Asa Maron
Asa Maron is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Department of Sociology, University of Haifa. His main research interest is the transformations of the welfare state in the context of neoliberal capitalism. While the welfare state developed as a configuration of institutions working against markets and attempting to reduce commodification, Asa’s work draws on political and economic sociology to study how welfare state institutions have come to adopt and mobilize market-oriented ideas, logics, and actors. Focusing on ideas and power interrelations, he studies the politics of these changes and their outcomes for contemporary state-society relations. In his current project he explores limits to the financialization of the state by using the case of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs): a new financial model used to reduce social problems and public spending with the aid of private investors. This international study compares the rollout of SIBs in the US, Israel, Canada and Finland.