Liva Stupele defends her PhD Proposal: Pro and against social health insurance in Latvia; actor coalitions in Latvian health care financing reforms

• Governance of the A section
• Overarching conceptual issues of the data collection
• Guidelines and policies for the A section
• Delegation of issues to be decided upon by the Core Group
• Questions raised by the Data Collection group

For attending the workshop, it is necessary to read Derek Beach's latest book "Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines" (2nd edition), which he co-edited with Rasmus Brun Pedersen, and to shortly present a causal mechanism that is relevant to the participant's project.

Martin Cortina Escudero defends his PhD Proposal:
Import substitution industrialization, political coalitions and social policy development in Mexico and Argentina

Jakob Henninger defends his PhD Proposal: Social protection of migrant workers and its repercussions for national policies in the ASEAN region

Jenny Hahs defends her PhD Proposal: Trends in international employment regulations by the ILO: Between legal segmentation, national regulatory interests and the urge for organisational responses towards universal legislative protection?

Every other year the University of Bremen hosts the OPEN CAMPUS, an event that provides information on the courses offered and the research work of its faculties, institutes and other institutions.

This year, the Bremen Social Sciences present themselves jointly in three adjacent tents. In discussion panels, poster presentations and games, visitors can get to know the diversity of Bremen's social sciences and talk to scientists.

The detailed programme of the Bremen Social Sciences will follow shortly.

Johanna Fischer defends her PhD Proposal:
Comparing state intervention in long-term care worldwide: A typological approach

Gabriela De Carvalho defends her PhD Proposal:
Typologies of health care systems, global social policy actors and the Global South: A comparison of health systems in twenty-four Latin American countries

• Governance of the A section
• Overarching conceptual issues of the data collection
• Guidelines and policies for the A section
• Delegation of issues to be decided upon by the Core Group
• Questions raised by the Data Collection group

Alexander Polte defends his PhD Proposal:
The role of international relations in global public health policy dynamics

Informed consent is usually an ethical and legal requirement for social research, and researchers are expected to obtain consent from people to participate in research and for the use of the information collected. Yet, with the new EU General Data Protection Regulation, the legal framework for informed consent has changed considerably. In this workshop, Jan-Ocko Heuer from Qualiservice will deal with key issues regarding informed consent for research and data storing/sharing with Qualiservice (the Research Data Centre for qualitative data from social research currently implemented at the SOCIUM). Topics include: legal framework; core principles of consent; formats for consent; when to seek consent; informing participants; consent in special cases; consent forms; withdrawing consent. It is recommended that from each (qualitative) research project that plans to archive data at Qualiservice, one researcher should attend the workshop. Registration is not required.

There will be two workshops running in parallel (one for project area A, and one for project area B) roughly until 4 pm, followed by a lecture addressing all CRC members.

Details on the workshops, lecture as well as the exact schedule and venues will follow in due time.

Recent theoretical and methodological developments in the social sciences converge into the approach of "mechanism-based explanation". Originating from different disciplines such as analytical sociology, political sociology, comparative historical analysis and qualitative research in political science, mechanism-based approaches stress that phenomena cannot fully be explained by correlations between variables: Causal mechanisms are the "cogs and wheels" that scholars come across when opening the "black box" of correlations.

Despite the expanding literature on this topic, two deficits have not been resolved so far:

1. There is no convincing compilation of mechanisms that drive social and political processes. Previous proposals for a comprehensive list of mechanisms collect elements of very different scales and levels. There is no shared understanding on what level (micro, meso, macro) mechanisms should be allocated and what elements a mechanism should have to count as a mechanism.
2. There is also a lack of systematic applications of mechanism-based approaches to an entire policy field. So far, mechanism-based approaches have primarily been used in single case studies or comparative case studies with a limited scope and range. Adopting a mechanism-based approach for studying the transnational dynamics of an entire policy field might be a decisive test for the fruitfulness of mechanism-based approaches.

This conference aims to stimulate discussion on the characteristics of causal mechanisms, and to establish a closer link between these concepts and the study of social policy dynamics.

Confirmed speakers so far:
Renate Mayntz (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies)
James Mahoney (Northwestern University)
Peter Starke (University of Southern Denmark)

Download: Call for Papers

Call for Papers

For a combined, three-day event we invite proposals for papers on "International Knowledge Transfer in Social Policy: The Case of the Post-Soviet Region". The event takes place from 7-9 November 2019 in Bremen (Germany).

It begins with a two-day conference on "Causal Mechanisms in the Analysis of Social Policy Dynamics" in the House of Science in Bremen. Confirmed keynote speakers are: Renate Mayntz (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies), James Mahoney (Northwestern University), and Peter Starke (University of Southern Denmark).

On the third day there will be a workshop on "International knowledge transfer in social policy: The case of the post-Soviet region". Participants selected from this call are invited to join the conference and to present their papers at the third-day workshop, which takes place at the Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen on 9 November 2019. It intends to complement the conference on causal mechanisms with the discussion of research on dynamics of international knowledge transfer in social policy in the post-Soviet region. Special emphasis is made on the policy fields of basic income security (alleviating poverty), health care and education.

The workshop aims to bring together approaches from political science, sociology and other relevant academic disciplines to get a more comprehensive picture of the influence of social policy concepts originating in the OECD world on reform processes in the post-Soviet region and of the role that international actors play in this knowledge transfer. The focus of invited papers should always be on the international knowledge transfer and on the domestic evaluation of these social policy concepts.

Deadline for proposals: 30 April 201

Deadline for the submission of paper proposals is 30 April 2019. In addition to a 300 word abstract, please include a brief biographical statement in your submission. Selected paper-givers will be invited by 31 May 2019. Full papers will be due 15 September 2019.

The workshop will involve around 15 scholars; early-career researchers are especially encouraged to apply. Travel expenses and accommodation costs of invited participants will be covered by the organiser. For further information on our research group, visit our website.

We plan to publish selected workshop papers in a special issue of Global Social Policy.

Paper proposals and any questions should be addressed to:
Dr Andreas Heinrich (heinrich@uni-bremen.de)