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Welfare user roles in a conservative welfare state. Are Germans citizens, consumers or co-producers?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Stephan Köppe Open the ORCID record for Stephan Köppe [Opens in a new window] ,
Benjamin Ewert  and
Florian Blank
Stephan Köppe*
Affiliation:
School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, D04 E8N8, Ireland School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, UCD Geary Institute of Public Policy, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, D04 E8N8, Ireland
Benjamin Ewert
Affiliation:
Department of Palliative Medicine, University Hospital Bonn, Sigmund-Freud-Str. 25, 53127Bonn, Germany Heidelberg School of Education, Heidelberg University of Education, Voßstraße 2, 69115Heidelberg, Germany
Florian Blank
Affiliation:
Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Hans-Böckler-Straße 39, 40476Düsseldorf, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. Email: stephan.koeppe@ucd.ie
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Abstract

Many welfare states have embraced choice and market mechanisms since the 1990s. With respect to welfare users, it has been argued that this led to a change from citizens to consumers. This paper challenges this observation and discusses changes of welfare user roles in the German welfare state. The main argument rests on the assumption that user roles are much more complex and include claimants and co-producers in addition to citizens and consumers. Based on this heuristic model of multiple user roles, empirical evidence for user roles in pension insurance, health care and schools is presented. Indeed, we observe a shift towards consumers in many fields of welfare provision, but German users are still largely addressed as claimants and citizens. Moreover, they are acting as active co-producers, entitled claimants, subversive consumers and needy patients.

Keywords

citizen–consumerchoiceuser rolesGermanyco-productionwelfare markets
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Taylor & Francis

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