oviedo Convention of Human Rights and Biomedicine” (Council of Europe, 1997) clearly set the tone by prohibiting any form of discrimination on the grounds of one’s genetic heritage. Advocacy to prohibit genetic discrimination did not only stimulate the compassion of others for those “genetically at risk”, but was also framed as an issue that affects all of us, in referring to the idea that “we all”, as susceptible to genetic diseases, could become the target of discrimination. Genetic non-discrimination regulation was thus brought about not only by genetics-specific patient movements, but by a coalition of diverse actors including patient organisations, human rights organisations, public administrators and civil society representatives. It has granted special protection to genetic information in insurance by positioning it as an exception to the general insurance principle of actuarial discrimination. By establishing genetic information as a collectivising rather than an individualising force, the public policy rally for genetic non-discrimination regulation has resulted into a politics of solidarity around genes.

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‘Only the Lonely’—The Lock-in Effects of a Politics of Genetic Solidarity in Insurance The discourse of genetic commonhood emerging out of the advocacy for genetic non-discrimination regulation expresses a universalist body politics: Despite our individual differences, we are all the same in that we all face genetic risks, and we should all be protected from the costs (financial and otherwise) that may result if these risks materialise. Nobody should be penalised for having higher genetic risks than others. Preventing genetic discrimination in insurance has, in this way, become a matter of solidarity. The common denominator in this politics of genetic solidarity is the idea that genes are a basis for universalism, a common humanity that is grounded in our shared biological essence. We are the same even in that we are all individually different. What connects us all is that we are all “carriers of genes” (Van Hoyweghen, 2018). However, the very sources for the success of such a politics of genetic solidarity are also the roots for its demise. While genetic nondiscrimination can be an instrument to obtain more inclusive insurance (by extending the arguments against genetic discrimination to other forms of discrimination, such as pre-existing medical conditions or disability), the politics of genetic solidarity has protected the principle of actuarial discrimination from broader scrutiny. Because genetic non-discrimination legislation places genetic information as an exception from, other, non-genetic information, discrimination on the basis of other factors associated with higher risks is established as unproblematic. The politics of genetic solidarity, with its exceptional treatment for the genetically at risk, has even resulted into harsher penalties for people with “bad lifestyles”. People cannot be blamed for the genes that they “carry”, so the argument goes, but they can be held responsible for things that they can supposedly control. This larger focus on what is framed as “lifestyle risks” relies on the idea that genetic and non-genetic factors can be played out against each other. Ensuring legal protections for those genetically at risk has increased the premiums for those who are deemed to have presumedly non-genetic, “controllable” lifestyle risks, such as smoking, fitness and obesity. In other words, there is no “we” when we discuss lifestyle risks in insurance. There are only individual

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BMIs, fitness levels and smoking habits. Responsibility is located here at the level of the individual, and insurance policies target the actions of individual behaviour that are assumed to be within the control of individuals. The politics of genetic solidarity thus comes with the effect of amplifying a “logic of control vs. no-control” (Hendrickx & Van Hoyweghen, 2018), articulating lifestyle “choices” as isolated events to be controlled by individuals, where no common cause can be detected as a source of solidarity.

“Choosing to Do Better”—Behaviour-Based Personalisation in Insurance In line with this control/no-control logic, the insurance industry has gone InsurTech 4 with the development of new markets focusing on wearable devices and digital technologies for “behaviour-based personalisation” (Meyers & Van Hoyweghen, 2018). Insurance contracts are tailored to the behaviour of the customer on the basis of the assumption that physical activity and other lifestyle factors have a predictive impact on health and other relevant characteristics. In September 2018, the US-based insurer John Hancock announced that they would no longer sell “traditional” insurance policies where people are placed in a risk category that determines their premiums once and for all, and instead sell only interactive policies that track fitness and health data through wearable devices and smartphones (BBC News, 2018). The launch of this insurance product raises the spectre of an insurance landscape in which surveillance of daily lifestyle behaviour will become a compulsory requirement for insurance clients. Behaviour-based personalisation applies also outside of the health sector. An increasing number of car insurance companies now offer incentives and reduced fees that are calculated on the basis of data collected by a small telematics device installed in the car. This device provides the insurance company with a variety of behaviour-based measures (e.g. driving habits, speed, car use and the like). An interactive, dynamic discount-infrastructure is set up to provide real-time feedback to incentivise policyholders towards “good

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behaviour”. Depending on how well people drive, their premiums will be adjusted. Where car insurers usually underwrite premiums at a fixed moment in time, namely when buying a policy, and based on relatively “stable” risk factors such as age, car type, location, the new personalised feedback infrastructures make drivers accountable for their driving “choices” in a dynamic and volatile manner. Bad days no longer disappear in the comforting aggregation of data points over time. Within this new regime, policyholders experience increased individual responsibilities that are, ironically, framed as a service that the insurance company offers to its customers: by giving drivers feedback about their driving they give drivers the opportunity to learn and improve their driving style accordingly. Within this rationale, the insurance premium is presented as the result of a choice by the driver who is assumed to be capable of “choosing to do better” (Meyers & Van Hoyweghen, 2018). The new normal produced here is an always better version of the person at base-line, an “optimism of the will” (Lury & Day, 2019: 29). Behaviour-based personalisation is rooted in the idea that people can be nudged towards the “right” direction by cleverly designed choice architectures (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). The fact that insurance companies promote behaviourtracking with the promise of lower premiums seems questionable also in the context of these companies’ business models: Would companies use behaviour-based premium adjustments if this reduced the sum of premiums paid? We call it a “casino pitch” that insurers use to promote behaviour-based personalised pricing to their clients: companies know that most of them will lose, and the main winner will be the company itself. These examples reveal something about how personalisation affects the (un)shaping of solidarity. Having one’s insurance premium calculated according to a continuously adjusting version of oneself does not result in the “individualisation of risk” (McFall, 2019; Meyers & Van Hoyweghen, 2018). Behaviour-based personalisation, such as our example of dynamic car insurance, uses premiums that reflect a person’s behaviour-changing “work”, and it does so through continuous feedback mechanisms. While these technologies act on the person to shape their behaviour, this is not the same as the individualisation of risk

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(McFall, 2019). Behaviour-based personalisation is never just individual but always entails relations between the individual and a population. The tracking of a person’s driving behaviour feeds back into the categorisation of the driver’s score through an aggregated web of data points and comparison to the data from others. Personalisation thus always involves new ways of classifying people, and the linking of individuals with the collective through data-driven dynamic assembling and (re-)assembling (Lury & Day, 2019; Moor & Lury, 2018). Given their volatile and dynamic character, however, these new forms of classification are unlikely to become the source for collective concern and action. Individuals are represented by data points without ever quite becoming a group that (can) recognise itself as such, nor imagine itself as discriminated against (McFall & Moor, 2018). In other words, behaviour-based forms of classification do not (easily) map onto recognisable categories of social identification and collective action. Its dynamic character makes it difficult to consolidate a newly appearing (and possibly soon disappearing) group as an “us” (Moor & Lury, 2018), as a made-visible social entity that recognises similarity as the base for a politics of solidarity. Behaviour-based personalisation makes it near impossible to see one’s own context, in the sense of the reference groups or socio-political categories with whom one might feasibly act in concert (McFall & Moor, 2018). We call this the un-stickiness of data-driven risk categories (Meyers & Van Hoyweghen, 2018). Unlike statistical risk factors that can “stick to” people (Prainsack, 2015), data-driven personalised categories leave both the individual scores and the reference groups in constant flux. They are less “sticky” categories, thereby making it hard(er) for people to find shared concern in being classified (for the time being) by algorithmic personalisation.

“We Are All Carriers of Data” This raises the question of whether these new ways of dynamic (re-)grouping of people through behaviour-based personalisation in insurance can ever give rise to non-discrimination advocacy as a politics

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of solidarity. While some work has begun to focus on the notion of “algorithmic discrimination” (Hacker, 2018), few scholars have addressed the flip side of such segmentation, namely practices of bridging, belonging and mutual support through algorithmic (re-)grouping in data-driven personalisation (see for an exception, Ewald, 2012). Legal work in this field argues how anti-discrimination and data protection laws need to be integrated to secure the fundamental right to data protection of individuals, as these regulations currently do not provide adequate protection against discriminatory pricing algorithms in insurance (Drechsler & Benito Sánchez, 2018). Moreover, this fundamental right to data protection opens up a framing of algorithmic discrimination that affects “all of us”, mobilising the idea that “we all”, as carriers of data could become the target of discrimination.

Shifting Solidarities: Personalisation and “Precision” in Healthcare Is Personalisation in Healthcare Really New? Many clinicians and other health professionals who have direct contact with patients will consider the work that they do as “personalised”, and as “putting the patient in the centre”. Many of them will consider it problematic that the proponents of contemporary iterations of Precision Medicine in particular claim the notion of personalisation and patient-centeredness for themselves (ESF, 2012; Juengst et al., 2016). Some would even go as far as arguing that medicine has never been as unpersonal as in the current era of data- and technology-driven medicine (e.g. Vogt, Hofmann, & Getz, 2016). As noted in the beginning of the chapter, as a concept, Personalised Medicine gained traction in the beginning of our millennium, following the HGP. When the HGP did not, as some had hoped, deliver insights into the ultimate causes for health and disease, researchers sought to yield clinical benefits by matching drug treatments to the genetic makeup of individual patients—which seemed the lowest hanging fruit (Collins, Green, Guttmacher, & Guyer, 2003; Hedgecoe, 2004; Tutton, 2014).

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An area where some clinical care pathways have become personalised on the basis of genetic and genomic knowledge is oncology, where the molecular analysis of tumours is increasingly common: Different diagnoses and treatment courses can be established on the basis of whether or not a patient’s breast cancer expresses specific hormone receptors, for example. At a more general level, however, knowledge of person’s DNA sequence, in most cases, does not enable us to predict health and disease. Apart from monogenic disorders where a single genetic factor causes a disease, most health problems emerge from a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors (Gurwitz, 2013; Hendrickx & Van Hoyweghen, 2018; Keller, 2010; Prainsack, 2018). This means that the entire patient—her body, her lifestyle, and her environments—have become potentially relevant factors in the understanding, prediction and control of health and disease. Digital transformations within our society have made it possible to capture ever wider ranges of these data in ways that are painless and unobtrusive for the patient (e.g. Ausiello & Shaw, 2014), so that many of these aspects become—at least in principle—usable in the healthcare context. The notion of Precision Medicine, promoted in a seminal report by the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS, 2011), marks the shift from a kind of Personalised Medicine that was strongly oriented towards the use of genetic and genomic knowledge towards a type of medicine that claims several paradigm shifts at once: It is supposed to be proactive instead of reactive; drawing upon continuous data capture (also from healthy people) instead of collecting data only when people are sick (e.g. Ausiello & Shaw, 2014; Forkan, Khalil, Ibaida, & Tari, 2015)—and it promises to empower patients by being more participatory and personalised than biomedicine has been in the past (Hood & Flores, 2012; Prainsack, 2017a). Against the backdrop of these developments, there are concerns that the focus on individual differences will have a corrosive effect on solidarity. In connection with the provision of health insurance that is accessible and affordable for all, personalisation does indeed threaten the principle of risk solidarity (understood as solidarity between groups who are seen as carrying different risks; see Lehtonen & Liukko, 2015). It challenges the idea that, although we each have different health risks, due to our

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different genetic predispositions, environments, and lifeworlds, as a society, we deliberately ignore individual differences. Instead, we act upon something that we all have in common, namely that we are all vulnerable to illness and are all likely to require healthcare at some point of our lives. Another concern about the effect of personalisation on solidarity pertains to what we call silent rationing : instead of using stable categories and thresholds to determine who has access to treatments or services in a way that is transparent to everyone, the marriage of digital and molecular practices enables the dynamic and largely invisible stratification of people into groups that they may not even be aware that they belong to. Understood in its most radical form, the imperative of Personalised and Precision Medicine is that no two patients should be treated exactly the same, and each should be given diagnosis, treatment and monitoring that is tailored to their specific, individual characteristics. Against this backdrop, and as we know more about the molecular, behavioural and psychological differences between patients, there is pressure to stratify people in ever more granular and also increasingly dynamic ways (Prainsack, 2015). These practices of stratification do not place people in stable diagnostic or therapeutic groups where they then remain for a long time. Instead, they create new group categories on the basis of molecular and other characteristics that may be short-lived. For example, breast cancer screening is no longer reserved for the broad category of women above a certain age. Instead, women who carry a particular molecular characteristic—e.g. one of the BRCA gene mutations that increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer considerably—are invited for screening from a much younger age, in smaller intervals, and they have access to special screening services in certain healthcare systems. The molecular classification, in turn, may intersect with other categories used for risk stratification such as family histories and lifestyle characteristics. Furthermore, when a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, the choice of treatment that she will receive is often influenced by the size of the tumour, the stage of the cancer, and the woman’s personal status and preferences (e.g. menopausal status, age, would she prefer breast-conserving surgery, if possible?), but

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also by the tumour’s molecular subtype including hormone receptor status and other genomic markers. This means that the old, “sticky” categories of gender and age are now operating in combination with molecular and other categories pertaining to molecular characteristics, treatment response, familial, lifestyle-related or genetic risk factors to shape the care pathway. Many of these stratification practices aim solely at increasing the health and life benefits of the affected women, such as the aforementioned tumour typing, which aims at sparing women whose genetic makeup means that they would not benefit from a specific drug the burden and side-effects of painful treatments. Also taking into consideration the personal preferences of women as to whether or not they prefer invasive or less invasive treatments is a welcome practice as it is likely to have a positive effect of the woman’s quality of life. Personalisation, in this sense, can be a welcome development.

Silent Rationing But what happens when resources and services are scarce, and access to them will be limited to those who have the highest predicted benefit? In other words, what if those that are excluded are not merely women who will not benefit from an intervention, but those that are predicted to benefit less than others? This is the realm of silent rationing: The categories and practices of stratification are becoming harder to trace, and sometimes entirely invisible. The affected people have no control over (at least some) of the categories that are used for stratification and do often not even know that a certain type of information is used. This, of course, applies also to clinical decision making in traditional contexts, where patients do often not know what information is used to put them into different diagnostic, prognostic or therapeutic groups. When decisions on stratification are made by humans, however, these humans can be asked to explain and be held accountable. Such explicability and accountability are much more difficult when decision makers are machines (Wachter, Mittelstadt, & Floridi, 2017). Moreover, when categories of stratification are dynamic and the association between people and categories are fluid, this makes it practically impossible for people

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to address biases that have implications on fairness and equity; let alone to recognise themselves as part of a social “group”, imagining themselves as discriminated against (Moor & Lury, 2018; Prainsack, 2019). Moreover, as soon as behavioural information is used, such as activity levels or sleeping patterns, it is only a small step to moralising these behaviours. For example, let us assume that two patients compete for a place in the same clinical trial. Both have the same predicted benefit based on factors such as their cancer type and stage, their overall health status, their genetic predisposition. One of them is then found to lead a more sedentary lifestyle and sleep irregularly. In this situation, it could appear perfectly “rational” to exclude the woman with the unhealthy lifestyle and give it to the other. In this manner, the use of behavioural information to stratify patients into groups for diagnosis and treatment can introduce personal responsibility into healthcare stratification through the back door. Taking the argument a step further, behaviours would no longer need to be openly labelled as irresponsible in order to be seen problematic. Instead, seemingly innocuous behavioural characteristics such as preferences for certain types of foods, or exercise habits, if found to be associated with worse disease outcomes than other characteristics, would acquire the role of “neutral” evidence upon which people are excluded from certain services. Given that those living in economic and social deprivation have, on average, worse health status, it is possible that characteristics that are prevalent in this group could become markers of worse health outcomes. Through these mechanisms, practices of silent rationing would introduce social justice issues on top of the health disparities that we are already observing in many societies. Silent rationing threatens solidarity not by attacking it head-on, but by quietly taking it apart into small pieces.

Conclusions Solidarity has been a source of political inspiration for the building of welfare states in Europe. It is the “moral infrastructure” (Hinrichs, 1995) of social and private insurance arrangements that protect citizens against the risks of illness, accidents, unemployment. In this chapter, we have

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explored the effects of personalisation in present-day healthcare practices on this ethos of solidarity. Unpacking some of the practices and mechanisms of personalisation in the fields of insurance and medicine, we argue that technologies of personalisation do not, as such, result in the mere un-pooling, or even the individualisation, of risk. Personalisation always still involves the establishment of particular relations between a person and a reference group that is underplayed in debates about the decline of solidarity in this context. However, the capacity to summon as a “we” is heavily downgraded by the opacity and the dynamic nature of these new dynamic data-driven classification practices. As a result, people are left alone on the treadmill of algorithm-generated scores. In a quest to bring down one’s cost of living in the light of stagnating or shrinking wages and rising un(der)employment, people are supposed to reduce their insurance premiums by choosing to drive better, or by choosing to take another walk to reach their exercise goal. With regard to personalisation in insurance, another threat to solidarity comes from the lure of personalised pricing. When drivers, for example, are told that they can reduce the premiums that they pay by giving insurance companies access to their driving patterns through a device installed in their vehicle, this could be seen as the “fairest” way to determine premiums (Meyers & Van Hoyweghen, 2018). It avoids lumping people together into groups on the basis of categories that they have no control over (e.g. genetics or gender), and it does not lock them into ever-fixed statistical groups based on stereotypical risk factors. If somebody makes a mistake and ends up paying higher premiums, they can try to get out of this by displaying better behaviour. From this perspective, the situation seems a win for everyone. But is it? There are two institutional dangers here: first, that public authorities will consider dynamic and personalised pricing the best way forward, and that they will devolve the responsibility for the pooling of existential risks—that is, healthcare, natural catastrophes, etc.—to individual citizens using dynamic and personalised pricing. We consider this is a highly problematic development not only because of the loss of public responsibility for the fair provision of services (and the democratic legitimacy and accountability that comes with public service provision), but also because behaviour-based, personalised premium-setting shifts

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responsibility onto the shoulders of individuals. It echoes the idea that health is a manageable thing, to be optimised at will. The second institutional danger that we see here is that we are “editing out” social justice considerations from our institutional arrangements. As shown in the examples of personalised insurance and healthcare, seemingly risky and otherwise unhealthy practices that correlate with poor outcomes may increasingly decide on exclusion or inclusion. We know that such undesirable practices are strongly associated with social and economic deprivation. This situation, however, is not only rendered invisible by the air of objectivity and neutrality that data-driven analyses entail, but also by the fluid nature of data-driven risk stratification. If a correlation is found between two factors, then acting upon this correlation is seen as following the data, and as not making a political decision (Van Hoyweghen, 2014). Especially where behavioural aspects underpin such stratification, risk also becomes a matter of personal responsibility. Part of the solution to this problem lies in a return to the roots of solidaristic risk pooling. Perhaps counterintuitively, even Personalised and Precision Medicine can give rise to new practices and politics of solidarity. Personalisation is never about only one person, but always involves the exploration of similarities and other relationships to others, and extrapolations to larger groups (Lury & Day, 2019; Prainsack, 2017b). All forms of personalisation involve the establishment, reinforcement, or the undoing of particular relations between a person and a reference group (Moor & Lury, 2018) that is underplayed in debates about the decline of solidarity in Personalised Medicine. We also argued that, in extension of a politics of genetic solidarity, it would not be far-fetched, in our view, to use the idea that “we all carry data” to call for solidaristic systems protecting us from harms independent of our individual data configurations and characteristics. This implies a solidarity which is based on a notion of shared vuln erability, which is in this case our vulnerability as “datafied people” to become the target of profiling (Van Hoyweghen, 2018). This way, data could become the thing that we all have in common, the new heritage of humankind in the digital era.

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Such a politics of solidarity is particularly timely given that it is becoming easier to stratify people into ever smaller groups on the basis of seemingly objective data on individual characteristics and behaviour. Especially where the protection of people from the risks of illness, injury, homelessness, and poverty is concerned, the nature or size of contributions required from people (in terms of healthcare rationing or insurance premiums) should ignore individual differences, despite the fact that these differences can now be calculated in a much more granular manner. Such ignoring of individual differences would not be due to a lack of knowledge, but due to the deliberate decision that these differences between people—including those relating to their health and their behaviour—should not determine what or how they should contribute to the collective system. More broadly, where people’s fundamental needs and interests are concerned, institutions and policies should be built on the basis of what we all have in common—that we all get sick, that we all need a stable and affordable home, and that we all need education and training—and not what sets us apart, such as different molecular characteristics, social and economic circumstances, and personal and social behaviours. Solidarity is not about pretending that no differences exist, but about deliberately committing ourselves not to act upon these differences in what we expect from people. The main dangers to solidarity in the field of healthcare are not personalisation per se, but the political, economic and social factors that exclude people from access to services and goods that they need (Prainsack, 2017a, 2019). They include lack of adequate and affordable insurance, open or implicit biases, or other formal or informal barriers (Matthew, 2018). In addition, a real threat to solidarity is a public discourse that emphasises differences in costs and risks between people and suggests that these differences fall within the realm of personal responsibility, such as unhealthy lifestyle “choices”, migration status, or others who are considered as “free riders” in another way (Hendrickx & Van Hoyweghen, 2018). These people, so it is argued, have removed themselves from the realm of those who deserve our solidarity. Such rhetoric is particularly pervasive in times when political discourses also emphasise the strains on healthcare budgets. It ignores entirely, however, that ageing societies and the rise of chronic diseases are only a part of the factors that account for rising costs of healthcare;

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other, so-called residual factors include rising prices for drugs and treatments, rising costs due to overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Thus, instead of excluding certain groups of people, such as those with high BMIs or smokers, from solidaristic healthcare systems, it may be more effective— and ethically more acceptable—to cut costs by reducing waste, and by preventing overdiagnosis and overtreatment (Prainsack & Buyx, 2017). Using solidarity to exclude people whose personal or social practices challenge the dominant moral order perverts the notion of solidarity. Solidarity takes place when our assistance of others is an actual “cost” to us, also when these others may seem people we consider undeserving. Supporting those who are like the ideal version of “us” is a very weak and easy form of solidarity. Deep solidarity means to enact solidarity also when it hurts. The best way to protect ourselves from diminishing solidarity is to ensure that the fundamental needs of people are met outside of free market service provision.

Notes 1. By foundational paradigm, we mean that personalisation is no longer merely a specific option that doctors or patients choose, or do not choose. Instead, it has become a programme that shapes ideas of what medical research and practice should look like. This means that the question is no longer whether or not personalisation in medicine and healthcare should take place, but how it is configured and implemented in different contexts and settings. 2. Risk selection, or underwriting, is the process in which insurers deal with adverse selection in markets, the phenomenon whereby high-risk individuals are more prone to buy insurance policies than low-risk individuals, which creates an imbalance in the insurance portfolio. 3. This would regularly be required in connection with constitutional and other protections from discrimination. In the European context, the right to freedom from discrimination—as enshrined, for example, in Art. 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights—is to be understood as a right to freedom from undue discrimination, that is, discrimination on the basis of characteristics whose use cannot be duly justified in a given

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situation. The European Court of Human Rights has problematised classification of some people into a group when this “prohibits the individualised evaluation of their capacity and needs” (e.g. Carvalho Pinto de Sousa Morales v. Portugal). 4. Insurtech is a portmanteau of “insurance” and “technology” that was inspired by the term FinTech (financial technology). The idea driving InsurTech companies is that the insurance industry is ripe for innovation and disruption through innovation in digital technology.

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8 Automating the Welfare State: Consequences and Challenges for the Organisation of Solidarity Wim Van Lancker

Introduction On Wednesday 8 May 2019, Uber and Lyft drivers organised a strike. While an organised strike by workers is quite common, this one was rather peculiar. It was coordinated by workers who by the very nature of their platform work are difficult to organise and who are working all over the globe, thousands of miles apart from one another. In that sense, the strike was truly ‘global’. Uber and Lyft drivers logged off from their apps and gathered in cities such as London, San Francisco, New York, Melbourne, São Paulo and Nairobi. Rather typical, the aim of the action was to increase wages and improve working conditions but chants in Melbourne amongst the striking drivers revealed a less visible target: ‘Uber, Uber, you must listen. We will break your algorithm!’ (Conger, Xiuzhong, & Wichter, 2019). W. Van Lancker (B) KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_8

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In February 2019, it was revealed that problems within the Swedish Public Employment Service (PES) had led to erroneous payment decisions for up to 70,000 unemployed people. Many of them stopped getting welfare payments. The reason? An algorithm ‘going rogue’ (Wills, 2019). One of the conditions to receive unemployment benefits in the Swedish system is to actively seek for a new job. The Swedish PES fully automated the process of checking these obligations, and that automated check went awry. After the error was discovered, the PES stopped using the algorithm and human intervention was needed to sort things out. Technological progress has disrupted the organisation of solidarity for ages, and today’s fourth industrial revolution is no different in this respect. The widespread use of digital technology, including ‘Big Data’ analytics, machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence, digital platforms, and advanced robotics, is changing the organisation of the welfare state and affecting its potential to ensure a decent living standard for everyone. It is commonly acknowledged that established welfare states are rich, capitalist democracies in which incomes are redistributed by means an institutionalised form of solidary, i.e. progressive income taxation or social contributions to finance compulsory social insurance schemes, social assistance schemes and the provision of services (Baldwin, 1990; Greve, 2012). Whether it is an algorithm becoming your boss, or your request for benefits or services being handled by an algorithm, the fourth industrial revolution is shifting the way such institutionalised form of solidarity is organised. In this chapter, I will discuss the ways in which the organisation of welfare state solidarity is shifting as a consequence of increasing automation and automated decision-making (ADM). First of all, I examine the way new technologies are undermining the potential of social insurance techniques to organise social protection. Second, I discuss more in-depth how digital platforms affect the organisation of social insurance schemes. Third, I discuss to what extent the use of predictive statistical tools to assist or replace human decision-making in welfare state organisations is changing the way social rights and benefits are granted, and how this might aggravate existing inequalities. The chapter concludes by highlighting some of the challenges for the future organisation of welfare state solidarity.

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How Job Automation Might Jeopardise Social Insurance Automation has received a large deal of attention in the economics and sociology literature, mostly in terms of the impact of automation on the labour market. In some highly mediatised reports, it was claimed that further automation and robotisation would lead to about half of current jobs becoming obsolete (Frey & Osborne, 2013). This has led to widespread fear of a future society in which unemployment would rise dramatically. This would have obvious consequences for the organisation of welfare state solidarity. More recent research focusing on tasks within jobs instead of jobs as a whole, however, paints a less bleak picture and emphasises that automation will affect about 10% of the workforce across OECD countries (Arntz, Gregory, & Zierahn, 2016). What is true, however, is that not all workers run the same risk of being replaced by automated processes. Several authors empirically observed a process of job polarisation in contemporary labour markets (Autor & Dorn, 2013; Goos, Manning, & Salomons, 2014; OECD, 2017). This is the phenomenon that employment grows in low-paid low-skill jobs on the one hand and high-paid high-skill jobs on the other, at the expense of middle-paid jobs. It is argued that those middle-paid jobs are also the ones in which most tasks are susceptible to automation. Hence technological change and automation affect routine-tasks within middle-paid jobs, although there is evidence that such effect differs according to the institutional context (Fernández-Macìas, 2012). In contrast, others show that in a number of European countries there is mainly evidence for job upgrading: employment growth tends to be stronger in jobs with higher earnings or requires higher skills (Oesch & Piccitto, 2019). Although the jury’s still out in terms of how the fourth industrial revolution affects the labour market, what we do know is that employment opportunities for particularly low skilled workers (with no secondary degree) are deteriorating (Gesthuizen, Solga, & Künster, 2010). Indeed, low-skilled persons already face high risks of unemployment and poverty across OECD countries. If automation aggravates the skill gap in employment opportunities, this poses problems for traditional social insurance schemes. The basic

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tenet of social insurance is simple. Akin to private insurance principles, in return for a regular contribution (premium) when people are working, the insured are entitled to a benefit or service that prevents a fall in living standards when a specific risk such as sickness, old age or unemployment occurs (Barr, 2012; Pestieau, 2006). It should be noted that social insurance is discussed here in general terms, not necessarily referring to one particular country or practice. Typical for social insurance is that it is compulsory (and thus universal) but not actuarially fair since it involves at least some degree of redistribution from low-risk individuals to high-risk individuals. Consider a high-skilled programmer in the gig economy and a low-skilled factory worker. The risk of becoming unemployed is much higher for the latter, but both are obliged to pay the same (usually proportional) premiums. Hence there is redistribution from the high-skilled IT engineer to the low-skilled factory worker if the latter becomes unemployed. Such compulsory social insurance schemes allow anyone who has contributed to the system by paying premiums to attain a minimum standard of living. At least in principle. Typically, social insurance of such form covers risks that would not be covered under private insurance schemes (Stiglitz & Rosengard, 2015). It is compulsory to avoid adverse selection, i.e. that people with low social risks opt out of such system of risk sharing in which they apparently have less to gain (Barr, 2012). For voluntary unemployment benefit schemes to be sustainable, premiums will either be too high for high-risk individuals to bear which results in low coverage levels or the level of protection offered by the insurance will be too low (Atkinson, 1991). Compulsory social insurance is financed by general taxation and/or wage-based contributions which unavoidably means higher taxes. To be sustainable, then, social insurance schemes not only need sufficient fiscal capacity but also popular support. Popular support for the welfare state in general has always been high, but it is much lower for specific groups in societies who are perceived as less deserving (van Oorschot, 2006). For instance, social expenses for generous pensions are usually popular because pensioners are perceived to be deserving of a pension after a lifetime of contributions, while expenses for the long-term unemployed are much less popular. They are often regarded as being unwilling to seek employment (see the chapter

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by Uunk and van Oorschot in this volume). If the risk of becoming unemployed will be increasingly concentrated amongst the low skilled due to automation processes, preserving popular support for sufficiently high unemployment benefits and coverage will be a major challenge.

What Happens if Your Boss Is a Piece of Code? Recently, labour markets and social insurance schemes are facing another challenge that is related to automation: the rise of non-standard forms of employment, in particular freelancers and independent contract workers working in the so-called platform economy (also referred to as ‘gig economy’ or ‘crowd economy’). According to the OECD, an online platform is ‘a digital service that facilitates interactions between two or more distinct but interdependent sets of users (whether firms or individuals) who interact through the service via the Internet’ (OECD, 2019: 21). Basically, platforms are marketplaces ran by algorithms for matching supply and demand for goods, personal services and information, in the form of mobile apps. Well-known examples are Uber and Lyft (transportation), Airbnb (rental accommodation), Deliveroo, Foodora and Grubhub (food delivery by couriers), and Wonolo (marketplace for offline task services) and Amazon MTurk (marketplace for online tasks). Platforms offer the advantage of lower transaction and fixed costs and a more instantaneous, flexible matching of supply and demand. Wonolo, for instance, is a marketplace for temporary agency work, targeted at blue-collar workers for sectors in which people are usually needed for a short period of time on a short terms notice, for example, for stocking shelves and warehouses. A recent survey estimates that around 8% of the adult population across European countries perform work in the platform economy at least once a month, ranging from 4% in Finland to 10% in the UK (Pesole, Urzí Brancati, Fernández-Macías, Biagi, & González Vázquez, 2018). Most platform workers combine occasional platform work with other activities such as studies or other main jobs. As a main source of income, platform work shares are still limited in most European countries, ranging from 1% of adults in Finland to about 4% in the UK. Other estimates for European countries are in the same range

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(Huws, Spencer, Syrdal, & Holts, 2017). Other forms of non-standard work are gaining ground as well. Katz and Krueger (2019) estimate that the share of temporary agency workers, on-call workers, contract workers and independent contractors or freelancers has grown considerably in the US, from 11% of workers in 2005 to 16% in 2015. Although still limited, the fastest growth occurred in online platform work. In the Netherlands, the number of independent contractors or ‘self-employed without personnel’ (so-called ZZPs) grew considerably from about 8% of all workers in 2003 to 12% of all workers in 2018. As such, the number of platform workers who work in transportation or food delivery, provide online services, or find temporary work through digital platforms is not negligible. This has the potential to profoundly change the funding base for social insurance schemes (Schoukens, Barrio, & Montebovi, 2018). The problem is this: many platform workers are self-employed, independent contractors instead of employees. In that case, the platform is not an employer but only a mediator to match service providers and clients. Nearly all companies behind the platforms explicitly state that they are tech companies, solely responsible for providing the technology to facilitate the matching of supply and demand (Prassl, 2018). Uber, for instance, asserts that ‘drivers are independent contractors because (..) they can choose whether, when, and where to provide services on our platform’ (Uber Technologies Inc, 2019). Companies like Deliveroo and Foodora issued similar statements. In many countries, the status of independent contractor has been fought in court by trade unions, drivers and couriers, but the discussion on the legal status of platform workers in most countries is not settled to date (Eurofound, 2018). Why is that a problem for welfare state solidarity? First of all, providing a decent level of social protection for selfemployed persons in general and independent contractors in particular through social insurance schemes is problematic, depending on countryspecific labour law provisions and social insurance legislation (Buschoff & Protsch, 2008). Traditionally, social insurance schemes have been designed to provide insurance for contingencies affecting the standard of living of ‘standard workers’: fulltime dependent workers with stable, open-ended contracts with an employer (Schoukens et al., 2018). Usually, there are contribution conditions, which mean that one has had

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to pay sufficient premiums before becoming insured. People working in non-standard working arrangements, e.g. on a succession of short-term contracts, often cannot contribute sufficiently to unemployment insurance or pension funds before their contract is ended. In turn, they do not qualify for unemployment benefits or accrue pension rights, which will leave them worse off relative to standard workers. Moreover, every insurance scheme is prone to the problem of moral hazard. Moral hazard refers to the problem of overconsumption or risky behaviour because one is insured. For instance, the mere existence of unemployment benefits could encourage some to become voluntary unemployed. Obviously, if this happens on a large scale, it would lead to the collapse of the insurance scheme. To avoid moral hazard, then, it is required for an employer to acknowledge the termination of the employment contract so that only involuntary unemployment is insured. Because for the self-employed, there is no bond with an employer, labour market contingencies such as unemployment, occupational injuries or sickness are difficult to insure (OECD, 2018). As a result, the selfemployed are usually not covered or covered less under social insurance schemes (Spasova, Bouget, Ghailani, & Vanhercke, 2017). An analysis of European Member States showed that only in 4 countries the self-employed are entitled to the same social protection levels as standard workers (European Commission, 2018). Since independent contractors in the platform economy combine characteristics of both fixedterm employment and self-employment, this makes it particularly difficult to be covered under social insurance schemes. If they are covered, they usually enjoy lower levels of social protection compared with standard workers. Most employment rights do not extend to independent contractors (De Stefano, 2015). Secondly, independent contractors working ‘for’ platforms are not really independent. In principle, platform work is on-demand work, with no obligation for the tech company behind the platform to provide a regular amount of work but guaranteeing flexibility for the worker to accept tasks whenever it suits him or her best. In reality, however, such autonomy is an illusion and many platform workers enjoy less freedom than standard workers (Josserand & Kaine, 2019). Independent contractors are de facto dependent on the algorithm matching supply and

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demand. In an illuminating study, De Stefano and Aloisi (2018) document how platform rules strongly limit the autonomy and flexibility of platform workers, in particular for transport services and delivery platforms. For instance, bicycle couriers are expected to wear a uniform, show up at pre-defined waiting spots, use their own material, follow a pre-defined route upon being assigned a task. Trade unions and actions groups raised concerns about the dependency of ‘independent’ workers on opaque algorithms on multiple occasions.1 The algorithm behind delivery platforms tracks the location, speed and time spent at the customer, and these parameters are supposedly weighted to assign new tasks. Testimonies from Deliveroo bicycle couriers show, for instance, that it is unknown to them how and why the algorithm assigns specific orders to a particular courier. Moreover, resting time requests are also handled by the algorithm in many cases. If couriers take a break against the advice of the algorithm, according to some reports they are getting fewer orders. There is a built-in system of dependency and control, and platform workers do not enjoy the autonomy that should be part and parcel of being an independent contractor. Under such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that many platform workers identify themselves as employees of the platform even if their legal status is that of an independent contractor (Pesole et al., 2018). A Eurofound (2018) review of the literature confirms that in practice many platforms limit autonomy of workers by imposing systems of control and performance monitoring which determine (at least partly) the algorithmic task assignment. However, it is important to mention that this holds in particular for workers involved in passenger transportation, delivery or repetitive piecework. Those who carry out online, creative tasks on demand do enjoy more flexibility and autonomy. Platform workers are also dependent in terms of pay. While the selfemployed are not covered by collective wage bargaining agreements, many platform workers cannot set their own tariffs but have to follow platform regulations. Many studies showed that workers in the platform economy are paid less relative to standard workers (Bergvall-Kåreborn & Howcroft, 2014; Cantarella & Strozzi, 2019; Felstiner, 2011). Some platforms even singlehandedly lowered fees and thus workers’ wages without the workers having any say in this. This is one of the issues

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that sparked the protest mentioned in the introduction. In an illuminating vignette experiment, Datta (2019) finds that about half of workers in atypical arrangements in the UK and the US would prefer working in more standard work arrangements. They value security more than flexibility. The fact that it is difficult to unionise independent contractors who don’t have a fixed workplace and are taking orders from an algorithm, makes it hard to improve working conditions (see the chapter by Morgan and Pulignano in this volume). All this results in a triple whammy for platform workers: since they perform task-based activities on an independent basis they enjoy little job security, the tasks they perform are often low paid, and they have few entitlements to social protection when they are out of work.

Would You Rather Be Judged by an Algorithm or by a Human Being? ‘Algorithmically driven, automated decision-making (ADM) systems are in use all over the EU’. This is one of the introductory statements in the report ‘Automating Society’, a report by AlgorithmWatch in cooperation with Bertelsmann Stiftung that was presented in 2019 in the European Parliament. ADM means that human decision-making (HDM) capacities in public administration, corporations or organisations are partially or completely delegated to data-driven, algorithmically controlled models. Well-known examples exist in the fields of insurance, profiling, human resources, journalism, credit scoring systems, the criminal justice system and in a range of online and social media applications (O’neil, 2016). Large companies deploy algorithms to filter and prioritise job applicants before human action is taken. Algorithms predicting future criminal behaviour are shaping judicial decisions on granting parole to prisoners. And of course, the algorithms assigning tasks to platform workers are an example of this evolution too. There are numerous examples of how human tasks in modern economies are assisted or replaced by digital technology and automated modes of decision-making. ADM is also increasingly at the core of the provision and allocation of benefits and services in welfare states. It carries the promise of a more

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effective delivery of benefits and services. For instance, welfare states are still plagued by substantial levels of non-take up (NTU). This is the observation that a substantial number of people are entitled to support or benefits but do not actually receive it or have access to it. In particular for means-tested benefits, NTU frequently affects more than half of the eligible population (Eurofound, 2015). NTU is not only a problem for social benefits but also for a wide range of welfare state services. In a report issued by the European Commission, it was stated that the most important problem to be addressed is ‘the failure of [employment] services to reach the most disadvantaged’ (Bouget, Frazer, & Marlier, 2015: 6). Those people often face a double disadvantage because in many countries registration with an employment service is a precondition for being eligible to social assistance or unemployment benefits. In that case, noncompliance translates into a high risk of living in poverty and social exclusion. In short, the existence of non-take up jeopardises the effectiveness of public welfare state systems of solidarity. Although the reasons for NTU are manifold, the role of social professionals in public administration is important. In a variety of settings, professionals or civil servants have to decide upon or carry out an increasingly complex set of rules, guidelines and instructions. This is called discretion, some leeway in their decision-making (De Wilde & Marchal, 2019). Because legislation can never be tailored to every specific circumstance or situation, discretion means that professionals can and will exert their power to treat clients or customers differently and choose a particular course of action in accordance with their own, subjective judgement. Be it a teacher who decides upon grade retention, a human resource professional who has to decide upon inviting a job candidate or not, or a social worker who has to judge whether a client was searching hard enough for a job. Previous research has shown that the use of discretion by social professionals responsible for checking eligibility to social assistance benefits leads to inequality in treatment, to delays in the process and to mistakes in the final decisions (De Wilde, 2018; Lipsky, 2010). Importantly, a substantial share of the variation in decision-making can be explained by characteristics of social professionals, including their welfare state attitudes and their perceptions of deservingness of clients. In other words, sometimes people don’t get what they are entitled to

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because the professional judging them is prejudiced (De Wilde & Marchal, 2019). This is where automated decision-making processes enter the equation. Public administrations are increasingly relying on big datasets which include interlinked social security and labour market information of citizens. Algorithms, then, are the tools used to churn these datasets to identify potential beneficiaries, prioritise benefits claimants or service users, predict fraudulent behaviour or asses compliance with eligibility conditions. ADM is promising in avoiding the errors human unavoidable make: algorithms are not prejudiced and treat everyone on the same footing, automated processes running on big datasets are usually cheaper than humans ploughing through case files, and it shows great potential to proactively identify potential beneficiaries and grant social rights automatically which should lead to much higher take-up rates. Numerous examples of how automated process has been implemented in public and social security administration have been documented (overviews in AlgorithmWatch, 2019; Human Rights Watch, 2019). In Sweden, the Public Employment Service automated the eligibility check for unemployment benefits. Similarly, in Ontario, Canada, predictive analytics are replacing human caseworkers to check eligibility and benefit levels for social assistance benefits. In the Netherlands, an automated system (SyRI) to detect social and benefit fraud is now in full operation, while in the UK the Department of Work and Pensions is developing a fully automated process to predict benefit fraud. Also in the UK, Universal Credit is fully automated based on real-time earnings of beneficiaries. In Belgium (Flanders), algorithms are prioritising clients of the Public Employment Services for personal counselling. In Australia, then, fully automated systems in the new CentreLink system are paying out benefits and recovering overpayments (Whiteford & Millar, 2017). In several countries, child protection services increasingly rely on predictive models to identify children at risk of abuse or neglect (Chouldechova, Benavides-Prado, Fialko, & Vaithianathan, 2018; Eubanks, 2018). Why is this also a problem for the organisation of welfare state solidarity? The use of algorithms churning big data can compound the effect of simple errors, automated decisions taken can be biased and perpetuate prejudice because the models are based on skewed or low-quality

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data, and grave concern has been voiced about a lack of transparency and accountability in automated decisions. In 2018, it was announced that Amazon would abandon its automated program to automatically screen résumés and rate applicants for its available jobs. It turned out that the algorithm was biased against women, reflecting gender inequalities in the field of IT, tech and engineering. Trained by biased data, the program learned that men were better suited for tech jobs and as a consequence were more likely to end up top of the list. Despite its aura of neutrality and objectivity, automated decisionmaking tools are only as good as the data they are fed with. While the Amazon example might seem innocent, applied to social protection the consequences of bias could be devastating. For instance, algorithms that are deployed on big databases to predict child abuse will disproportionally target minorities and low-income families, because that was the prejudice that crept into human decision-making before. If future decisions are based on prior, skewed data, these biases will be reproduced. In that way, unintentionally, automation strengthens existing exclusion of lowincome families, minorities or other persons at risk of exclusion (Calders & Žliobait˙e, 2013; Eubanks, 2018; Shorey & Howard, 2016). Particularly problematic here is the scale of things. While case managers can be (and are) prejudiced leading to unequal treatment of clients, automatic decision-making risks compounding errors affecting thousands of beneficiaries at once. The example of the Swedish Public Employment Services mentioned in the introduction of this chapter is an illustration of how errors affect thousands of beneficiaries at once instead of only a few. In her book on automation practices in the US, Virginia Eubanks (2018) documents how the systematic replacement of caseworkers by automated processes in the welfare administration in Indiana has led to a dramatic reduction of beneficiaries due to deliberate policies to save money, technological failures, inability to hold private contractors accountable and the lack of human oversight to intervene in the process or rectify computer errors. As such, the problem not only lies with data quality, it also lies in the very nature of social protection and service provision which often relies on human judgement that cannot easily be quantified or programmed

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(Veale & Brass, 2019). Michael Lipsky once famously wrote that ‘the nature of service provision calls for human judgement that cannot be programmed and for which machines cannot substitute’ (2010: 161). Although human discretion inevitably leads to misjudgement, it can also lead to empathy, care and the possibility to bend the rules to the benefit of vulnerable people. Moreover, replacing human decision-making by automated process might increase the non-take up of social rights because many vulnerable people lack the digital savviness to deal with online application systems. Automated processes in benefit systems also affect professional judgement in other ways. If professionals are still in charge but they are aided by automated systems providing advice or recommendations, for instance based on data provided through administrative databases, this is likely to influence their professional judgement. Such automation bias has been documented extensively, and can again lead to error because incorrect recommendations are followed without considering other sources of information (such as information provided by the clients) (Bahner, Hüper, & Manzey, 2008; Skitka, Mosier, & Burdick, 2000). More in general, life experiences are complex and automated systems, even if they are top-notch, may not always be able to cope with these complexities. The fully automated welfare benefit systems in the UK (Universal Credit ) and Australia (CentreLink), for instance, are testimony of how such systems are inapt to deal with fluctuations in earnings and employment arrangements. In a recent study, Whiteford and Millar (2017) document how these fully automated systems matching data on incomes, family composition and employment in real time, predicting benefit payments, and automatically recovering overpayments are extremely error-prone. As a result, the number of alleged overpayments in Australia rose tenfold with many families having to repay large amounts of debt, disproportionately affecting families with irregular incomes. A similar thing happened in Britain, and in both countries it sparked huge public controversy.2 The evolutions discussed in the first section in this article might exacerbate this problem, because the more atypical employment arrangements will become, the more complex people’s lives will become.

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Finally, the lack of transparency and accountability is a problem deeply engrained in automated decision-making. Usually, social professionals dealing with clients and benefit recipients are not those who have designed the algorithm nor do they have access to the black box of automated decision-making. For instance, the algorithm ‘going rogue’ in the Swedish Public Employment Services couldn’t be fixed in part because it was unclear where in the black box the error occurred. Human Rights Watch concluded in its 2019 submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights that the Swedish example “illustrates that the automation of fraud determinations at scale replicates errors in data processing and analysis across the entire system, leading to incorrect benefits changes and penalties that affect thousands of beneficiaries. The lack of transparency compounds these failures, preventing beneficiaries from accessing information about their case or participating in its adjudication” (Human Rights Watch, 2019: 14). It is hard to challenge decisions and benefit refusals if it is not clear on the basis of what criteria the decision was made, particularly so if administrators and social professionals themselves are no longer aware of the logic of the decision-making process. Similar issues arise in the platform economy with couriers having no clue how and why they get or aren’t getting new orders or tasks. The algorithms weighs, the algorithm decides.

Conclusion: Challenges for the Organisation of Solidarity Automation in the welfare state has many faces. While automation in the labour market and the ‘creative destruction’ of jobs through robotisation has received ample scholarly attention, how other forms of automation may affect the organisation of solidarity received less attention in the public debate. In this chapter, I discussed how digitalisation, the rise of the platform economy and automated decision-making in public administration are shifting solidarities in established welfare states. First of all, platform work, in particular in the transportation and delivery sector, is a small but fast-growing segment of contemporary labour markets in terms of number of workers and net worth. It is

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part, and accelerator of, a broader change towards more atypical employment arrangements, including a growing number of self-employed and independent contractors. This can profoundly affect welfare state solidarity because it becomes more difficult to sustain social insurance systems which traditionally rely on standard employment contracts. While welfare state solidarity was built on the notion of collective solidarity through compulsory social insurance, many platform workers are de facto dependent on algorithms assigning tasks while bearing the social risks individually. They receive low pay for the work they do, and enjoy little income protection when they are out of work. Second, automation is changing the nature of benefit and service delivery in welfare states. The growing use of automated forms of decision-making such as algorithms churning big data sets to identify potential beneficiaries of welfare state support is promising to avoid some of the well-known biases and errors that creep into human decisionmaking. At the same time, however, automated decision-making risks exacerbating prejudice and inequality, while compounding errors affecting thousands of people at once, and it changes the role of social professionals in the organisation of the welfare state. On top of this, algorithms matching supply and demand through digital platforms or automated forms of decision-making often suffer from a lack of transparency. Importantly, these evolutions are not independent and they risk reinforcing one another. For instance, the more atypical labour trajectories become, the more error-prone automated decision-making systems will become. The less likely platform workers are able to qualify for social insurance, the more likely they will become dependent on means-tested benefits, increasing pressures for more cost-efficient welfare delivery. How can welfare state solidarity then be maintained in an automated future? First, welfare states need to rethink the organisation of welfare state solidarity. This can be done through either more selective, targeted benefits to low-income workers and families, or more universal policies, providing income protection for all. Both routes can be ways to offer income protection irrespective of a worker’s legal employment status or past contributions to social insurance. Yet, these two routes are not neutral. While targeted benefits are associated with high levels

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of non take-up and algorithmic decision-making might aggravate existing inequalities, universal policies are usually much more expensive. The fundamental question then is whether welfare state solidarity should be expanded (the universal route), or adapted to a new reality (the selective route). Second, automated processes should be tested properly, including clear guidelines on whether and in what cases algorithms should and shouldn’t be deployed. In the use and operation of automated forms of decision-making, human involvement and agency are indispensable. Finally, there is need for accessible appeal mechanisms to allow beneficiaries to challenge erroneous decisions, and processes for identifying, correcting and mitigating discrimination and bias in system inputs and outcomes need to be developed. For instance, in Europa the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) stipulates that consumers have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (art. 22 GDPR). Individuals have the right to obtain human intervention, to express their point of view, and to contest the decision. However, it remains a challenge to enhance transparency and safeguarding accountability in the field of social and employment policies as well. Ever-increasing processes of automation lead to shifting solidarities in the welfare state. From collectively organised solidarity to individualised forms of solidarity; from universal policies offering income security for all to selective means-tested policies for those who need it. These changes are not only buoyed by algorithmic decision-making, algorithms also carry the promise of neutrality and more efficiency in the organisation of solidarity. But as the evidence presented in this chapter testifies, that is not necessarily the case. If the answer is ever-increasing automation, this might simply increase existing inequalities.

Notes 1. Examples include https://www.justice4couriers.fi/2018/10/11/whenmr-robot-is-your-boss-working-under-algorithms/ and https://www. justice4couriers.fi/2019/02/22/how-couriers-are-controlled-during-theirshifts/.

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2. The Guardian has a series of articles on the consequences of Universal Credit and CentreLink, providing a good overview of the controversies sparked by the policy. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/ society/universal-credit and https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ centrelink (October 24, 2019).

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9 Shifting Organisational Solidarity in Health and Social Care Ecosystems Ezra Dessers and Sam Pless

Introduction Solidarity is usually understood as a mutual attachment between individuals, encompassing two levels: a factual level of common ground between individuals, and a normative level of mutual obligations to aid each other (Bayertz, 1999). In organisation studies, organisational solidarity (Sanders, Flache, Vegt, & Vliert, 2006) refers to the solidarity of both employees and management with their organisation. Organisational solidarity encompasses the factual level of people finding common ground with respect to the organisational goals in which they are involved, in E. Dessers (B) HIVA—Research Institute for Work and Society, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] S. Pless Health Innovation Expertise Centre, University College Leuven-Limburg, Diepenbeek, Belgium © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_9

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terms of delivering a product or a service to a certain client group. Organisational solidarity also refers to the normative level of mutual assistance, and can be seen from people within organisations who contribute to the success of the team or the organisation as whole, are prepared to help others in need, resist the temptation to let other members do most of the work, share responsibilities, and are prepared to apologise for mistakes. Organisational solidarity implies employee behaviour that has an overall positive effect on the functioning of the organisation, and that cannot simply be enforced by the employment contract (Organ & Lingl, 1995). Sanders et al. (2006) state that organisational solidarity is seen as a key precondition for organisational performance. In this chapter, we focus on the shifting of organisational solidarity in the health and social care sector. Due to the rapid ageing of the population, the number of people with multiple chronic conditions in many high-income countries is growing at a fast rate (Goodwin, Stein, & Amelung, 2017). In this chapter, we show that, in order to tackle the many challenges our health and social care systems are faced with, care delivery will increasingly become a shared outcome of the deployment of multiple actors, including different health and social care providers, but also patients and informal caregivers. People who receive care and support are not passive users of care, but are carriers of activities within the care process (Hermans, Buyck, & Van Audenhove, 2017). We explain that new ways of organising are required in order to realise care delivery in more integrated manner. We introduce the concept of ‘care ecosystem’ as a means to understand what these new ways of organising could look like. We argue that a care ecosystem perspective implies that organisational solidarity will need to be stretched across the borders of single care organisations and individual care providers and include patients and their informal caregivers. Based on an analysis of 15 cases of care ecosystem design from 7 different countries (Mohr & Dessers, 2019a), we explore the relevance of factual and normative shifts in organisational solidarity in ecosystem design, and possible ways to influence these shifts in organisational solidarity in an ecosystem context. We conclude that a care ecosystems approach may contribute to shift and widen the scope of organisational solidarity across organisational boundaries in health and social care sectors which face increasingly challenging demands.

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The Need for Integrated Care The ongoing demographic evolution leads to a mismatch between the complex needs of increasing numbers of people with chronic conditions, and the care system’s acute, episodic medical orientation (Kodner, 2009). Acute conditions were originally more visible and urgent to combat, and this orientation gave way to specialisation rather than generalisation of medical knowledge (Cassel & Reuben, 2011). Different areas of medical knowledge were translated into specialised professions. The logic of specialisation was maintained in the design of healthcare organisations (Glouberman & Mintzberg, 2001). Specialised healthcare organisations and departments were gradually able to deliver excellent acute medical care. A large number of acute conditions that were lethal at the start of the twentieth century became curable by the end of it (Michaud, Murray, & Bloom, 2001). A by-product of this specialisation was however the emergence of a highly fragmented care landscape. First, specialised sectors have arisen. In Belgium (Dessers et al., 2016)—as in many other countries—the healthcare sector (which is primarily focused on medical care) has largely developed independently from the welfare sector (which is primarily focused on (psycho)social help and support). Each sector has its own organisations and professional care and support providers. However, people with a chronic condition often need medical care as well as psychosocial support, which is difficult to achieve with separate care systems in place. Second, the fragmentation is also the result of far-reaching specialisation between organisations. The care sector has seen the development of specialist organisations, each active in their own field, such as hospitals, home care organisations, specialist practices, family care services and general practitioner practices. People with a chronic condition are confronted with a multitude of organisations that each is able to provide only part of the required care and support. Third, the tendency for specialisation also persists within individual care organisations. For example, in a hospital, patients continuously see different specialists and nurses by their bedside and the patient is wheeled from one department to another for examination and treatment. There is evidently a need for specialist

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expertise, but the trend towards specialisation has resulted in compartmentalised organisations, which hinder smooth collaboration between the care providers, and with other actors (Corvers & Van Hootegem, 2013). The integration of care is one of the solutions that is expected to enable care systems to increase communication and coordination between care providers, reduce the unnecessary costs of duplication of services and enhance continuity of care for patients moving from one care setting to another (Dates, Lennox-Chhugani, Pereira, & Tedeschi, 2018). Since the fragmentation of health and social care systems is related to the predominantly functionally specialised organisation of the care system, it can only be fundamentally tackled by bringing together the whole of care activities that are provided to a particular patient or patient population (e.g. in a multidisciplinary team), instead of fragmenting them across different departments, organisations and individual care providers. A prerequisite for this patient-centred organising is the identification of target groups with similar care needs (de Sitter, den Hertog, & Dankbaar, 1997). For example, long-term patients with a single pathology could be distinguished from those with a multi-pathology. Once these target groups are identified, care delivery can be organised per corresponding target group, in a multidisciplinary team. At the inter-organisational level, a care network could group the target-oriented deployment of several organisations, independent care providers, and informal caregivers based on the needs of the specific target group (Dessers et al., 2016). Moreover, grouping activities together which are internally strongly interdependent (because they are all part of the same care process), while having little external interdependence with other activities in the health and social care system, reduces the need for extensive and costly coordination mechanisms (de Sitter et al., 1997; Pless, Van Hootegem, & Dessers, 2018). In the literature on care integration, frequent references are made to population-oriented care, as part of which populations are defined based on their care requirements (Care Continuum Alliance, 2012; Valentijn, Schepman, Opheij, & Bruijnzeels, 2013). Also in policy we see this principle of organising care delivery around specific target groups return, for instance in the recent primary care reform plan in Flanders, Belgium (Agentschap Zorg en Gezondheid,

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2017). Although much of health and social care delivery is still organised in a highly functionally specialised way, examples of cross-functional integration can also already be found in practice, for example, in multidisciplinary teams within certain specialised hospitals (Pless et al., 2018), or multi-organisational intervention teams in mental healthcare networks (Sels & Van Hootegem, 2019).

Care Ecosystems While much is known already about ways to improve care integration within single organisations (Pless, Van Hootegem, & Dessers, 2017), and on care integration within organisational networks (Provan & Kenis, 2008) (which are deliberate, formal, target-oriented groupings of specific actors, across organisational boundaries), far less is known on how to move the larger constellation of actors towards a more integrated care delivery, across organisational and network boundaries (Dessers & Mohr, 2019b). (Organisational) ecosystems can be defined as dynamic and coevolving communities of diverse actors who create and capture new value through both collaboration and competition (Kelly, 2015). The ecosystem concept has gained quite some attention as a new perspective for understanding and redesigning care delivery in recent academic literature (see, e.g., Beirão, Patrício, & Fisk, 2017; Darling & Turkki, 2009; Frow, McColl-Kennedy, & Payne, 2016; Pikkarainen, Pekkarinen, Koivumäki, & Huhtala, 2018), as well as in professional healthcare literature (see. e.g., Aughton, 2016; Davies & Boelman, 2016; Lawer, 2018). A care ecosystem would then be a collection of actors which each is involved in some aspect of delivering care for a certain target group, and in which the collected actors are co-producing a result that none of the actors can achieve independently (Dessers & Mohr, 2019a). A specific care ecosystem is thus defined by a framed purpose, a connection to the needs of a certain target group. Primary care for the population of a particular region is an example of a care ecosystem. Primary care aims at the provision of universally accessible, integrated, personcentred, comprehensive health and community services (EXPH, 2014).

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A primary care ecosystem may involve many different actors: individual actors, including people with care needs, informal caregivers, general practitioners (GP), independent nurses and psychologists; organisations, including patient organisations, multidisciplinary primary care centres, mental healthcare providers, home care organisations, social care organisations, municipal governments, employment agencies and schools; networks, including mental health-care networks, diabetes care trajectories, dementia networks, GP networks and acute care networks. The design of such a care ecosystem will therefore be about creating a platform which enables actors to create innovations in the collaborative delivery of integrated care. Collaborative capacity can be built among existing actors within these ecosystems, and interventions could be established to explore and facilitate the potential of building new collaborative structures. Designing ecosystems would imply having actors cocreate shared purpose across new constellations and conceive new ways of working among ecosystem actors, thus enhancing the viability of the whole ecosystem (Mohr & Dessers, 2019a).

Organisational Solidarity In the introduction, we defined organisational solidarity in terms of finding common ground with respect to organisational goals, and feeling a mutual obligation to support each other in working towards these goals. It should be noted that organisational solidarity is of increasing importance in situations in which employees work in teams and enjoy considerable autonomy, and in which employers expect team members to show teamwork, voluntary participation, willingness to cooperate and mutual informal control in order to keep the processes running. Put differently, the employer needs solidaristic behaviour from the employees, and the employee expects solidaristic behaviour from the employers (in terms of granting autonomy, attitude towards mistakes, leadership style, etc.) (Sanders et al., 2006). Thus, we can readily assume that collaborations that cross-organisational boundaries are highly dependent on organisational solidarity among the actors involved in the collaboration.

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Cramm, Strating, and Nieboer (2013) already showed the importance of organisational solidarity among nurses, managers and other healthcare professionals within care organisations. They found that certain organisational characteristics enhance organisational solidarity, including high levels of formal and informal information exchange, less hierarchical authority, decentralisation and transformational leadership styles. Given the health and social care challenges we described earlier, and the related need to establish a more integrated care delivery across care providers from diverse backgrounds and organisations, we argue the need for shifting organisational solidarity, in which organisational solidarity is no longer mainly something that takes place within the boundaries of single organisations, but gradually will need to cross these boundaries. Cross-organisational collaboration and integration will require care providers and everyone else involved to feel connected to the common purpose of together delivering care for a certain group of people (i.e. factual solidarity), and to feel the need (and to be prepared) to work together towards the realisation of this common purpose (i.e. normative solidarity). In line with Cramm et al. (2013), we can assume that also inter-organisational arrangements will enhance or hamper organisational solidarity. We argue that reducing overall fragmentation in health and social care could support this shift and strengthen organisational solidarity, not only within, but also across organisational boundaries. At the factual level, the creation of continuous relations between care providers from different disciplines and their patients, within the context of a shared vision and shared goals, may help establish common ground between all the people involved. At the normative level, a multidisciplinary approach involving all relevant stakeholders, both professional and informal, may create a community in which people are no longer solely focused on their specialised role, but feel responsible for the well-being of the people in need of care and support, and thus feel a moral obligation to actively help and support each other. Frow et al. (2016) stress the important role of co-creation practices in shaping a healthcare ecosystem. An example of strengthening solidarity can be found in recent innovation projects in the field of elderly care in multicultural, working-class neighbourhoods in Brussels. A model of an ‘actively caring neighbourhood’ in an urban

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context was developed in co-creation with senior citizens and their informal caregivers, volunteers and professionals, and actively tapping into the power of formal and informal networks within the neighbourhood (Flanders Care Living Labs, 2017). We argue that a care ecosystem approach could mobilise factual solidarity between ecosystem actors, in terms of discovering common ground between them. At the same time, normative solidarity could be mobilised, in terms of defining and clarifying mutual obligations to aid and assist each other in specific care delivery processes. We will further explore the relation between ecosystem design and organisational solidarity in the next section.

Lessons from the Field In their book Designing Integrated Care Ecosystems, Mohr and Dessers (2019b) draw on 15 cases from around the world where people have sought to solve the challenge of integrated care at the ecosystem level via a number of different approaches. The list includes cases from Bulgaria (1), Singapore (1), the UK (2), the US (3), Belgium (3) and the Netherlands (5). Based on a literature review, and the lessons learned from the 15 cases, Mohr and Dessers (2019b) developed a framework for designing integrated care ecosystems. For this chapter, we reviewed the case descriptions and the resulting framework from the perspective of organisational solidarity, in order to explore the role of factual and normative shifts in organisational solidarity in ecosystem design, and possible ways to influence the emergence of organisational solidarity in an ecosystem context. Our findings are summarised in Table 9.1. As can be seen from Table 9.1, Mohr and Dessers (2019a) distinguish two levels with regard to ecosystem design: the level of the ecosystem as a whole, and the level of specific interventions within that ecosystem. As we will explain shortly, factual and normative organisational solidarity play a role at both levels (as summarised in the ‘What?’ rows in Table 9.1), and at each level specific actions may support the emergence of organisational solidarity (as summarised in the ‘How?’ rows in Table 9.1).

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Table 9.1 Organisational solidarity in a care ecosystem context Organisational solidarity Factual Ecosystem What? Shared purpose Common principles Interdependencies How? Ecosystem definition Ecosystem perspective Ecosystem relationships

Interventions What? Concrete goal for a specific target group How? Establishment of concrete goals Target group identification Partners selection

Normative What?

Collaboration in ecosystem design

How?

Definition of roles in design process Co-creation of possible interventions Development of relationships & trust

What?

Collaboration in integrated care process Structural changes (division of labour; coordination mechanisms) Development of relationships & trust

How?

First, at the ecosystem level, it is essential to clearly define the ecosystem in terms of a shared purpose of which added value is created for the benefit of a specific target group. The initial definition of the ecosystem will typically be made from the perspective of a specific actor, who wants to intervene in the functioning of the ecosystem. This initial definition could result from a top-down decision of, for instance, policy makers, but just as well from a bottom-up initiative of local health and social care actors. Once co-defined, the ecosystem perspective offers care policy makers, managers, practitioners, patients and scholars a way to view the bigger picture, in which interdependencies between many different activities and actors come to light, and previously hidden possibilities surface, in terms of ecosystems relationships. Bringing actors together in order to work on a more detailed definition of the ecosystem, to adopt an ecosystem perspective on the key challenges they are facing, and to clarify (current and potential) relationships between actors within the ecosystem, can contribute to the emergence of factual solidarity at the ecosystem level, in which common ground is gradually established in terms of a shared purpose, common principles and mutual interdependency. At the

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ecosystem level, normative solidarity takes the form of collaboration in the redesign of the ecosystem, in terms of developing specific interventions for a more integrated care provision. Care ecosystem redesign is about developing creative innovations in structures, supporting systems and coordination mechanisms that by definition will upset conventional practice. Resistance to change may be hugely minimised (or vice versa, organisational solidarity is maximised) when the ecosystem’s many different stakeholders are meaningfully involved in dialogical processes for the design of innovations. Such involvement creates and strengthens the very relationships which will be required during the journey towards care integration and ongoing adaptations. Apart from the definition of specific roles in the ecosystem design process (e.g. the formation of a design team), and co-creation of possible interventions, also specific attention will be needed for the development of relationships and trust between ecosystem actors. The importance of stakeholder involvement and a process of cocreation can be illustrated by the case on primary care ecosystems in Flanders, Belgium (Dessers & Van Gramberen, 2019). The Flemish Community in Belgium is reorganising its primary care system, striving for collaboration between care providers at the level of primary care regions, which each comprise 75,000–125,000 inhabitants. The case encompasses the ecosystem design process in two pilot regions. A participative design approach was chosen, which means that a broad group of ecosystem actors was involved. Within each pilot region, a change team and a change forum were installed. The change team consisted of a small group of up to 12 people, covering a diversity of actors (including independent healthcare professionals, home care organisations, local government, social care, mental health care), who were highly motivated to get things moving. The change forum was composed of a broad group of around 75 ecosystem actors, including social care organisations, health insurance funds, primary care networks, home care organisations, patient groups and professional associations. Based on a prototyping approach, the design process took the form of consecutive sprints, in which the prototype gets further developed and refined each time. Every sprint took 10–12 weeks after which the change forum met. In between the change

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forum meetings, the change team had time to process the feedback of the previous change forum meeting and to refine the prototype. The design approach led to the establishment of shared purpose and common principles, the identification of main care processes and interdependencies between ecosystem actors, and initiated collaboration in ecosystem redesign. Second, the intervention level makes it possible to develop specific organisational strategies for an integrated care provision for a specific target group of patients with similar needs. In such a way, the wicked problem of care integration can be tackled by splitting it up in manageable parts. At the intervention level, factual solidarity emerges around a concrete goal for a particular target group, which is a further specification of the shared purpose at the ecosystem level. A commonly established concrete goal, in relation to an identified target group, and the joint selection of the partners which are needed to contribute to the realisation of that goal, add to the emergence of factual solidarity at the intervention level. The development of organisational solidarity at the intervention level contributes to the realisation of the specific intervention. Normative solidarity takes the form of collaboration between the selected partners in an integrated care process, aimed at realising the concrete goal for the identified target group. Normative solidarity is stimulated by putting particular coordination mechanisms or redesigned care delivery structures in place, which enables everyone involved to work as closely together as needed. Moreover, a relational approach is needed in designing and executing these interventions, in which creative use of participation and dialogical processes, meaningfully engages all those who will ‘inhabit’ the new structures, and everyone who will use, or be touched by, the new care processes. Returning to the example of the Belgian primary care ecosystems case, we saw that the work of the design team and the change forum gradually focused more at the intervention level, building on the prior identification of the main care processes, by establishing a concrete goal per target group, and by exploring how to improve collaboration in integrated care processes. Organisational choices with regard to the clustering of activities in these care processes were made, with respect to their

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respective target groups. A commonly agreed list of criteria was established per pilot region, which is used to define target groups with particular care needs. Examples of these criteria include the type of care needs (physical, social, psychological, existential); the degree of urgency; chronic or acute care needs; duration of care provision (full recovery; limited aftercare; continuous care); at home or residential care; the people involved (informal caregiver, one or more professionals). The typology serves as an assessment framework which helps to decide for which target group actual collaboration is needed, when concertation among the care providers involved suffices, or when prevention, care or support can be delivered autonomously, without further concertation or collaboration. Specific interventions around each target group are put in place, for example, multidisciplinary teams for home care and support at the neighbourhood level. In other words, work is being organised along the lines of value-added care processes per target group, in which people collaborate towards the realisation of a concrete goal.

Conclusion The increasing complexity and chronicity of health and social care require a variety of care providers and other actors to work together, beyond formal organisational ties and obligations. Such an endeavour requires a shift in organisational solidarity, which will need to be extended across the boundaries of single organisations and formal networks. A care ecosystem approach may support this shift, both at the factual level of common ground between the actors involved, and at the normative level of mutual obligations to aid each other in providing integrated care for the people concerned. In this chapter, we have sought to explore the relation between ecosystem design and shifts in organisational solidarity. Future research will be needed to further investigate these shifts in organisational solidarity in ecosystems, not only in health and social care, but also in many other societal domains. The ecosystem concept which we presented is related to what Heckscher (2015) refers to as the more general problem

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of acting together in a diverse, fluid, open world, characterised by globalisation, new communications technologies, and increased interdependence. In addition, complex societies produce complex challenges, from climate change to inequality, that demand collaboration among people with highly varying views. According to Heckscher, existing institutions and bureaucratic organisations are not able anymore to cope with these societal challenges, because we often lack the factual solidarity of a unifying common ground and a sufficient feeling of normative solidarity to hold us together in the face of complexity. Consensus-building methods, through collective visioning, brainstorming, analytical problem-solving and shared accountability, will be needed to bring people of different professions together to trash out difficult problems, of which the need for health and social care integration is only one. In general, we can conclude that an ecosystem approach may contribute to shift and widen the scope of organisational solidarity across organisational boundaries, and to enable diverse people to work together on the many difficult problems we face.

References Agentschap Zorg en Gezondheid. (2017). Een geïntegreerde zorgverlening in de eerste lijn. Brussel: Agentschap Zorg en Gezondheid. Aughton, P. (2016). Developing a viable disability care ecosystem. In Global STS design network roundtable meeting. San Francisco: STS Roundtable. Bayertz, K. (1999). Four uses of “solidarity”. In K. Bayertz (Ed.), Solidarity (pp. 3–28). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Beirão, G., Patrício, L., & Fisk, R. P. (2017). Value cocreation in service ecosystems. Journal of Service Management, 28(2), 227–249. https://doi.org/10. 1108/JOSM-11-2015-0357. Care Continuum Alliance. (2012). A population health guide for primary care models. Washington, DC: Care Continuum Alliance. Retrieved from http://www.exerciseismedicine.org/assets/page_documents/ PHMGuideforPrimaryCareHL.pdf. Cassel, C. K., & Reuben, D. B. (2011). Specialization, subspecialization, and subsubspecialization in internal medicine. New England Journal of Medicine, 364 (12), 1169–1173.

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Glouberman, S., & Mintzberg, H. (2001). Managing the care of health and the cure of disease Part I: Differentiation. Health Care Management Review, 26 (1), 70–84. Goodwin, N., Stein, V., & Amelung, V. (2017). What is integrated care? In Handbook Integrated Care (pp. 3–24). Cham: Springer International. Heckscher, C. (2015). Trust in a complex world. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hermans, K., Buyck, I., & Van Audenhove, C. (2017). Gebruikersparticipatie als onmisbare schakel in de omslag naar geïntegreerde zorg. In G. Van Hootegem & E. Dessers (Eds.), Onbezorgd. Naar een geïntegreerd gezondheidsysteem. Leuven: Acco. Kelly, E. (2015). Business ecosystems come of age. Deloitte Business Trends Series, p. 117. Retrieved from https://dupress.deloitte.com/content/dam/ dup-us-en/articles/platform-strategy-new-level-business-trends/DUP_1048Business-ecosystems-come-of-age_MASTER_FINAL.pdf. Kodner, D. (2009). All together now: A conceptual exploration of integrated care. Healthcare Quarterly (Toronto, ON), 13(October), 6–15. Retrieved from http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/20057243. Lawer, C. (2018). From exchange to ecosystem reimagining value in health and care. Bloxham: UMIO. Michaud, C. M., Murray, C. J., & Bloom, B. R. (2001). Burden of disease implications for future research. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 285 (5), 535–539. Mohr, B. J., & Dessers, E. (2019a). Designing from a socio-technical systems perspective. In B. J. Mohr & E. Dessers (Eds.), Designing integrated care ecosystems: A socio-technical perspective. Cham: Springer International. Mohr, B. J., & Dessers, E. (Eds.). (2019b). Designing integrated care ecosystems: A socio-technical perspective. Cham: Springer International. Organ, D. W., & Lingl, A. (1995). Personality, satisfaction, and organisational citizenship behavior. The Journal of Social Psychology, 135 (3), 339– 350. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1995.9713963. Pikkarainen, M., Pekkarinen, S., Koivumäki, T., & Huhtala, T. (2018). Data as a driver for shaping the practices of a preventive healthcare service delivery network. Journal of Innovation Management, 6 (1), 55– 79. Retrieved from https://journals.fe.up.pt/index.php/IJMAI/article/view/ 2183-0606_006.001_0005/324. Pless, S., Van Hootegem, G., & Dessers, E. (2017). Making care organisations great again? A comparison of care pathways, lean thinking, relational coordination, and modern sociotechnical design. International Journal of Care Coordination, 20 (3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2053434517725529.

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Pless, S., Van Hootegem, G., & Dessers, E. (2018). Advancing a systemic perspective on multidisciplinary teams in integrated care: A comparative case study of four Multiple Sclerosis hospitals. International Journal of Integrated Care, 18(2), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.5334/ijic.3745. Provan, K. G., & Kenis, P. (2008). Modes of network governance: Structure, management, and effectiveness. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 18(2), 229–252. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mum015. Sanders, K., Flache, A., Vegt, G., & Vliert, E. (2006). Employees’ organisational solidarity within modern organisations: A framing perspective on the effects of social embeddedness. Solidarity and Prosocial Behavior, 141–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-28032-4_9. Sels, C., & Van Hootegem, G. (2019). Designing networks for integrated care within the Belgian mental health care ecosystem. In B. J. Mohr & E. Dessers (Eds.), Designing integrated care ecosystems: A socio-technical perspective. Cham: Springer International. Valentijn, P. P., Schepman, S. M., Opheij, W., & Bruijnzeels, M. A. (2013). Understanding integrated care: A comprehensive conceptual framework based on the integrative functions of primary care. International Journal of Integrated Care, 13(March), 1–12. Retrieved from http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=3653278&tool= pmcentrez&rendertype=abstract.

Part III Family, Religion, Gender and Culture

10 Enacting Solidarity Rudi Laermans

Although the distinction is somewhat debatable, it is still usance among sociologists to discern three ‘floors’ within social reality, i.e. the micro-, meso- and macro-level. Whereas the micro-level consists of face-to-face interaction (prototypically in a situation of physical co-presence), the macro-level is synonymous with society. The latter may be conceived as a nation state, which is still the common approach; alternatively, the macro-level is conceptualised in transnational terms (e.g. European society) or in the wake of the process of globalisation as a world society. The intermediate meso-level encompasses formal organisations, social movements and diverse sorts of rather informal groups or collectives such as loosely integrated religious associations, subcultures or lifestyle communities. With these distinct levels of social reality correspond different modes of solidarity, which partly explains the concept’s multidimensionality (compare Van Hoyweghen, Meyers, & Pulignano in this volume). The R. Laermans (B) KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_10

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three contributions in this section aptly demonstrate that the micro-, meso- and macro-level indeed foreground one or more particular aspects of solidary relationships. The presented analyses of intergenerational solidarity between children and parents, of the differences in solidarity corresponding with two distinct modes of Protestantism, and of the framing of migration from Africa to Europe clearly address the micro-, mesoand macro-level, respectively. In doing so, each article also highlights a dimension that more general concepts or theories regard as a constitutive component of solidary relationships (see, for e.g., Bayertz, 1999; Smith & Sorrell, 2014). Draulans and De Tavernier open this part with a discussion of ‘Shifts in Intergenerational Solidarity’. Based on semi-structured interviews, they analyse emergent changes in the eldercare in the Turkish community of a Belgian city. Taking care for one’s needy parents was within the Turkish community traditionally a strong moral duty for the children, particularly the oldest son and his wife. Hence, children did not invoke legally facilitated professional services or bring their parents to a residential care centre. However, the adaption of norms of the host country regarding for instance physical and domestic privacy and, particularly, the increased participation of second-generation Turkish females in the labour market weaken the possibility to meet the traditional moral standards. There is indeed a crucial gender aspect to intergenerational solidarity. The traditional expectations presuppose that women are not employed outside the home and can therefore smoothly divide care taking between children and parents. Rising female labour participation corrodes this assumption. In focusing on the micro-level of intergenerational caretaking within the family context, Draulans and De Tavernier emphasise the dimension of normative obligation in solidary relationships. They distinguish three levels of normative generalisation, i.e. juridical norms (e.g. both contributions to and benefits of social security arrangements), socially sanctioned norms and internalised norms. With regard to the care obligation informing intergenerational solidarity in the studied Turkish community, Draulans and De Tavernier observe the emergence of a shift from community-based social pressure to a more voluntary, individually motivated care provision on the one hand and a growing openness to professional care on the other. This suggests that second-generation migrants at

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least partly detraditionalise and start to adopt on the micro-level of the family the care norms that dominate in the broader environment (on detraditionalisation, see for instance Heelas, Lash, & Morris, 1996). Notwithstanding the focus on the micro-level of solidarity, an important micro-macro link is at work in this specific case. For informal intergenerational care can only acquire a more voluntary and, related to this, a negotiated character because of the existing formal arrangements facilitating professional care. Moreover, a general macro-development, i.e. the growing feminisation of wage labour, is one of the prime drivers of the observed process of normative detraditionalisation. Houtman, Pons and Laermans move the focus to the meso-level in ‘Religion and Solidarity: The Vicissitudes of Protestantism’. Both Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, the founders of the sociology of religion, stressed the individualistic nature of orthodox Protestantism. Houtman, Pons and Laermans argue that since the 1950s a different mode of Protestantism rapidly gained terrain. Alongside the orthodox understanding of the sacred, implying a drastic difference with the profane, a more liberal and less dualistic view became institutionalised. Comparable to the trend described by Draulans and De Tavernier, this renewal also comes down to a process of detraditionalisation. In-depth interviews with Dutch orthodox and liberal Protestants allow the authors to fine-tune the differences in religious beliefs that distinguish both groups. Whereas the studied orthodox Protestants consider God as a transcendent, omnipotent person to whom the believer owes a strict obeyance on the basis of a literal reading of the Bible, the liberal respondents regard God as an immanent, all-pervasive impersonal life force that may be experienced in various ways. The analysis underscores the performative social effects of these different approaches of the sacred. Orthodox Protestants form tight and exclusive congregations of like-minded believers, thus practicing a pronounced in-outgroup logic. However, these communities are everything but solid since the participants are genuine individualists who first and foremost aim at personal salvation through their individual relationship with God and their own interpretation of His teachings. On the contrary, liberal Protestants are open-minded and value encounters with various ‘Others’ since the

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sacred reveals itself in countless ways. Hence, their network-like sociability which may even include the participation in non-Protestant religious practices. With their study of two different religious cultures, Houtman, Pons and Laermans accentuate the dimension of social identification that seems to be an essential ingredient of solidary relationships on the meso-level. Overall, they argue that this sense of belonging rests on a shared belief system or ‘collective consciousness’ (Durkheim) whose specific contours co-determine the corresponding form of collectivity. The authors indeed emphasise the performative function of beliefs, i.e. different views of the sacred, for group solidarity. This argument concurs with the stress on the active role that norms play in intergenerational solidarity on the micro-level as analysed by Draulans and De Tavernier. With Van Bavel’s contribution on ‘World Population Explosion, Migration and Solidarity’ we definitely move to the macro-level, primarily identified as the European Union. Nevertheless, world society is also directly involved since the article discusses migration from Africa to Europe and the way media and official E.U. policies frame this phenomenon in relation to notions of solidarity. Hence, the analytic lens seems to shift from social norms or lived group culture to rather specific discourses within the sphere of media and politics. However, the studied discursive framings presuppose and re-articulate widely shared conceptions, not the least regarding the societal basis of solidarity and its legitimate manifestations. Backed by solid empirical data, Van Bavel critically unpacks the idea that population growth in Africa equals a ‘time bomb’ that will explode in the near future and already causes a massive migration to Europe. The heightened number of migrants is often considered as endangering solidarity within Europe. This framing makes use of a culturalist argument that is foregrounded in communitarianism: a common culture is necessary for societal integration or mutual solidarity. The advent of ‘ever more newcomers’ with a different cultural background, often rooted in Islamic beliefs, is viewed as undermining European solidarity, including its institutional expressions such as welfare arrangements. Yet still another notion of solidarity is at stake in the framing of migration, particularly in E.U. policy discourse. Based on the Christian notion of ‘solidarity with the

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poor’, official migration discourse systematically differentiates between asylum seekers or refugees on the one hand and economic migrants on the other. Whereas the first are welcomed, be it on ever more strict conditions, the second are pushed back as much as possible. Van Bavel analyses the perverse effects of this dualist discourse and subsequently pleads for an active labour immigration policy on the European level that recognises both the reality and possible positive effects of economic immigration. Van Bavel’s analysis also addresses a broader shift, this time on the macro-level of world society. One may again invoke the notion of detraditionalisation: Europe has to leave behind the still widely entrenched notion of a sociocultural gulf separating ‘the West’ from ‘the rest’ (indeed a central topic in the academic discourse on postcolonialism). Comparable to the two other contributions making up this section, Van Bavel simultaneously underlines the performative role of shared ideas. However, he does not analyse how shared norms or beliefs help to reproduce specific solidary relationships. He rather demands attention for the ‘enactive’ function of this very axiom when it informs media reports or official policies addressing ‘the treats of immigration’. According to ‘the double hermeneutic’ as expounded by Anthony Giddens (1993), everyday notions and social-scientific concepts entertain a two-way relationship. Social scientists build on and refine lay ideas; their concepts in turn inform everyday insights via education, the media or professional and political discourses. The three contributions in this section partly illustrate, partly question this logic. Thus, both the analyses of Draulans and De Tavernier, and of Houtman, Pons and Laermans, fit broadly institutionalised conceptions of solidarity. More particularly, they tie in with the idea that solidarity entails the positive moral obligation to act or expresses the identification with a common culture, respectively. Both approaches reflect widely entrenched lay concepts that were a first time sociologically officialised by Emile Durkheim (see the introduction and collected texts in Bellah [1973]; compare Gofman [2014]); Talcott Parsons subsequently elaborated Durkheim’s insights and further articulated them from a systems-theoretical point of view (see Alexander, 2014 [1983]). Overall but rather implicitly, Van Bavel’s critical contribution asks for a reflexive turn when it comes to the notion of solidarity. Thus, Van Bavel

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shows how the common notion of legitimate solidarity, i.e. caring for the badly-off, in fact underpins the EU policy differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad migrants’, including its everything but morally sound effect of obliging African migrants who try to reach Europe to take the very risky Mediterranean Sea-passage. Yet his analysis also suggests that the sociological textbook idea that a common culture forms the cornerstone of societal integration is nowadays actively deployed to dispute multiculturalism and the phenomenon of immigration as such. The axiom of social integration through a shared culture, which is both an everyday idea and a theoretical insight, vastly informs media and political framings that depict migration in a negative way often lacking nuance. Hence, a twofold conclusion seems appropriate. On the one hand, the culturalist definition of solidarity blocks a more reflexive approach of solidarity with the migrating badly-off who per definition do not originally belong to ‘our culture’. On the other hand, the performative effects of the culturalist point of view should incite sociologists to give much more attention to socially integrative mechanisms and media—e.g. money, power, law or truth—that do not rely on shared norms or beliefs (compare Luhmann, 2012 [1997]). Such a turn away from culturalism may even inspire a shift in the sociologically established approaches of solidarity (witness, for instance, Brunkhorst, 2005 [2002]).

References Alexander, J. C. (2014 [1983]). The modern reconstruction of classical thought: Talcott Parsons. London and New York: Routledge. Bayertz, K. (1999). Four uses of “solidarity”. In K. Bayertz (Ed.), Solidarity (pp. 3–28). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Bellah, R. (1973). Emile Durkheim on morality and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Brunkhorst, H. (2005 [2002]). Solidarity: From civic friendship to a global legal community. Cambridge: MIT Press. Giddens, A. (1993). New rules of sociological method: A positive critique of interpretative sociologies (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Gofman, A. (2014). Durkheim’s theory of social solidarity and social rules. In V. Jeffries (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of altruism, morality, and social solidarity: Formulating a field of study (pp. 45–70). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Heelas, P., Lash, S., & Morris, P. (Eds.). (1996). Detraditionalization. Oxford: Blackwell. Luhmann, N. (2012 [1997]). Theory of society (2 vols.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Smith, C., & Sorrell, K. (2014). On social solidarity. In V. Jeffries (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of altruism, morality, and social solidarity: Formulating a field of study (pp. 219–248). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

11 Shifts in Intergenerational Solidarity: Eldercare in the Turkish Community of a Belgian City Veerle Draulans and Wouter De Tavernier

Introduction In an ageing society, the working-age population is expected to show strong intergenerational solidarity, understood as obligations between generations, in order to tackle the financial challenges in relation to pensions and care. On the one hand, adults are expected to contribute to social welfare systems by being active in the labour market; on the other hand, the same people are increasingly expected to provide care for their elder relatives. The latter is apparent from an increased focus on ‘ageing in place’ (Barrett, Hale, & Gauld, 2012), as part of which older persons can be looked after for as long as possible in their familiar home environment, but also from policy initiatives such as the ‘socialisation of care’ advocated by the Flemish government, and from the Dutch V. Draulans (B) · W. De Tavernier KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] W. De Tavernier e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_11

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concept of ‘the participation society’ (Verhoeven & Tonkens, 2013). The expectation of intergenerational solidarity therefore imposes conflicting demands, particularly on women who still take on the lion’s share of care (Kotsadam, 2011; Szinovacz & Davey, 2008). In this chapter, we analyse intergenerational solidarity in a Turkish community in Flanders (Belgium) and demonstrate how this type of solidarity is evolving over time and across different generations. We first develop a typology of solidarity which we will further deploy as a tool to structure our analysis of intergenerational solidarity in a specific community of Turkish immigrants in a Flemish city. The Turkish community is an interesting case, as there has traditionally been a rather strong expectation that children should care for their parents (Yerden, 2013). However, we show that in practice, shifts in intergenerational solidarity emerge as this traditional care pattern is coming under pressure due to the precarious balance to be struck by second-generation women between different roles as mothers, workers and carers. As such, this chapter is a warning for policymakers who increasingly rely on informal care provided by relatives or other non-professional carers to cope with the growing demand for care as a result of the ageing population: escalating informal care expectations may not only hinder the emancipation of women, but may also compromise informal care itself and the social fabric it is based on.

Intergenerational Solidarity and the Obligation to Care A Typology of Solidarity In Bayertz’ (1999) conception, solidarity entails a ‘mutual responsibility between the individual and society, where each individual vouches for the community and the community vouches for each individual’ (p. 3). This mutual responsibility indicates a certain obligation of the individual towards the community. Indeed, several other authors have defined solidarity in terms of an individual’s obligation towards others or the community (Coicaud, 2011; Cureton, 2012; Derpmann, 2009; Prainsack &

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Buyx, 2012; Thome, 1999), for instance through reciprocity (Bierhoff & Küpper, 1999; Jeffries et al., 2006; Steinvorth, 1999). Bierhoff and Küpper (1999) distinguish between two types of obligation brought about by norms. On the one hand, norms can exert social pressure on individuals to conform to norms and act in accordance with others’ expectations. Norms then become enforceable, and not respecting them can result in sanctions (Cureton, 2012; Derpmann, 2009). On the other hand, Bierhoff and Küpper (1999) note that norms can be internalised so that individuals act accordingly, even in the absence of external pressures. Thome (1999) and Prainsack and Buyx (2012) add a third type of obligation in solidarity: law. At the same time, Thome (1999) argues that true solidarity requires a certain level of voluntary action or agency, meaning that the obligation should not be absolute. In other words, solidarity is stronger when norms are internalised rather than enforced through social pressure. Others have gone a step further, claiming that solidarity can only refer to actions stemming from an intrinsic motivation to help those in need (Arnsperger & Varoufakis, 2003; Baurmann, 1999; Derpmann, 2009; Leitner & Lessenich, 2003; Widegren, 1997). From this perspective, the obligation stemming from social pressure, let alone law, rules out that the actions resulting from it are acts of solidarity: solidarity is unconditional and non-enforceable. However, this does not rule out that norms can lead to solidary actions if they have been internalised, and hence, if the individual acts upon them voluntarily. Ultimately, this balancing of obligation and voluntariness is the essence of Durkheim’s (1964) distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity: due to increasing division of labour and fading common conscience, the strict obligation of norms and regulations is replaced by solidarity through voluntary actions. The level of obligation or voluntariness is not the only debate in relation to the concept of solidarity. A second discussion deals with the object of solidary action: Does solidarity refer to actions towards the group in its entirety (Arnsperger & Varoufakis, 2003; Bayertz, 1999; Widegren, 1997), or does it also include helping particular individuals (Baurmann, 1999; Bierhoff & Küpper, 1999; Thome, 1999)? In Bayertz’ (1999) definition, solidarity does not concern an obligation between individuals, but rather one between individuals and the community to

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which they belong. Others disagree with limiting solidarity to the relationship between individuals and the community, arguing that the concept can also be used to describe the relationship between individuals. Thome’s (1999) definition for instance also includes actions towards other individuals. Further, Bierhoff and Küpper (1999) and Baurmann (1999) see solidarity as targeting both social groups and individuals. Based on the above, we develop a typology of solidarity, as presented in Table 11.1, distinguishing types of solidarity by two dimensions: the level of obligation; and the person(s) towards whom someone has an obligation, whether an individual or the society at large. With regard to the level of obligation, we follow Thome’s (1999) three ‘levels of normative generalisation’. At the highest level of obligation, laws are formally institutionalised obligations. Typically, individuals are given obligations towards society at large, for instance through social security. One is obliged to contribute to social security, and subsequently these contributions are redistributed to those in society who are in need. Hence, there is no personal relationship between a contributor and a recipient. Social security is usually built on the idea of (inter-temporal) reciprocity: one earns the right to receive benefits later on by contributing to social security. However, laws can also place the obligation to take care of a needy person with the relatives of this person. Familialist policies assign care tasks to the family, either explicitly by legally making the family responsible for needy individuals, or implicitly by not offering any alternatives (De Tavernier, 2016). Child and eldercare are typical subjects of familialist policies placing the care responsibility with the family. At the next level, external cultural obligations, solidarity results from social pressure from one’s environment to help specific individuals or to contribute to the community or society in specific ways. An example of social pressure generating obligations for the individual towards society can be trade union membership: non-unionised employees can be pressured by their colleagues to join the trade union to avoid free-riding on ‘their’ collective agreements. Social pressure can also force individuals to take up care responsibilities towards other individuals (usually family members). This is the case in societies with strong familial care norms. Finally, internalised norms generating a ‘soft’ obligation towards society lead to

Social security Legally enforced, population-wide redistribution e.g. disability insurance

Society/community

Social pressure Individuals are pressured by their social environment to join population-wide organisations or redistribution schemes e.g. membership of ‘pillar’ organisation, such as a trade union

Social pressure Individuals are pressured by their social environment to take care of needy individuals in their environment (typically relatives)

Cultural external

Love Due to internalised norms, individuals voluntarily take up care for needy individuals in their environment, with whom they feel (a certain) emotional/affective bond Engagement Due to internalised norms, individuals voluntarily engage in society, also for the benefits of unknown others e.g. NGO membership

Cultural internalised

an overview of the concepts of familialism and de-familisation in social policy, see De Tavernier (2016)

Familialista policies Law obliges families to care for needy relatives

Individual(s)

a For

Legal

Level of obligation

An obligation-based typology of solidarity

Obligation towards

Table 11.1

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engagement, in which an individual voluntarily takes up certain responsibilities in line with his or her normative framework. Love, for example, refers to the situation in which individuals act on their internalised care norms towards other individuals in their social environment.

Intergenerational Solidarity Much like the concept of solidarity, ‘intergenerational solidarity’ suffers from conceptual unclarity with a wide literature using the term as a measure of the quality of intergenerational relationships (e.g. Baykara-Krumme & Fokkema, 2019; Bengtson, 2001; Bengtson & Roberts, 1991; Bordone, 2015; Merz, Schuengel, & Schulze, 2007), while another strand in the literature using the concept within debates on sustainability and fairness of pension systems (e.g. Schokkaert & Van Parijs, 2003; Zaidi, Gasior, & Manchin, 2012). In line with our general conceptualisation of solidarity, however, we use the term ‘intergenerational solidarity’ to refer to obligations running across generational boundaries, both between specific individuals and between individuals and society at large. Studies focusing on intergenerational solidarity within the family look into patterns of pecuniary and care flows within the family (e.g. Santoro, 2014) and as such they feed into the literature on family models, revealing networks of interdependence with mutual obligations of care and financial support between individuals belonging to different generations (De Tavernier, 2016; see e.g. Fraser, 1994; Lewis, 2001). While it is often assumed that welfare states would replace family support (the ‘crowding out’ hypothesis), little evidence is found for increased welfare provision by the state replacing family solidarity (Fokkema, ter Bekke, & Dykstra, 2008). Prainsack and Buyx (2012) identify ‘recognition of similarity’ as a fundamental requirement for solidarity. While the development of such recognition seems rather obvious within a context of affective bonds such as the family (Bengtson & Roberts, 1991), it appears to be problematic in the case of institutionalised intergenerational solidarity. This would require not only the recognition of a ‘generalised’ other, but one

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belonging to a different social group, a different generation or even living in different times (Leitner & Lessenich, 2003; Thijssen, 2016). However, belonging to a community plays an important role in recognising one’s similarity to others: it allows redistribution to take place over longer periods of time, over the life course or even over generations (Bierhoff & Küpper, 1999; Steinvorth 1999). Bayertz (1999) and Khushf (1999) even argue that the individual’s obligation towards the community results from individual’s identity being derived from that community. The strong sense of identity in the community derived from being a minority may be one aspect contributing to the finding of Baykara-Krumme and Fokkema (2019) that intergenerational solidarity is stronger among Turkish communities outside Turkey compared to those within the country.

Eldercare in Turkish Immigrant Communities in Western Europe A number of studies describe the ‘traditional’ Turkish model of eldercare as follows: the oldest son accompanied by his wife and children moves in with his parents and is formally responsible for the overall care management. In practice, he tends to look after the income and administration. The parents are in charge of the household, but it is their livein daughter-in-law who does the housework and looks after the parents as well as the children (Burger, 2008; van Buren et al., 2005; Yerden, 2013). Respect for, and obedience to, the parents is crucial: their expectations must be met (Hootsen, Rozema, & van Grondelle, 2013; van Buren et al., 2005; Yerden, 2013). The expectation of older persons being cared for by relatives is justified in three ways: as a religious obligation in Islam, as part of Turkish culture or as based on reciprocity in exchange for the care that the parents gave their children in the past (Burger, 2008; Hootsen et al., 2013). This traditional care pattern in immigrant communities has come under pressure from several processes: the comprehensive social security system, with pensions and eldercare, makes parents less dependent

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on their children (van Buren et al., 2005; Yerden, 2013); female labour market participation is growing in the Turkish community (Burger, 2008; de Graaff & Francke, 2003; Talloen, 2007; van Buren et al., 2005; Yerden, 2013) and norms are shifting in line with the widely accepted norms of the host country (Burger, 2008; Talloen, 2007; van Buren et al., 2005; Yerden, 2013). For example, privacy is increasingly valued, which is difficult to reconcile with a household spanning three generations and family-based care (Yerden, 2013). Although three-generation households are still far more prevalent in the Turkish community (Lodewijckx & Luyten, 2016: 27–28), these changes put the traditional pattern of eldercare increasingly under pressure. Survey research also shows generational differences in the Turkish community living in the Netherlands: whereas more than half of Turkish people aged 55 and over are of the opinion that children must take in and look after their parents in their own home and one third of them even indicate that seeking professional help is shameful, these opinions are significantly less supported by the second generation (de Boer & Schellingerhout, 2004; de Valk & Schans, 2008). Presumably a growing number of older people realise that in the current context, there are practical difficulties for this ideal care image to be met, whereas some parents do not want to impose an even heavier burden on their children and parents adjust their care expectations (Burger, 2008). Other studies have found that the social pressure from the community on the children to meet their parents’ care expectations persists regardless, as a result of which quite a few children feel obliged to take on as much of the care as possible, or feel guilty if they do not meet the care ideal (or are unable to) (De Graaff & Francke, 2003; Talloen, 2007; Hootsen et al., 2013; Yerden, 2013). Talloen (2007) refers to the taboo still attached to professional care, as a result of which families using professional care do not discuss it in the community, thereby upholding the family-based care expectations. There is no single established care pattern among Turkish migrant communities, but various Dutch studies reflect some trends: the majority of care is provided by one daughter or daughter-in-law (de Graaff, Mistiaen, Devillé, & Francke, 2012; de Graaff & Francke, 2003; Hootsen et al., 2013), and the involvement of sons and other daughters

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(in-law) is usually limited (Hootsen et al., 2013). At the same time, Turkish parents make less use of professional care than Dutch parents do (Burger, 2008), partly out of ignorance about where or how to apply for professional care (de Boer & de Klerk, 2004), and Turkish people who do not speak Dutch appear to be less well-informed about the possibilities of professional care (Burger, 2008; de Graaff et al., 2012; Hootsen et al., 2013), and the importance of interpreters on doctors’ visits is also emphasised (Schellingerhout & de Klerk, 2004). Talloen (2007) confirms the importance of the language barrier in Belgium. Dutch studies also find eldercare to be a religious obligation under Islam (Burger, 2008; Hootsen et al., 2013) and an essential element of the Turkish culture with powerful social pressure from the community on adult children to care for their parents (Burger, 2008; de Graaff et al., 2012; Hootsen et al., 2013). Some studies have established that sons usually act as a contact person between parents, care providers and the authorities, but that they are less aware of the need for professional care (Burger, 2008). When daughters or daughters-in-law—particularly those who take on the majority share of the care—become involved in the discussion around engaging professional care, there is a greater chance that the professional care effectively materialises, although the discussion about engaging professional care frequently appears to cause conflict between the different people concerned (de Graaff & Francke, 2003; de Graaf et al., 2012). Sometimes children even move away to escape (part of ) the heavy care burden, particularly when the person needing care and the care provider have conflicting ideas about care and the feasibility of family-based care (de Graaf et al., 2012). Previous research however cannot necessarily be generalised to the Turkish community living in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium,1 for two reasons. First, little research has been carried out on this topic in Flanders and the results of studies performed in another countryspecific policy context do not necessarily apply to Flanders. Second, the speed of transition processes in these communities restricts the level of generalisation: studies can rapidly become outdated.

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Case Description and Research Process To study the organisation of intergenerational care and solidarity in a Belgian Turkish community, we opted for a case study in one municipality, in order to make sure that all respondents could apply for the same formal eldercare support. Genk, the case in our investigation, is an average-sized mining town in Flanders, a region in Belgium. Important to note is that non-medical care policies are situated at the Flemish, not the Belgian, level of government. More than half of the city’s population is of foreign origin; approximately 18% of inhabitants have Turkish roots (Stad Genk—Dienst bevolking, 2019). The town focuses on eldercare as one of its priorities and since 2006 it has actively been calling itself a town that is ‘friendly to informal carers’ (De Tavernier & Draulans, 2019). The town has made it its purpose to let older people live at home for as long as possible. To that end, it offers an informal care premium, on top of the Flemish care insurance, and it has introduced several initiatives to support informal carers. In 2010, it also performed a survey of 50 informal carers in order to map out their needs, although it remains unclear whether respondents of Turkish origin were included. Selecting Genk as our case has the added advantage that the mines also formed a collective context, meaning that quite a few other factors apply collectively to most people in the municipality. For example, there are workrelated health problems, there is a specific pension scheme for miners, and accommodation for the immigrants who came to work in the mines has been rather uniform. In the period of April 2015–December 2015, we, both authors, gathered information in Genk by means of 23 semi-structured interviews conducted in Dutch among a group of stakeholders involved in informal eldercare for Turkish migrant elders. One interview was attended by two informal carers, giving a total of 24 respondents. Based on the literature study, supplemented by information from a preparatory discussion held in April 2015 with two professional assistants working in a Turkish residential care centre in the Dutch city of Breda, we compiled a list of topics. The objective was to reach a heterogeneous group of stakeholders.

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Potential respondents were contacted using purposive sampling: we collected the phone numbers or email addresses of GP practices in the districts with many residents of Turkish origin, and they were enthusiastic to be interviewed. Once started, we continued with ‘snowball sampling’: the respondents were asked to refer other potential respondents. In the startup phase, we contacted an employee of the municipal diversity department, who was of Turkish origin, and who referred us to the network of independent home nurses of Turkish origin. Using this method, we also found informal carers of Turkish origin. Given the clear social policy element in our research, we decided to interview the responsible alderman and chairperson of the Public Social Welfare Centre (OCMW), and we invited several Genk council employees for an interview, each with their own specific diversity or care-related responsibilities. Of the 24 respondents, 19 women and 5 men, 15 were of Turkish origin. All interviewees were on active age. It is noteworthy that every person of Turkish origin we interviewed, including general practitioners, care professionals and policymakers, also turned out to be an informal carer him/herself. The group of respondents consisted of four informal carers, eight professional nurses offering home care, four general practitioners (two of them of Turkish origin), the director of a Community Women’s centre, five local welfare workers (OCMW), and, as mentioned above, two policymakers responsible for social policy measures in Genk. The interviews were recorded with consent, followed by verbatim transcription and coding, based on theme-inspired selective coding. Since respondents themselves describe the Turkish community in Genk as a close community where people know each other, we include limited information regarding the respondents in the results section below, since we want to preserve optimal anonymity of the respondents.

Results In this section, we present the results of our qualitative study on changing eldercare patterns in a Turkish community in Belgium, and analyse them following the elements of the typology of solidarity described above: the

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legal dimension of intergenerational solidarity, external social pressure and internalised norms and voluntary care.

The Legal Dimension of Intergenerational Solidarity Various statutory provisions promote the provision of care for older people. Several respondents involved in municipal eldercare policy said that the town considered it as its duty to offer such measures, since the town ‘wanted to allow older people to live in their familiar environment for as long as possible’ (R10, policymaker) and had developed its multi-year policy plan on the basis of this principle. Inhabitants of the town of Genk can not only call on measures such as care insurance which the Flemish government has made compulsory, but also many of Genk’s specific measures in support of informal care, such as help with applying for grants for home adaptations to cater for care requirements, occupational therapy at home, transport for people who are less able-bodied, the organisation of care consultations, the development of service centres or a municipal informal care allowance of 50 EUR per month. In most interviews, (lack of ) knowledge of these entitlements and facilitating measures were mentioned spontaneously. Respondents appeared to be divided about the question of whether the Turkish community was sufficiently aware of these entitlements and measures. The answers vary: They [i.e. people of Turkish origin] are very much part of their own community and the knowledge is being passed on. (R1, care professional) The older people have absolutely no knowledge of it. Their children are the ones who find out through the grapevine what they are entitled to, about the existence of an allowance. (R2, care professional & informal carer) I must confess that I don’t have a clue as to where I am supposed to go. No one tells us… Yes, we are entitled to different things, but I don’t know what the options are, or what we are entitled to. No idea. (R3, informal carer)

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Several home nurses explained that they viewed it as their role to inform older people and their family or loved ones of the care support measures: Well, it is not the only thing they are ignorant about, you know. They are also unaware that you can hire those mobile hoists, or all sorts of other things. (R4, care professional & informal carer)

It is noteworthy that several respondents involved in the implementation of the town’s social policy spoke enthusiastically about all the different measures taken to distribute information widely across the population: consultative bodies, including the Council of the Seniors, brainstorming talks with members of the community, service centres, information leaflets and websites. They nevertheless expressed their concern: the many information moments, including about informal care, were barely if ever attended by people from the Turkish community. Of the nearly 600 applications for a monthly informal care allowance of 50 EUR, only approximately 20 appeared to be from people of Turkish origin in 2015, despite the strong obligation in the Turkish community to provide informal care. More than 450 inhabitants of Genk took part in a large-scale brainstorming event several years ago, none of whom were first-generation immigrants. Someone referred to the first generation as a ‘lost generation’: integrating them in municipal service centres ‘will never succeed’ (R10, policymaker; R17, policymaker). Information not reaching individuals was attributed to a lack of reading culture, leaflets being considered ‘only for those with a degree’ (R8, care professional) and many first-generation women being illiterate. They have a mobile phone that they can use to call their children, but they would never send an SMS message. So what are the chances of them completing an online survey? (R5, care professional & informal carer)

The language barrier repeatedly came up: anyone who doesn’t understand a language well enough may miss some subtle nuances that could be important during talks about care. It is a reason why people do not take part in consultative bodies, fail to attend service centres, etc. Someone commented that people who denounce the poor knowledge of Dutch

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among the first generation easily forget that the first generation was never expected to learn the language. After all, policymakers originally assumed that foreign coal miners would return to their country of origin, which is why they were never offered any language courses in the first place. Moreover, older people with dementia revert to the first language they learned. The language legislation in Flanders does not make it any easier for the Public Social Welfare Centres in municipalities with many residents of foreign origin: The law dictates that public authorities are only allowed to communicate in the Dutch language for official communications. We are bound by that, so we need to try and find some creative solutions. (R6, policymaker)

Opinions were also divided about adapting housing to make it suitable for eldercare. People from the Turkish community who wanted to move their vulnerable parents in with them were aware of the existence of renovation grants, but were prevented by planning regulations to extend their home to include an extra bedroom or bathroom: The town refused our planning application. Particularly the bathroom was problematic. So it turned into a very difficult period for us (…) because when our application was refused by the planning officers, we even proposed to install one of those containers, but that was definitely not acceptable. (R4, care professional & informal carer)

The intention to move in parents in need of care is sometimes also thwarted by other regulatory boundaries: children acting as informal carers in receipt of benefits risk losing (part of ) their allowance when they live together with their parents. Sometimes a strong case is made in favour of assigning a second house number to the same home for that reason. Regulations and associated policy do not stand out as the dominant theme of the interviews, but they were only mentioned ‘along the side lines’ as potentially facilitating or restricting factors for access to formal care and support for informal care.

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Social Pressure In quite a few interviews, the Turkish community in Genk was referred to as a ‘close-knit community’ or as ‘strongly organised’. Someone made the comparison with the ideologically segregated Flanders of the 1950s, as part of which people were expected to adhere to the dominant values and norms of the group they belonged to from the cradle to the grave: The Turkish community has many similarities with the Flemish community, as far as segregation but also organisation is concerned. (R7, care professional)

This also includes strong social control. The theme of ‘social control’ in the Turkish community was spontaneously raised in 15 interviews. Because we still tend to forget that the neighbourhood is also observing their conduct. The people around them of the same origin are keeping an eye on them. (R8, care professional) They are strongly interlinked, their families are very strongly interlinked. They also know everything about each other, about the neighbours, etc. Yes, they know everyone’s business. (R6, policy-maker)

Within the Turkish community itself, social control is described and interpreted in a more positive light by some: There is a lot of chatting between the members of the Turkish community. We are an open community, not quite as individualistic. (R9, care professional & informal carer)

Strong care norms applied to the children still appear to exist and they are indeed the object of social control, although attitudes have become more flexible in relation to how the care is being provided than in the traditional care pattern, described in literature. The respondents agreed quite unanimously that the care expectation in relation to the children is still very explicit, particularly among the first generation, although some respondents qualified it with the comment that much depends on the

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viewpoint of the elder person needing care: some are more flexible than others. The taboo that “children must look after their parents and not hide them away” still exists, doesn’t it? (R10, policy-maker) It is a sense of obligation: they raised me, so now it is my turn to look after them. (R11, policy-maker) They still expect you to look after your own parents. It means arranging for your parents to move in with you, or for you to move in with your parents. However, that is no longer possible, is it? (R4, care professional & informal carer)

When anyone does not take this obligation to care seriously, it is met with criticism from the community. Then you will hear many comments from outside, such as: “Well, why is that [person] not doing it? What type of child is this, actually? That is not an exemplary child. Why does that [person] do something like that? Those parents cared for him or her so well?” (R2, care professional & informal carer)

In seven interviews, respondents elaborated in depth on ‘guilt’ or ‘shame’: the strong feelings of guilt suffered by children who are compelled by (medical) necessity to search for a place for one of their parents in a residential care centre, and the indignation or sadness with the parents because their children did not meet their expectations of care. However, the Turkish community nurtures and boosts those feelings, which increases the pressure on the children to take on the care for their parents: There are also many sayings circulated on social media: “a mother and father raised their children in a single room; they sheltered and protected them. So many children in one room. But a son or child may have 40 rooms and not bother to accommodate a single parent.” (R12, informal carer)

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This type of comparison is designed to create feelings of guilt. A home nurse explained that the feelings of guilt towards the wider family, the neighbourhood and the Turkish community are so great at times, that parents impress on nurses that they must not tell a soul that the parents are being washed by professional nurses rather than by their children. A home nurse not of Turkish origin said that for some families, it constituted a reason to specify that they preferred a home nurse without Turkish roots, when professional care was needed. At the same time, quite a few respondents indicated that the strong expectation of providing informal care was difficult to combine with contemporary life, and that it was likely to decrease. With remarks such as ‘It is no longer possible’ (R13, care professional & informal carer) or ‘It will gradually become less the norm’ (R9, care professional & informal carer; R12, informal carer; R 15, informal carer) respondents refer to the fact that the changed labour market position of second-generation women puts the old care pattern under pressure. Second-generation women of Turkish origin are increasingly professionally active, and this increases the pressure to divide the duties of care between the children. In today’s world, everyone needs to work if they want to make ends meet, but that is also the case in Turkey, you know. It is impossible to make ends meet if only the men have jobs. (R13, care professional & informal carer)

To the economic necessity of female professional activity, someone adds her desire to be professionally active as a woman: I’m giving up my job to look after my parents: it isn’t what you want either, is it? It isn’t what you want. (R13, care professional & informal carer)

Once again, reference was made to individual differences between the parents themselves: some parents witness the balancing act their children need to perform to fit in the care work and try to show some understanding.

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It appears that there is no longer one specific care pattern; different families have devised different ways to meet the care needs in a practically feasible manner: Really in bits and pieces, but there isn’t a fixed pattern to it. Everyone makes sacrifices, also socially and financially. (R5, care professional & informal carer)

Sometimes parents needing care move on a weekly or monthly basis from one child to another; in other families, the children take turns living in with their parents, or an adult son or daughter living in Turkey comes to Belgium for some time. The care is not equally well co-ordinated in all families: some refer to a lack of communication between the children, as a result of which parents see all of their children simultaneously on some days and have a lot of food in the house, whereas they do not see anyone on other days. Informal carers complain that people fail to turn up at times, perhaps another one of the siblings. People also complain that their sons don’t do enough. There is no difference in that respect to the Belgians. (R14, care professional)

The search for sustainable solutions nevertheless appears to be a source of conflict in quite a few families, particularly between the children. Repeatedly, mention was made during the interviews, explicitly or between the lines, of discussions or sometimes (blazing) rows between relatives due to the informal care duties for the parents. She [the daughter-in-law] wondered why she ended up carrying the can whereas the daughters were not prepared to do it. They simply carried on with their lives and still came to visit, but she was the one who had to look after their mother. (R4, care professional & informal carer)

Since for some parents, the practical feasibility was a reason to be amenable, it also means that labour market participation and the family’s

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circumstances have a major impact on expectations and pressure. Often, the majority of the care indeed ends up on the shoulders of one daughter, and if one of the daughters is unemployed, not professionally active, or working part-time, a real chance exists that the daughter concerned will be put under pressure to take on the care. Divorced daughters also risk being put under greater pressure: You don’t have a husband, so no one will give you a hard time, saying: “Why are they [i.e. your parents] here?” (R15, informal carer)

One respondent, a single sick woman with children, explained that she took on all the informal care duties for her mother, while her childless brother and his wife lived on the first floor of the parental home. The burden of care also takes its toll on informal carers. They often feel that professional care is needed, but the stringent obligation to care makes it extremely difficult for some to indicate openly that the burden of care is becoming too heavy. Doctors, nurses and informal carers alike raised the consequences of care-related stress: They don’t want to give it up, they are exhausted, but they are trying to postpone that question. (R16, care professional & informal carer) They don’t feel able to say: “this is too much for me.” That is … They don’t talk about it. (R14, care professional)

Three informal carers told us that they had sought psychological or psychiatric help, or took medication on a temporary basis in order to keep going. Doctors indicated that their office is the only place where some informal carers dare to say that they have reached the limits of their capacity. Some children appear to deliberately distance themselves from their parents in order to evade their responsibility: If one of the children takes on the care, the others may distance themselves a little. (R2, Care professional & informal carer)

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Many parents are no longer visited by the children and the children fail to provide care or, well, distance themselves from their parents. (…) Sometimes I notice an indifference with the children, in relation to their parents. That they leave it up to the parents to find a solution. (…) So the story of it being the culture in this neighbourhood and that all foreigners are being looked after by their children is not always true. (R8, care professional)

In some cases, taking this distance can even be interpreted very literally, with children deliberately moving away from the neighbourhood, away from the social pressure exerted by the family and the community.

Internalised Norms and Voluntary Informal Care The third element from the obligation-based typology of (intergenerational) solidarity refers to internalised norms that bring individuals to provide voluntary care for people in their environment with whom they feel a specific emotional bond. Many of the quotes above appear to lie on the boundary between external motivation of social pressure and the intrinsic motivation of internalised care norms, such as these: Well, I must honestly say that we would be unable to live with ourselves if we handed over our parents to the care of a third party. (…) It appears to have become a given (…) That we must make every effort as human beings, as children, and if it then appears that we really cannot manage it, (…) only then could we contemplate it, as the very last option. (R9, care professional & informal carer)

Concepts such as shame and guilt are by definition based on a certain internalisation of the norms. It is a common phrase in our community: “Try and make them [your parents] happy as often as possible, because they will no longer be there tomorrow.” So it gets to your conscience, and you would do practically anything for them. (R15, informal carer)

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It also tends to be the mind-set. Yes, if something is dear to you, you will nurture it. You will try and look after it as closely to you as possible. (R2, care professional & informal carer)

Only one respondent explicitly mentioned an intrinsic motivation to provide care, thanks to the positive feeling she gained from doing so. Remarkably, the fact that she links these feelings of trust with being the only daughter, even if the mother lives in with her a son and daughterin-law, gives the example an explicit gender dimension: My mum feels that it is her own choice. She cannot trust everyone. (…) I am her only daughter, and I know almost everything about her life. (…) And I feel good, because it is a wonderful feeling that my mum really trusts me. I enjoy it. (…) There are no problems between the two of us, we have no secrets from each other… (R3, informal carer)

Discussion We started this chapter with the question how intergenerational solidarity is evolving over time and across different generations in the Turkish immigrant community in Flanders. Based on existing literature, we developed a typology identifying six types of solidarity, categorised by three levels of obligation (legal, external and internalised cultural norms) and two types of ‘targets’ of that obligation (particular individuals, or the community or society). In this section, we relate our findings back to the typology. Regarding the legal dimension of intergenerational solidarity, there is no statutory obligation to provide informal care for older people in Flanders, but several policy measures are designed to facilitate and support informal care. The policy is therefore not familialist in that it does not explicitly place the responsibility to provide eldercare with the family, but aimed at promoting collective intergenerational solidarity: via social security, active members in society support older people who need care. Within the Turkish community, there is a lack of knowledge of their rights as citizen and individuals face difficulties to access care services because of the language barrier, reinforced by the strict Flemish

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language legislation obliging authorities to communicate only in Dutch. This threatens the reciprocity principle in social security: whereas firstgeneration men contributed to social security due to the heavy work they did in the mines, these language barriers limit their uptake of the rights they accrued. This corresponds to the distinction made by Rawls (1973) between ‘liberty’ and ‘worth of liberty’: it is not because everyone formally has the same rights that everyone has sufficient resources to effectively use those rights. The regulation on care in Flanders is therefore not de jure but de facto familialist towards immigrant communities, since professional care and support are less easy to access for some groups of immigrants. As far as the cultural levels of obligation are concerned, it is not always easy to distinguish between the external and internal norms: it often remains unclear how far the spontaneous voluntariness of providing care goes, and from what point the social pressure is decisive. The strictly normative framework of traditional Turkish care, described in previous research on Turkish immigrant communities in the Netherlands (Burger, 2008; Hootsen et al., 2013; van Buren et al., 2005; Yerden, 2013), appears to be a thing of the past. Although family responsibility regarding eldercare is still a clear cultural norm, the roles concerning who provides the care are no longer laid down in advance, which creates scope for some flexibility. For the time being, it is not called into doubt by the Turkish community in Genk that care must be provided from within the family. However, the discussion about using formal care takes place in some families, while in others informal carers would like to call in professional support but fear the reaction of other relatives. Such tensions between community expectations and individuals’ preferences and life situations provide the conditions for cultural change (Pfau-Effinger & Rostgaard, 2011). The strong social pressure from the family and the community on adult children to take on the care has certainly not yet disappeared. Nonetheless, we do observe the first stages of a shift in the Turkish community in Genk from intergenerational solidarity in the family based on social pressure, to more voluntary provision of care based on internalised care norms. Whereas earlier literature shows that roles were initially strongly culturally defined, eldercare provision has become more

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flexible and increasingly is the subject of negotiation. For the time being, the provision of family care is not up for discussion according to our respondents. But there is more room for negotiation now in how this demand is met: the division of care work between children is no longer carved in stone as appeared to be the case in the previous literature. Other concerns such as compatibility with having a partner and paid work have become part of negotiations between siblings on how to fulfil the demand for family care. This shift not only requires changing moral values in the community, but also increased solidarity between siblings in order to avoid that all eldercare duties end up on the shoulders of one of them. Moreover, while the importance of informal care is still not questioned, we do observe a certain openness to the idea of using professional care among some individuals and families. This could be an initial indication of a future shift towards a stronger reliance on a legal form of solidarity through formal care and social security.

Conclusion The Turkish immigrant community is undergoing a shift in the intergenerational solidarity on which their eldercare system is built. There is increased flexibility in how the norm of family care can be met, but as the first generation disappears and the second generation ages, the use of professional care is set to increase. This shift marks a slow but steady shift in solidarity from being based on external social pressure to stemming from love and internalised norms—a shift that is likely to be catalysed by the ageing of the second generation. If we were to follow those authors stressing the importance of individual agency for actions to qualify as practices of solidarity, we could even state that the increased voluntariness of informal eldercare in the community could be interpreted as growing intergenerational solidarity. This should immediately also act as a warning to policymakers who wish to resolve the increased need for care as a result of ageing through the socialisation of care. A policy that leaves room for choice and facilitates intergenerational solidarity in the family, for example by adopting a strong stance on care leave schemes, can only be welcomed from a

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solidarity perspective. However, if the socialisation is carried out with a policy that squarely places the responsibility for eldercare within the family, existing tensions within the family may be exacerbated, jeopardising the described shift in intergenerational solidarity. As not only would such course of action turn back the clock in terms of emancipation and labour market participation of women, the limitation of choice options would also limit the agency that is a crucial prerequisite for solidarity.

Note 1. Belgium is a federal state, within which person-related matters including non-medical care are the responsibility of the three language communities, of which the Flemish Community (Dutch-speakers) is one.

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12 Religion and Solidarity: The Vicissitudes of Protestantism Dick Houtman, Anneke Pons, and Rudi Laermans

Introduction They are different from other Dutch people. (…) Watching television is forbidden (…) they dress decently and dully (…). They have their own newspaper, their own schools, their own political party. In short, it is a closely-knit community, and their church services are overcrowded instead of depopulated. (Voiceover television documentary Toen was geloof nog heel gewoon: De Biblebelt [Back then, faith was still very normal: The Biblebelt], NPO, August 26, 2017) D. Houtman (B) · A. Pons · R. Laermans KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] A. Pons e-mail: [email protected] R. Laermans e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_12

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Common characterisations of orthodox Protestantism like the one above portray it as boasting high degrees of solidarity. Such depictions echo the tendency in sociology of religion to define “strong” religion in terms of “the ability of a movement or organisation to maintain social control, group cohesion, and membership retention by sustaining the intensity of its members’ commitment to and readiness to sacrifice for the group” (Smith, 1998: 20–21). This entails a classical Durkheimian understanding of religion, according to which the latter constitutes a powerful source of solidarity in modern and traditional societies alike, with solidarity being informed and sustained by shared conceptions of what is sacred and what is profane. This Durkheimian approach understands both religion and solidarity as quintessentially social phenomena, situated at the supra-individual group level. It leaves completely open how groups or communities may define the boundary between the sacred and the profane, and in effect also that between themselves (“insiders”) and others (“outsiders”). This Durkheimian approach as such differs profoundly from understandings of solidarity as an individual trait, which incite researchers to address differences between individuals in the degree to which they are deemed “solidaristic” (“John is less solidaristic than Peter”; “Mary is more solidaristic than Jane”). Such individualised notions of solidarity tend to be informed by morally charged and intellectually arbitrary notions of whom those concerned should ideally be solidary with in the first place (the working class, the elderly, the young, the poor, social security recipients, immigrants, fellow nationals, the Third World, gays and lesbians, animals, or what have you). Unlike the Durkheimian approach, such individualised and politicised understandings of solidarity essentialise, advocate and performatively sustain moral distinctions between “solidaristic good guys” and “non-solidaristic bad guys”, i.e. those who are and those who are not “solidaristic” with the group or category a researcher happens to fancy. This is not the place to critique such intellectually debatable understandings of solidarity, but to introduce a puzzling ambiguity in Durkheim’s account of religion and solidarity. While Protestantism, especially in its orthodox guise, surely draws rigid boundaries between the sacred and the profane, the early positivist Durkheim of Suicide (1951

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[1987]) nonetheless maintained that it is hardly successful in forging cohesive religious communities. How can that be? A related problem is that given Durkheim’s claim that distinctions between the sacred and the profane inform group boundaries it does not even appear to make sense to address the issue of “Protestantism and solidarity” at that level of generality. For Protestantism constitutes a notoriously mixed bag, with orthodox and liberal currents differing profoundly in terms of their understandings of the sacred, which is as such likely to result in major differences in definitions of group boundaries. In what follows we therefore study how different understandings of the sacred among orthodox and liberal Protestants inform different understandings of community and solidarity. The balance between these two strains of Protestantism has shifted profoundly in the twentieth century, not least since the tumultuous 1960s, with orthodox Protestantism having become increasingly marginalised, exotic and eccentric and its liberal counterpart having become increasingly popular. Because we do not have historical data to trace the social implications of this shift, we address this issue indirectly by comparing the two strains of Protestantism in terms of their understandings of the sacred and the latter’s implications for solidarity. While ethnographic data would obviously be ideal for such a comparison, we out of necessity rely on qualitative interview data collected by the second author. Before we present our findings, we discuss Durkheim’s account of religion and solidarity in more detail, followed by a discussion of Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch about how orthodox Protestant distinctions between the sacred and the profane appear to stand in the way of solidarity and community.

Religion and Protestantism, Durkheim and Weber Durkheim on Religion and Protestantism There are basically two different Durkheims. The first is the early, positivist Durkheim, as foregrounded by later generations of sociologists: the

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Durkheim that is discussed in introductory textbooks in sociology, i.e. the Durkheim of the division of labour (1964 [1893]), of the rules of sociological method (1964 [1895]) and of suicide rates (1951 [1897]). The second Durkheim is the cultural-sociological and anthropological one of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1995 [1912]) and Primitive Classification (Durkheim & Mauss, 1963 [1903]). Even though this second Durkheim is not completely neglected in introductory sociology texts, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1995 [1912]) is certainly not discussed as frequently as the early Durkheim and his book with Mauss is typically neglected altogether. The sociological Durkheim is in practice hence very much the early Durkheim, while the intellectual significance of the late one lies more in sociology of religion and cultural anthropology than in general sociology. Even though the two do surely overlap in key respects (e.g. in postulating that the social precedes and shapes the individual), they differ profoundly in their treatment of culture, meaning and religion. In The Division of Labor in Society (1964 [1893]) the early Durkheim influentially critiqued Auguste Comte’s notion that in modern industrial societies, too, solidarity can be based on religion and shared moral norms and values (Gouldner, 1958). Rather than on cultural similarities between people (“mechanical solidarity”), he argued, solidarity could in these societies only be based on differences pertaining to occupational activities, embodied by the division of labour (“organic solidarity”). Yet, in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1995 [1912] the late Durkheim came very close to the Comtean position that he initially had dismissed. For here he conceived of religion as a major source of solidarity and cohesion in and of itself in any type of society, “primitive” and modern alike. He here defines religion as “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (1995 [1912]: 44). During the course of Durkheim’s career, then, he transformed religion from a relic of the past that could not sustain the modern order into a quintessential source of cohesion and solidarity in modern societies. This gives rise to an intriguing paradox in Durkheim’s treatment of Protestantism. For in Suicide the early Durkheim (1951 [1897]) argued

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that religions differ in their solidarity-providing potential, and in effect in their capacity to protect individuals against meaninglessness and suicide. Catholic countries and areas, he demonstrated by means of suicide statistics, do a markedly better job in this than Protestant ones. And indeed, patterns for the UK with its nominally Protestant yet markedly Catholicstyle Anglican Church resemble the patterns found for Catholic rather than Protestant continental European countries. In Suicide Durkheim hence treated Protestantism as the “other” of Catholicism, i.e. as a religious tradition that epitomises the typically modern dissolution of pregiven cultural orders that can sustain cohesion and solidarity. This raises the question of whether and how this early characterisation of Protestantism can be reconciled with Durkheim’s later notion that religion by definitional fiat provides solidarity. Max Weber’s account of Protestantism offers a valuable resource in addressing this question, not least because of its marked focus on orthodox Protestant understandings of the sacred.

Weber on Protestantism and Modernity Weber’s comparative analysis of the world religions foregrounds Protestantism’s combination of asceticism and inner-worldliness, which provides it with unprecedented world-transforming potential and historical significance (Weber, 1963 [1922], 1978 [1904–1905]). This is because asceticism incites believers to act as active tools of God rather than as passive vessels of the sacred (as in mysticism), while central to innerworldliness is the notion that one does not need to forsake one’s worldly calling (e.g. by leading a monastic life) to attain the status of a religious virtuoso. The Protestant combination of asceticism and innerworldliness, Weber asserted, played a major role in bringing about the modern rationalised order of the West. Indeed, Weber’s comparative analysis of the world religions aims to demonstrate how non-western religions like Hinduism, Confucianism and Buddhism that were either mystical, or other-worldly, or both, did not have such world-transforming consequences.

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Protestantism’s role in the breakthrough to modernity entails much more than providing fertile ground for the rise of modern capitalism, as discussed in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1978 [1904–1905]). Initially a reform movement within the Catholic church, Protestantism revolted against the veneration of saints and relics; against all sorts of magical practices; and against the notion that church elites had privileged access to the sacred and even embodied the sacred themselves. More generally conceived, then, the Reformation dismissed the belief that the divine could be found in the world itself and aimed to weed out belief in all sorts of supernatural spirits, forces and powers by radicalising the separation between the world and the divine. This separation had long before been introduced by anti-magical ancient Judaism, but had subsequently been relativised by Catholicism, that for many long centuries provided ample room for magic, myth and mystery. For Weber, the Reformation in effect constituted a decisive step in a long-term process of disenchantment: “That great historic process in the development of religion, the elimination of magic from the world which had begun with the old Hebrew prophets and (…) had repudiated all magical means to salvation as superstition and sin, came here to its logical conclusion” (Weber, 1978 [1904–1904]: 105). By making God more radically transcendent than he had ever been before, the Protestant Reformation denied that the sacred could be found in the world itself, transforming the latter into a meaningless and soulless “thing”, void of sacrality and meaning. This disenchantment opened up the world for unscrupulous scientific analysis and technological intervention (Weber, 1948 [1919]). Peter Berger (1967: 112) accurately summarises Weber’s position when he concludes that “Protestantism served as a historically decisive prelude to secularisation, whatever may have been the importance of other factors”, adding that “A sky empty of angels becomes open to the intervention of the astronomer and, eventually, of the astronaut” (1967: 112–113). Central to Weber’s account of the role of orthodox Protestantism’s in the breakthrough to modernity is hence its peculiar understanding of the sacred. Early orthodox Protestantism expelled the sacred from the world and came to understand the latter as strictly profane and void of

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sacrality or meaning, while simultaneously conceiving of God as radically transcendent and residing in a world of his own. The work of Ernst Troeltsch, a German theologian with marked sociological interests, suggests that precisely this radical distinction between the sacred and the profane accounts for Protestantism’s difficulties in generating solidarity and community. It is not without significance to point out that Troeltsch was one of Weber’s closest friends and intellectual sparring partners, even to the extent that “(…) his [Troeltsch’s] most significant empirical sociological investigation Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen (…) may be considered a supplement to the works of Max Weber” (Mannheim cited in Graf, 2014: 325).

Religious Dualism and the Vicissitudes of Protestantism Religious Dualism and Disenchantment In Troeltsch’s (1992 [1912]) terminology, the orthodox strain of Protestantism foregrounded by Weber epitomises “sect” religion as distinguishable from “church” religion, a distinction recently echoed by Linda Woodhead’s (2004) between “biblical” Christianity, respectively, “church” Christianity. “Church” Christianity posits the existence of just one church that envelops all members of a community and understands itself as intimately bound up with the latter. Becoming a church member is here hence not a deliberate personal act: one is “born into” a community and its church and in principle stays a member until one’s final day. This model of religion features a priesthood that mediates between God and the community of believers and that in effect has privileged access to the sacred. Due to this, the church model of religion assumes religious hierarchy: the priesthood is understood as more or less sacred in and of itself and hence as less worldly and profane than rank-and-file church members. The Roman Catholic church comes closest to this model of religion and it is clear that the same goes for Durkheim’s notion of religion as entailing “one single community called a Church” (1995 [1912]: 44).

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The Protestant Reformation revolted against all this by underscoring the authority of God, and God alone, while firmly rejecting the notion that the sacred could be found in the world and could be magically manipulated. Protestantism thus boasts a radical distinction between the world and an all-powerful God who has revealed the truth, so that his word as contained in the holy bible constitutes the only valid source of religious authority. Protestants in effect cannot rely on church authority in telling them how to live, but have the bible as their only guideline. This “sect” model of religion in effect features a critical rejection of society’s status quo, because measured against God’s strict commandments the world as it is inevitably falls short. So here religion is not about being a loyal member of a church and a community, but about obeying God— being a pious believer according to His commandments rather than those of the church. It is precisely this individual responsibility in the quest for religious truth that Durkheim holds responsible for high Protestant suicide rates. Dualism-induced and doubt-driven quests for religious certainty do also make Protestantism more prone to apostasy than Catholicism. This is because its religious individualism robs it of the “plausibility structures” that help Catholics sustain their faith (Berger, 1967). Due to the absence of any legitimate religious authority apart from God himself, and due to the implied status of like-minded fellow believers as potentially misguided, Protestants are thrown back upon themselves in figuring out what God, or rather the bible conceived as his word, “really” or “actually” demands from them. Even a quick glance at the religious map of Europe reveals the consequences. The most secularised parts of Europe are after all the ones that were historically Protestant, like the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands. In historically Catholic Southern Europe, on the other hand, religion has much more successfully withstood the dissolution of religious belief (e.g. Ribberink, Achterberg, & Houtman, 2018). A recent article about decline of religion and religious change in the USA, the UK and Canada nicely illustrates Protestantism’s greater susceptibility to doctrinariness and apostasy alike. While the number of Protestants has declined more sharply than the number of Catholics, practices of church attendance and praying have increased among Protestants and declined among Catholics (Wilkins-Laflamme,

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2016). What Grace Davie (1994) calls “believing without belonging” is in effect more of a Catholic than a Protestant tendency.

Vicissitudes of Protestantism The dualism-induced, doubt-driven quests for religious certainty do not only make Protestantism more prone than Catholicism to apostasy, but also to dissent, fragmentation and schism. A telling example is the socalled Geelkerken affair that shook Dutch Protestantism in the 1920s. Dr. Johannes G. Geelkerken, Calvinist theologian and minister, had publicly critiqued the notion that the biblical narrative of the snake talking to Eve in paradise (Genesis 3) could be interpreted literally. His stance caused a major conflict in the Protestant church that eventually resulted in an extraordinary General Synod (Assen, May 1926) that deposed Geelkerken from his ministry and created the next schism in Dutch Protestantism. The sole authority of God’s word as revealed by the bible and the religious dissent and fragmentation so easily fuelled by it have hence abundantly affected the Dutch religious landscape. The Protestant fishing village of Urk at the IJsselmeer, for instance, boasts no less than about twenty different Protestant churches, even though it has only about 20,000 inhabitants. Orthodox Protestant religious dualism thus harmed its own unity and viability by eroding firm plausibility structures and sparking disagreements and fissures. Particularly objections to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination have from the outset proven divisive. According to this doctrine, a transcendent and sovereign God who cannot be magically coerced elects a select few for eternal salvation, so that individual believers cannot influence their own access to the afterlife, no matter how pious and devout they are. Weber asserted that the doctrine stands alone with the Hindu doctrine of karma in offering the most logical and flawless solution to the problem of theodicy (i.e. why bad things happen to good people). Despite this logical unassailability, or rather precisely because of it, Weber’s scattered observations about “brotherly love” or “brotherliness” (i.e. religiously informed concerns with human suffering) leave no doubt that the doctrine of predestination eats away at solidarity and empathy

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with those who suffer (see Symonds and Pudsey, 2006, for an extensive discussion). More than that, the doctrine’s cruelty made it ethically and emotionally hard to bear, which is why it came under siege from within Protestantism itself as early as the sixteenth century. Dutch theologian Jakob Harmenszoon (1560–1609, better known under his Latinised name Jacobus Arminius) and his Remonstrant followers critiqued the doctrine for its sheer neglect of personal compassion and moral goodness in the process of attaining religious salvation. This Arminianism profoundly influenced the further development of Protestantism, especially through sixteenth-century Baptism and eighteenthcentury Methodism. It stimulated a shift within Protestantism towards a “softer, more human image of the divine” and a “promise of universal redemption”: a shift from the “utterly transcendent, awesome and vengeful god” of Calvinism to “a loving father”, and a concomitant shift from the salvation of just a small God-chosen elite to the notion that “all those who believe in Christ shall be saved” (Campbell, 2007: 255). An even further shift away from Calvinist orthodoxy took place during the period of rapid secularisation of the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, Protestant theologians like John Robinson, Paul Tillich, Thomas Altizer and Rudolf Bultmann tried to save Christianity from loss of legitimacy and plausibility by pushing the limits of liberal Protestantism even further. This took shape as what has come to be known as the “demythologisation movement” in Western Europe and the “death of God movement” in the USA. These movements sparked a theological shift towards an understanding of the bible as not so much historically and literally “true”, but rather as a collection of myths that can help individuals understand themselves and their lives. Related to this, the notion of a transcendent personal God that needs to be believed in was exchanged for that of an immanently present spirit or life force that needs to be experienced (Campbell, 2007; Daiber, 2002; Streib and Hood, 2011). While this liberalisation of religion fitted the spirit of the 1960s and 1970s quite well (Houtman, 2008; Houtman, Aupers, & de Koster, 2011: 1–24; Musgrove, 1974), it has of course been hard to swallow in orthodox Protestant circles.

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Orthodox and Liberal Protestants: Samples and Data Interview Data In what follows we compare orthodox and liberal Protestants, focusing on how their respective conceptions of the sacred, and hence of religious authority, give rise to different understandings of group solidarity. We base ourselves on 20 in-depth interviews with 11 orthodox and 9 liberal Dutch Protestants, conducted by the second author as part of her PhD project about changes in (non)religious identities across the life course. The respondents have been selected by means of snowball sampling, making use of pre-existing networks in the Dutch Biblebelt (orthodox Protestants) and in ecumenical and progressive Protestant congregations (liberal Protestants). The interviews lasted three to six hours and pseudonyms are used in the quotations below for privacy reasons.

Orthodox Protestants about God and Religious Authority In keeping with the foregoing we define orthodox Protestants in terms of their religious dualism and in effect as understanding religious authority as residing with God, and God alone. So those concerned distinguish firmly between the divine realm and the human one, conceiving of God as a radically transcendent person-like entity: “a powerful Being” (Hans), “Somebody – with a capital ‘S’” (Theo), who is “much higher than humans like us” (Renske) and “exalted in heaven, while I am here” (Rianne). They understand this God as omniscient and powerful, as someone “who is everywhere, who sees everything, who knows everything (…) somebody who is surely watching what you are doing” (Theo). He is also perceived to actively interfere on earth as the “maintainer of all things” (Leo) and as the “King of kings” (Rianne), “who has the absolute power and rules our lives” (Roos). Those concerned see God as possessing absolute power and as embodying “the Truth” (Rhodé), “the solid foundation that does not

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change” (Rianne). Central to God-ordained truth is a set of ethical rules, generally referred to as “God’s will” or “God’s commandments”, that imposes all sorts of restrictions. Renske vividly remembers her upbringing: “What was, and what was not allowed was clear-cut; theatre, popular music: Forbidden! Evil! Without discussion”. Similarly, Hans, who loves football and cinema, abruptly stopped these activities when he started to take his religious belief seriously. “Horrible!”, he now thinks, “I sinned against God”. Obeying God-given rules is understood as crucial, since God is seen as the ultimate judge “who has punishing qualities” (Jasper) and whose final judgement will inevitably take place, “be it at the end of the world or when one dies” (Roos). While human beings need “to serve and love God”, to quote an often-used expression, they are simultaneously conceived as humble, impure and sinful by nature, as “inclined by nature to hate God and other people”, as Renske and Rianne state in exactly identical words. This makes obeying God’s commandments so immensely difficult that humans are in effect at God’s mercy: “He chooses who are the ones [who receive grace]” (Roos, emphasis added). Such divine decisions are understood as completely “sovereign”, which creates a deeply felt “dependency on him, (…) [because] a human being cannot add anything at all” (Hans). In line with these dualist understandings, our orthodox respondents do not assign much authority to religious leaders. When Sietske was asked about this, she laughingly responded, “I just handle that alone”. Renske similarly emphasises personal responsibility when arguing that “all of us have our own way with the Lord. To be left alone is the most important, which means that I do not interfere with you”. Religious authority is solely attributed to God and his word as contained in the bible: “The bible is my directive, because I believe that it is the divine revelation of God to man. Not even a minister is a directive for me” (Theo). “I absolutely do not want to adopt beliefs that are incompatible with the Bible, since I am convinced that the bible contains the truth”, Rianne aptly summarises the attitude of the orthodox Protestant respondents. Hence, in trying to serve God and live up to his commandments our respondents scrupulously “seek for purity” (Sietske), “black and white” clarity (Hans), and “clear-cut and unambiguous answers” (Leo).

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Liberal Protestants about God and Religious Authority In marked contrast to the foregoing, our liberal Protestant respondents do not conceive of God as a transcendent person-like entity, but rather as an impersonal “something”: “God is not (…) a somebody” (Nienke). Instead, Nienke defines the divine as “a sort of goodness and beauty (…), a source that consists of energy (…), a source of love”. The liberal Protestants talk about an omnipresent impersonal divine spirit that immanently emerges “bottom up”, to use the words of Niels. They hold “a glimmer of the divine” (Nienke) to reside within every single person in the sense that “everybody possesses a piece and these [pieces] are together God” (Nadia). This means that God is understood as a “mystery” that “cannot be fixed into one single image” (Milan): “As soon as you start to speak about God, it goes wrong; for it is the God beyond gods who actually transcends all godly images” (Marius). This immanent and impersonal image of God informs an understanding of religious authority that differs profoundly from that of the orthodox Protestants discussed above. Like the latter they appreciate the bible, yet do not consider it “a law book” but rather a major source of inspiration, “a starting point for an explorative conversation” (Trijntje). Niels defines religious books more generally as “human writings” and incites believers to “stay responsible yourself!”. Trijntje similarly points out the need to “really find [it] within yourself ”, while Nadia underscores the significance of self-meditation in “get[ting] rid of one’s ego and go[ing] back to the nature of one’s spirit”. In doing so she counterposes a state of “judgementlessness” [Dutch: oordeelloosheid] against “the ego (…), [i.e.] norms and values”. Lara similarly feels embarrassed “when something is imposed” or “if someone wants to indoctrinate you”. These liberal Protestant respondents, in short, “cannot accord with too much morality, i.e., everything going in the direction of ‘homosexuals are dirty’ or ‘you’re not allowed to do this on Sunday’” (Niels). The divine spark held to reside within every single person is understood as in need of protection against pollution by religious doctrines and institutions.

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This notion that the divine cannot be meaningfully captured by doctrines or institutions gives rise to the renowned notion of spiritual “seekership”. This notion denies the existence of one ultimate, superior source of religious authority and instead emphasises the need to remain open to different sources and religious traditions. “Seeking” hence entails “absorbing information [and] just having an open mind on everything” (Trijntje). This comes down to acceptance of the spiritual doctrine of “perennialism”, according to which all religious traditions ultimately worship the same divine source (Aupers and Houtman, 2006): “You can find wisdom, irrespective of the source, irrespective of traditions (…). So, whether it is Hinduist, Buddhist, or from Egypt: you can be inspired by all of them” (Niels).

Solidarity in Orthodox and Liberal Protestantism We now turn to the question of how these contrasting understandings of the sacred and of religious authority inform different understandings of group solidarity.

Orthodox-Protestant Solidarity: A Tight, yet Precarious Community Our orthodox respondents visit the church services of their respective communities at least twice a week, marry like-minded partners and send their children to orthodox Protestant schools. “It is important to have unity [of thinking in your community]”, Rianne emphasises, explaining her criteria for belonging to her orthodox in-group as follows: People I feel affiliated with are convinced that the bible is the absolute truth. And people I don’t feel affiliated with just take parts of the bible seriously, or just don’t share my beliefs.

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While being part of a like-minded religious community is deemed important in these circles, the like-mindedness is in fact more important than community life itself. The congregation gets together for church services, but does not organise many other social events, “because that is a mere side issue” (Theo). Even though several respondents are involved in voluntary work, such as helping refugees, solidarity with outsiders is not a big issue. Rhodé even suggests that such solidarity is only important because “it gives a positive image of us as Christians, and that’s what it’s all about”. Discussing the orthodox Protestant sense of solidarity, Leo reflexively refers to “salvation-selfishness” [Dutch: heilsegoïsme], an “individualism along the lines of ‘I don’t bother about the rest of the world, as long as me and my wife know we are saved’”. This is fuelled by the orthodox belief of utter dependency on God’s mercy: This core belief has major implications, not only for the vertical relationship [with God], but also for the horizontal relationship [with men]. God says: ‘Love me above all and your neighbour as yourself ’. Only if that vertical relationship applies to you personally through the blood of Christ, a horizontal relationship with men is possible. (…) So, if people say, ‘It [being saved] is also possible by doing well and being friendly’, that is beyond the boundaries of what I believe. I think it is important, but it can only flow from the vertical relationship with God. (Theo)

In the end, the utter dependency on God frustrates the forging and sustaining of group solidarity, and religious consensus is the exception rather than the rule. Many “disagree with some ideas” (Roos), often even with “the minister or the sermon” (Rhodé). Since religious truth is more important than religious community in these circles, sermons are frequently condemned as “too general, they have to be more explicit” (Ineke), or as missing “half of the truth” (Roos). Jasper recounts how he objected to a sermon by a liberal preacher on the grounds that “it was actually just a social talk, i.e., ‘You have to look after each other’ and that sort of things”. Rhodé even accuses a pastor of “defying God”, while Hans observes that an elder’s reliance on a “mistaken” translation of a sermon “proves that he is not involved in the truth”.

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Because finding religious truth is ultimately a personal responsibility, ministers face the risk of losing their credibility and legitimacy, inciting believers to move to a new congregation. “One is allowed to leave if truth is not provided”, Rianne underscores, while Hans points out that “followers will [then] be taught by the Lord himself (…) to distinguish between what is true and wat is not” (Hans). This is precisely what Hans eventually decided to do himself: “I could not tolerate it anymore; it was so bad!” [emphasis in original]. For the same reason, Roos left her congregation to join another one, where “for now” she “feels at home”. “But”, she adds, “the absolute truth is with God”. Even though orthodox Protestantism features tight communities of like-minded believers, in short, these congregations tend to be precarious, because humans are seen as fallible and the truth as residing with God alone.

Liberal-Protestant Solidarity: An Open, Inclusive Network Due to liberal Protestants’ characteristic unwillingness to define themselves as members of narrowly circumscribed religious communities, church attendance here lacks the pivotal status it has in orthodox Protestantism. Missing church services is not a big issue and some of our interlocutors, like Nadia, hardly attend at all. When asked why she does not visit church services more often, Nadia responds that she can also find inspiration elsewhere: “I don’t need to become a member of (…) a ‘complete’ community”. “There are enough people around me and I already have enough input, because I am also involved in a new meditation course”, she observes, adding: “when one has meditated all Saturday, it is simply too much to go to church on Sunday”. In line with such spiritual perennialism, the church services of our interlocutors’ congregations boast openness and diversity. Sermons and rituals like baptising or the public confession of faith do not have a fixed format but are often adjusted to personal interests. Nienke points out how the sermons in her congregation are “sometimes [taken] from the bible, sometimes [based

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on] an Islamic fairy tale; once Derk Das [a children’s book; DH/AP/RL] came across, or something Buddhist, or singing bowls: everything is possible”. Religious community and solidarity are nonetheless important for liberal Protestants. Even Nadia, who does not visit church services anymore, repeatedly emphasises that “connection is very important for me, [i.e.] that I have connections with human beings”. Indeed, defining the divine in terms of an impersonal power residing in the inner selves of all individuals gives rise to the notion that the divine makes itself present “if we connect everything together, if love is flowing” (Dirk). “I like the idea that (as the bible says), ‘If more than two [people] meet that is where I [God] am’”, Niels stipulates, adding: “That you meet each other and are able to piece the ideas of each of you together, focusing them in a new way into something stronger, something sublime”. According to the liberal Protestants, open and diverse networks are as such indispensable to prevent narrow-mindedness and dogmatism, and to maintain the infinite spiritual quest they value so much: The more you celebrate the differences, the more they disappear (…). Then you are going to discover the unity of people, and the unity of ideas (…). By swimming back and forth through the differences, you become closer to each other, and probably to God as the unity. (Niels)

This appreciation of otherness and difference explains why Nadia is involved in a variety of loosely organised religious and spiritual initiatives, ranging from an ecumenical Christian congregation to a Buddhist meditation course, an anthroposophical nutrition training and a craniosacral therapy training. Nelleke, who has many Islamic friends and a non-religious husband, recounts that at a particular moment many of her non-Muslim friends assumed that she was about to convert to Islam, because “almost all of my friends were Muslim”. Dirk even points out how much he appreciates participation in a community that boasts “rather strict and rather liberal persons [alike], (…) because [then] one never knows the opinion of others about a certain topic, so there is always a reason to ask each other about it”.

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In tandem with offering opportunities for spiritual growth, a religiously diverse network is seen as facilitating “expressing love to all people (…), so not only being busy with yourself, but above all with the people around you” (Trijntje). Dirk similarly refers to church services as “[occasions] where I meet a small group of people who share the inspiration to do something together for others”. Discussing the implications of his transition from an orthodox to a liberal understanding of the divine, Milan explains this as follows: In the past I have been busy with the life after this life. Then I thought that you have to live in preparation for heaven, for the afterlife. But if you don’t believe that anymore, your mission in life changes. Yeah, now I think that we have to create a heaven within this life (…) [So] it is your purpose to just care for yourself and for each other. For by doing so you will show something divine. [emphasis in original]

This illustrates a pivotal conviction among the interviewed liberal Protestants: God can be experienced if “a place is created where people take care of each other, give second chances (…), and show mercy for each other” (Dirk). The resulting solidarity does not remain limited to a narrowly defined religious in-group, but everyone is welcome: “Open the doors!”, Niels declares, “welcome people, help them, look after them”. In a word, the liberal Protestant understanding of the divine as an impersonal, immanent spirit informs a notion of solidarity that is inclusive, network-like and without strict boundaries.

Conclusion and Discussion Consistent with Durkheim’s account of religion as a source of solidarity, our interview data show that different understandings of the sacred give rise, indeed, to different construals of group boundaries and solidarity in orthodox and liberal Protestantism. Orthodox Protestantism, less numerous than it used to be due to processes of religious decline since the 1960s (McLeod, 2007; Norris and Inglehart, 2004), boasts tightly-knit

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communities with clear boundaries. Liberal Protestantism, more numerous than it used to be due to processes of religious change during this same period (Campbell, 2007; Heelas and Woodhead, 2005; Houtman and Mascini, 2002), espouses inclusive and network-like communities without strictly defined boundaries. Contrasting understandings of the sacred hence inform and sustain solidarities that differ in breadth and openness to diversity. While orthodox Protestantism sets the sacred more decidedly apart from the profane than most other religions do, it is ironically precisely this religious dualism that creates problems in sustaining and maintaining a firm sense of group solidarity. This accounts for the contradictory claims by the early Durkheim of Suicide (1951 [1897]) and the late one of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1995 [1912]). Because those concerned conceive of God as radically transcendent and of the world as radically profane (see also Pons et al., 2019), solidarity becomes both narrowly defined and hard to sustain. Orthodox Protestants ultimately owe loyalty to God only, so that their fellow believers, like all others, can take no more than a back seat, which makes community vulnerable. Liberal Protestantism, to the contrary, understands the sacred as omnipresent in the world and hence permeating each and every individual and connecting “everything”. Because all people are as such taken to share in the same spirit, it spawns diverse, inclusive and network-like communities without strictly defined boundaries. Even though the resulting exclusivist, respectively inclusivist solidarities in respectively orthodox and liberal Protestantism differ profoundly, the question which of them is “most solidaristic” is futile, because answering it requires morally informed criteria that are meaningless from an intellectual point of view—much like the individualised notions of solidarity referred to in the introduction. One answer could surely be “the orthodox”, because their tightly-knit and religiously homogeneous communities come close to Durkheim’s “mechanical” solidarity, however fragile and vulnerable the latter may be in this case. Another, equally (in)defensible answer could be “the liberals”, precisely because they abhor such tightly-knit and homogeneous communities to instead embrace a decidedly inclusive logic that rejects the exclusion of religious

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others. “Solidarity”, in other words, is an essentially contested concept that comes in as many flavours as there are religious and political outlooks. To prevent the sociological study of solidarity from degenerating into political discourse, misplaced notions of “real” solidarity are therefore better abandoned altogether in favour of studies into how qualitatively different solidarities are informed by qualitatively different distinctions between the sacred and the profane.

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Houtman, D. (2008). Op jacht naar de echte werkelijkheid: Dromen over authenticiteit in een wereld zonder fundamenten. Amsterdam: Pallas Publications. Houtman, D., Aupers, S., & de Koster, W. (2011). Paradoxes of individualization: Social control and social conflict in contemporary modernity. Aldershot: Ashgate. Houtman, D., & Mascini, P. (2002). Why do churches become empty, while new age grows? Secularization and religious change in the Netherlands. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41(3), 455–473. McLeod, H. (2007). The religious crisis of the sixties. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Musgrove, F. (1974). Ecstasy and holiness: Counter culture and the open society. London: Methuen. Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2004). Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Pons, A., Houtman, D., Exalto, J., Roeland, J., van Lieburg, Fred, & Wisse, M. (2019). Buildings and Bibles between profanization and sacralization: Semiotic ambivalence in the protestant Dutch Bible Belt. Material Religion, 15 (1), 1–26. Ribberink, E., Achterberg, P., & Houtman, D. (2018). Religious polarization: Contesting religion in secularized Western Europe. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 33(2), 209–227. Smith, C. (1998). American evangelicalism: Embattled and thriving. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Streib, H., & Hood, R. W. (2011). ‘Spirituality’ as privatized experienceoriented religion: Empirical and conceptual perspectives. Implicit Religion, 14 (4), 433–453. Symonds, M., & Pudsey, J. (2006). The forms of brotherly love in Max Weber’s sociology of religion. Sociological Theory, 24 (2), 133–149. Troeltsch, E. (1992 [1912]). The social teachings of the Christian churches (two volumes). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Weber, M. (1948 [1919]). Science as vocation. In H. H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills (Eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in sociology (pp. 129–156). London: Routledge. Weber, M. (1963 [1922]). The sociology of religion. Boston: Beacon Press. Weber, M. (1978 [1904–1905]). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. London: Allen & Unwin. Wilkins-Laflamme, S. (2016). Protestant and catholic distinctions in secularization. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 31(2), 165–180. Woodhead, L. (2004). Christianity: A very short introduction (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

13 World Population Explosion, Migration and Solidarity in Europe Jan Van Bavel

Introduction Current, massive world population growth has often been called a “ticking time bomb” and portrayed as a threat to solidarity in Europe because of the combination of two demographic developments. On the one hand, in the South, and particularly in Africa, populations are growing at exceptionally fast rates. Since this growth is strongest in the poorest regions and implies fast expanding numbers of young adult populations, it is expected that it will lead to enormous migration flows, or even an “exodus” from the poor and young South to the rich but old North (Collier, 2013). On the other hand, Europe has been experiencing fertility rates below the so-called replacement level for decades, meaning that fertility is so low that it implies population ageing and, if there would be no immigration, population decline (Lutz, O’Neill, & Scherbov, 2003). The rapidly growing share of care-needing elderly and the J. Van Bavel (B) KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6_13

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shrinking “home-grown” population of working age in the North combine to add a pull factor to the migration equation, next to the push factor implied by the population explosion in the South, supposed to generate a massive influx of immigrants to Europe (Collier, 2013). This two-stroke population time bomb will imply, so the popular argument goes on, that Europe will evolve into a super-diverse society with no common culture (Bleich, Bloemraad, & De Graauw, 2015; Goldstone, 2010; Lundgren & Ljuslinder, 2011; Vertovec, 2019), and this would be undermining the sociocultural basis of solidarity in Europe (Galle & Fleischmann, 2019; Gerhards, Lengfeld, Ignácz, Kley, & Priem, 2018) in a double way: (1) solidarity with other people living in the same European country, who will increasingly be perceived as strangers and having a “strange” or “backward” way of life (Caviedes, 2015; Horsti, 2008; Mepschen, 2019); (2) solidarity with other countries in the world, which, with their exploding and often very religious populations, are increasingly perceived as a threat to European populations, with their very low fertility and secularised attitudes (Bleich et al., 2015; Caviedes, 2015; Mepschen, 2019; Saeed, 2007). While mass immigration is hence portrayed as a threat to internal solidarity in Europe, at the same time the concept of solidarity features prominently in European discourses about migration policy, and about refugee policies in particular (della Porta, 2018; Frelak, 2017; Gerhards et al., 2018): if migrants are fleeing miserable conditions like war, poverty and oppression, European countries should allow these humans to their territories out of social solidarity; “because we are all humans after all” (see Scholz, 2008: 232–241, for a discussion of the general human condition as a basis for social solidarity). In sum, in Europe, migration as a policy issue has become very much a question of solidarity, with public discourse circling around the question to what extent immigration is threatening internal solidarity on the one hand and how much external solidarity with immigrants coming from outside Europe is feasible on the other hand (Gerhards et al., 2018). In this chapter, I will argue that European immigration policy is misguided by the combination of a misleading metaphor of population growth as a “ticking time bomb” with the dominant framing of the issue of migration as a question of solidarity. First, I address the demographic

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part of the puzzle, next I discuss how the current framing of migration as an issue of solidarity is connected with an age-old kind of Malthusian fear, and what the implications have been for immigration policy in Europe.

Population Growth in Africa and Migration to Europe The bomb metaphor with respect to the impact of demographic change on solidarity in Europe is misleading for at least two reasons. First, demographic change is slow and relatively well predictable rather than abruptly striking without advance warning. It is fair to say that we are experiencing a population explosion in the sense that growth has recently been much more rapid than it has ever been in the history of mankind, but this growth is not fuelled by something like a bomb. At the moment, ironically, it is rather fuelled to a large extent by demographic inertia (Van Bavel, 2013). Second, in contrast to the devastating impact of a bomb, the implications of world population growth and migration flows need not be catastrophic. The ingredients are well known in advance, but the impact is uncertain and contingent, rather than self-evident. As a result of demographic transition and the ensuing population momentum (Lee, 2003; Van Bavel, 2013), population growth rates are currently highest by far in Africa (Gerland et al., 2014). According to the UN World Population Prospects (2017), the annual growth rate is 2.49% for African countries as a whole while it is estimated to be less than 0.08% for European countries in the years 2015–2020 (for comparison: the estimate for Asia is 0.90%, for Latin America 0.99% and for Northern America 0.73%). Until the late twentieth century, the European population still outnumbered the population of the African continent, but this is no longer the case in the twenty-first century. By 2010, African population size was estimated at just over 1 billion, compared to about 740 million for Europe. The projected population size for 2040 is about the same or a bit less for Europe, while the number of people living in Africa is projected to exceed 2 billion by then (UN Population Division, 2017; see also Gerland et al., 2014).

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In this demographic context, anxiety in Europe has grown over immigration from Africa to Europe and how it may affect life in Europe. This happens in the popular media, but not just there. According to Oxford economist Paul Collier, we are observing “the beginnings of disequilibrium of epic proportions” (Collier, 2013: 51). Given the combination of population explosion due to high fertility on the one hand with poverty and unemployment on the other hand, often combined with violent conflict, oppression and environmental degradation, there will be an “exodus” out of Africa into the “honeypots” of the West, Collier argues. That West holds the promise to offer higher wages and employment opportunities in countries facing the ageing of their working population, in a much safer environment and, in the case of Europe, backed up with well-developed systems of social security. While this “exodus” thesis seems so plausible that it is often taken for granted and features prominently in political discourse, it does not live up to the facts. There are several facts that imply that there is no exodus going on, nor are there any signs that there will be an “emptying out” of African countries in the future. First, a very large majority of Africans never move out of their country. Data from the Global Migration Database indicate that around a quarter of all Africans have migrated outside their country of birth and that emigration intensity has been on the decline between 1960 and 2000 (Flahaux & De Haas, 2016). Second, when Africans migrate, they usually do so to another African country rather than to Europe. While Europe is clearly gaining popularity as a region of destination, around the year 2000, more than 70% of African emigrants had settled in another African country, and less than 20% had settled in Europe. So most Africans do not migrate out of their country, and if they do, they mostly settle in another (usually neighbouring) African country (Abel & Sander, 2014; Flahaux & De Haas, 2016). About the future, research shows that the large majority does not show any intentions of moving, and particularly not the poorest in the poorest countries. The share of Africans reaching Europe is extremely low, and the large majority has no intention at all to move to Europe (Flahaux & De Haas, 2016). Yet, even if emigration intensity out of Africa has not increased and even if most African migrants still stay in that continent, from the

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European perspective, the volume of African immigrants in Europe has strongly increased in absolute numbers: from less than 100,000 per year in the 1980s up to almost 400,000 per year in the early twenty-first century (Flahaux & De Haas, 2016). Against popular misconception, this migration is not driven by increasing poverty or underdevelopment, nor by political oppression. Rather the opposite is the case. There exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic welfare and emigration: those least likely to emigrate are the poorest and the richest; the ones most likely to migrate are the ones in the middle. On the country level, the poorest countries tend to have even lower emigration rates than the richest ones. On the individual level, the poorest do not have the means to migrate, while the richest lack the incentives to do so. With the growth of economic development of many African countries, a growing share of African families gained middle-class status, and those are the ones having sufficient means to send some of their (usually) sons to Europe to gain higher salaries to support their families (De Haas, 2010). While war and extreme cases of violent conflict, like in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, can obviously be a reason for many people to seek asylum in other countries, instability, uncertainty and conflict are usually stimulating people to stay home in order to protect their families. There exists a positive rather than a negative correlation between political freedom and emigration, as many oppressive regimes forbid their citizens to leave the country (Fargues, 2017).1 Generally, poorer, marginalised and landlocked African countries tend to have lower levels of extra-continental migration, and their migration is mostly directed towards other African countries (Flahaux & De Haas, 2016: 16–17). Still, the recent flow of migrants and refugees who try to cross the Mediterranean fuels media reports and public anxiety that we are living an unprecedented migration crisis and that Europe is experiencing just the early warning signs of mass migration, if not exodus, out of Africa (Dines, Montagna, & Vacchelli, 2018). What certainly makes the Mediterranean migration crisis of the early twenty-first century unique is its all-time high in mortality at sea: between 2000 and 30 June 2017, 33761 migrants were recorded as drowned in the Mediterranean when trying to reach Europe, making the Mediterranean the world’s deadliest border (Fargues, 2017; Steinhilper & Gruijters, 2018). The recorded

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number of people who made it by sea to Southern European shores alive but without a visa peaked at more than a million in 2015 (Fargues, 2017). The recent numbers of refugees are, however, not unprecedented in Europe. By far the highest numbers were seen at the end of the Second World War, when ten to twelve million refugees and displaced persons were looking for a new place to stay. They were coming from 20 countries and spoke 35 different languages. There were camps in Germany and Austria packed with people. Many had to wait for many years until they were resettled somewhere in Europe or North America (Lucassen, 2017). And while the peak in asylum seekers in 2015 (1.3 million seeking asylum in a EU country) was unprecedented in the post-World War recent history, this can easily be abused to misrepresent the recent refugee influx. First, in most countries, the peak did not reach higher levels than in the peak years of the 1990s. Only in Germany and Sweden did the number of asylum seekers in 2015 clearly exceed peak number of the 1990s. Second, when calculated not per year but per 5 years, national authorities had to handle more asylum seekers in the period 1995–1999 than in 2010–2015. Third, also in terms of diversity of origin, the current influx is not unprecedented. In the 1990s, initially, the number of asylum seekers soared due to the influx of Bosnians and Croats fleeing the war in Yugoslavia but they were soon numerically superseded by refugees escaping war in the Middle East, notably Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan as well as Somalia (Lucassen, 2017). All this does not imply that the recent influx of refugees would not pose serious challenges, but it does not represent a sign of the unleashing of a general exodus of poor migrants from the South. The peaks of 2014–2015 had a clearly identifiable cause: the civil war in Syria. Three quarters of the asylum seekers originated from a limited number of war zones: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa (Lucassen, 2017). Furthermore, only a small proportion of the refugees are hosted in Europe. By far the most refugees are hosted in very poor countries outside Europe. Top hosting countries include Pakistan, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Uganda, Iran and Turkey (UNHCR, 2017). Refugees in general represent only a small part of migrants overall: refugees comprise about 0.3%

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of the world population and about 10% of the total estimated number of international migrants (Czaika & De Haas, 2014; UNHCR, 2017). Summing up: there is no evidence that there is an Exodus out of Africa going on and that Europe would be “flooded by migrants”. Most Africans show no intention whatsoever to leave their continent, especially not the poorest and the most marginalised ones. Nevertheless, the strength of demographic growth as well as economic development imply high and increasing volumes of migrants, both within the African continent and to Europe and elsewhere. All in all, the only plausible prediction has been and remains that the numbers of Africans coming to Europe will continue to increase in the next years and perhaps decades.

Implications for Shifting Solidarity in Europe In Europe, the discourse on unprecedented African population growth and the issue of migration is characterised by Malthusian fears (as explained below). Indeed, the Malthusian perspective has structured the public debate between two poles: on the one hand, there is the idea of a moral obligation of solidarity towards “les misérables”, the poor and the oppressed; on the other hand, there is the plea for the realism that “we cannot save all the poor”, and “we cannot take and solve all the misery of the world”. I will first explain a bit more what I mean by Malthusian fears, next how this has pushed policy responses in Europe into the “solidarity” corner and why this is unfortunate. Finally, I will discuss recent findings about attitudes of solidarity towards migrants and refugees in the European public opinion.

Malthusian Fears The fear of a massive migration influx from poor countries strikingly parallels the fear voiced by Thomas Malthus at the end of the eighteenth century about the unprecedented population growth of the proletariat in Europe. With his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) he wanted to react to the optimism and belief in indefinite progress of civilisation and

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the human fate. What these believers and optimists fail to see, Malthus argued, is that people, and the poor in particular, have too many children because they marry too early. As a result, population is growing exponentially and the means of subsistence cannot follow suit. And, what makes it even worse, Malthus argued, is that high population growth is even supported by what today would be called welfare state benefits, meaning in his case the eighteenth-century English Poor Laws. These provided material and financial support to the poor. According to Malthus, this stimulated people without the means to support a large family to still have many children. Mutatis mutandis, reactions in Europe to the African population growth and immigration pressure have a similar architecture: they still have so many children even if they are poor, while we are modern and advanced enough to have only small families (some say even too few of them), so their behaviour is responsible for the population explosion while our wealth and richness is attracting them, and they send many sons to the rich countries to take advantages of our welfare state system. “This is not sustainable”, so the argument goes (e.g. Bommes & Geddes, 2000; Collier, 2013). At first sight, an important difference between the eighteenth-century Malthusian concern and today’s worries about the influx of migrants is that an important ingredient of Europe’s fear today is related to the religiosity of the immigrants: while we are living in secularised countries, they are typically very religious. And what is more: many are Muslims and hence different from our Christian heritage religion. We are former Christians, they are practicing Muslims—and sometimes radical ones, too (cf. Casanova, 2008; Foner & Alba, 2008; Voas & Fleishmann, 2012), so the reasoning goes. I would argue that even this ideological ingredient was present in Malthus’ Essay, be it in a different form. Malthus was clearly concerned about preserving the legacy of the Enlightenment. He repeatedly talks about “enlightened” people and “enlightened nations” in his essay, as opposed to “backward” people and nations. The problem he saw is that the “backward” have too many offspring, undermining the progress of Enlightenment. One can find very similar fears in Europe today, and this has affected policy discourses there. The religiosity of today’s immigrants (assumed or real)

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often features as a sign of lack of enlightened secularism is such discourses (Casanova, 2008).

Policy Discourses in Europe “Europe has consistently shown generosity and true solidarity towards those in need of protection during the migration crisis” (European Commission, 2017: 1, emphasis added). This sentence opens the European Commission’s “Fact Sheet” on relocation, issued November 2017. Indeed, European policy discourses have pushed the migration issue into the “solidarity” corner: if we allow migrants, it is out of solidarity between “us” (in Europe) and “them” (from Africa and the Middle East), because “they” are in need and we have a moral obligation to help them. Solidarity is often conceived of as typically occurring between the rich and the poor, or between the strong and the weak, often against the background of a belief that “we are on the same boat; at the end of the day, we all share the same fate”, so we need to mutually support each other (Scholz, 2008: 231–265; Van Hoyweghen, Meyers & Pulignano, in this volume). In Europe, the issue of migration is very much framed within this perspective of solidarity. The ensuing political debate is then about the question: “how much migrants can we take?” From left to right on the political spectrum, there is consensus that we cannot take “all the misery of the world”. Europe cannot afford to be the welfare “honeypot” of the world, especially not when faced with the massive population explosion in the South (Collier, 2013). So, ironically, the result of this framing of migration as a matter of “solidarity” is that European migration policies, at least in public discourse about it, have increasingly focused on border control, with countries competing with each other to keep the number of immigrants as low as possible, rather than on active immigration policy. One important tool that is being used for this is the distinction between “economic migrants” and “refugees” (with reference to the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention, as explained in the next section) (Long, 2013). Nation states use the migrant/refugee distinction in two ways to restrict the number of immigrants: (a) by making it difficult to submit an application to seek

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asylum and by considering as irregular “economic” migrants those who do not seek asylum through the Geneva Convention, and (b) by giving strict interpretations to the criteria before granting refugee status. The rationale for this policy orientation goes like this: we do have a moral obligation of solidarity with “real refugees” but cannot accept economic migrants, because then we would open the doors to “the whole world” (cf. Hendrickx & Van Hoyweghen, 2018). In at least two ways, the latter is a false opposition and a false statement. First, accepting economic migrants does not need to imply accepting all migrants. Countries could select the economic migrants they want and refuse entrance to others. But this kind of policy does not fit into the current discourse of solidarity which is so characteristic of the European framing of the migration issue, namely that accepting migrants is an act of solidarity. And, second, the distinction between economic migrants and refugees is much more blurred in reality than is suggested by the legal definition and by political discourse. Let me start to talk about the latter issue first.

Refugee Policies as Border Control Politics It has often been attempted to construct a neat and clear division between “refugees” and “migrants” (Fargues, 2017). The distinction is used and insisted upon not so much because it accurately reflects reality but rather because of its political effectiveness, enabling to say that, on the one hand, it is our moral as well as legal duty to help refugees while, on the other hand, we cannot take on board all people who escape poverty and hope to find a better life in rich countries. Before the 1950s, no distinction was made between migrants and refugees. Yet, treating refugees as regular migrants in the 1920s and 1930s failed to ensure their protection from persecution because their admission depended entirely on economic criteria. Distinguishing between refugees and migrants from the 1950s onwards helped to offer adequate protection to the former. However, in creating this “fast lane” to admission, the humanitarian discourse that protects refugees from harm is now actually preventing refugees from finding durable solutions, which in fact

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continue to depend upon securing an economic livelihood and not just on receiving humanitarian help (Long, 2013). While the legal sub-category of refugees was created to protect people who are fleeing from violence and oppression, European countries are now de facto using it to restrict immigration. They are doing it in a number of ways. For example, the Dublin Regulation leads to slower processing of asylum seekers and a stricter interpretation of the Geneva criteria. The Common European Asylum System was formed to harmonise the reception and processing of asylum seeker in EU countries and is legally guided by the Dublin Regulation and other European directives. Its goal was not just to reduce the differences between European countries but also to hinder “asylum shopping” (Brekke & Brochmann, 2015: 147). Asylum seekers are supposed to submit their request in the first EU country of arrival, and if they are submitting a request in another state, the Dublin Regulation implies that they are sent back to the country where they first entered Europe (Brekke & Brochmann, 2015). EU directives have made it almost impossible for refugees to board an airplane and choose their country of entrance to the EU, since European law provides financial penalties on airline carriers transporting aliens lacking necessary documentation. Since EU member states have not organised procedures for asylum seekers to obtain visas in their country of origin, it is almost impossible for refugees to board an airplane (Moreno-Lax, 2008). Europe offers hardly any resettlement opportunities by which the status of refugee is recognised before the person can safely travel to Europe. Humanitarian visas that would allow people to travel legally to a European country in order to lodge an asylum claim are not often delivered by European embassies, even though they exist in European law. In order to reach Europe and lodge an asylum claim, refugees have no choice but to either obtain a visa meant for other purposes (work, study, family reunion or tourism) or travel without visa and pay for the services of a migrant smuggler (Fargues, 2017: 19). All this has effectively made it more difficult for refugees to be recognised for two reasons. First, they cannot go to the country with the most welcoming, broad interpretations of the Geneva criteria anymore and, second, since the European visa policies and EU directives to combat illegal immigration have made it extremely difficult for refugees to

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enter Europe with an airplane, most refugees now enter Europe via the Mediterranean. For example, more than 77% of the 830,000 Syrian refugees who were able to enter Europe between the beginning of the civil war in 2011 and the March 2016 Turkey deal were smuggled by sea to Greece or Italy, even though almost all of them were granted refugee status if they made it to Europe alive. In the process, the reception facilities in Greece and Italy were overburdened, slowing down the processing of asylum seekers (Fargues, 2017). It also slowed down the integration in the regular housing and labour market for those who were eventually granted refugee status (Brekke & Brochmann, 2015). While the number of applications for asylum decreased sharply after 2000 (until around 2012), the number of deaths in de Mediterranean soared. People were becoming more and more dependent on human smugglers (Lucassen, 2017). With the Turkey deal, things have become even worse, making the Mediterranean the world’s most lethal border. Early twenty-firstcentury European migration policies often amount to outright preventing refugees to seek asylum in Europe (Fargues, 2017; Steinhilper & Gruijters, 2018). While, officially, Europe had approved a relocation plan to distribute refugees over different European countries as a function of their “carrying capacity” in terms of population and wealth (European Commission, 2017), this policy proved to be very unsuccessful. Only a small fraction of those agreed to relocate have effectively been relocated (Bauböck, 2018). Overall, European refugee policy has de facto boosted the profits of human smugglers at the expense of a very high number of casualties (Fargues, 2017; Steinhilper & Gruijters, 2018). It leads to a slowing down of the whole asylum process, which hinders the integration of those who were granted refugee status (Long, 2013).

Europe’s General Immigration Policies Not only Europe’s refugee protection policies but also it’s more general immigration policies are ineffective. The main orientation of European countries overall has been, for several decades already, trying to keep the numbers of immigrants low. Of course, the idea and practice of border

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control is inherent in the idea of political entities like the nation state or supranational entities like the EU or the Schengen Zone. Nevertheless, there is great historical and regional variety in whether countries have stimulated immigrations or tried to close the borders (Hollifield, Martin, & Orrenius, 2014). Nation states have rules to determine who is a member and who is not, to determine who has to pay taxes, who can participate in elections, has access to public services and so on. In the application of this to immigrants, there exists a wide grayscale of practices ranging from granting full citizenship to treating them as illegal and unwanted altogether, with most immigrant residents typically falling somewhere in between. As a result, all states have immigration policies, and no state ever has applied an unrestricted open-border policy (Hollifield et al., 2014). Overall, border control has proved to be quite effective: the vast majority of migrants abide by the rules of the states. Irregular migrants are just a small minority of all migrants, and research has shown that most “sans papiers” actually entered the country legally but have stayed even after their visa expired. The most effective policies put to place by European countries are not fortifying external borders with barbed wire and gates but rather “remote control policies” through restrictive visa policies (De Haas, Natter, & Vezzoli, 2016). As argued above, what has happened in recent years is that the political rhetoric is increasingly focusing on “closing the borders” to protect ourselves from the “ticking demographic time bomb” (Wodak, 2017). This rhetoric is equally naïve as an open border rhetoric. Border control may be effective in selecting who can enter and who cannot but there is hardly evidence that the recent focus on border control has had major effects on the numbers of immigrants. In practice, immigration policies are about selecting immigrants, more than about a binary “closing” or “opening” of borders (De Haas et al., 2016). The reason why closed border policies are hardly effective is that there are a number of substitution effects (Cornelius, 2001; Flahaux & De Haas, 2016). First, there is legal substitution, when migrants seek alternative procedures, either legal ones (e.g. using legal family reunification schedules instead of labour migration) or illegal ones (e.g. staying in the

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host country after the expiry of a student visa). Second, spatial substitution is very common, when migrants seek alternative routes over land or sea in response to the closing of previous routes (e.g. the Lybia route after the closing of the Turkey route). Third, there may be temporal substitution, as in cases of now-or-never migration in anticipation of upcoming restrictions. And, finally, reverse-flow substitution happens when restrictions not only hinder immigration but unintendedly also reduce return migration and circulation, pushing migrants into permanent settlement in a host country as a result of more stringent migrations laws (Cornelius, 2001; Czaika & De Haas, 2016). The latter kind of substitution effect can actually make migration policies counterproductive, as was the case with Moroccan immigration to Spain. Until the mid-1990s, there were many seasonal workers going back and forth between Morocco and Spain to work in Spanish agriculture. With the creation of the Schengen Area in 1995, Southern European countries had to install more restrictive visa policies. Many Moroccan workers who had been going back and forth until then, next choose to migrate and settle in Spain, leading to a very large increase of immigration of Moroccans (Czaika & De Haas, 2016). The more restrictive entry policies are, the more migrants will be inclined to stay. Immigration control efforts by the US government along the Mexican border show similar kind of side effects (Cornelius, 2001). In sum, border control is of course legitimate and overall quite effective. But an exclusive focus of immigration policy on border control is clearly inefficient and closing the border is an illusion. The current exclusive focus on investments in more stringent border control is ineffective and comes, with its very high death toll, at a severe humanitarian price.

Towards Active Labour Immigration Policies? Until the oil crisis of the early 1970s, many European countries had active labour immigration policies. Belgium, for example, set up agencies to recruit people in countries including Morocco, Turkey and Greece. Canada still has an active immigration policy today (Ferrer, Picot, & Riddell, 2014). Active immigration policies have the advantage that one

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can aim to attract migrants with desired characteristics. It could allow European countries with strongly ageing populations to take a “demographic dividend” created by the recent population growth in African countries, with a very high growth of young working-age population (Bloom, 2011)—which does not imply at all that immigration policy could be a “remedy” against ageing populations (UN Population Division, 2000); population ageing is here to stay and not some disease which should be cured. Finding a job and gaining higher wages is one of the most common aspirations and motivations among people considering to migrate (De Haas, 2010; Massey et al., 1993), so an active labour immigration policy could align well with the motives of those who are ready, willing and able to migrate. Yet, this kind of “picky” active immigration policy could be criticised for showing a lack of solidarity with poor developing countries, or for leading to a brain drain, when the best educated would leave, worsening the situation in poor developing countries even further (e.g. Collier, 2013). Yet, this criticism is unfounded. First, the proportion of people who would potentially emigrate is too low to really make a critical difference in the sending countries. Second, when people educated as doctors leave countries like Pakistan, this tends to be the effect of low investments in health care in the sending country rather than the reverse, with doctors leaving the country resulting in underdevelopment of the health care system. More generally, the growth of the number of educated adults has exceeded employment growth in many countries, leading to unemployment among the well-educated rather than shortages of educated people in sending countries due to emigration (Adams, 2003; De Haas, 2005). Third, the brain drain argument ignores the fact that emigrants typically invest a lot of money in their countries of origin. Actually, such remittances by far exceed the total amount of developmental aid sent by rich countries. Hence, rather than representing a “brain drain”, labour emigration may improve the living standards of the families who send their sons and daughters abroad, helping to stimulate economic development there (Clemens, Özden, & Rapoport, 2015; De Haas, 2005). Another argument against labour immigration is that it would take away jobs from the native population in the receiving country. The state

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of the art of scientific research about this yields a nuanced picture. On the one hand, the overall picture is that immigration tends to have a positive effect on overall economic growth. There is no evidence that migrants tend to go to the countries with the most generous welfare system while there is a lot of clear evidence that people go to countries that have most open job offers (Mayda, 2010; OECD, 2014). Therefore, business leaders are generally in favour of liberalising immigration policies. On the other hand, while the upper and middle classes may reap the benefits from labour immigration, the lower-income groups (including earlier generations of immigrants) have generally much less to gain or may even lose out, because immigration may lead to job competition in precarious and low paid segments of the labour market (Okkerse, 2008). In that way, when migrants systematically end up in the less attractive, precarious segments of the labour market, migration may exacerbate economic inequality in receiving countries. Overall, this kind of active labour immigration policy is not the main thread of European policies today. Instead of being a battle between European countries to have the best migrants, the current battle about immigration is to have the lowest possible number. Overall, migration has received a bad name. This is very unfortunate since migration has been and will be part of the demographic and social reality anyway and the number of immigrants in Europe is likely to increase in the years to come.

Attitudes of Solidarity in European Populations Restrictive immigration policies of European countries are influenced by the vox populi. There clearly exist strong anti-immigration sentiments among the populations of all European countries (Meuleman, Davidov, & Billiet, 2009; Schneider, 2008; Semyonov, Raijman, & Gorodzeisky, 2006; van Oorschot, 2008). Migration clearly has become a salient issue in people’s minds when thinking about the challenges for Europe in years to come (Hatton, 2017). Right-wing political parties with an antiimmigration agenda having been winning elections in many countries

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(Akkerman, 2015). As argued earlier, these anti-immigration sentiments can be read as a manifestation of Malthusian fear. This situation, and the prospect of increasing immigration in the future, is often expected to pose a threat to solidarity and the European social model. Europeans have been found to be least solidaristic towards migrants in comparison with elderly, sick and disabled, or unemployed people (van Oorschot, 2008). Hence, scholars have argued that cultural diversity may negatively affect the comprehensiveness and generosity of the welfare state, especially when migrants make up a large part of welfare users and are subject to negative cultural images. Along the way, the social legitimacy of the welfare state as a whole may diminish (van Oorschot, 2008). Yet, while immigration may challenge preexisting forms of solidarity, it needs not to undermine solidarity as such (Gerhards et al., 2018) but may inspire new ways of expressing and organising solidarity (Oosterlynck, Loopmans, Schuermans, Vandenabeele, & Zemni, 2016; Van Hoyweghen et al., this volume). And while natives may be less solidaristic towards migrants, research has shown that differential immigration rates have no influence on relative solidarity towards migrants and even that a higher proportion of foreign-born citizens is associated with higher relative solidarity (van Oorschot, 2008). While the popular fears and anxieties towards migration are highlighted over and over again, there also exist important manifestations of attitudes of solidarity with migrants and refugees in European societies (Gerhards et al., 2018). First, many people do have positive attitudes towards migration. Overall, younger people more often have a positive attitude towards migrants than older people in most countries. Schotte and Winkler (2018) showed that this is not due to people getting more anxious about migrants when they get older but rather to cohort change, with younger generations having more often positive attitudes. This suggests that the surge of anti-immigration attitudes results to some extent from the fact that older generations currently represent a large fraction of European populations, and that the negative attitudes may attenuate and become less dominant in the coming years. Meuleman et al. (2009) already observed a trend towards more openness towards

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immigration across 17 European countries in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Second, with respect to the issue of asylum, there is clear evidence that there is popular support for much more solidarity between European members states than is currently enacted in actual policies (Gerhards et al., 2018). In an experimental study among 18000 voters from 15 European countries, Bansak, Hainmueller, and Hangartner (2017) found that a large majority (more than 7 out of 10) supports an allocation of asylum seekers that is proportional to each country’s capacity in terms of national income and population. This majority persists in most countries if respondents are told that this will imply that their country would receive more asylum seekers than they currently do. There is hardly support for the current status quo inherent in the Dublin Regulation. Third, some migrants are more welcome than others. For example, Muslim immigrants face more negative attitudes than Christians (Gerhards et al., 2018; Meuleman, Abts, Slootmaeckers, & Meeusen, 2018). With respect to the issue of asylum seekers, Bansak et al. (2016) showed that people who face political, religious or ethnic persecution are considered much more acceptable as immigrants than those who are seeking better economic opportunities. At the same time, people’s attitudes about this exhibit a remarkable internal-logical contradiction: while Europeans are more positive towards accepting immigrants who are vulnerable for persecution and more negative towards those seeking economic opportunities, they are at the same time much more positive towards asylum seekers who have higher employability than towards people with lower employability. For example: medical doctors or accountants are most welcomed while (formerly) unemployed migrants are least welcomed. Bansak et al. (2016) find that this pattern is remarkably general across European countries and socio-economic groups. So, basically, Europeans think their country should accept refugees who are able and willing to work, but they should not be coming to Europe for the sake of economic opportunities; they should rather be fleeing war and torture. This internal inconsistency reflects a major problem with current immigration policies in Europe, namely the lack of general active labour immigration policies.

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Conclusions It is safe to say that the ongoing scenario of world population growth will imply increasing numbers of immigrants from Africa to Europe. Yet, we need to stop talking about population growth in the South and population ageing in the North as “a ticking time bomb” since it is inadequate and unproductive to do so. The ongoing demographic trends do not have sudden catastrophic consequences. We can see, and have been seeing, many of the consequences coming for many years. They will imply shifting solidarities in Europe but need not be detrimental to solidarity as such. Even if there is no evidence that rates of emigration out of Africa have been on the rise, the absolute number of migrants from Africa to Europe has been increasing. In all plausible scenarios, this will continue to be the case: whatever the migration policy options taken in Europe, immigration will continue in years ahead. Only a small fraction of it is expected to be immigration by refugees. Faced with this, the EU’s border policy and the current focus on closing the borders has been both inconsistent and ineffective (Steinhilper & Gruijters, 2018). At the same time, it has a very high humanitarian price, making the Mediterranean the world’s most lethal border. Due to closed border immigration policies, migrants use the asylum procedure in their migration attempts, which leads to an overburdening of asylum procedures. Europe needs to start developing an active labour immigration policy, opening up new channels for safe and orderly migration to the continent, to the benefit of both migrants and European natives. Apart from the general immigration policies, current European refugee policy has also proved to be ineffective. It has been boosting the profits of human smugglers at the expense of a very high number of casualties while at the same time slowing down the process of asylum and hindering the integration of refugees in host societies. In order to start solving this, European countries should stop the “remote control” of the European gates by outsourcing gate-keeping to airline companies, Libyan bandits and other unlawful gatekeepers oversees. European countries could join forces to create agencies, perhaps connected to embassies, to investigate the request for refugee status by asylum seekers in countries of origin, or

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in countries close to the countries of origin. They could grant temporary humanitarian visas, so as to allow asylum seekers to travel by plane instead of pushing them into the hand of human smugglers. The indepth investigation could then take place in the country of destination, and the EU could and should devise a way as to spread the burden of this between member states. If resettlement and humanitarian visas would be used, the settlement of refugees in Europe could take place in much more orderly and legal manner, at lower costs but not necessarily larger scale. At the same time, Europe would have respected the principles of human rights and protection (Fargues, 2017). Apart from revising refugee policies, we need to move general migration policies and the related political discourse away from the realm of “solidarity with the poor”. Universal human rights form the basis of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 2018 Global Compact on Migration calls for the respecting of the human rights of migrants in the safe and orderly organisation of regular migration (Guild, Basaran, & Allinson, 2019; McAdam, 2019). Still, the universal human condition and human rights form an impractical and unrealistic basis for granting people the right to enter the European national territories and obtain citizenship (see Scholz, 2008: 231–263, for a thorough discussion of human rights as a basis for social and civic solidarity). Indeed, it is not realistic that Europe would open up its borders to all the poor of the world. We need to design practical migration policies to the benefit of both the population already in Europe and those wanting to migrate. The more positive attitudes towards immigration that exist among younger generations represent a window of opportunity that can and needs to be reinforced. Again, in order to do that, we need to move it away from the “solidarity with the poor” discourse, and certainly away from refugee politics, and open up more channels for labour migration. Increasing immigration has been and will be implying increasing ethnical and cultural diversity. What is often called the “superdiverse society” (Vertovec, 2007) is obviously challenging existing sentiments and mechanisms of solidarity that underpin state-organised, anonymous forms of solidarity as organised by the welfare state. But these existing mechanisms of solidarity were also not designed on a white sheet overnight but rather emerged out of local struggles to deal collectively with vulnerability and

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poverty (Oosterlynck et al., 2016). Adjusting mechanisms of solidarity to an ethnically and culturally more diverse (as well as ageing) society is clearly a key challenge for the welfare state.

Note 1. The largest-ever single wave cross-Mediterranean irregular migration so far occurred after the fall of communism with the democratisation of Albania, when within three days of March 1991, 27,000 Albanians landed without visa on the shores of the South Italian city of Brindisi (Fargues, 2017).

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Index

automated decision making, 16 job automation, 155

A

Africa 31, 194, 196, 251, 253–257, 259, 269 ageing 145, 201, 202, 223, 251, 254, 265, 269, 271 agency 36, 157, 158, 168, 203, 223, 224 algorithm 120, 123, 138, 154, 157, 160, 161, 163, 164, 166–168 Amazon rainforest fire 8 artificial intelligence (AI) 128, 154 Asylum 40, 197, 255, 256, 260–262, 268–270 attitudes 6, 15, 56, 62–65, 72, 78–81, 162, 215, 252, 257, 267, 268, 270 welfare attitudes, 92–94, 100, 111 automation 16, 119, 155, 157, 164–167

B

Bauman, Zygmunt 4, 6, 7 Beck, Ulrich 4, 5, 7, 13 Behaviour 28, 51, 128, 130, 131, 135, 137, 142, 143, 145, 159, 161, 163, 176, 180, 258 Belgium 2, 64, 65, 79, 81, 163, 177, 178, 182, 184, 202, 209–211, 218, 224, 264 benefits 4, 47, 60, 62, 65, 92, 97, 110, 113, 123, 128, 131, 141, 142, 156, 163, 165–167, 183, 269, 270 unemployment benefit, 91, 95, 96, 98, 101, 154, 156, 157, 159, 162, 163

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 I. Van Hoyweghen et al. (eds.), Shifting Solidarities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44062-6

277

278

Index

bias 164, 165, 168 big data 121, 122, 128, 131, 154, 163, 167 boundaries 12, 36, 43, 47, 50, 56, 57, 60, 61, 64, 78, 80, 82, 176, 179–181, 186, 187, 206, 214, 220, 230, 231, 243, 246, 247 Brexit 2, 30, 47, 61

C

Canada 163, 236, 264 care informal care 202, 210, 212–214, 217–219, 221, 223 multidisciplinary care teams, 178, 179, 186 patient-centred care, 178 population-oriented care, 178 primary care, 178–180, 184, 185 categorisation 137 sticky categories, 137, 141 Catholicism 233, 234, 236, 237 Christianity 8, 238 biblical Christianity, 235 church Christianity, 235 chronic diseases 145 church model of religion 235 citizenship 2, 14, 31, 56, 59, 81, 263, 270 EU social citizenship, 65, 73, 74, 80 class 3, 7, 15, 30, 32, 38, 40, 65, 71, 95, 230 class conflict, 57 classification 129–132, 137, 140, 143, 147 climate change 5, 187

cohesion 35, 39, 230, 232, 233 Collier, Paul 251, 252, 254, 258, 259, 265 community immigrant community 221, 223 religious community, 243, 245 Turkish community, 194, 202, 208–217, 221, 222 competition 41, 57, 62, 78, 98, 100, 179, 266 consumption society 4 contemporary 6, 7, 12–15, 30, 47, 80, 124, 138, 155, 166, 217 control vs. non-control 135 cooperation 50, 161 corporatism 41, 42 crisis 2, 6, 14, 17, 42, 56, 59, 91, 92, 98, 106, 255, 264

D

datafication 121 decentralisation 181 Deliveroo 49, 157, 158, 160 demarcation 58, 60, 63, 80, 81 demographic 4, 16, 251–254, 257, 266, 269 demographic ‘time bomb’, 263 demographic evolution, 177 Denmark 15, 38, 40, 41, 45, 46, 48, 98 deservingness 15, 95, 98, 162 welfare deservingness, 92 detraditionalisation 195, 197 diagnosis 14, 128, 140, 142 digitalisation 4, 6, 166 digital transformation, 139 digital platforms 48, 49, 154, 158, 167

Index

discourse 5, 17, 37, 40, 41, 43, 46, 123, 134, 145, 197, 248, 252, 254, 257, 259, 260, 270 policy discourse, 196, 258, 259 discretion 46, 162, 165 discrimination algorithmic discrimination 138 genetic discrimination, 132–134 non-discrimination, 65, 132–134, 137 disenchantment 234 disruption 147 double hermeneutic 17, 197 Dublin Regulation 261, 268 Durkheim, Emile 17, 39, 43, 195–197, 203, 230–233, 235, 236, 246, 247

279

Europe European Commission 1, 2, 6, 14, 159, 162, 259, 262 European integration, 4, 15, 30, 55–58, 60–63, 74 Europeanisation, 56–58, 60–62, 80, 81 European Social Model, 14, 267 European Union (EU), 1, 2, 5, 6, 31, 46, 47, 55, 57, 59–61, 63, 73, 196, 198, 270 Social Europe, 15, 30, 56–64, 72–74, 78–82 exclusion 5, 31, 43, 131, 133, 144, 162, 164, 247

F E

economic crisis 2, 71, 78, 98, 113 ecosystem care ecosystem 176, 179–182, 184, 186 health and social care ecosystem, 176, 183, 186, 187 organisational ecosystem, 179 education 33, 56, 65, 78, 80, 81, 101, 102, 106, 107, 109, 121, 128, 145, 197 eldercare 194, 204, 207–212, 214, 221–224 eligibility 162, 163 elite 48, 234, 238 employment, non-standard forms of 157 enactment 13 environment environmental data 131

fairness 10, 142 actuarial fairness, 156 familialist policy 204 fertility rates 251 Fordism 45

G

Geelkerken, Johannes 237 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 168 generalisation 177, 194, 209 genetics 7, 122, 127, 131–135, 138–144 Geneva Refugee Convention 259 Germany 15, 38–41, 45, 47, 48, 256 gig economy 14, 15, 156, 157 globalisation 4, 6, 55, 61, 62, 91, 187, 193

280

Index

H

healthcare 16, 121, 127–129, 138–140, 143–146, 177 universal healthcare, 129 high-skilled 62, 156 Human Genome Project (HGP) 127, 132, 138

interdependence 35, 121, 178, 187, 206 J

justice 3, 10, 41, 46, 51, 142, 144, 161 L

I

identity 12, 14, 29, 34, 35, 37, 39, 43, 44, 46, 48, 50, 56, 62–64, 79–81, 207 ideology 3, 9, 34, 39 left vs. right, 63, 79 illness 140, 142, 145 inclusion 5, 43, 58, 72, 144 individualisation 4, 122, 123, 143 individualisation of risk, 120, 136 industrial relations 15, 30, 34, 35 inequality gender inequality 164 inequality of treatment, 162 market inequalities, 57 injury 145 insiders vs. outsiders 40, 230 institutions 2–4, 7, 30, 36, 37, 41, 43, 45, 48, 50, 51, 129–131, 133, 145, 187, 242 insurance insurance and risk 130, 132, 146 private insurance, 57, 131, 132, 142, 156 social insurance, 131, 154–159, 167 integration European integration 55–58, 60–63

Latour, Bruno 5, 7, 12, 13 legitimacy 62, 93, 143, 238, 244, 267 lifestyle 120, 124, 128, 131, 135, 139, 140, 142, 193 lifestyle choice, 135, 145 lifestyle risk, 134 low skilled 42, 155–157 M

macroeconomic factors 94 Malthus 258 Malthusian fears, 253, 257, 267 Malthus, Thomas, 257 marketisation 4, 47 Marx, Karl 38 medicine acute medical condition 177 chronic disease, 145 multi-pathology, 178 personalised medicine, 14, 122, 127, 138, 139, 144 Michel, Charles 1 micro, meso & macro 11, 17 migration active labour immigration policies 197, 264–266, 269 anti-immigration sentiments, 266, 267

Index

economic migrants, 197, 259, 260 European immigration policy, 252 illegal immigration, 261 immigration policies, 262–264, 266, 268, 269 mass immigration, 252 refugees, 255, 257, 259, 260, 262, 267, 270 minimum income 60 mining 42, 44, 210 coal miners, 29 mining city, 30 modernisation reflexive modernisation 7 modernity 9, 234 mutual obligation 175, 180, 182, 186, 206

N

nation state 35, 43, 46, 47, 51, 58, 81, 259, 263 neo-liberalism 42, 47 The Netherlands 94, 98, 101, 105, 109, 112, 158, 163, 182, 208, 222, 236 non-take up (NTU) 162, 165 Notre Dame de Paris 8, 14

O

obligation 10, 35, 65, 91, 120, 154, 159, 181, 186, 194, 197, 201–204, 206, 207, 209, 213, 216, 219, 221, 222, 259, 260 occupation 35, 44, 45, 56, 78

281

opinion 65, 73, 74, 78, 80, 92, 94, 97, 99 public opinion, 72, 80, 93, 96, 257

P

paradigm 129, 139 foundational paradigm, 128, 146 parallel publics 93, 96, 110, 111 path dependency 15, 42, 43, 51 patient 14, 122, 123, 128, 133, 138–142, 146, 176–178, 180, 181, 183–185 patient-centeredness, 138 performativity 195–198 personalisation behaviour-based personalisation 135–137 personalised medicine, 122, 127, 139, 144 platform economy 16, 48, 121, 157, 159, 160, 166 policymaking 56, 58, 61, 72, 78 politics 9, 12, 30, 38, 41, 42, 47, 133–135, 137, 144, 145, 196, 270 population population explosion 252–254, 258, 259 population growth, 196, 251– 253, 257, 258, 265, 269 population-oriented care, 178 populism 48 poverty 4, 38, 119, 145, 155, 162, 252, 254, 255, 260, 271 Poor Laws, 258 Protestantism 17, 194, 230–238

282

Index

liberal Protestantism, 238, 242, 246, 247 orthodox Protestantism, 195, 230, 231, 234, 244, 246, 247

R

redistribution regional redistribution 56 risk/insurance, 3, 156 religion Christianity 235 Islam, 207, 209, 245 Protestantism, 17, 195, 230, 232–234, 236, 247 responsibility 2, 10, 61, 95, 97, 121, 122, 135, 142–145, 202, 204, 219, 221, 222, 224, 236, 240, 244 robotisation 155, 166

S

segmentation 40, 138 self-employment 45, 159 silent rationing 140–142 similarity 11, 34, 137, 144, 207, 215, 232 social Social Europe 15, 30, 56–63, 65, 72–74, 79–82 social movements, 5, 27, 193 social pressure, 194, 203, 204, 208, 209, 212, 220, 222, 223 social question, 3–5 society participation society 202 solidarity and fairness 206

and justice, 2, 3, 10, 41, 47, 51, 142 and risk pooling, 130, 144 as moral infrastructure, 4, 142 cosmopolitan solidarity, 5 cosmopolitical solidarity, 5 decline of solidarity, 33, 143, 144 deep solidarity, 146 de-solidarisation, 130 enacting solidarity, 193 ethos of solidarity, 133, 143 European solidarity, 2, 5, 196 exclusivist solidarity, 247 fighting solidarity, 38 financial solidarity, 59, 60, 63 genetic solidarity, 132, 134 human solidarity, 5, 12 inclusivist solidarity, 247 income solidarity, 130 industrial solidarity, 35, 46 intergenerational solidarity, 17, 194, 196, 201, 202, 206, 207, 212, 221–224 interpersonal solidarity, 11, 60, 65, 73, 74, 80–82 invisibility of solidarity, 37, 130 labour solidarity, 35, 46 levels of solidarity, 11, 92 mechanic solidarity, 232, 247 member state solidarity, 59, 73, 79, 81, 82 multidimensionality of solidarity, 193 organic solidarity, 203, 232 organisational solidarity, 16, 175, 176, 180–182, 184–187 organisation of solidarity, 154, 166, 168 personalisation and solidarity, 129

Index

political solidarity, 9 popular solidarity, 15, 92–94, 96, 99, 105 redistributive solidarity, 41, 47, 48 risk solidarity, 139 shifting solidarities, 3, 6–8, 12–15, 35, 166, 168, 269 social solidarity, 33–35, 44, 47, 252 society-wide solidarity, 155 solidaristic, 12, 15, 16, 111, 124, 144, 230, 267 sources of solidarity, 95 substantive definition of solidarity, 10 transnational solidarity, 50 true solidarity, 203, 259 typology/ies of solidarity, 10, 202, 204, 211 weak solidarity, 108, 109 welfare solidarity, 6, 93–95, 102, 110, 113, 123 welfare state solidarity, 5, 7, 15, 16, 154, 155, 158, 163, 167, 168 working-class solidarity, 38 Solidarno´sc´ 27 stratification 16, 140–142, 144 Streeck, Wolfgang 2–4, 39, 40, 44 strike 38, 39, 41, 42, 45, 153 struggle 9, 12, 14, 27, 37, 39, 40, 44, 49, 270 supranational 7, 50, 57, 65, 81 Sweden 98, 163, 256

283

T

technology 4, 12, 39, 45, 147, 154, 158, 161 Thatcher, Margaret 42, 44, 47 transnational 6, 46, 50, 51, 193 Treaty of Rome 2 Troeltsch, Ernst 231, 235 Turkey Turkey Deal 262

U

Uber 14, 153, 157, 158 unemployment 33, 60, 101, 106, 107, 130, 155, 156, 159, 254, 265 unemployed people, 15, 91, 94–96, 98, 100, 106, 111, 154 unemployment rate, 15, 92–100, 103, 105, 106, 108–113 union 50 labour union, 38, 46, 49 trade union, 3, 15, 30, 33, 34, 36, 38–42, 44–46, 49, 51, 158, 160, 204 United Kingdom (UK) 2, 15, 38, 41, 42, 44, 45, 47–49, 119, 123, 157, 161, 163, 165, 182, 233, 236 United Nations (UN) 119 United States of America (US) 158, 161, 164, 182, 236

V

value 11, 28, 29, 37, 41, 47, 101, 161, 179, 183, 195, 245 visa 256, 261, 263, 264, 270, 271

284

Index

post-war welfare state, 3, 33, 38 regimes of welfare state, 3 welfare state capitalism, 3 Western-European Welfare State, 130

W

Weber, Max 195, 231, 233–235, 237 welfare state European welfare state 3, 4, 15, 133 national welfare state, 15, 56–61, 63, 71, 73, 81

Z

zombie category 7