Sociologi som vetenskap, vt2023.

Makt och social skiktning, vt2023

 

Tidigare:

Komparativ sociologi: makt, klass och genus i välfärdsstaten (specialkurs Sociologi I & II)

I am interested in reasons for the different development of social policy in different countries and the distributional consequences of different institutional arrangements, in a global perspective. In my PhD thesis i explored the causes and concequences of social policy institutions in a development context. In one study I explored the driving forces behind variations in social spending across a global sample of non-western democracies, with special attention to the role of party politics for diverging trends across countries. The question of what drives and impedes social policy reforms is also guiding a case study of healthcare reforms in Bolivia, which identifies the mechanisms underpinning the developmnet towards a more universal system. In a third study I seek to analyse how the relationship between economic growth and child poverty is moderated by the social policy context, based on statistical analyses of longitudinal data from 16 Middle-Income Countries.

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Social Policy in Development Contexts: Drivers, Mechanisms and Outcomes

  2022. Sebastian Sirén.

  Thesis (Doc)

  Economic growth amidst staggering inequality in many low- and middle-income countries makes the quest to end global poverty more topical than ever. Calls to leave no one behind in the course of development underscore the need to reconsider the role of policy frameworks in emerging economies. Social policies have been expanded across the Global South during the last decades, and social protection is increasingly highlighted as a fundamental component of the global sustainable development agenda. This thesis, comprising three self-contained studies, analyses the drivers, mechanisms and outcomes of social policy reform in development contexts, asking which economic institutions could enable more rapid advancement towards ending poverty and reducing inequalities, and what conditions promote the expansion of such institutions?

  Study I investigates the driving forces of changes in social spending across 46 more recent democracies, with particular attention to the role of partisan politics. Using data from 1995 to 2015, multivariate fixed effect regressions reveal a positive association between left government and public social expenditures, also when controlling for structural and institutional factors. This finding indicates that interests and ideologies, articulated through partisan politics, matter for the evolution of social policy, also in development contexts.

  In light of the findings from this quantitative analysis, Study II investigates the mechanisms driving, and hampering, progress towards social policy expansion in a specific case. The politics surrounding a healthcare reform with the ambition to universalise access to public healthcare in Bolivia is examined using theory-guided process tracing methods. The study highlights how policy is shaped through an interaction between societal and state actors as well as how interests and ideas are intertwined in the process, but also how policy legacies give rise to reactive sequences militating against change.

  In Study III, the focus is on the outcomes of social policy. The study presents analyses of how government cash transfer systems moderate the effect of economic growth in both absolute and relative child poverty. Longitudinal data from 16 low- and middle-income countries included in the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) are analysed by means of descriptive statistics and multivariate regression techniques. Findings show that both economic growth and the expansions of transfer schemes are associated with declining absolute poverty. Meanwhile, growth is found to be related to reductions in relative child poverty primarily when combined with sufficiently extensive systems of government transfers, thus pointing to the relevance of social protection for inclusive growth.

  The findings from the three studies illustrate that central concepts from comparative welfare state research can be employed also in development contexts, converging on an analytical approach where changes in poverty and inequality are influenced by politics. Continued comparative analyses of social policies and their determinants in development contexts can accordingly generate much-needed insights into the causes of global poverty and inequality. Future research should further explore feedback effects of policy on politics and consider the potential synergies between social policy, equality, and economic growth.

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• The Politics of Universal Health Coverage: Mechanisms in the Process of Healthcare Reform in Bolivia

  2022. Sebastian Sirén. Causal Mechanisms in the Global Development of Social Policies, 369-401

  Chapter

  This chapter explores the mechanisms shaping the progress towards universal health coverage in Bolivia. By investigating this process, unfolding in the context of a health care system characterised by fragmentation, segmentation and low coverage; increasingly challenged as democratisation and popular mobilisation brings the demands of previously excluded groups onto the political agenda; the study casts light on mechanisms that are also of broader relevance for the comparative literature on the politics of social protection in the Global South. The analyses highlight expert theorisation, class-based mobilisation, social movement–state interaction, alarmed middle classes, provider resistance and professional autonomy as the main mechanisms responsible for driving, impeding and shaping the progress towards universal social protection.

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• Is there anything Left? The politics of social spending in new democracies

  2020. Sebastian Sirén. Governance. An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions

  Article

  The evolution of public social expenditures displays divergent patterns across non-western countries. This exploratory article argues that in order to understand the domestic sources of this divergence, institutional and structural explanations should be complemented with an actor-oriented perspective. Analyses of the role of party politics in non-OECD democracies, through multivariate fixed-effect regressions using data from 46 countries between 1995 and 2015, reveals a robust positive association between shifts towards Left party government and increases in total public social expenditures, also when controlling for structural and institutional factors. This association however seems potentially conditional on sufficient levels of economic growth. While indicating an impact of partisanship, further research is arguably needed regarding the origins, organization and policy outputs of parties in more recently democratized countries, as well as regarding the conditions under which the ideological orientation of parties in government are actually consequential.

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• Childcare Indicators for the Next Generation of Research

  2020. Sebastian Sirén (et al.). The Palgrave Handbook of Family Policy, 627-655

  Chapter

  This chapter argues for the importance of developing theoretically grounded family policy indicators, with emphasis on childcare/ECEC indicators. The chapter critically introduces the conceptual frameworks underpinning the most prevalent currents in comparative research, and then presents the most prominent empirical approaches utilized in existing studies. Next, it maps the availability of comparative data on the most widely used indicators and discusses the main sources from which this data originates. The final section concludes by pointing toward some challenges for the current research agenda, along with some tentative solutions. In particular, we argue for the need to engage in a research agenda that integrates family policies, including social care services, as essential components of social citizenship.

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• Välfärdspolitik och jämlikhet

  2019. Sebastian Sirén.

  Report

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Show all publications by Sebastian Sirén at Stockholm University