Columbia International Affairs Online

CIAO DATE: 9/07

European Journal of Social Quality

Volume 5, Number 1/2 (2005)

Articles

• Indicators of Social Quality: Outcomes of the European Scientific Network
  Laurent J.G. van der Maesen and Alan C. Walker

  In October 2001, the Network Indicators of Social Quality started the process of creating social quality indicators. This project of the European Foundation on Social Quality was supported by the European Commission (DG Research) under Framework Programme 5 (van der Maesen et al. 2000). The Network consisted of representatives of universities from 14 partner countries and two European NGOs. Over its fortytwomonth life the Network held four meetings. Three plenary meetings were organised with all assistants thanks to the financial support by the Dutch Scientific Foundation (NWO). Also through the creation of unique national reference groups on social quality, the Network has engaged more than a hundred scientists and policy makers in its work. The project was completed in April 2005. The intriguing question was how to theoretically legitimise the choice of social quality indicators compared to the indicators constructed in the context of ‘quality of life’ approaches, as developed for example by ZUMA of the University of Mannheim (Noll 2000; Berger-Schmit et al. 2000) and the European Foundation on the Improvement of Working and Living Conditions in Dublin (Fahey et al. 2002).

• Indicators of Social Quality: Outcomes for Belgium
  Veerle de Maesschalck

  In presenting social quality indicators for Belgium, we have confined ourselves to explaining the national situation concerning these indicators without reflecting on the theory of social quality itself or the broader theoretical framework. When considering social quality from a Belgian perspective, it is important to keep the national context in mind and this is covered in Part I of this article. Part II focuses on the outcomes of social quality indicators, with the findings presented by domain, rather than by component (security, cohesion, inclusion, empowerment). An example of good practice in the context of social quality is provided in Part III, illustrating how the Belgian system of individual work time reduction embodies elements of each of the four components. Finally, we conclude this article by illustrating how Belgium performs in terms of social quality.

• Social Quality in Britain: A Welfare State?
  Sue Hacking

  This article introduces the four components of social quality from the British perspective. The main issue that this article highlights is the difference between British and European social understandings of inclusion and social policy. Development of theory around the subject matter of the four components as equal sectors of social quality could help to progress the British agenda closer towards Europe to relate the individual and the community to the formation of collective identity.

• Social Quality in Finland
  Mika Vuori, Mika Gissler and a National Group of Experts

  The 1970s could be said to be the ‘golden age’ for social and well-being indicators. After a period of slow progress, new indicators were devised in Europe during the mid-1990s, however, improvements are still needed in the knowledge and scientific theories behind these indicators. New indicators need to be developed and comparable multinational statistics need to be collected. The purpose of this article is to present key findings on social quality in Finland. The situation will be described with data at national level with some international comparisons, derived from different resources of statistics and research. Furthermore, the underlying trends that affect the social quality of Finnish people will be described.

• Social Quality: The French Case
  Denis Bouget and Frederic Salladarré

  The objective of this study is to establish a set of indicators capable of forming the empirical basis of the concept of social quality for European citizens. Social quality is defined as the extent to which citizens are able to participate in the social and economic life of their communities under conditions which enhance their well-being and individual potential (Beck et al. 2001: 6). Before analysing the four social quality conditional factors, we will describe some facts surrounding the French situation. Firstly, the general social and economic situation will be described through characteristics which are particularly outstanding in France, i.e., in the first place unemployment and flexibility (in a negative sense comprising working poor, involuntary part-time workers, etc.). In the second place, certain striking features in the four conditional factors of social quality will be emphasised. Finally, in order to provide an example of correct practice when measuring social inequalities, we will present the synthetic index created by French researchers (CERC-Association) which can summarise the long term trends in French social life.

• Social Quality in Germany
  Michael Ebert, Ilona Ostner, Uschi Brand and Steffen Kühnel

  Large-scale initiatives to improve individual life chances and social structures face many problems. They need proper theorising and equally proper operationalisation. This is where the EFSQ project on ‘Social Quality Indicators’ comes into play: its main objective was to develop concepts and instruments for a country- and European-wide assessment of social quality. On the basis of ontological considerations about ‘the social’, the new approach defined a ‘quadrangle’ of four basic conditions which were assumed to determine the development of social quality: ‘socio-economic security’, ‘social inclusion’, ‘social cohesion’ and ‘social empowerment’. Relevant domains and sub-domains for each of the four components were identified and a restricted set of ‘ideal’ – mostly objective – indicators was chosen. The availability of already existing ‘hard’ data did not influence that process. Hence the project has stretched beyond the mere description of social quality in Europe and provided a stimulus to gather new relevant data on ‘forgotten’ aspects of the social quality of life. Social indicator research has a long tradition in Germany which helped us to draw effectively upon the results of regularly conducted surveys. The following report starts by explaining the German context. It then summarises key-findings from existing databases to give meaning to the ninety-five social quality indicators in the four components. Finally, we have included discussion of relevant policy initiatives.

• The ‘Social Quality’ Perspective in Greece
  Maria Petmesidou and Periklis Polyzoidis

  The subject matter of the ‘social’, defined as the realisation of the self in the context of collective identity, provides the central premise of the social quality perspective. On the basis of this premise the ENIQ (European Network on Indicators of Social Quality) project explored the four conditional factors of social quality, namely the extent to which social structures, patterns of interaction and policy processes, in European societies, promote (or hinder) socio-economic security, social inclusion, social cohesion and empowerment. These are key factors for gauging ‘the extent to which people are able to participate in the social and economic life of their communities under conditions which enhance their well-being and individual potential’ (ENIQ 2004: 2; also Beck et al., 2001). In this article we will briefly examine the four conditional factors of social quality from the viewpoint of socio-economic structures, policies and daily experience in Greece. In the first part we highlight some distinctive features of Greek society that are relevant to our analysis. We then proceed to a short discussion of each of the four conditional factors and their constitutive domains (and indicators). We conclude with some brief remarks on good practices and policy implications.

• Social Quality in Hungary: In the Framework of ENIQ
  Szilvia Altorjai and Erzsébet Bukodi

  In Hungary, the social and economic conditions have dramatically changed after the political and economical transition. The collapse of communism in 1989–90 forced Hungary, as well as other CEE countries, to reconstruct their political, economic and cultural identity. This process has become known as the ‘transition’ and Europeanisation or globalisation (Manning 2004). Within this transition the ability of adjustment to new conditions has become one of the most important factors – if not the most – in the process of diminishing risks and enhancing life chances. The theoretical and methodological elements of the social quality approach were established in the last two to three years. In this article we aim to outline the most important elements of social quality in the conditional factors socio-economic security, social inclusion, social cohesion as well as social empowerment in Hungary. Here, besides a short description of the national context we will emphasise only the key findings according to the four conditional factors. In the third part of the article we outline some aspects of the Hungarian employment policy. !The Irish National Report Séamus Ó Cinnéide, Jean Cushen and Fearghas Ó Gabhan The 2005 Human Development Report recently found Ireland to be the second wealthiest country in the world (UN Development Programme).1 However, the same report also highlighted that Ireland was one of the countries with the greatest social inequality and with the third highest level of poverty out of the eighteen countries surveyed. The Celtic Tiger period may also be characterised in terms of the widening gap between rich and poor (Nolan, et al. 2000; UNDP 2005). Even ‘social partnership’, Ireland’s corporatist national planning arrangements, including triennial national pay agreements, is criticised for concentrating political power in the hands of small elites and organised interests (Ó Cinnéide 1998; Kirby 2002).

• Social Quality in Italy
  Chiara Saraceno and Susanna Terracina

  Within Europe, Italy exhibits one of the highest levels of internal and regional heterogeneity. This heterogeneity has been long standing (so much so that a research tradition has developed looking at regional diversities as veritable social formations – see e.g. Bagnasco 1977) and at the same time not fixed. Trends in the conditions of social quality, therefore, must be read against this background. In the following paragraphs we will synthetically sketch them, on the basis of the exercise developed within the Social Quality Network (Saraceno and Terracina 2004). We are well aware that this exercise is experimental, and that the system of indicators on which it is based is still largely provisional. Therefore, we will not attempt to draw any conclusion. We will simply present trends within each so-called ‘conditional factor’.

• European Network on Indicators of Social Quality: Summary of the Dutch National Report
  P. Steffens and Chris R.J. de Neubourg

  This paper presents a first set of data for the theoretical elements that have been developed for Social Quality in the Netherlands. The four social quality conditional factors (Socio-economic Security, Social Cohesion, Social Inclusion and Social Empowerment) will be addressed in an individual paragraph. The last paragraph describes a recent policy initiative that is relevant from the perspective of Social Quality. Emphasis is placed on the fact that policy initiatives frequently constitute a trade off between different components of Social Quality and benefits and costs have to be weighed carefully.

• Social Quality in Portugal – Reflecting on the Context and the Conditional Factors
  Heloísa Perista, Pedro Perista and Isabel Baptista

  Emphasising the ‘dialectic of self-realisation and the formation of collective identities’, the social quality theory becomes operative through four distinct, though interrelated, conditional factors: socio-economic security, social cohesion, social inclusion and social empowerment. Needless to say, such a formulation intends to create the grounds for a theory highly sensible to societal change. This article intends to give account of that societal change over the last few years1 on the grounds of the Portuguese historical context, and focusing on specificity reflected by the national context of social quality in comparison with the European (EU-15) context. This article comprises three main sections. The first one presents the relevant aspects of the Portuguese context regarding social quality. The second section summarises the key findings reflecting the specificity of the national situation regarding the four conditional factors of social quality and its domains. The third and last section reports a good practice and points out possible ways to stimulate social quality in the country. !Social Quality in Slovenia: Emergent Individual Risks and Disappearing Fora to Discuss Them Maˇsa Filipovi´c, Srna Mandiˇc and Ruˇzica Boˇski´c Slovenia is among those Central East European countries that have been undergoing rather turbulent processes, the so called ‘transition’, causing many profound changes in all societal domains. The ‘transition’ was basically about ‘leaving’ the socialist economic and political systems and ‘taking over’ the market economy plus parliamentary democracy. Backed by the expertise of the World Bank, as pointed by Ferge (2001), an optimistic ‘reform and privatisation’ rhetoric prevailed, promising improvements in terms of economic efficiency, political democracy, and personal freedoms. On the other hand, the institutional and cultural societal heritage – ‘the social factor’ in brief – was not recognised as having much value in comparison to the economic and political factors. Therefore, it is a great challenge to examine thus emerging social features in one of the ‘transitional countries’ and try to compare them to others. While comparisons between West and East European societies are frequent in their economic and political characteristics, their societal features have been much less discussed and compared. The social quality approach, used in this analysis, is opening up a great number of questions about various properties of societies. The major test for the approach lies in its ability to integrate the answers.

• Social Quality in Spain
  Juan Monreal and Salvadora Titos

  A few years ago Spain was not oriented on social quality but on economic growth at the most basic level. It was necessary to improve economic conditions and to restore and consolidate democracy in order to enable Spain to enter the European Union in 1986. Once a member, Spain set out to increase its economic, political and social standing and saw it approximating the European average on the majority of indicators. As we will see below, Spain still has to improve on some of the indicators in order to reduce some persistent imbalances in its socio-economic structure. Hence, the effort made by Spain for some years now must be maintained in order to consolidate its position at the heart of the European Union from a social quality perspective.

• Social Quality in Sweden
  Göran Therborn and Sonia Therborn

  ‘Social quality’ is not a common term in Sweden and its sister notion ‘quality of life’ is used mainly with respect to the conditions of particular individuals and rarely, if ever, in social analysis. Swedish social statistics and social studies focus on ‘levels of living’ or ‘living conditions’. The perceived subjectivity connotations of ‘quality’ in this context have not been attractive. On the other hand, Swedish social research and policy evaluation have de facto been very much concerned with measuring what may properly be called qualitative dimensions of living conditions and correspondingly less interested in, for example, the possession of consumer goods.

• Indicators of Social Quality and the Anti-Poverty Strategies
  Barbara Demeyer and Fintan Farrell

  This article contains the ‘European Anti-Poverty Network’ contribution to the European research- and Network-project on Indicators of Social Quality (ENIQ). It contains the following parts: after this introduction the European social inclusion strategy, one of the important policy frames for EAPN, will be discussed, followed by the translation of the European decisions on indicators (Laken 2002) by national governments up till now (National Action Plans 1+2) and the consequences for the praxis. The fourth section elaborates on the comments by the EAPN on these European based decisions and the nature of the following reflections within its own membership. The fifth section includes a presentation of research on qualitative indicators for poverty. The last section gives comments and conclusions by EAPN on the social quality approach.

• The View from the International Council on Social Welfare
  Aki Siltaniemi and Marja-Liisa Kauppinen

  The International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW), European Region, is, together with its academic partners, a member of the ENIQ Project. These academic bodies have developed and formulated the theory of social quality, together with appropriate indicators. The role of the ICSW differs from this because its purpose and basic mission is different. ICSW represents social NGOs and its mission is to advance social welfare, social justice and social development. The approach of the ICSW in this article is practical and clearly connected with social policy issues at an especially European level. However, a deep theoretical understanding of social quality and a successful choice of indicators are very important to the ICSW. After all, they do determine the usefulness of the image received through the concept of social quality in developing European welfare. The theory and indicators of social quality may also define which questions or problems will be primarily raised when discussing citizens’ welfare or its defects in European societies.

• Empowerment: The Core of Social Quality
  Peter Herrmann

  Fundamentally, the Social Quality Approach (SQA) takes up a topic that runs like a thread through philosophy and social science, namely the tensions between two fields. The one field stretches between ‘individual and society’, the other stretches between ‘institutions and communities’. What the present approach distinguishes from these two is that it seriously goes beyond delivering a new interpretation of the world, aiming instead on delivering a – theoretically founded – instrument for political action. However, political action here aims on dealing with the fundamental challenge of a society as an integrated system, being based on the objective and subjective dimensions of socially acting individuals. To speak of ‘socially acting individuals’ means to acknowledge the interdependency of acting individuals, their independence and at the same time the dependence of the individuals from a society which they shape through their own action.