IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i1p391-d304992.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Virtuous Circle of Sustainable Welfare as a Transformative Policy Idea

Author

Listed:
  • Tuuli Hirvilammi

    (Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, 33100 Tampere, Finland)

Abstract

Welfare states are highly dependent on the economic growth paradigm. Especially in social democratic welfare states, growth dependence has historically been accompanied by the notion of a virtuous circle, which ensures that social policy measures do not conflict with economic growth. However, this policy idea ignores the environmental impacts that are now challenging human wellbeing and welfare goals. In this conceptual research article, I reframe the virtuous circle of the welfare state by revealing its unintended consequences and internal contradictions before introducing a more sustainable policy idea. I argue that this new concept—a virtuous circle of sustainable welfare—could have transformative potential in designing a planned and socially sustainable degrowth transformation. Drawing on historical institutionalism, degrowth, social policy and sustainable welfare state research, I advocate for the virtuous circle as a heuristic tool to provide an appealing and convincing narrative for sustainable welfare state beyond growth. The policy idea of virtuous circle addresses interrelated institutional reforms and positive feedbacks between different institutions and policy goals. It also emphasizes that a holistic approach is necessary to avoid trade-offs and contradictions between social, environmental, and economic policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Tuuli Hirvilammi, 2020. "The Virtuous Circle of Sustainable Welfare as a Transformative Policy Idea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:1:p:391-:d:304992
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/391/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/391/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clive L Spash, 2009. "Social Ecological Economics," Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series 2009-08, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.
    2. Sebastian Berger, 2008. "Circular Cumulative Causation (CCC) à la Myrdal and Kapp — Political Institutionalism for Minimizing Social Costs," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 357-365, June.
    3. Trebeck, Katherine & Williams, Jeremy, 2019. "The Economics of Arrival," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9781447337263, Febrero.
    4. Gough, Ian, 2016. "Welfare states and environmental states: a comparative analysis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 63153, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Daniel W. O’Neill & Andrew L. Fanning & William F. Lamb & Julia K. Steinberger, 2018. "A good life for all within planetary boundaries," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 1(2), pages 88-95, February.
    6. Antal, Miklós, 2014. "Green goals and full employment: Are they compatible?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 276-286.
    7. Ian Gough, 2017. "Heat, Greed and Human Need," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 16991.
    8. Richard P.F. Holt & Steven Pressman & Clive L. Spash (ed.), 2009. "Post Keynesian and Ecological Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12988.
    9. repec:ucp:bkecon:9781529200478 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Tuuli Hirvilammi & Tuula Helne, 2014. "Changing Paradigms: A Sketch for Sustainable Wellbeing and Ecosocial Policy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-16, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Virna Emily Tobing-David & Isbandi Rukminto Adi & Mu’man Nuryana, 2024. "Conditions of Sustainable Welfare: A Cross-Case Empirical Analysis of 22 Locality-Based Welfare Systems in Decentralised Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-27, February.
    2. Kristian Kongshøj, 2023. "Social policy in a future of degrowth? Challenges for decommodification, commoning and public support," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    3. Koch, Max, 2022. "State-civil society relations in Gramsci, Poulantzas and Bourdieu: Strategic implications for the degrowth movement," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    4. Smith, Thomas S.J. & Baranowski, Mariusz & Schmid, Benedikt, 2021. "Intentional degrowth and its unintended consequences: Uneven journeys towards post-growth transformations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    5. Mariana Oliveira & Remo Santagata & Serena Kaiser & Yanxin Liu & Chiara Vassillo & Patrizia Ghisellini & Gengyuan Liu & Sergio Ulgiati, 2022. "Socioeconomic and Environmental Benefits of Expanding Urban Green Areas: A Joint Application of i-Tree and LCA Approaches," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-16, November.
    6. Xiaoran Zheng & Yuzhuo Cai, 2022. "Transforming Innovation Systems into Innovation Ecosystems: The Role of Public Policy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-26, June.
    7. Gyeongcheol Cho & Younyoung Choi & Ji-Hyun Kim, 2020. "Investigating the Unintended Consequences of the High School Equalization Policy on the Housing Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-9, October.
    8. Patrizia Ghisellini & Renato Passaro & Sergio Ulgiati, 2021. "Revisiting Keynes in the Light of the Transition to Circular Economy," Circular Economy and Sustainability,, Springer.
    9. François, Martin & Mertens de Wilmars, Sybille & Maréchal, Kevin, 2023. "Unlocking the potential of income and wealth caps in post-growth transformation: A framework for improving policy design," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    10. Jari Lyytimäki & Hanna-Liisa Kangas & Erkki Mervaala & Suvi Vikström, 2020. "Muted by a Crisis? COVID-19 and the Long-Term Evolution of Climate Change Newspaper Coverage," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-15, October.
    11. García-García, Pablo & Buendía, Luis & Carpintero, Óscar, 2022. "Welfare regimes as enablers of just energy transitions: Revisiting and testing the hypothesis of synergy for Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    12. Tuuli Hirvilammi & Max Koch, 2020. "Sustainable Welfare beyond Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-8, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tuuli Hirvilammi & Max Koch, 2020. "Sustainable Welfare beyond Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-8, February.
    2. Katharina Bohnenberger, 2020. "Money, Vouchers, Public Infrastructures? A Framework for Sustainable Welfare Benefits," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-30, January.
    3. Buch-Hansen, Hubert & Koch, Max, 2019. "Degrowth through income and wealth caps?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 264-271.
    4. Martin Fritz & Max Koch, 2019. "Public Support for Sustainable Welfare Compared: Links between Attitudes towards Climate and Welfare Policies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-15, August.
    5. Matteo Mandelli, 2022. "Understanding eco-social policies: a proposed definition and typology," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 28(3), pages 333-348, August.
    6. Aila-Leena Matthies & Ingo Stamm & Tuuli Hirvilammi & Kati Närhi, 2019. "Ecosocial Innovations and Their Capacity to Integrate Ecological, Economic and Social Sustainability Transition," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-16, April.
    7. Büchs, Milena, 2021. "Sustainable welfare: How do universal basic income and universal basic services compare?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    8. Clive Spash & Tone Smith, 2019. "Of Ecosystems and Economies: Re-connecting Economics with Reality," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2019_03, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    9. Corlet Walker, Christine & Druckman, Angela & Jackson, Tim, 2021. "Welfare systems without economic growth: A review of the challenges and next steps for the field," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    10. Richard Bärnthaler & Andreas Novy & Leonhard Plank, 2021. "The Foundational Economy as a Cornerstone for a Social–Ecological Transformation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-19, September.
    11. Halliki Kreinin & Ernest Aigner, 2022. "From “Decent work and economic growth” to “Sustainable work and economic degrowth”: a new framework for SDG 8," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 281-311, May.
    12. Svartzman, Romain & Dron, Dominique & Espagne, Etienne, 2019. "From ecological macroeconomics to a theory of endogenous money for a finite planet," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 108-120.
    13. David Collste & Sarah E Cornell & Jorgen Randers & Johan Rockström & Per Espen Stoknes, 2021. "Human well-being in the Anthropocene: limits to growth," Post-Print hal-03481110, HAL.
    14. Michael Jakob & William F. Lamb & Jan Christoph Steckel & Christian Flachsland & Ottmar Edenhofer, 2020. "Understanding different perspectives on economic growth and climate policy," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(6), November.
    15. Kajsa Emilsson & Håkan Johansson & Magnus Wennerhag, 2020. "Frame Disputes or Frame Consensus? “Environment” or “Welfare” First Amongst Climate Strike Protesters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-20, January.
    16. Eloi Laurent & Jean Jouzel, 2018. "The Well-being Transition: Measuring what counts to protect what matters," Sciences Po publications 35, Sciences Po.
    17. Rostami-Tabar, Bahman & Ali, Mohammad M. & Hong, Tao & Hyndman, Rob J. & Porter, Michael D. & Syntetos, Aris, 2022. "Forecasting for social good," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1245-1257.
    18. Kronenberg, Tobias, 2010. "Finding common ground between ecological economics and post-Keynesian economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1488-1494, May.
    19. Hardy, Derrylea J. & Patterson, Murray G., 2012. "Cross-cultural environmental research in New Zealand: Insights for ecological economics research practice," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 75-85.
    20. Valentinov, Vladislav, 2012. "Understanding the rural third sector: insights from Veblen and Bogdanov," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 41(1/2), pages 177-188.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:1:p:391-:d:304992. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.