From 6 to 8 November 2024, scholars and various stakeholders from politics, welfare administration, civil society and beyond met in Berlin at this year’s FIS Forum and Social Policy Biennale. Under the overarching theme ‘Lost in Social Policy? Research for an Integrated Welfare State’, they discussed cutting-edge research and current dynamics and developments in welfare states and social policy-making. I contributed two presentations myself: one paper – presented together with Veit Winkler from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona – shed light on the political and power processes leading to the adoption of the German Grundrente (basic pension). The other elaborated on pathways into the German and Swedish welfare states for forced migrants during times of crisis (more specifically: the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine), and the concomitant normative constructions of membership, social rights and deservingness.
Mechthild Roos
Researcher in European Studies & Comparative Politics