Why territory matters for solidarity: evidence from Taiwan’s pension reform

This blog post is based on an article published in the Journal of Social Policy by Wei-Ting Yen and Ming-Jui Yeh.

Our recent article, published in the Journal of Social Policy, untangles the complexity of solidarity underpinning welfare systems and examines how territorial state identity shapes it in ways distinct from national identity and nationalist sentiment. The findings are particularly salient for countries where people hold contested perceptions of territory.

Solidarity for welfare arrangements

Welfare arrangements seem to be one of the social consensuses generated in the modernisation project and persist today—at least in the ‘developed’ world. One could hardly imagine what life would be without healthcare, childcare, long-term care services for older people and people with disabilities, let alone the pensions that secure our economic security after retirement from (perhaps a few too many) years of hard work provided by the state. Should political parties dare to challenge or propose to abolish the welfare arrangements, they would soon be punished by the people’s furious opposition.

It is easy to overlook the fact that modern welfare arrangements were generated in a very particular time, when the world was largely destroyed by the Great Depression and World War II. This was a period when political, social and economic inequalities were among their lowest levels, and when large numbers of healthy workers entered the labour market during rapid industrialisation (and later during the information revolution). The so-called ‘golden age’ of the welfare state is not only golden, but it is also almost the only historical period in which the welfare state could be made possible. Years later, people are merely defending the welfare state, trying to maintain fiscal sustainability amidst the ever-increasing needs in almost all aspects.

The social consensus underpinning welfare arrangements is based on multiple motives. Self-interest is an obvious one. Pursuit of equal social citizenship or protection of human rights may well be another. A strong call for redistribution for social justice or just allocation of social responsibility would be found in countries with such norms and traditions. In certain aspects of the welfare arrangements, such as pensions, a more complicated sense of entitlement to deferred wage payment is also a possibility. In any case, beyond pure calculations of self-interest, other motives require forms of institutional solidarity shared among the population to carry the costs of common goals that are fulfilled or protected through welfare arrangements. Moreover, the welfare arrangements also extend to an unspecified time in the future, covering the care and welfare needs for the current generation as well as the generations yet to come. Therefore, a sense of intergenerational solidarity shared among the people is also required.

Sources of solidarity

The sources, contents, and forms of solidarity for welfare arrangements depend on countries’ different contexts. Conventional wisdom suggests that religious teachings, labour movements and socialist political ideologies, and the sense of common fate or common identity cultivated by extreme conditions, such as wars, are common sources of solidarity. Whatever the causes may be, for the welfare arrangements to be legitimate, it is crucial that the boundary of the welfare apparatus and the boundary of those who share solidaristic sentiments are (at least roughly) identical, so that people would genuinely recognize the necessity to accept the burdens (sacrificing self-interest in the short run) to pursue a common goal/good (for other members within the boundary and also one self’s future in the long run).

This requirement gives rise to a major debate in welfare arrangements today, that is, the issue of the ‘deservingness’ of immigrants and/or refugees for welfare services. This identical requirement also causes a special debate in welfare arrangements in the countries with contested territory issues—what if the people living in a country have very different, even conflicting identification or imagination of what the boundary of their country should be? Would this different understanding influence the solidarity for welfare arrangements of that country?

The effects of territorial state identity

In the present article, the authors use Taiwan as an illustrative case to examine the effect of contested perceptions of territory. They define territorial state identity as referring to people who have a clear and consistent understanding of territorial boundaries, such that the boundaries of the territorial state, the welfare state, and the population they are willing to support are seen as overlapping. In Taiwan’s case, one having the territorial state identity would be one that identifies Taiwan’s statehood and its current territory covering the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu. Findings of the article suggest that the territorial state identity has an independent influence on both institutional and intergenerational solidarity for welfare arrangements. Although nationalism and national identity significantly influence solidarity, this article reveals that territorial state identity independently impacts the welfare state, enriching our understanding of the sources of solidarity.

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Reference

Yen, Wei-Ting, and Ming-Jui Yeh. 2025. “Territory and Solidarity: Evidence from Taiwan’s Pension Policy Reform.” Journal of Social Policy: 1–18. doi: 10.1017/S0047279425101086..

About the authors

Wei-Ting Yen is Assistant Research Fellow in Political Science at Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.

Ming-Jui Yeh is Associate Professor in Health Policy and Management at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.