POVERTY, FAMILIES AND THE INVESTMENT STATE: The impact of social investment ideas on family policy discourses in Finland and Germany

Family-related poverty has today become a major dilemma in many European countries (e.g., Eurostat 2012). Not only does poverty create problems in terms of social stigma and lack of resources, it also puts the overall efficiency of welfare states at stake (Ringen 1987; Esping-Andersen et al. 2002). This has induced European governments to search for new policy solutions in order to curb such developments. One interesting policy paradigm in this regard is the social investment paradigm, which is known to advocate investments in human capital and lifelong learning alongside activation measures for a more efficient labour market (Morel et al. 2012). The extent to which governments have adopted such ideas and policy concepts, however, largely remains an empirical question.

The aim of this article is to examine the impact that such social investment ideas have had on political elite discourses in two European welfare states; Finland and Germany. The term ‘political elite discourse’ here relates to government and party programs from the late-1980s to the early-2000s – a period during which the social investment paradigm became increasingly popular. Three research questions are scrutinised: (a) How much attention has been given to family-related poverty in political programs over time? (b) What policy measures for fighting poverty have been recommended? (c) To which extent can these recommendations be said to entail ideational elements from a social investment paradigm?

The article contributes to the understanding of the role of influential ideas for national policy discourses by examining the development of political elite discourses over time, but also by comparing two countries. Although Finland and Germany are often considered members of different welfare regimes (Esping-Andersen 1990), they have recently displayed increasingly similar developments. As a ‘Nordic welfare state’ (e.g., Lister 2009), with generous transfers, public service systems and high levels of female employment, Finland was until recently successful in keeping child poverty on a relatively low level (Forssén et al. 2008). However, during the 2000s, in the aftermath of the 1990s recession and numerous cutbacks in family transfers, poverty rates started to climb consecutively (Salmi et al. 2009; Moisio 2010), irrespective of the government's ambition to curb poverty through piecemeal improvements of universal family transfers as well as targeted measures to poor families through so-called ‘poverty packages’ (cf. Kuivalainen et al. 2005; Kuivalainen and Niemelä 2010). Also in the German ‘corporatist/catholic welfare model’ (Clasen 2005; Bradshaw and Hatland 2006), with its strong focus on status-maintaining and insurance-based transfer systems, family-poverty rates have climbed recently (Statistisches Bundesamt 2011). During the 2000s, a number of policy measures were taken to fight low-income problems among families, such as the income-related parental allowance system (Elterngeld) and the need-tested and income-related child allowance supplement (Kinderzuschlag) for low-income working parents (Bäcker et al. 2008).

An interesting question here is whether national discourses underpinning these policy developments have been influenced by (similar) ideas from a social investment paradigm. If so, this could offer a plausible explanation as to why policy developments seem to have become more alike over time in Finland and Germany. Although recent contributions (e.g., Lister 2009; Jenson 2010; Morel et al. 2012) suggest this to be the case, the empirical evidence is still scant.

The article is structured in the following way. Section two discusses the theoretical framework and section three the method and data. Section four reports the findings from the document analysis of Finnish and German government and party programs, and the last section discusses the results from a comparative angle.

The article builds on the theoretical foundations of discursive institutionalism, a special variant of the so-called neo-institutional school (Hall 1993; Campbell 1998; Schmidt 2002, 2008). Amidst the variety of theoretical approaches for explaining changes in family policies (e.g., Wennemo 1994), ideas and discourses have recently come to play an important role (e.g., Henderson and White 2004; Taylor-Gooby 2005; Kuebler 2007). As argued by Schmidt (2008: 305), ideas and elite discourses constitute the very core of policy making since it is all about generating ‘ideas about what should be done and then communicate them to the general public for discussion and deliberation’. To her a discourse stands for ‘whatever policy actors say to one another and to the public more generally in their efforts to construct and legitimate their policy programs’ (2002: 169). She differentiates three different types of ideas on the basis of their level of generality: the level of specific policies or ‘policy solutions’; the more general programs that underpin the policy ideas and the even more basic level of ‘public philosophies’ or ‘world views’ (2008: 306). This article focuses on the second level, i.e., the ‘programmatic ideas’ that ‘define the problems to be solved by such policies; the issues to be considered; the goals to be achieved; the norms, methods and instruments to be applied (…)’ (ibid.). This choice is motivated by the fact that earlier research suggests that recent welfare state changes can be motivated by ideational diffusion on the transnational level (e.g., Hay and Rosamond 2002; Schmidt 2008; Jenson 2009, 2010; Mahon 2009; Mahon and McBride 2009). There is however a shortage of empirical evidence relating to the impact that this kind of influential ideas and discourses has on national elite discourser or social policy outcomes.

One such influential ideational paradigm is the so-called social investment perspective, which is known not only for emphasising investments in human capital development (such as early childhood education or lifelong learning) and activation measures (such as active labour market policies or supporting mothers’ employment through work/family reconciliation), but also a more flexible use of social protection schemes, so-called ‘flexicurity’ (Morel et al. 2012: 2). One of the main principles of this paradigm is that social policies need to be recalibrated because of new types of social needs in the postmodern world, such as a greater variety in family types, and that social policies should be seen as a productive factor – something that enhances growth and international competitiveness (ibid. Lister 2006; Jenson 2009, 2010).

The idea of social policy as a productive factor is not new; its origins can be found in the thoughts of the two Swedish Social Democrats, Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, as well as the works of the British economist John Maynard Keynes. Moreover, some of the ideas in this paradigm, such as investments in public education systems or public service sectors, have been practiced for a long time, notably in the Nordic countries (Lister 2009; Morel et al. 2012). However, as the unbridled enthusiasm for neo-liberalism started to fade in the 1990s and organisations such as the OECD and the EU started to look for new solutions to the problem of sluggish growth, the ideas of the social investment paradigm became popular (Jenson 2009, 2010). For example, in the OECD report ‘New orientations for social policy’ (OECD 1994) active measures for supporting employment are highlighted since they ‘foster self-sufficiency through earnings, without sacrificing the goals of systems of social protection’ (OECD 1994: 16). In a later report, ‘A caring world’ (OECD 1999), policies for balancing work and family are seen as prerequisites for higher employment rates (Lewis 2006; Mahon 2009). According to Mahon (2008, 2009), this can be seen as an inclusive liberal turn within the OECD since it draws on elements from a neo-liberal discourse but also stresses the role of the state as a social investor as well as a creator of higher macro stability and international competitiveness.

The idea of productive social policy was also addressed through the EU Lisbon process and the Social policy agenda 2000–2005 (European Commission 2000). Also here investments in human capital as well as more enabling and preventive social protections systems were highlighted. Investments in human resources do not only support the level of qualification and enhance the mobility of employers; they are also seen as crucial for the EU ambition to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world. Moreover, social policies that increase employment rates through work/family reconciliation were seen as efficient tools for combating poverty and social exclusion (O'Connor 2005a,b). In a way, these ambitions can perhaps be said to reflect an admiration for the Nordic welfare model in combination with a pronunciation of economic efficiency and long-term or life-course income considerations (Lister 2009).

Although the social investment perspective lacks a unified theoretical framework, the works by Giddens (1999) and Esping-Andersen et al. (2002) have often served as ideational guidance. Notwithstanding their similar accentuation regarding the need to renew the welfare state, these scholars however differ when it comes to the actual implementation of these ideas. While Giddens focuses on activation and reciprocity and views the renewal of the welfare state as an step in the modernisation of Social Democracy (‘The Third Way’), Esping-Andersen accentuates prevention, family-friendly policies and income protection as elements of an investment-based and child-oriented social policy (Lister 2006; Morel et al. 2012). Instead of viewing social security as conditioned by recipient activity, he argues that ‘income security is a precondition for an effective social investment strategy’ (Esping-Andersen et al. 2002: 5).

In Table 1 the social investment perspective is compared to a Neoliberal and Keynesian paradigm. Although it differs from these two in many important respects, there are also similarities. For example, the social investment perspective builds on the Keynesian perspective when it comes to investing in human capital, but at the same time it also lends element, such as activation, from the Neoliberal perspective.

Despite its simplification, the table can serve as starting point for the analysis of political elite discourses on family policies in Finland and Germany. If we find that the textual attention given to ideas and policy solutions in the third column grows over time, this would suggest that social investment ideas have become more influential.

Ideas and discourses can be analysed in various ways. A basic distinction can be made between constructionist approaches using some kind of discourse analysis (cf. Jorgensen and Phillips 2002) and content analyses focussing either on the textual structure in quantitative or qualitative terms (e.g., Hsieh and Shannon 2005). In both cases, there is a focus on the representation of meaning, such as texts, pictures, etc.

The aim of this article was to examine the occurrence of social investment ideas within political elite discourses over time, i.e., Finnish and German government programs and party programs from the late-1980s to the early-2000s. The method found most suitable for this endeavour was qualitative content analysis, which Hsieh and Shannon defines as a ‘research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns’ (Hsieh and Shannon 2005: 1278). Since this technique is a rather unproblematic way or analysing textual contents and allows both qualitative interpretation as well as quantification, it was seen superior to other, and more sophisticated, methods that would need more space than allowed in a journal article. We have used a deductive variant of the method, which means that the analyses of programs were conducted on the basis of a theoretically derived code book relating to five social investment themes (see Appendix 2). After an initial reading of each document as a whole, the paragraphs explicitly or implicitly addressing families/children and poverty were analysed as to the prevalence of social investment elements.

The data consisted of government programs and different types of party programs launched by leading parties in Finland and Germany (see Appendix 1). The parties were selected on the basis of their parliamentary strength and voter support (ct Nousiainen 1998; Seeleib-Kaiser et al. 2008). For Finland, the conservative National Coalition (NC), the Social Democrats (SDP), the rural-conservative Centre party (CEN) and the red-green Left Alliance (LA) were selected. The German party sample consisted of the Social Democrats (SPD), the two Christian parties (CDU/CSU), the Greens (GRE) and the Liberals (LIB). Due to sheer volume, the focus is only on the political elites, i.e., the governments and parties. Although the inclusion of other actors, such as public administrators, labour-market organisations, the media or experts, would have broadened the perspective, we were forced to omit them from this analysis for practical reasons.

This design has some obvious limits. The focus on programs allows us to draw only a general picture of the changes in political elite discourses on family-related poverty, without being able to reveal underlying processes of political deliberation. Moreover, it gives merely a general assessment of the ideational impact on programs in terms of occurrence/non-occurrence of themes related to a social investment paradigm. Finally it says little about the effects that discourses have on actual policies or policy outcomes.

From the late-1990s on, poverty as well as social investment ideas became increasingly highlighted in Finnish government programs. The first government to explicitly address poverty was the coalition led by Social Democrats in 1999. Poverty now became portrayed as a problem of low income and inequality, but it was also linked to marginalisation and spirals of misfortune in a life-cycle perspective. The solution to this problem would be to make the social protection system more activating, since ‘paid work is the most efficient cure for poverty’ (Government program 1999). This discourse was also impregnated by active labour market policy goals; it framed family-related poverty as a problem that can be fixed through higher parental employment. In order to make this happen, parents must also be able to reconcile work and family through – for example – flexible work hours and gradual improvements of family leaves, or tax cuts for low-income or single-parent households.

This ‘activating’ thread was enforced by the two conservative coalitions led by the Centre party (Government programs 2003 and 2007). In these programs a shift in focus away from a family-related to a child-oriented poverty could also be detected. Not only were children in poor households seen as morally unassailable, they were also seen as running a risk of future marginalisation, which suggests that life-course income perspectives now had begun to challenge traditional views on ‘here-and-now’ income redistribution. Moreover, child poverty was seen as having an accumulating effect on other social problems, such as educational performance, unemployment or drug abuse. Preventive measures were consequently given a more prominent role in the programs than before.

The Finnish government programs from the early-2000s also reveal a stronger accentuation of targeted family-policy transfers and equal opportunities. Alongside the universal child allowance system and the income-related parental insurance system, targeted benefits such as single-parent supplements were now seen as ways of combating poverty among one-parent and multi-child families. Similarly, in the 2007 government program, early child education as well as the child day care system was seen as crucial for the creation of equal opportunities among children, since it levels the starting positions in life for poor and well-off children (Government program 2007). Although the notion of equal opportunities was not entirely novel – also previous programs had implicitly referred to the public service system in these terms – this was the first time that a government program explicitly associated family policy with a notion of social justice as equality in opportunity. Earlier programs had focussed mainly on equality in terms of outcome, for example through a redistribution of household incomes (Forssén et al. 2008). Another distinctive feature in the 2007 program, relating to the claim for equal opportunities, was the ambition to make society and labour markets more inclusive for especially immigrant families. By contrast, human capital was not addressed in any explicit way. Nor were there any clear signs of a shift towards reciprocal considerations in terms social rights.

Social investment ideas did not become visible in Finnish party programs until the late-1990s and the 2000s, when two main clusters of social investment ideas became distinct in relation to poverty: prevention and targeting. Prevention became increasingly highlighted by all four parties as a means for curbing a future escalation of poverty and marginalisation among families. For example, according to the Social Democrats (SPD, Election program, 2007) and the two conservative parties (NC, Special program 2003; CEN, Election program 2007), social service systems need to become more effective in locating and eliminating factors that lead to poverty. Interestingly, this claim is motivated in an instrumental way: allegedly this would be more financially sustainable in the long run, as social problems have a tendency to become expensive over time. According to these parties, another way of preventing poverty would be to reduce taxes and child-care fees for low-income families. As to targeting, all four parties tended to view tailored benefits for single parents and multi-child families as having a supplementing role alongside the universal family policy transfer system. This is not to say that the support for universal transfers within the family policy system became weaker, rather it suggests that targeted measures were increasingly seen as necessary reinforcements alongside universal transfers in the war against family-related poverty.

The analysis revealed some differences between the parties as to the way that they addressed social investment themes. The Centre party was the only party that explicitly associated family policies with human capital investment by picturing the early child education system and the primary education system as important generators of human capital with the capacity to eliminate viscous poverty cycles in the long run (CEN, Election program 2007). The National Coalition (Special program 1999) and the Social Democrats (Election program 1995), however, were the only parties addressing equal opportunities in their programs, for instance in relation to equal rights to free education and (public) services. Allegedly, the Finnish education system is successful because it offers both poor and well-off pupils a fair start in life by providing equal opportunities and good prospects for the future (SDP, Election program 1995). Not only do children in this way become less exposed to unemployment and poverty in the long run, but also better equipped to handle insecurities and risks in the postmodern world and able to contribute to future growth of the knowledge economy. As for reciprocity, the National Coalition differs from the other parties through its harsher attitude regarding the moral responsibility of parents. Accordingly, parents have a moral duty to provide for themselves and their families by being gainfully employed (NC, Special program 2003). A fourth difference could be detected in relation to activation. While the Social Democrats in their 1999 and 2007 election programs, and the conservative parties in some of the mid-1990s special programs strongly advocated activation as the first and foremost remedy for poverty, this was something that was entirely missing in the programs of the red-green Left alliance. For instance, the Social Democrats believed that a higher employment rate would solve the problem of marginalization and poverty among families, as long as the state made this possible for parents through day care services and shorter working hours (SDP, Election program 2007).

The results so far indicate an increasing reliance on social investment ideas in political elite discourses on poverty during the 2000s, even though this ideational shift is far from distinct, let alone dramatic. Rather it suggests that some of the ideas became gradually accepted in a path-dependent fashion alongside traditional policy themes. For instance, although targeting became increasingly highlighted during the 2000s, the universal family policy system was still seen as the best guarantee for economic well-being of families. The results also suggest that parties have adopted ideational elements from a social investment perspective in different ways, and that the ideational influence has been somewhat stronger in the case of the Social Democrats and the conservative parties than in the case of the Left Alliance.

By the end of the 1990s family-related poverty and some aspects relating to the social investment paradigm had become visible also in the German coalition contracts. Earlier, traditional policy measures such as tax reductions, child benefits and the child raising allowance (Erziehungsgeld) had formed the core of the (West German) family policies. Poverty was not even acknowledged in the 1970s and 1980s as a family-related problem (ct Kröger 2007). In the 1998 coalition contract between Social Democrats and the Greens, poor families, and especially poor children, were depicted as being in need of specific policy measures. Some of these policy measures, however, such as the activation of parents, were more related to an employment policy discourse rather than a traditional family-policy discourse. In fact, gainful employment was regarded as the best way to reduce and prevent poverty.

During the next decade anti-poverty strategies pertained mostly to incentives for parents to take up work or to improvements of the economic situation for families with gainfully employed parents but with low incomes, such as the child allowance supplement (Kinderzuschlag). However, also traditional family policy measures, like the universal child benefit, were valued as important to reduce family poverty. At the beginning of the 2000s, the idea of (early) education had begun to influence the family-poverty discourse, and was increasingly viewed as a precondition for social inclusion and for social justice in terms of equal opportunities. Moreover, it was seen as a preventive measure and an investment in the future (e.g., Coalition agreement, 2002).

Although the idea of encouraging parents to take up employment was much highlighted in the coalition agreements in the late-1990s and the early-2000s, it was not mentioned in the 2009 coalition contract between the Christian parties (CDU/CSU) and the Liberals. Education and equal opportunities, however, continued to play a central role, albeit with somewhat other accentuation than before. In the 2009 coalition contract, for example, there was a strong focus on equal opportunities and education as investments in the future, but early childhood education had now become less prominent in relation to the role of parents in education. Similarly, family transfers were given a stronger role, particularly the highly controversial home-care allowance (Betreuungsgeld), which was now framed as a freedom for parents to choose between public child care and home care (Coalition agreement, 2009).

At the end of the 1990s, issues relating to family poverty as well as some aspects of the social investment paradigm had found their way also to German party/election programs. There were both similarities and differences between the four analysed parties as to the ways in which they used and supported the investment paradigm. The idea of equal opportunities and social inclusion was advocated by all four parties. Equal opportunities for children were regarded as a social right and a precondition for a just society. Good education – especially early education – was understood as a fruitful investment in the future both from an individual and a societal point of view and as a prevention of poverty (SPD, Election program 2002). An interesting feature in this particular discourse was the emphasis on life-course income prospects and the ambition to counteract inter-generational poverty cycles. Also in terms of activation, all analysed parties regarded parental employment as the most efficient way to prevent poverty. There were, however, also some differences between the parties, especially in relation to the anti-poverty measures that they advocated and how they adjusted traditional notions to ‘new’ social investment ideas. Although the party discourses during the 1980s did not relate explicitly to poverty (instead the debate referred to ‘special burdens’ of families that had to be compensated by the government), family policy transfers played a central role when issues of income distribution were discussed. Three policy measures were given particular attention: tax reductions, child benefits (Kindergeld) and the 1986 child-raising allowance that aimed at compensating women for work done in homes and sought to recognise domestic work as equivalent to gainful employment. On a general level, the party views were largely consensual regarding the need to support and help families through the child allowance system. But when it came to ideas of social justice, party differences became visible. While the Christian Democrats (e.g., Freiheit und Sicherheit 2007) and Liberals (e.g., Election program 2005) usually advocated tax reductions for low-income families, the Social Democrats generally ruled out targeted tax reductions and supported general tax reductions as well as child allowances instead (e.g., SPD, Election program 2009).

Another party difference related to the gender aspect. Traditionally, the Social Democrats and the Greens used to address gender equality and the need to change society in a more equitable direction for working women (e.g., GRE, Election program 1980; SPD, Election program 1983). Therefore, the Social Democrats focussed primarily on gainfully employed mothers and the need to balance work and family (SPD, Election program, 1987). Christian Democrats, by contrast, have generally seen the needs of not-working mothers as ideologically crucial and equally important as those of working mothers (e.g., CDU, Election program, 1983). A third difference relates to the distributive logic of family policies; while the SPD (e.g., Election program 2009) has generally advocated universal measures, Christian Democrats have generally favoured targeted policies for the really needy (e.g., Election program 1987).

In the 1980s and 1990s, the public service infrastructure became increasingly regarded as a measure to help parents, and particularly women, to reconcile work and family life and thus to bring about gender equality. This argumentation was also used to legitimise the expansion of public child care in the 2000 (e.g., Coalition contract 2002). However, in the 2000s, a new perspective on child care services emerged that viewed Kindergartens and the services for toddlers as educational institutions and thus as vehicles for creating equal opportunities and social inclusion. Similar to the government documents, gainful employment was regarded by parties as the best prevention against poverty – also for lone parents. Therefore, during the 2000s, activation measures, i.e., creating incentives for parents to take up work, were increasingly discussed by most parties as something that needed to be developed alongside the expansion of child care facilities (e.g., Coalition contract 2005). The only party that did not explicitly promote activation was the Christian Democratic Union. Instead, their 2009 election program focused on a ‘real freedom to choose’ between public child care and to stay home with one's child. Instead of strengthening the role of the state in early education, parents ought to be supported in their role as educators and care-givers.

Some claims were also made in order to renew the family policy system, by for example introducing family money (CDU/CSU, Election program 2009), basic income (GRE, Election program 2002) or negative tax models (LIB, Election program 2005). During the 2000s, there were also claims made to increase the child allowances for the third and the following children.

In sum, by the end of the 1990s family poverty issues had thus become a part of the German political elite discourse at the same time as ideas from a social investment perspective had become more visible. At the same time, children were increasingly placed in the centre of the debate. Employment policies, education as well as an expansion of public child care services were increasingly seen as efficient recipes against poverty. Education became a central tool for creating social justice in form of equal opportunities, and the role of child care changed from being primarily an instrument for gender equality to being both a tool for future poverty prevention and a tool for reconciling work and family. The gender perspective in family policy matters that had been prevalent in the 1980s, particularly in the programs of the SPD and the Greens, had now partially been replaced by a child orientation. Interestingly enough, debates about reciprocity did not become part of the family policy and poverty discourses in Germany in the same way as the employment discourse.

The question of targeting is more complicated since the border between targeted and other policy options is not always clear-cut. For instance, targeting in terms of higher child benefits for families with many children was not a new idea in the German discourse whereas policy solutions that were based on the working status of parents, such as the child allowance supplement, was in fact a new element.

The focus of this article was on Finnish and German political discourses about family-related poverty and the impact that social investment ideas may have had on such discourses. On the basis of the results, three tentative conclusions can be made. First, there are similarities in timing and fashion between the two countries as to the way that family-related poverty became highlighted in government programs and the party/election programs. The Finnish poverty debate commenced in the late-1990s after having been a non-issue for a number of decades, and it was gradually oriented towards single-parent and multi-child families in particular during the 2000s (Kuivalainen et al. 2005; Kuivalainen and Niemelä 2010). Also in Germany there was no ‘official’ poverty debate until the late-1990s (Kröger 2007), but from that point on poverty, especially child poverty, became increasingly acknowledged as a multidimensional problem with high priority.

Second, ideas and policy recommendations corresponding to a social investment paradigm became more visible in both country discourses during the 2000s, albeit with different timing and pronunciation (Table 2). The increasing occurrence of social investment themes, however, cannot be said to imply any paradigmatic or a dramatic shift in policy focus in neither country, since there is also a strong path-dependent thread of policy recommendations relating to universal transfers and services in Finland and to targeting in Germany. Nevertheless, in both countries the accentuation of preventive measures, future-oriented and life-course income perspectives, equal opportunities, activation and targeting became more visible themes during the 2000s. Similarly, the elite discourses in both countries display a growing occurrence of such themes over time. Consequently, in both countries the notion of fighting poverty through preventive measures is increasingly seen as an investment in the future, for example by emphasising (early) education and promoting gainful employment of parents through reconciliation of work and family life. This constitutes a common feature for both countries. Furthermore, in both countries the support for the existing family transfer system has remained quite stable over the whole period. This suggests that the ideational impact on national discourses may have taken place in a mainly incremental way, according to which traditional policy options have been gradually adapted to, but not overthrown by, ideas from a social investment paradigm (cf. Knijn et al. 2007; Mahon 2009).

There are, however, also important differences between countries. The somewhat higher overall influence of the social investment paradigm in Germany is quite obvious. Moreover, elements corresponding to a social investment paradigm became visible sooner in the German discourse than the Finnish. Ideas pertaining to investment/prevention, equal opportunities and activation also seem to have received a stronger foothold in the German discourse, whereas targeting has become more intensely highlighted in Finland. The stronger programmatic focus on targeting in Finland during the 2000s can be said to represent a shift towards a more selective view on distributional issues (cf. Kuivalainen and Niemelä 2010). A reversed country constellation seems to be true for the idea of equal opportunities. Whereas all four parties in Germany began to strongly emphasise this aspect in the 2000s, mostly in relation to (early) education, this aspect has been a central element of Finnish social policies since the 1970s (Forssén et al. 2008). Plausibly, the free education system has been regarded by Finnish politicians as sufficient in supplying equal opportunities for children.

The third conclusion is that the findings tend to point at a higher degree of discursive convergence over time between the two countries. Although there are some differences in the ways that governments and parties have constructed anti-poverty policy recommendations, which – in turn – can be said to reflect regime-specific characteristics and path-dependent institutional traits (cf. Hall 1993; Schmidt 2002, 2008), it seems that they have become more similar than they were before. For instance, whereas German elite discourses have recently adopted many elements from a Scandinavian model, such as claims for higher gender equality and public child care (cf. Leitner and Wroblewski 2006; Lister 2009), Finnish discourses have recently adopted elements that emanate more from conservative or even Anglo-Saxon welfare regimes, such as targeting (Esping-Andersen 1990).

Finally, although the approach used in this article does not allow any deeper analysis of the diffusion of ideas, it offers at least tentative support to the assumption that current policy developments in Finland and Germany may be related to an ideational impetus from a social investment paradigm (cf. Jenson 2009, 2010). This highlights the role of institutional prerequisites for changes in both policy constructions and actual anti-poverty policies. The impact of social investment ideas on national anti-poverty discourses have been strongly by the countries’ institutional legacies as well as previous policies. For example, the somewhat weaker impact of social investment ideas on Finnish discourses can probably be related to the fact that some central elements of this paradigm has already been practiced for a long time, such as the notion of equal opportunities in terms of free education and public social and health care services (e.g., Forssén et al. 2008). By contrast, the German embracement of some ideas, for example education and equal opportunities, can be understood against the overall ambition to achieve higher economic competitiveness as well as equal opportunities.

The last comment relates to the actual meaning of ‘ideational impacts’. For instance, while some observers view the actual impact of international organisations like the EU or the OECD on the German policy development as rather trifling (e.g., Fleckenstein 2006), others are convinced that these kinds of influential frameworks do influence national policy discourses (e.g., Hay and Rosamond 2002; Mahon and McBride 2008; Lindèn 2009; Mahon 2009; Jenson 2010) through the development of a common vocabulary and commonly shared cognitive frameworks for understanding policy needs. According to Mahon and co-workers (Mahon 2008, 2009; Mahon and McBride 2009), international organisations, notably the OECD, have received an increasingly important role in today's globalised world as creators of cognitive maps as well as policy imperatives. This is further enforced by the development of social indicators and family-policy data bases that makes detailed comparisons and evaluations possible. Not only can powerful discourses and the ideas they entail be seen as dominant elements in an increasingly globalised and instrumental world culture (cf. Meyer 2000), there is also much that suggests that such discourses and ideas have an effect on national welfare states (Mahon and McBride 2008, 2009; Schmidt 2008; Mahon 2009). According to Meyer, science and professional expertise has become the ‘new clergy’ in this world society. They produce universal models that subunits like nation states (have to) adopt as ‘true’ and ‘legitimate’ fact, which in turn results in an ‘unexpected isomorphism among social units and a great deal of decoupling within them’ (Meyer 2000: 246). Ideas should therefore be seen as forces of change, whether or not their outcomes are contingent or shaped by institutionalised policy legacies.

Government programs: 1983, 1987, 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007.

Election programs (or corresponding programs):

National Coalition (NC):

Samlingspartiets linje för framtiden 1987, Kokoomuksen vaalitavoitteet 1991, Tavoitteita vaalikaudelle 1995 Kansallinen Kokoomus tavoiteohjelma 1999, Tavoitteena parempi arki 2003, Samlingspartiets valprogram 2007.

The Centre Party (CP):

Suomalaista siviilirohkeutta 1987, Yleispoliittinen kannanotto 1990, Oikeudenmukaiseen hyvinvointiin 1994, Keskustan Perheet ja kodit-ohjema, 1997, Ett ljusare alternativ 2003, Vähän kuin itseäsi äänestäisi 2007.

Social Democrats (SDP):

Suomalaiset! SDP:n eduskuntavaalijulistus 1987, Sinulle, Suomelle. Euroopalle. Tavoitteita vaalikaudelle 1991, Uuden vastuun aika 1994, Med sikte på full sysselsättning 1999, Det säkra alternativet. SDP:s valprogram 2003, Ett rejält Finland – arbete och hänsyn 2007.

Left Alliance (LA):

Millä puolella sinun sydämesi on? Vasemmistoliiton eduskuntavaalijulistus 1991, Unelma hyvästä yhteiskunnasta. Vasemmistoliiton eduskuntavaalijulistus 1995, Arvot ja arki. Vasemmistoliiton eduskuntavaalijulistus 1999, Arvot ja asiat ratkaisevat. Eduskuntavaaliohjelma 2003, Eduskuntavaaliohjelma 2007.

Special programs (or corresponding programs):

National Coalition (NC):

Kansallinen Kokoomus. Tavoiteohjelma 1995–1999, Vastuullista vanhemmuutta, turvallista lapsuutta - uuden vuosituhannen kulmakivet 1999, Kansallinen Kokoomus, lähiajan tavoiteohjelma 2003–2007, Vastuuta ja valinnanmahdollisuuksia - Kokoomuksen perhepolitiikan tulevaisuuden suuntaviivat 2006.

The Centre Party (CP):

Perustulon hengessä kohti toimivaa perusturvaa 1998, Turvallisuus on perusoikeus 1999, Perhepolitiikkaan vakautta ja vanhemmuuden arvostamista 2002, Lapsissa ja nuorissa on tulevaisuus 2006.

Social Democrats (SDP):

Sosiaalipoliittinen kannanotto 2002, Kannanotto sosiaali- ja terveyspolitiikasta 2005, Yhteisvastuu ja hyvinvointi 2005.

Left Alliance (LA):

Köyhyys pois Suomesta 1999, Hyvä lapsuus-ohjelma 2002.

GERMANY

Coalition agreements: 1983, 1987, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2005, 2009.

Election programs for the elections to the German Bundestag:

Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU):

Wahlprogramm 1983, 1987, 1990, Regierungsprogramm 1994, Wahlplattform 1998, Regierungsprogramm 2002, 2005, 2009.

German Social Democratic Party (SPD):

Wahlprogramm 1983, Regierungsprogramm 1987, 1990, 1994, Programm für die Bundestagswahl 1998, Regierungsprogramm 2002, Wahlmanifest 2005, Regierungsprogramm 2009.

Liberal Democratic Party (LIB):

Wahlaussage zur Bundestagswahl 1983, Wahlplattform zur Bundestagswahl 1987, Wahlprogramm zur Bundestagswahl 1990, 1994, 1998, Programm der FDP zur Bundestagswahl 2002, Deutschlandprogramm 2005, 2009.

The Greens (GRE):

Ein Aufruf zur Bundestagswahl 1983, Bundestagswahlprogramm 1987, Programm zur 1. Gesamtdeutschen Wahl 1990, Programm zur Bundestagswahl 1994, 1998, Wahlprogramm 2002, Bundestagswahlprogramm 2009.

Special programs (or corresponding programs):

CDU:

Freiheit, Solidarität, Gerechtigkeit, Grundsatzprogramm 1978, Leitsätze der CDU für eine neue Partnerschaft zwischen Mann und Frau 1985, Freiheit in Verantwortung, Grundsatzprogramm der CDU 1994, Zukunftsprogramm der CDU Deutschland 1998, Lust auf Familie – Lust auf Verantwortung 1999, Klein und einzigartig – auf den Anfang kommt es an! Bildungschancen fördern, Erziehung stärken 2006, Freiheit und Sicherheit. Grundsätze für Deutschland 2007, Kinderarmut in Deutschland bekämpfen - Chancengesellschaft leben 2007.

SPD:

Die Zukunft sozial gestalten - Sozialpolitisches Programm der SPD 1988, Grundsatzprogramm der SPD 1989, Grundsatzprogramm der SPD 1998, Mehr Kinder. Bessere Bildung. Starke Familien. Wir sichern Deutschlands Zukunft 2006, Hamburger Programm. Das Grundsatzprogramm der SPD 2007.

Mikael Nygård, PhD, is a university lecturer in social policy at the department of Social Sciences at Åbo Akademi University in Vaasa, Finland. His research interests relate to, among other things, family policies, notably the political determinants of family policy change. He has published several journal articles on these, and similar, topics.

Nicole Krüger, MS, is doing her PhD in political science at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. Her research interests are among others, social policy with a special focus on family and employment policy in Europe.