Gianni D’Amato and Jean-Thomas Arrighi

Mobility, Diversity, and the Democratic Welfare State: Contested Solidarity in Historical and Political Comparative Perspective

Project Summary

This project provides a socio-historical analysis of how welfare models influence migration and mobility regimes, and their patterns of inclusion and exclusion according to class, ethnicity, race, gender, and religion. We explore the different constellations of states and societal agents (pro- and anti-immigrant) to grasp the political sources of civic, democratic, and distributive solidarity in diverse societies by compiling data sets on claims-making and state responses to challenges of human mobility.

The comparative analysis of the transformation of industrialized societies is conducted in three liberal democratic societies that are dissimilar in how they achieved their compromise as welfare states: the liberal-conservative model (Switzerland), the social-democratic (Sweden) model, and the conservative-corporatist model (Austria). The timespan under scrutiny covers the last 70 years, and we furthermore analyze the adjustments of democratic welfare states to the new challenges of mobility-induced diversity.

Scientific Poster 2022 (view as PDF)


Key Findings:

  • Crisis episodes may increase public misperceptions and media politicization on migration. In some cases, they also contribute to polarized views on it.
  • Tensions between citizenship and disability norms exist, although they are partly mitigated through a (contested and fragile) legal exemption regime that seeks to ‘accommodate’ foreigners with a disability.
  • Access to welfare rights is shaped by socio-economic considerations, institutional path dependencies, and the politicizability of mobility.

Project-related scientific publications