New Players Enter the Game: Effects of Marketization of Social Policies
Author: FLORIAN BLANK
Published in GPS, Vol. 4 No. 1
This paper sheds some light on a change of the landscape of social politics which hitherto has gone unnoticed in current debate: the representation of consumer interests by consumer political actors in social politics. The growing trend towards the introduction and strengthening of market mechanisms in the welfare sector has been accompanied on the one hand by social policies that resemble consumer policy insofar, as they intervene into market relations in favour of consumers.1 On the other hand, the changing role of citizens and thus their changing interests may lead to activities of both governmental and non-governmental actors dedicated to consumer policy in the field of social policy. It is the latter assumption that will be the focus of this article.