This Doctoral Seminar Series is organized as part of the initiative of CEU DI to set up an Observatory on Welfare and Democracy involving scholars to investigate polarization, the rise of third-wave autocracy, and its complex relationship with social policy programs and welfare states globally. In addition to doctoral students, MA students and interested scholars are also encouraged to apply. The Seminar Series is fully online.
The 12-occasion, full-remote Seminar Series will be organized in the Winter-Spring term of 2026. Its central aim is to foster young researchers’ interest and involvement in studying democracy, autocracy and welfare. While the first, pilot Seminar Series will be organized outside of official curricula, the mid-term aim is to incorporate the course into the official curricula of one of the participating universities.
Target groups include primarily postgraduate students of political science, sociology, policy studies anthropology in Europe, the Americas and the global South. Graduate students, as well as interested scholars are also welcome to attend the lectures. In Europe, focus will be placed on including students via CIVICA network universities. The Seminar Series pays special attention to attract talented young scholars from the global South.
Rationale:
In the twenty-first century, with the rise of third wave of autocracy and polarizing populist forces, the welfare-democracy nexus has become profoundly unsettled. Studies from Western Europe and other regions signaled enduring tensions between redistribution, social control, and democratization are suggesting a more complex nexus than the dominant idea of welfare as a democratizing force (e.g. Gingich 2023; Rathgeb 2024). Meanwhile, expansive and innovative welfare developments are occurring in some of the emerging economies and hybrid political regimes (e.g. Garai 2017; Yörük 2022, 2023; Szikra and Öktem 2023). The mainstream Western welfare state paradigm assumes a positive relationship between democratic development and expansion of social rights (Marshall 1953; Esping-Andersen 1990). The seminar series revisits this assumption and opens new avenues of conceptualization of the welfare-democracy nexus, also highlighting some of the important, intersecting dimensions of gender and ethnicity. This series of lectures will provide space for established and young scholars from all over the world to meet and discuss economic and social policies under the rise of third-wave autocracies and scrutinize how autocratizers (mis)use social policies and issues around care for popularizing themselves.
Learning outcome:
By revisiting the relationship between democracy and welfare the seminar series will advance students’ theoretical understanding of how the political regime type shapes the design, distribution, and political uses of social policies, and conversely, how welfare design affects democratic or autocratic trajectories. Diverse political regime types will be contrasted and various policy instruments scrutinized, including conditional cash transfers (CCTs), workfare programs, care regimes, healthcare migration, and gender-based violence policies. The seminar builds on the active involvement of students, builds on their knowledge and experiences. The contributors will encourage early career researchers to conduct high quality research in the field of welfare and democracy in varied geopolitical settings.
Collaborators:
The pilot Seminar Series on Welfare and Democracy invites scholars who are in the forefront of studying welfare, democracy, and autocratization. Some of them have been also working on a Special Issue on the theme for the Journal of European Social Policy. Contributors include senior and junior (postdoctoral) scholars, affiliated with universities and research institutes in Europe, US, Canada, India, Latin America etc.
