Stephanie Turnullo ’15 is writing an interdisciplinary senior thesis that compares attitudes towards the welfare state in Spain, Sweden and the United States. Her advisers are Professor of Sociology Ronald Lembo, Assistant Professor of Sociology Hannah Holleman and Associate Professor of Economics Jessica Reyes. The disciplines included in the thesis are sociology, Spanish and economics.

Q: What is your thesis about?
A: It is a comparative analysis of attitudes towards the welfare state in Spain, Sweden and the U.S.

Q: What is the focus of your interdisciplinary major?
A: Interdisciplinary majors here ­— you just make them because you want to write a specific thesis, so last winter, I was talking to my economics adviser, Professor Reyes … she went here and wrote an interdisciplinary thesis. She suggested that route to me, and I thought about what I would want to write about, and this sort of took shape, and I wrote a proposal. Your proposal includes the courses you’ve already taken that you think would have given you the right background and knowledge to write the thesis, so it’s an all-in-one, a justification of courses and a thesis proposal.

Q: What particular idea or experience sparked your interest in your topic?
A: I spent the summer after sophomore year in Spain and was taking classes and working at an NGO that serviced immigrants in Spain. When talking to the people, I started to realize in my host family and co-workers how very American our ideas are about the state, the role it should play in society and what the state’s role is in individual people’s lives, our ideas about freedom and liberty.
I took a lot of classes last fall that sort of solidified that understanding for me. So when Professor Reyes suggested I could write a senior thesis, I started mulling it over and thinking what I could write about. What I wanted to write about was why our ideas about government in America are so liberal, and by liberal I don’t mean left, but I mean neoliberal and neo-classical.

Q: What kind of sources are you using for the paper?
A: I’m using a mix of primary sources and scholarly articles. Right now I’m writing on the Great Depression, and on each country and what welfare states developed out of them. I am looking at rhetoric that President Franklin D. Roosevelt used, rhetoric that the prime minister in Sweden used and a couple of newspaper publications from Spain. I’m looking at those for primary sources, but I’m also looking at people who have written about racism and the making of the New Deal in the U.S.

Q: It’s clear to see the relevance of America and Spain to you, since you have been in both. How does Sweden come in to this picture? What role does it play in the comparisons you make?
A: Sweden is a forerunner of social democracy in Europe. There’s a large body of literature on comparative welfare state analysis that was sort of started by this guy named Gøsta Esping Anderson. He wrote a book called “The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism” and argued that welfare states cluster around three different regime types. There is a liberal welfare state, which is what we have, a corporate welfare state — he didn’t mention Spain, but that’s where Spain would have gone — and then a social democratic welfare state.
Then, there’s an explosion of research in response to what he said. Since then, people have re-characterized welfare states along about four different characterizations. One is corporate (Germany), social democratic (Sweden and Norway), liberal (United States) and southern European (Spain). Those three countries [that I’ve selected] are actually representative of three unique kinds of welfare states, so they offer a really rich basis for comparison.

Q: Where are you in the writing process right now?
A: I think the way I’m going about this is a bit unorthodox because it’s interdisciplinary. I’ve written a lot, but there’s so much more that I plan to write. I would say I’ve written two and a half chapters, but one of them might end up an introduction, and I don’t know how much of it I’m going to keep. I’m taking a step back right now and trying to think carefully about how I want to structure my argument. I’ve been looking into research about how institutions develop as a result of historical processes over time. I am trying to structure my argument as other people have structured theirs so that I can justify why I’m bringing the elements I’m bringing in. I want to make sure I can articulate why I’m doing what I’m doing for a reader to understand why I’m doing it.

Q: What were some unexpected elements you have come across while writing the thesis?
A: I have taken couple classes on Spain, and I know a lot more about U.S. history [than other countries’ histories], but I knew very little about Sweden going into it. I wanted to choose Sweden as a comparative touch point because of social democracy, but I didn’t know much about their history. Going into this, I was also very curious as to how equality of result became so important in Sweden, whereas equality of result has never even been part of the conversation in the U.S. — it’s always been about equality of opportunity. I think that I’ve come up with some really interesting answers that sort of make sense, and that’s been really interesting because I didn’t know what the answer was before.

Q: What do you hope to get out of writing a thesis?
A: One thing, unexpectedly, that I’ve already gotten out is that I have decided to go to graduate school next year and get my master’s degree. It’s a research master’s, and I’ll be researching one portion of what I’ll be doing now to write my thesis.
Also, it’s something that was really interesting to me — it’s so fun. It’s like when you get in a class and you read a book and you’re enthralled by the book, or when that one section of the class is really interesting to you, but then you have to move on. But I never have to move on — I get to stay where I’m really interested, and I get to learn about something that I think is really relevant to today. [For instance] we have conversations about shutting down our government, and Obamacare is fought [over] every single day when we’re the only OECD country that doesn’t have a national health care system.

Q: Do you have any advice for future thesis writers?
A: I would say pick a topic you’re really, really interested in and passionate about. It almost should be something [where] you can imagine yourself continuing that work in graduate school because you’re so passionate about it. It’s hard for me to spend time doing homework for other classes because I love what I’m doing on my own so much. It’s just fun and rewarding, and it’s not stressful because I like it.