Welcome to The Hague in The Netherlands.
The city of has provide itself as the world capital for security,
peace and justice as it is home to many international organizations and European institutions.
My name is Eline Chivot.
I am originally from France, but I have been living here for a few years.
I am lucky to live and work in this beautiful city as a policy analyst at The Hague Centre
for Strategic Studies also known as HCSS.
Our clients include international organizations, businesses and governmental institutions.
Many of them come to us with an idea or need to investigate a topic and increase their
knowledge and awareness of what is relevant to them.
Our job is then to figure out what matters and to whom,
what are the different elements surrounding the issue,
and what are the different ways to look at it in order to formulate the best advice possible.
One of the elements we are looking into is the way European Welfare states compare with
each other.
To what extent are the different risks covered, e.g., on employment or poverty?
How are the different systems build to distribute resources and to provide services?
And how do they differ in terms of achievements and outcomes,
in particular, e.g., with respect to life expectancy?
As you can imagine, this involves a broad diversity of actors
as well as a broad diversity of perspectives and objectives.
You are now part of my research team as a policy analyst using the techniques of the course.
What are the different actors that you think should be included in our analysis?
What are their perspectives and their different dilemmas?
What are the different tensions that you could think of?
And then, could you come up with a well-balanced set
of criteria that you think we should include in our analysis for the welfare states research project?
Finally, considering that the context would be that
of economic crises and rising individualism that threaten the sustainability of the welfare states,
could you come up with a number of alternatives
in your presentation of the findings.
I would be very curious to see what you could come up with to help me!