@mandelkern
Political economist @TelAvivUni Neoliberalism; Macroeconomic Policy; Welfare State; Privatization; Economists; Ideas & Institutions https://sites.google.com/view/ronenmandelkern https://sites.google.com/view/pen-workshop
🧱 🏃♂️ An additional hurdle to overcome neoliberalism (next to ideas and intersts): de-polititization
🔎 @mandelkern.bsky.social compares challenges to neoliberalism in Sweden (2014-2018) and Israel (2011-2019)
🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Hi — do any experts or observers of Labour back-bench groups know if there’s a publicly available list of MPs who are members of the Red Wall Caucus (led by Jo White) within the Labour Party? Many thanks!
**13/13**
We warmly thank the editors who included our work and provided invaluable feedback: BentGreve | @amilcarmoreira.bsky.social | @minnavangerven.bsky.social | Bernhard Ebbinghaus | MoiraNelson | Zoe Irving | & IJSW team.
Their engagement made each of these collaborations sharper and richer.
**12/13**
Across these four works, our central message is clear: understanding social policy requires taking ideas seriously — as causal, contestable, and teachable forces that shape how welfare states evolve and how we study them.
**11/13**
We describe teaching strategies for both undergraduate and graduate levels: using real-world policy examples, documentary films, and discussion exercises to show how ideas shape social-policy debates and policy design.
**10/13**
Finally: *Teaching about the Role of Ideas in Social Policy* (in the @elgarpublishing.bsky.social book *Teaching Social Policy*)
doi.org/10.4337/9781...
This chapter explores how to make ideational analysis accessible to students — turning abstract theory into concrete, teachable practice.
**9/13**
— from the endurance of neoliberalism to the emergence of the social investment paradigm — within broader methodological and theoretical innovations, such as discursive and constructivist institutionalism.
It highlights how ideas interact with power, expertise, and institutional contexts.
**8/13**
We emphasize that explaining welfare reform requires distinguishing between how ideas *construct*, *guide*, and *legitimize* reform efforts — and tracing how different actors deploy them at various stages of policy change.
The chapter also situates recent debates >>
**7/13**
Third: *“Ideas and Welfare State Reform”* (in the Handbook on Welfare State Reform) doi.org/10.4337/9781...
We trace the “ideational turn” in welfare-state research — showing how paradigms, discourses, and actors have shaped reform from neoliberal restructuring to social investment.
**6/13**
We highlight three transformations:
• The rise of the **social-investment paradigm**
• The **financialization** of welfare provision
• The **technocratization** of policymaking
Together, they show how ideas redefine where markets end and welfare begins.
**5/13**
Next: our review essay *“Ideas and the Changing Relationship between States and Markets in Social Policy”* in the International Journal of Social Welfare doi.org/10.1111/ijsw...
We examine how ideational scholarship explains shifting boundaries between state and market in welfare provision.
**4/13**
We also outline methodological approaches for studying ideas — process tracing, discourse analysis, network mapping, and text analysis — showing that ideational inquiry can be empirically rigorous and indispensable for explaining social policy change.
**3/13**
We argue that ideas influence policy through three mechanisms:
*Construction* – shaping how actors define preferences and problems
*Instruction* – guiding how preferences translate into policies
*Legitimation* – framing and justifying policy choices
**2/13**
First: *“Ideas as Explanations in Social Policy Analysis”* (in the @elgarpublishing.bsky.social *Handbook on the Political Economy of Social Policy*). doi.org/10.4337/9781...
We ask: how can ideas be treated as causal factors explaining policy stability and change?
**1/13**
Over the past two years, @danielbeland.bsky.social and I have published four pieces exploring how ideas shape social policy — from conceptual foundations to reform and pedagogy.
This thread walks through them:
16/
We got lots of excellent feedback along the way, and we are especially thankful to
@danielbeland.bsky.social
@yoniabramson.bsky.social
Julie Cooper, Hanna Lerner, Jonathan Rynhold & Yossi Shain, and to the editors and anonymous reviewers of
@poppublicsphere.bsky.social
15/
For diaspora politics, the study reveals a new kind of influence: Diaspora actors can be ideological entrepreneurs, not just donors - taking part in remaking their homeland’s ideas through shared identity and resources.
14/
For Israel, this explains how American conservatism reshaped right-wing ideology - without replacing its ethno-nationalist foundation.
13/
Key takeaway: Diaspora–Local Cooperation (DLC) allows ideational imports across multiple domains - but only when these ideas align with local actors’ needs and core beliefs do they generate a comprehensive ideological transformation.
12/
But ideological change varied across domains:
✅ Deep in government & law (high fit with the Right’s interests).
⚙️ Moderate in economy.
👪 Limited in morality (less political utility, internal divisions).
11/
On social issues, American “family values” language—once absent in Israeli discourse—entered mainstream politics, shaping debates on feminism, LGBT rights, and Israel’s refusal to sign the Istanbul Convention.
10/
Economically, neoliberal ideas were reconciled with and justified through Jewish tradition - casting self-reliance and limited government as biblical virtues.
9/
This shift was most visible in the judicial overhaul: Ideas first articulated in Kohelet’s papers - curbing judicial review, limiting legal advisors’ authority - became core government policy.
8/
The outcome? A genuine ideological shift within Israel’s Right. Yet this shift was not a rupture but a reconfiguration. The Israeli Right retained its core tenets - ethno-nationalism and territorial maximalism—while integrating new conservative ideas into its broader ideological framework.
7/
This diaspora–local network translated, localized, and promoted American conservative ideas:
📘 Translated Scalia, Sowell, and Friedman.
⚖️ Advocated “judicial restraint.”
🏫 Promoted “school choice.”
👨👩👧👦 Imported “family values” discourse.
6/
Empirically, we trace how Jewish-American conservatives and Israeli right-wing actors cooperated to build new institutions like Kohelet Policy Forum and the Tikvah Fund that became hubs of conservative thought in Israel.
5/
In practice, diaspora actors supply resources + ideas,Local actors adapt (“localize”) them to domestic politics and discourse so it will resonate with the public → Together they build organizations that promote these ideas.
4/
This kinship turns DLC into a unique channel of ideational importation. It allows the transfer of ideas across multiple domains - in our case, governmental, economic, and social moralities - which cumulate into an ideological shift, not just isolated policy transfer.
3/
We propose a new mechanism to explain it: Diaspora–Local Cooperation (DLC): Collaboration between diaspora and homeland actors who share both values and a sense of belonging to the same nation.
2/
Existing theories of ideational importation - via states, experts, or transnational networks - can’t explain this. The U.S. didn’t promote it; Israeli experts opposed it; and no global conservative think-tank network was at play.