The future of public services and social politics from a social science perspective

December  2008

Where is social wellbeing positioned in the social science research today? There is no easy way to answer this question given the variations in economic and social contexts in the Arab countries caused by differences in resources, standards/style of life, challenges and crises of geopolitics, despite the intersections of culture and history and the efforts to put an end to abject poverty. Perhaps this diversity justifies an examination of the comparative aspects of the issue and offers an opportunity to study the region, case by case, from different methodological and research strategies points of view. Historically, Welfare has been linked to the welfare state, then it gradually receded to include social welfare in the context of the retreat of the state, decline in levels of social protection and the privatization of basic services such as education and health.

The transition in some Arab countries from societies of abject poverty to welfare states by the end of the second millennium, has offered rich areas for analysis that include a variety of  research strategies in social sciences (work on rentier state where the state “tribes” the citizenry with extensive social welfare programs, becoming an allocation or distributive state, or  work on social protection in non oil producing countries). Yet, national reports and the results of workshops have helped to raise a question about the serious existence of the welfare state in the Arab world in the context of globalization and privatization, the decline in the level of public services, retreat of public expenditures and lack of regional stability. These factors have contributed to revisiting current and existing works to undertake a theoretical and methodological review with the aim of questioning the future.

This review includes experts’ reports issued by the United Nations organizations as well as the products of academic institutions: universities and research centers that cover the disciplines of political science, statistics, sociology, anthropology and psychology. Thus the relationship between these two types of analyses i.e. expert studies on one hand and academic studies on the other is very important as it empowers researchers of various expertise and academic backgrounds to present their findings, explain their theoretical and methodological additions and compare them. 

A critical review of these works includes the following axes:

Epistemological axis:

This axis could include theoretical papers that present the cultural bases of the social welfare concept with its numerous synonyms, such as dignified life, good life, public services and public interest. Focus can be placed on the difference between the concept of welfare (which falls under the system of right and duty in the global sense of the term), and welfare (that falls under the prevailing political culture in the Arab countries). In this context papers can address the cultural dimensions of welfare contrasting it to the notion of “rentier mentality”/ clientelism and cultural and sub-cultural classification of welfare..etc .Papers can also attempt to answer the following question: To what extent can we link social welfare to personal welfare and how can we relate social welfare to the change of style of life and social mobility; or the relationship between welfare and the development of the culture of consumption and the role of media; or between welfare and the development of cultures and welfare beliefs (role of family in welfare services and social protection in the Arab coutries) particularly in light of the difficulties of social mobility, the retreat of the middle class the expanding circle of new forms of poverty

Methodological axis:

Addressing the different approaches that address welfare and the indicators of measurement and analysis such as: How to evaluate and measure welfare services? Is it done through the levels of state intervention; or the levels of cooperative work, safety networks and public utility associations? or the  purely quantitative evaluation of aspects of life such as education enrollment and literacy rates, rise in life expectancy at birth, or improvement of the population’s life conditions; or the qualitative analysis of individual and collective life trajectories or by using specific indicators of local development, preservation and safety of the environment, and values of environmental sustainability; or by studying the mental representations of welfare in their relationship to the life experiences of specific social categories (youth, women, the aged etc..)

Public policies :

This includes patterns of social welfare services, how they relate to the current situation of the middle class, which is disappearing in the face of new forms of poverty ; new needs such as the need to define the role of the population in changing welfare services through demographic studies particularly in light of the increase in number of young people and the aging population, evaluating research and studies in the area of welfare policies and contrast this to their international patterns (liberal, social democratic, cooperative and conservative) within a comparative framework ; evaluating studies and research on the development of public policies, particularly the difference between choices and expectations of the population i.e. people’s choice, and public choice on the other hand, using a prospective framework.

To participate in the seminar, you may address the above themes or any other themes not mentioned here. Please send a one- page abstract that does not exceed 1000 words to the following email address, along with a CV and a covering note indicating your wish to participate.

Deadline for receiving abstracts :15 October 2008

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