Welfare and Religion in a European Perspective (WREP)

The goal of the project is easily summarised: it was to discover exactly what happens on an everyday basis in the fields of welfare and religion in Europe in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and to ask what this can tell us about the changing nature of European societies. WREP was funded by the Tercentenary Foundation of the Bank of Sweden. It developed out of an earlier project on church-state relations in Sweden; it developed into a more ambitious project on ‘Welfare and Values in Europe’ (WaVE), funded by the Framework 6 Programme of the European Commission.Footnote ³

WREP itself found its focus in a detailed examination of the social economy of a single, medium-sized locality in eight European countries. The case studies were as follows: Gävle in Sweden, Drammen in Norway, Lahti in Finland, Reutlingen in Germany, Darlington in England, Evreux in France, Vicenza in Italy and Thiva and Livadeia in Greece. More details about each of these places and the methodologies deployed in this project can be found in the publications cited in Footnote note 1. WREP aimed to map the place of both welfare and religion in the locality in question; to note the similarities and differences across Europe regarding the responses of the state (in its local forms), the churches,Footnote ⁴ and a range of voluntary organisations to the current situation; and to use this information in order to address a range of issues that are common to most European societies. How, for example, do these principal actors respond to current changes, and what resources do they have at their disposal? To what extent do the latter depend on the fact that the modern welfare state has developed differently in different parts of Europe – developments which leave distinctive spaces not only for the churches to contribute, but for their role to adjust as circumstances require? And how, finally, might this situation evolve? These are the questions which have driven the WREP enquiry.

The building blocks of the project can be found in the different welfare traditions of Europe and the different strands of Christian thinking embodied in the historic churches of the continent. There is also a strong emphasis on gender. Each of these points will be taken in turn.

The modern welfare state is, above all, a national project. Its beginnings are best understood as a response to the upheavals taking place as Europe both industrialised and urbanised. Specifically, the foundations of the welfare state as we know it were laid in Germany under the direction of Bismarck, and took the form of a rudimentary system of social insurance (Leis, Reference Leis2004). Bit by bit, other European nations followed suit, both adopting and adapting the German institutions – ideas that developed strongly after 1945.

Following Esping-Andersen (Reference Esping-Andersen1990), it is possible to identify three dominant models. First is the ‘liberal’ model typical of Anglo-Saxon countries, such as England, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Here responsibility is taken by the state for basic social issues, but independent agencies are given considerable scope. Second is the ‘conservative’ model which is found mainly in continental Europe – for example, in Germany, France, Austria and Belgium. In this model, the state has responsibility for the social welfare framework, while voluntary bodies (including large numbers of paid professionals) also play a defining role. A sub-division of this model is sometimes included. Termed the ‘weak conservative’ or ‘rudimentary’ model, it is found in southern and eastern Europe, where the family remains more important than the state in the delivery of welfare. Third is the ‘social-democratic’ model typical of the Nordic countries – Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and, to some extent, the Netherlands. Here the state has overall responsibility for social welfare, while voluntary organisations provide only complementary services. All of these variations were present in the WREP enquiry: the liberal model in England; the social democratic model in Sweden, Norway and Finland; and the conservative model in Germany and France. The weak conservative or rudimentary model was covered in Italy and Greece.

The WREP case studies also include the major Christian traditions which exist in Europe: Anglican, Lutheran/Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox.Footnote ⁵ Indeed, an important starting point for the study as a whole lies in the fact that the majority churches of Europe (as theologically motivated carriers of values) are related to the different welfare models that have emerged across the continent – an idea that will become clear in the following section. A point to grasp from the outset, however, is the interconnectedness of theological traditions and welfare regimes, a relationship that is possible to examine in different ways.

Particularly pertinent to WREP in this respect is the recent work of Manow (Reference Manow2004), Kahl (Reference Kahl2005) and van Kersbergen and Manow (Reference Van Kersbergen and Manow2009), which has opened up new areas of debate – highlighting amongst other things the significance of religious ideas in the formative period of the welfare state from the nineteenth century onwards. For example, van Kersbergen and Manow demonstrate convincingly that the Lutheran countries of Northern Europe, including Germany, were the first to develop systems of welfare and social insurance. Catholic and ‘reformed’ countries adopted these ideas somewhat later. The explanation for the differences in timing can, moreover, be found in the religious factor. Driven by the notion of ‘two kingdoms’, the Lutheran churches welcomed the welfare state, or – at the very least – offered little resistance to its creation and development. The Catholic Church, conversely, actively hindered the intrusion of the state into the aspects of society which had long been regarded as central to its own identity (notably the family). Hence the state–church cleavage that can still be felt in much of southern Europe, where the welfare system remains rudimentary.

Much less predictably, rather similar hesitations can be found in countries influenced by ‘reformed’ as opposed to Lutheran theology (the Netherlands, Switzerland and, to some extent, England), but for different reasons – a point developed in some detail by Manow (Reference Manow2004). Once again, there was resistance to state welfare, but this time in the name of theological as well as political individualism. Self-reliance, rather than social care, became the supreme virtue. In short, religion is important as an independent, as well as dependent, variable in the evolution of welfare in Europe. Grasping the continuing significance of theological traditions in the debates about welfare right across Europe has been central to the work of WREP (Ekstrand, Reference Ekstrand, Bäckström, Davie, Edgardh and Pettersson2011). Exactly what roles the churches play, however, and in which directions they are likely to move, must be the subject of careful empirical enquiry. None of these things can be assumed at the outset.

Embedded in WREP is a third cross-cutting theme: the significance of gender, and for good reason (Edgardh, Reference Edgardh, Bäckström, Davie, Edgardh and Pettersson2011). An extremely large proportion of the social care that is delivered in Europe is, and always has been, dispensed by women. An awareness that this is done in different ways in different countries does not detract from the significance of this statement; it simply contextualises the debate. Equally significant is the disproportionate presence of women in the religious life of modern Europe, as indeed throughout the Christian west (Aune, Reference Aune2008). For precisely this reason, it is the gender variable more than any other that provides an obvious link between the different strands that come together in WREP. Why, then, have so few commentators noticed the very marked similarities between welfare and religion, and why is it that so many respondents – when challenged – simply regarded the dominance of women in both spheres as ‘natural’? From Finland to Greece, the answer was always the same: women do the caring because they are better at it, just as women do the praying – on behalf of everyone else. The case studies in WREP seek both to unpick and explain these widespread and largely unquestioned assumptions.

Thinking theoretically

Gøsta Esping-Andersen's work has already been mentioned. His notion of welfare regimes is pivotal for the understanding of Europe's welfare systems. It has spawned a considerable literature which includes both criticisms of and refinements to the original idea (see, for example Baldock, Reference Baldock1999; Kautto, Reference Kautto1999; Sainsbury, Reference Sainsbury1999; Gilbert, Reference Gilbert2002). According to Esping-Andersen, the term welfare ‘regimes’ refers to the way in which welfare production is allocated between state, market and households in a variety of European countries. As we have seen, three principal regimes are identified: the liberal, the conservative and the social-democratic. They should be seen as ideal types – the real world is likely to exhibit hybrid forms containing elements of more than one regime.

The original typology has been criticised on many points: for being too static (Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1996); for using the wrong criteria (Kautto et al., Reference Kautto, Fritzell, Hvinden, Kvist and Uusitalo2001); for having theoretical shortcomings (Baldwin, Reference Baldwin and Greve1996); for omitting a fourth, Mediterranean regime-type (Leibfried, Reference Leibfried, Ferge and Kolberg1992; Ferrera, Reference Fraser and Fraser1997); for failing to explain differences between countries within a regime-type (van Kersbergen and Manow, Reference Van Kersbergen and Manow2009); for being too focused on income maintenance and paid work (Sainsbury, Reference Sainsbury1999); for neglecting gender issues (Lewis, Reference Lewis1992, Reference Lewis1997); and for neglecting aspects of social care (Anttonen and Sipilä, Reference Anttonen and Sipilä1996) and the voluntary sector (Kuhnle and Selle, Reference Kuhnle and Selle1992). All that said, it is clear that the typology developed by Esping-Andersen is both insightful and persuasive. It has had a huge impact on welfare state research.Footnote ⁶ It is, therefore, the obvious frame of reference within which the welfare arrangements of the countries participating in WREP should be understood.

Most important of all for the WREP enquiry, however, are the links between Gøsta Esping-Andersen's analyses of welfare regimes on the one hand, and David Martin's work on secularisation on the other, noting especially Martin's magisterial A General Theory of Secularization (1978). Martin's central thesis is as well known to scholars of religion as is Esping-Andersen's to students of social policy. It can be summarised as follows: the process of secularisation – strongly associated in the European case with the onset of industrialisation and urbanisation – is common to the continent as a whole, but unfolds differently within different contexts (Martin, Reference Martin1978: 4–5). These contexts are determined by identifiable factors, for example the precise timing and the nature of what Martin terms ‘crucial events’ – namely the English Civil War and the American, French and Russian Revolutions, and the place of religion in these. Did these cataclysmic struggles occur over religion, against religion or through religion? The absence of such an event in the Lutheran countries of Northern Europe is just as significant. The details are complex, but the underlying idea is simple enough. Emerging, in the fullness of time, from these various upheavals, are specific – and up to a point predictable – variations in the secularisation process.

The crucial point is the following: these variations mirror very closely the regime-types initially identified by Esping-Andersen and exemplified in the WREP case studies. The pathways of secularisation on the one hand ‘match’ the distinctive patterns of welfare that emerge on the other. It is simply that the story is told from different points of view: one scholar documents the influence and the adjustments of a territorially based church to the upheavals and dislocations of the industrialisation process; the other observes the emergence of the secular institutions required by a modern industrial society. The reasons for this parallel thinking are clear enough: they lie in the fact that both ‘theories’ (the contrasting processes of secularisation and the very different welfare regimes that have emerged in different parts of Europe) draw on the same underlying alignments and cleavages in European society, initially identified by political sociologists in their work on the nineteenth century. Especially significant in this respect is the pioneering work of Lipset and Rokkan (Reference Lipset and Rokkan1964). Such cleavages are, in turn, determined by the ‘crucial events’ already outlined.

One element in this transformation is the process of institutional separation or differentiation, in which tasks or areas of activity traditionally undertaken by the churches move bit by bit into the secular sphere.Footnote ⁷ Such areas of activity include education, healthcare and – of course – welfare. In each situation, a particular variant of the welfare state emerges, as a similar goal (the separating out of welfare from the influence of the churches and the creation of an autonomous sphere with its own institutional norms) is achieved, or semi-achieved, in somewhat different ways. As we have seen, the role of both theology and ecclesiology in determining these pathways – albeit as one factor among many – is not only increasingly recognised in the literature but is more than apparent in the material emerging from the WREP case studies. Placing Gøsta Esping-Andersen alongside David Martin symbolises one of the important achievements of WREP: that is to bring together two very different bodies of literature from two fields of European social science which are seldom read by the same people. Striking parallels emerge which are as relevant now as they were when first developed.

Looking forward

This leads in fact to a crucially important question. What happens, or will happen, when the work of the churches in the sphere of welfare begins to expand rather than contract, as is currently the case? Or to put the same point even more directly: what will happen as the role of religion as a whole becomes more rather than less visible in modern Europe, both as a social provider and as a significant voice in public debate? In response, I contend that the pathways established by Martin in the secularisation process, together with the particular regime-type with which they are associated, are as pertinent now as the welfare state begins to erode as they were when it was established.

Almost all European societies are facing the same question: if the state is no longer able or even willing to provide a comprehensive system of welfare for its citizens, who should be responsible for this task? It is equally clear that the churches, amongst others, have a role to play in these changes. Increasingly, they are filling the gaps left by the state as the latter comes under strain. Careful scrutiny of the WREP data, however, encourages the following conclusion: that the factors which were present when the initial redistribution of responsibilities took place are still operative as the new situation begins to emerge. In other words, the process of de-differentiation – the renewed co-operation between the churches and the secular sphere – is as culturally specific as its predecessor. It follows that there will be a relatively easy resumption of the welfare role on the part of the churches in some areas of Europe, and a much more difficult one in others. Selected examples from the WREP project are sufficient to illustrate the point: Greece and Italy from the south of Europe, France and Germany from the centre, Finland from the Lutheran north, and lastly the English case. To appreciate these case studies fully, the reader should refer to the published material from WREP;Footnote ⁸ what follows is simply an indicative account.

In Italy and Greece – both countries from the weak conservative or rudimentary model – a very incomplete institutional separation has taken place, meaning that the welfare state was never fully developed in the first place and that the line between state and church remains essentially fluid. It can move back and forth as the situation demands. That said, the movement takes place in different ways. In Greece, for example, the specificities of the Orthodox world remain paramount, captured by the term ‘symphonia’, meaning that church and state are essentially complementary. The dividing line between them is frequently hard to discern – for better or for worse. Italy, in contrast, falls into the rather more antagonistic ‘Latin’ pattern (Martin, Reference Martin1978), in which church and state found themselves on opposite sides of an acrimonious debate. As the modern state established itself in the nineteenth century, it successfully challenged the temporal power of the Catholic Church – a pivotal moment in Italian politics. The consequences can still be felt a century and a half later. In both countries, however, the family remains a crucially important provider, underpinned by the teaching and networks of the churches (both Catholic and Orthodox). This is still the case, bearing in mind that the key female role is very often sustained by employing immigrant labour within the household. The traditional system of care, if not the specific personnel, remains intact.

France also belongs to the Latin model. But as Martin makes clear from the outset, the details of the Italian case are very different from those of the French (Martin, Reference Martin1978: 124–6). In the former, the Catholic Church has retained a far greater influence at both the national and local level – this was certainly the case in the welfare mix discovered in Vicenza in which both the Church itself and a whole host of Catholic organisations, not least the religious orders, were central to the delivery of care. The contrast with Evreux is striking – with the result that in Evreux the likelihood of any formal collaboration between church and state is, and is likely to remain, pretty much impossible. Co-operation most certainly exists in this locality, but informally, on the margins and out of sight, reflecting a national situation in which the church has been comprehensively displaced by the secular state, itself underpinned by developed and markedly secular ideology (the notion of laïcité).Footnote ⁹ Paradoxically, this has meant that the churches are particularly well-placed to care for the members of society who are themselves relegated to the margins (the unemployed, asylum seekers and the sans-papiers more generally). The importance of in-depth, locally based qualitative data is revealed at this point; such material offers an interesting counterpoint to the ideological antagonism between church and state at the national level.

The German case is interesting for several reasons. In the postwar settlement of the former West Germany, large sections of state welfare were delegated to the churches, or more accurately to their associated diaconal institutions (Caritas for the Catholic Church) and Diakonische Werk for the Protestants). In all, about 50 per cent of social care is delivered in this way, publically financed through a variety of insurance schemes, but administered by the churches. But here, just as everywhere else in Europe, it has been difficult to keep up with demand. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that demands are growing at exactly the same time as the resources of both the churches and the church-related institutions are diminishing – due largely to a relentless process of secularisation. Regarding the latter, the relatively recent unification of Germany must also be taken into account, given the exceptionally secular nature of the former DDR. Hence, the challenge for the German churches: should they or should they not continue with programmes that are rightly admired by German citizens but which exert an ever-increasing strain on the organisations in question? The Reutlingen case study explores this dilemma in detail.

In Finland, something very specific has occurred, provoked by the very sharp recession which occurred in the early 1990s, which led not only to a noticeable rise in the welfare roles undertaken by the Finnish churches, but to a gain in popularity as a result. Finland was more dependent on exports to the former USSR than most other European societies. For this reason, the Finnish economy experienced a sudden downturn following 1989, including a degree of structural unemployment. The churches were instrumental in protecting elements of the population from the worst effects of this crisis – a fact widely recognised in Finnish society (Yeung, Reference Yeung2003). Quite apart from the gain in popularity, it is clear that the move away from the state and back to the voluntary sector (including the churches) as the provider of some elements of welfare was both institutionally and culturally acceptable. Such a shift may not be universally welcomed in Finland – in an ideal world it would not happen – nor does it follow the logic of Luther's two kingdoms. It can, however, take place without major recriminations on either side.

The English case – the focus of many of the papers in this issue – represents Esping-Andersen's ‘liberal’ model.Footnote ¹⁰ It is, however, the most difficult case to capture from the point of view of WREP, in that religious minorities (Christian and other) are considerably more important in Britain than they are in continental Europe, and have been so for centuries rather than decades. That said, the following points should be noted. The Church of England has very largely withdrawn from the provision of welfare as such, but retains a critical voice – sharply so at times. The role of the Archbishop of Canterbury is central to such critique and remains a much discussed topic in British society (see Gover, Reference Gover2011, for a recent example). As in the German case, the continued pertinence of this role needs to be set against a growth rather than decline in secularisation if the latter is measured by the conventional indicators of practice and belief.Footnote ¹¹ At the same time, the current debate about the ‘Big Society’, encouraged by a need for financial austerity, has given new impetus to the role of faith-based organisations in welfare provision. Many voices are raised in this discussion, not all of which agree (Dinham et al., Reference Dinham, Furbey and Lowndes2009). One point is clear, however: both the debate and the outcomes are cast in rather more pragmatic terms than is the case in much of continental Europe. Whilst the French seek to maintain a principle (so much so that the French researcher had difficulty persuading the public authorities in Evreux to pay attention to a project that took religion seriously), the British seek a solution to a problem. Once again the influence of theology is clear: the social teaching of the Anglican Church lends itself to middle axioms, a way of thinking clearly articulated in the work of William Temple, whose influence on both Anglican thought and English society is lasting (Ekstrand, Reference Ekstrand, Bäckström, Davie, Edgardh and Pettersson2011).

Similar stories could be told of the remaining cases in WREP, balancing commonality against difference. No European society can escape the strains and stresses associated with providing welfare for an ageing population in an increasingly volatile economic climate. Each society, however, will deal with this within the specificities of its own history, aware of the limitations imposed by the past as well as of the opportunities offered by the present. Exactly the same parameters, moreover, will come into play when religious minorities are introduced into the discussion, both in general and in terms of welfare provision. This last is the subject of WREP's successor – ‘Welfare and Values in Europe’. In WaVE, welfare became not so much the focus of the study as such, as the ‘prism’ through which core values are perceived, notably questions of inclusion and exclusion. Precisely this issue, however, resonates differently in countries accustomed to a religious monopoly (historically speaking), as opposed to those in which there has been a degree of pluralism for some time. In appreciating these differences, it is important yet again to remember Martin's insights regarding the long-term ‘patterns’ of church and state and their lasting legacies for European societies.

It is important finally to return to the question of gender. Edgardh (Reference Edgardh, Bäckström, Davie, Edgardh and Pettersson2011) addresses this aspect of WREP in considerable detail – a contribution that should be read in full. There can be no doubt about the gendered nature of care in the past and about the dominance of women in the Christian churches of Europe (and beyond). But what of the future? Is it possible for the churches to steer a course between the ‘traditional’ model of male leadership on the one hand and female subservience (often associated with care) on the other, without embracing wholesale the at times strident demands of feminist theologians who wish to parallel, or simply replace, their male counterparts? Provocatively, Edgardh suggests new way of thinking: what she terms a ‘queer’ church. Specifically, she invites the churches to distinguish carefully between ‘the traditions of social engagement that express their theological identity, and the ballast of conservative values about gender and family to which these traditions are so closely connected’ (2011: 104). Is it possible, in other words, to retain an ethic which is hospitable to care without the gendered assumptions that so often go with this? Interestingly this approach mirrors very closely some of the more radical comments from feminists who engage with welfare – those who are looking for a more balanced appropriation of care between the genders. Fraser, for example, envisages a social world, in which every citizen participates fully in wage-earning, care-giving and political engagement at every level of society (Fraser, Reference Ferrera and Ascoli1997).

Concluding remarks

Beneath these very different issues, a more profound question is beginning to emerge: it concerns the place of religion in public discourse in the early twenty-first century. In much of Europe, the following – necessarily unstable – situation pertains: an increasingly secularised population is obliged to address complex religious questions on a regular basis. The situation is made all the more difficult in so far as the process of secularisation has deprived many of those engaged in these conversations of the knowledge, and therefore the vocabulary, necessary for the successful resolution of the issues under review. The controversies surrounding the role of religion and religious organisations in the delivery of services, including welfare should be seen in this light.

A full coverage of these questions goes beyond the parameters of this article.Footnote ¹² They reveal, however, an urgent need for further work in the field. For this reason, the Uppsala team expanded their remit in a second project which includes not only a wider range of religious and other minorities, but four case studies from the post-communist world (Latvia, Poland, Croatia and Romania), which raise very different issues. As already indicated WaVE was funded by the Framework 6 Programme of the European Commission. So also was ‘Faith-based Organisations and Exclusion in European Cities’. FACIT brought together a multi-disciplinary team, led this time by urban geographers. Its focus is more ideological than either WREP or WaVE in that it confronts very directly the challenges of neo-liberalism, paying attention to the role of diverse faith-based organisations (FBOs) in the current (adverse) economic climate. The controversial notion of the post-secular is central to their work.

The fact that the European Commission funded two projects of this nature concurrently is significant in itself. It is indicative of pan-European concern not only about the future of welfare but about the continuing place of churches and FBOs in this sector. WREP, WaVE and FACIT should be read alongside each other. Together they offer a very significant contribution to our knowledge about welfare and religion in Europe.