Browsing by Subject "Social rights"
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Item Open Access Conceptualizing and operationalizing social rights: towards higher convergent validity in SCIP and CWED(Sage Publications Ltd., 2018) Bölükbaşı, H. Tolga; Öktem, Kerem GabrielThere is widespread consensus in the comparative welfare state literature that the welfare state can be best conceptualized in terms of social rights of citizenship. The Social Citizenship Indicator Program (SCIP) and the Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset (CWED), which rely on operational definitions of quantified legislated social rights, constitute centrepieces of this thriving research. As leading state-of-the-art tools for capturing welfare stateness, these two datasets are being widely used. Scholars in general have also been treating them as interchangeable measurement tools. Upon closer inspection, however, we discover that the two datasets point to contrasting images of welfare state change for certain countries and time periods. This article aims to contribute to the scholarly exchange on the validity problem in measuring welfare state generosity. The exchange has hitherto been confined to problems of dataset choice with respect to only replacement rates, a set of key indicators included in both datasets. However, there are 11 key non-replacement rate indicators SCIP and CWED have in common, whose convergent validity has yet to be questioned. We thus explore the convergent validity of these non-replacement rate indicators across the two datasets. We then replicate the two leading composite indexes (Decommodification Index (DI) and Benefit Generosity Index (BGI)) constructed on the basis of these indicators. We identify problems of invalidity manifested in discrepancies in non-replacement rate indicator scores and index values for DI and BGI. We show how these discrepancies could lead to contrasting assessments of welfare state change. We then identify a set of potential sources for these discrepancies, most of which are related to different operationalizations of similar concepts. We conclude by calling for more dialogue among developers of SCIP and CWED to further clarify their conceptual and operational points of departureItem Open Access Measuring welfare states beyond the three worlds: Refining state-of-the-art tools(Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2021-01-13) Bölükbaşı, Tolga; Öktem, K. G.; Savaş, EfeThe past decades saw the expansion of the geography of comparative welfare state research beyond the three worlds embracing a heterogeneous set of mainly middle-income countries. In response, two leading state-of-the-art tools for measuring welfare states through social rights, Social Citizenship Indicators Program (SCIP) and Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset (CWED), integrated many new countries into their datasets. Comparative welfare state research has yet to address the extent to which these measurement tools originally developed for measuring classic welfare states work equally well for measuring welfare states beyond the three worlds. In this article, we explore a number of challenges these datasets face in measuring these new cases. These challenges, we believe, stem from a set of key institutional characteristics widely prevalent in these welfare states. These characteristics are overt and hidden conditionalities, unconventional instruments, informal practices, nature of changes in statutory pension age and labour market characteristics of the representative worker. We propose a set of solutions to refine these datasets for comparing all cases, old and new. We conclude by drawing lessons for comparative research focusing not only on welfare states beyond the three worlds but also on the three worlds themselves.Item Open Access Neoliberal globalization, citizenship and subject constitution in Turkey(Bilkent University, 2012-09) Yedekçi, AyşeThis thesis discusses the extent to which neoliberal globalization has had an impact on citizenship in general, and citizenship in Turkey in particular. Academic debates on citizenship usually revolve around the question of identity rights, overlooking political-economy dimensions that significantly influence the scope of rights enjoyed. By defining neoliberalism in a twofold way as policy framework and governmentality, the study shows both the ways through which neoliberalism has affected the practice of social rights, and how individuals are constituted as neoliberal subjects through different governmental techniques. The thesis aims to adapt the conceptual-theoretical framework by analyzing how the neoliberalization process is experienced in Turkey.