The Whig Interpretation of the Welfare State

1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas E. Ashford
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social History ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Welfare State

Butterfield's well-known warning to historians may hold important lessons for the analysis of the contemporary welfare state. In his view, the Whig historians distorted history by interpreting the past in terms of the present. They allowed themselves to become “dispensers of moral judgments” by dividing the world into the friends and enemies of progress. Many contemporary explanations of welfare states pose the same problem, not so much because social science intentionally excludes the past, but because the search for rigorous empirical explanations of our present choices and accomplishments is divorced from the past. As Himmelfarb noted in her comments on the study of social history, the investigations of this intricate transformation of nineteenth-century liberal states are now virtually “two cultures.”

Models of the Welfare State

2021 ◽  
pp. 786-802
Author(s):  
Philip Manow
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
The West ◽  
Welfare Capitalism ◽  
European Model ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Research ◽  
The Welfare State

IN 1990, Gøsta Esping-Andersen published The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, a work which has turned out to be the single most important and decisive contribution to welfare state research in the past thirty to forty years. In essence, Esping-Andersen argued that we can observe systematic variation in the character of the developed welfare states of the West, which he grouped into three distinct welfare state models: a Scandinavian social democratic model, a conservative continental European model, and a liberal Anglo-Saxon model. This chapter provides a short description of Esping-Andersen’s three regimes; introduces a fourth, Southern European model, which will then be described in somewhat more detail; and outlines a historical and genealogical account of the development of all four models. Finally, the chapter briefly expands on the comparative perspective with a short discussion on whether the regime concept or the understanding of distinct welfare models can also be applied to other regions, such as Latin America and Asia.

France at a Crossroads

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Leruth
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The World ◽  
Future Challenges ◽  
Generous Welfare ◽  
The Welfare State

France has established itself as one of the most ‘generous’ welfare states in the world. The Great Recession of 2007–8 confronted French social policy with escalating unemployment and deepening inequalities. Combined with major pension reforms, these led to strong levels of dissatisfaction across the country, exacerbated by tensions over immigration, Euroscepticism, and internal security problems. This chapter examines how these issues developed in political context and uses material from attitude surveys to analyse existing and future challenges for the welfare state in France. It assesses recent reforms: governments of right and left offered contrasting programmes but failed to win public trust. France now stands at a cross-roads, facing a strong presidential challenge from the anti-immigrant, anti-EU right.

Perspectives for Transnational Social Policy

1992 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abram de Swaan
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The West ◽  
National State ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Welfare State

WELFARE STATES ARE NATIONAL STATES, AND IN EVERY country welfare is a national concern, circumscribed by the nation's borders and reserved for its residents alone. In the course of centuries, these states have emerged from and against one another, in mutual competition, and in the past century this process of state formation in the West went in tandem with the collectivization of care. The welfare state is the national state in its latest phase. It may be succeeded by another stage which we may eventually see.

scholarly journals THE LIBERAL AND LIBERTARIAN VIEW OF THE WELLFARE STATE

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-176
Author(s):  
Kire Sharlamanov
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Current Topic ◽  
The World ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
A Current ◽  
Libertarian View ◽  
The Welfare State

The reduction of the state of well-being is a current topic both in the general and in the professional public. There is debate in the professional public about the reasons that caused the welfare state to decline. An important part of the researchers point out that the collapse of communism, among other things, has resulted in a reduction of welfare states around the world. However, the number of analysts who consider that the idolatical movements and the debates between the Liberals and the Libertarian have also influenced the practices associated with the reduction of the welfare state. In order to understand the differences between these two ideological doctrines, in this text we will consider the basic positions of the most prominent liberal author John Rawls and the most notable libertarian author Robert Noizick.

The ‘Taste for Tudors’ since 1940

1960 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 167-183
Author(s):  
Lacey Baldwin Smith
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Military Security ◽  
The Welfare State

Professor F. J. Fisher wrote in 1940 that the twentieth century has been ‘busily recreating the sixteenth century in its own image’. Historical re-evaluation is always in part narcissistic. Two world wars have left their scars on our view of history and, if nothing else, have given us insights into the Tudor age which, like our own, faced ideological wars of survival. The quest for economic and military security and the dream of the welfare state have led the twentieth century to forsake not only the ethical and institutional standards of the nineteenth century but also to deny its interpretation of history. The ancient shibboleths, the familiar landmarks of Tudor history, and the comfortable generalizations about despotism, mercantilism, and ‘new monarchy’ are all being swept aside by a generation of historians who claim greater understanding of the past.

From Solution to Problem

2019 ◽  
pp. 163-193
Author(s):  
Peter C. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Western World ◽  
Aid Workers ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Welfare State

The 1970s and 1980s saw two important changes in the West German discussion of the welfare state. First, global trade put direct economic pressure on expensive welfare states in the western world. Second, the social science discussion of the welfare state shifted to a language of systems, which no longer viewed the welfare state as a tool of state or society, but asked about how systems of social policy could have unintended consequences—how social solutions could pose their own problems. Young Marxists, breaking with the SPD, questioned the possibility of a welfare state that could aid workers under capitalism; conservative state theorists questioned whether democracy, with its demands for state solutions, could paralyze the state. The result was a more complex reading of how the modern word created complex challenges for individuals and states alike, especially well articulated in the work of Kaufmann and Luhmann.

Liberalism and the Welfare State

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Private Insurance ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Welfare State

The welfare state has, over the past 40 years, come under increasing attack from liberals who consider comprehensive welfare provision inimical to liberalism. Yet many of the architects of the post–World War II welfare states were liberals. Taking as examples three cases not often considered together—Britain, Germany, and Japan—this volume investigates the thinking of liberal economists about welfare. The first part explores the early history of welfare thinking, from the British New Liberals of the early twentieth century, to German ordoliberals and postwar Japanese liberal economists. This is followed by four chapters on neoliberalism under British Conservative and New Labour governments, after German reunification, and under Koizumi in Japan. The final two chapters explore neoliberal ideas on federalism and the response of neoliberal think tanks to the global financial crisis. These are some of the most important findings: Across the different countries, support emerged very early on for social minimum standards, but strong disagreements quickly developed, dividing economists into pro and contra camps, shaping the different regimes. In the age of retrenchment, means-tested programs, private insurance, and temporary relief in times of crisis appear to have become the norm. The strong impact of efficiency-related critiques of welfare regimes has crowded out more nuanced and complex discussions of the past. Yet neither liberalism nor economic ideas in general can be considered inimical to well-designed welfare provision. The debate on economics and welfare can be improved by considering different lineages of both liberal and neoliberal lines of economic thought.

scholarly journals The Eureka Moment? The creation of the British Welfare State

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-33
Author(s):  
Martin Powell
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Creation ◽  
British Case ◽  
The Welfare State

This article explores when the welfare state was established in Britain. First it examines the definitions of the welfare state, before turning to outline the methods and criteria used in exploring the establishment of welfare states. It then discusses the criteria that have been applied to the British case (expenditure; legislation; content; social citizenship; antithesis of the Poor Law) before critically analysing the arguments for different creation periods for the British welfare state (Old Poor Law; nineteenth century; Liberal reforms; inter-war period; 1945; later periods). It is concluded that while the strongest case and the greatest number of dimensions suggest 1945, in the words of T H Marshall: ‘we may still be in doubt what was the exact combination of circumstances in Britain in the 1940's which evoked that cry of "Eureka !’

Constructing Tolerance

2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus M. L. Crepaz ◽  
Regan Damron
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Multilevel Analyses ◽  
The Past ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Class Divisions ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Central Purpose ◽  
The Welfare State

Over the past 30 years, the hitherto rather homogeneous welfare states in Europe have been experiencing a dramatic influx of immigrants, making them much more diverse. The central purpose of the early development of the welfare state was twofold: to bridge class divisions and to mollify ethnic divisions in the vast multiethnic empires of 19th-century Germany and Austria. This research examines the impact of the programmatic and expenditure dimensions of the welfare state on attitudes of natives across modern publics, theorizing that nativist resentment and welfare chauvinism should be reduced in more comprehensive welfare systems. Individual, aggregate, and multilevel analyses reveal that the more comprehensive the welfare state is, the more tolerant natives are of immigrants, indicating that contemporary welfare states have a similar capacity to bridge ethnic divisions as their 19th-century incarnations.

The Relief of Poverty in Mid Nineteenth-Century Colyton

Rural History ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Robin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Present Form ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poor Person ◽  
The Welfare State

The welfare state emerged in 1948 when the National Assistance Act finally abolished the New Poor Law Forty-two years later, as politicians and bureaucrats struggle to keep increasing expenditure within bounds, the existence of the welfare state in its present form is under threat. Just over 150 years ago, the Old Poor Law was presenting parish ratepayers with a similar problem of rising costs, leading in 1834 to a fundamental reorganisation into the New Poor Law It may therefore be profitable to see how effective in practice the New Poor Law was when it replaced a system widely regarded as profligate, and to consider the extent to which benefits payable through the welfare state were available a hundred years or more ago.This study examines in detail how the New Poor Law, and other forms of relief, affected the whole population of the rural parish of Colyton, in south Devonshire, during the thirty years from 1851 to 1881. It will first describe the sources from which a poor person in Colyton in the mid nineteenth century could look for relief; next discuss how widespread poverty was and who the poor were; then look at what kinds of relief were available, under what conditions; and finally assess the comparative importance to the poor of the different agencies providing assistance.

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