Resilience of solidarity: Austria’s social insurance model from a comparative perspective

Abstract

Continental European welfare states have been prone to growing levels of inequality in the post-industrial context. This outcome has been attributed to their historically evolved and regionally specific reliance on contributory social insurances. The status-preserving character of these systems has been considered a key mechanism reinforcing insider-outsider divides in employment and welfare and thereby contributing to a decline in the overall redistributive capacity of the welfare state. Drawing on the Austrian case from a comparative perspective, we shed new light on these claims and point to the conditions under which social insurance systems can promote solidaristic solutions and remain politically resilient in challenging times, whereas means-tested benefit schemes tend to be more fragile and contested as they become politicised along welfare chauvinist lines. We conclude from the Austrian case that generous social insurance schemes can be a viable tool to reconcile the deservingness conceptions of the political right the with the solidaristic outcomes favoured by the political left in contemporary welfare politics.