Isabel M. Perera

For #WorldMentalHealthDay, check out @namicommunicate.bsky.social and its resources.

We won’t get better mental care unless we advocate for it:

Social investment—A (mis)leading paradigm? Why we need to distinguish different types of social investments - Julian Garritzmann, Silja Häusermann, Bruno Palier, 2025 Social investment has become a buzzword among social policy-makers and welfare state scholars alike. Social investments seem to be the natural social policy res...

Can we have 8 min of your time please?

@siljahausermann.bsky.social @bpalier.bsky.social & I wrote a very brief reflection on why social investment might be a misleading paradigm. Way forward: please distinguish different types of social investments!

More here journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Congratulations to Trevor Brown @jhuartssciences.bsky.social for winning the 2025 @apsa.bsky.social Labor Politics A Philip Randolph Award! Here presented by the great @mimiarnoldlyon.bsky.social 🥳

Graphic introducing new SSN member Isabel Perera. The left side has a teal and green background with text: "NEW SSN MEMBER" at the top. Below, it reads "Isabel Perera, Assistant Professor of Government, Cornell University." A yellow label says "Expertise:" followed by "Health Care, Inequality, Labor." On the right is a headshot of Isabel Perera, smiling, with dark hair and wearing a blue top.

We're thrilled to welcome @isabelmperera.bsky.social of Cornell University to the network! Perera's research focuses on how politics shape the social policies, labor markets, and overall economies of affluent democracies.

🔗 Learn more: scholars.org/scholar/isab...

📢 Call for Proposals

CES is pleased to invite submissions for its 32nd International Conference of Europeanists, to be held in Dublin, June 16–18, 2025.

For more information about the Conference Theme and how to apply visit: councilforeuropeanstudies.org/conferences/...

Likely to backfire and make things worse. #HousingFirst programs work to get most people out of homelessness status. Defunding them is a bad with more costs for emergency housing and emergency room visits.

Homelessness and Mental Illness: How Trump’s New Executive Order Could Backfire In late July, President Trump signed an executive order urging local authorities to find ways to force homeless individuals with mental illness into hospitals. On its face, some observers might find t...

Homelessness and Mental Illness: How Trump’s New Executive Order Could Backfire thefulcrum.us/governance-l...

With homelessness expert @charleywillison.bsky.social and the excellent support of @scholars.org !

Huge thanks to @marielylopezs.bsky.social , Sheri Berman, @markblyth.bsky.social , Sara Watson, and @pculpepper.bsky.social for mentoring, as well as Abby Lewis and Nathália Nascimento for making sure the event ran smoothly.

Keep your eyes peeled for excellent new work by Angie Jo, @ceciliaivardi.bsky.social, @prhj.bsky.social, @danieltroberts.com, and Anna Stallings, our participants.

The @ces-europe.bsky.social Political Economy and Welfare Network was thrilled to inaugurate its Early Career Workshop at our meeting last week 🎉🙌

For those interested in EUropean politics June 2026 is going to be fab.

Please consider going to Council for European Studies conference in Dublin 16-18 June 2026,

& then on to @epssnet.bsky.social conference in Belfast 18-20 June.

@karendublin.bsky.social & I will be joining you!

Scenes from the Council for European Studies conference in Philly, at #Temple University. Fantastic presentations and lots of fun making new contacts and hanging out with old friends. @ofioretos.bsky.social @ces-europe.bsky.social @dalriada77.bsky.social ‪@maxinedavid.bsky.social‬

How do you teach health care policy in 2025 and end your class on a positive note (or at least some sense of optimism)?

I might actually go with growth and apparent sustainability of Medicaid.

The White Paper projects are back!

This year’s winner? Prisha Agarwal, Sepehra Azami, & Anna Cecilia Fierro’s powerful campaign to improve the #H2AVisa program for farm workers — a timely & important project that highlights the original @cornelluniversity.bsky.social values.

Huge thanks to the Hangs for performing in CPP today! Get your tickets for their May 6 concert at www.hangovers.com

It was huge honor to visit @unevadareno.bsky.social. This place is really special. My thanks to @ianmhartshorn.com and colleagues for nurturing a superior intellectual environment—and then inviting me to participate in it!

Heading to you now, @ianmhartshorn.com ! Thanks so much for having me. This Ithacan won’t be fazed by the snow :)

Thank you, @bpetrova.bsky.social and @ttu.edu for inviting me to share the project with you. What a great community and thoughtful discussion!

Visualization of sound waves, by Amanda.yuu, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Have a listen to the audio Abstract of "Why States Do and Do Not Privatize," by Isabel Perera and Trevor Brown. #privatization #government #coalitions #laborunions @isabelmperera.bsky.social on.soundcloud.com/mt5bYXrFUpWD...

Thanks, Storied Teller, for profiling our work!

For an interview on our @worldpolitics.bsky.social article:

Worried about the privatization of public services ? 👀 Wondering what might PREVENT it ??

Check out our article in @worldpolitics.bsky.social for a theory on the role of public employees.

(Also great for train buffs 🙌🚊)

Thank you, @ces-europe.bsky.social !!

Ch 7 discusses the implications for both welfare state scholarship and mental health policy. Lots of complexities to unpack, especially as the welfare workforce continues to evolve (see the Postscript). Kudos to 🇳🇴 for modeling a coalitional way forward. 11/11

Ch 6 tests the generalizability of the argument in two Scandinavian countries. Despite their similarities, Sweden's supply of mental health care is significantly lower than that of Norway. The welfare workforce argument helps to explain why. 10/11

The lack of coalition in the US made it hard to build mental health care after WWII (Ch 4); its presence in France produced the opposite result (Ch 5). Check out the previously untapped archival data & process-tracing tables here 🧐 @afscme.bsky.social @cfdt.fr @cgt.fr 9/11

Ch 3 shows that the US and French mental health systems were surprisingly similar before the critical juncture of WWII, except for one factor: the ability of managers and workers to form coalitions. Also an economic re-reading of the history of psychiatry 👀 8/11

Ch 3-5 contrast the important cases of the US and France to gain analytic leverage on the research questions. 7/11

Ch 2 uses two original datasets show just how widely countries vary in mental health policy, despite sharing the same goal of deinstitutionalization (defined in the Coda and operationalized in Fig 2.2). That’s also where you’ll find the logic of the research design 6/11

Ch 1 theorizes when, why, and how welfare workers gain political leverage, emphasizing the importance of cross-class alliances and long-term “supply-side” policy feedback effects. 5/11

The answer to both questions lies in the political power of those who work for the welfare state: the “welfare workforce.” 👩🏻‍⚕️👨🏽‍⚕️👩🏼‍⚕️👨🏾‍⚕️ Service sector workers have become major players in post-industrial politics, in ways that can transform the distribution of social welfare. 4/11