scholarly journals Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Obinger ◽  
Klaus Petersen ◽  
Peter Starke
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Welfare State

The Introduction presents the overarching research question of the book, namely the question of whether and how war between nations has influenced the development of advanced welfare states. This question has received only scant attention from the welfare state literature so far. The Introduction reviews the fragmented literature in history and social science with a focus on national narratives and revisionist positions, and argues for a comparative angle which puts the various causal mechanisms linking mass war and welfare state development. These mechanisms are systematized, using a heuristic of supply- vs. demand-side mechanisms and three distinct phases of military conflict: war preparation, mobilization, and the post-war period.

European Integration and an Institutional Theory of Inequality

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Jason Beckfield
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Institutional Theory ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
European Level ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter provides an overview of the book’s main themes. The book argues that European integration has reorganized class struggle to the European level, entrenching a technocratic capitalism that weakens welfare states and raises income inequality. It asks: How have the fruits of European labor been distributed? Who wins and who loses from European integration? How are citizenship rights and economic fortunes being distributed? The remainder of the chapter discusses trends in welfare-state development and income inequality; current approaches to the welfare state and income inequality; and the turn toward to technocratic capitalism that now characterizes the EU’s policy priorities.

3. Birth of the welfare state

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Garland
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Pension Schemes ◽  
National Insurance ◽  
Post War ◽  
The New Deal ◽  
The Welfare State

‘Birth of the welfare state’ describes the embryonic version of the welfare state in Germany with Chancellor Bismarck’s social insurance laws in the 1880s. A decade later governments in Denmark, New Zealand, and Australia launched the first old age pension schemes. In the early 1900s Liberal governments in Britain introduced workmen’s compensation, old age pensions, labour exchanges, and a system of National Insurance for sickness, invalidity, and unemployment. In the 1930s President Roosevelt established the American welfare state with the ‘New Deal’ legislation. The new welfare states were expanded post-war and by 1960 every developed nation had a core of welfare state institutions and every government had accepted responsibility for managing its national economy.

The Nordic welfare state in a European context: dealing with new economic and ideological challenges in the 1990s

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stein Kuhnle
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Social Policy Reform ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Nordic Welfare State ◽  
Generous Welfare ◽  
The Welfare State

Within the framework of a general discussion of ‘the state of the welfare state’ in economically advanced West European democracies, this paper offers an account and interpretation of how the Nordic welfare states, often perceived as the most comprehensive and ‘generous’ welfare states, met a number of challenges in the 1990s. Economic problems were most critical in Finland and Sweden in the early 1990s, and social policy reform activities with the aim of modifications of programmes and cutbacks in expenditure have been most pronounced in these countries. A single common denominator for Nordic welfare state development in the 1990s is a somewhat less generous welfare state, but Norway is generally an exception. The basic structure of the welfare systems has been preserved, and social, health and welfare issues are consistently of high priority for governments and voters. The welfare state is highly valued in Scandinavia, but more space for market and other non-governmental welfare solutions is likely to grow in the future.

Warfare and Welfare

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Western World ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
State Development ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact

This book is concerned with the nexus between warfare and welfare. The relationship between war and welfare states is contested. While some scholars consider war a pacemaker of the welfare state, others have emphasized a sharp trade-off between ‘guns and butter’ and highlighted the negative impacts of war on social protection. However, many of these findings only focus on social spending or are based on studies of individual national cases. From a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, this book addresses the question of whether and how both world wars have influenced the development of advanced welfare states. Distinguishing between three different phases (war preparation, wartime mobilization, and the post-war period), the volume provides the first systematic comparative analysis of the impact of war on welfare state development in the Western world. The chapters, written by leading scholars in this field, examine both short-term responses to and long-term effects of war in fourteen belligerent, occupied, and neutral countries in the age of mass warfare stretching over the period from c.1860 to 1960. The findings clearly show that war is essential for understanding several aspects of welfare state development and welfare state patterns in advanced democracies.

scholarly journals Mass Warfare and the Welfare State – Causal Mechanisms and Effects

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Obinger ◽  
Klaus Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Explicit Consideration ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Effects Of War ◽  
The Welfare State

The question of whether and how war has influenced the development of advanced Western welfare states is contested. This article provides a systematic review of the state of the art and outlines an agenda for a comparative analysis of the warfare–welfare state nexus that is informed by an explicit consideration of the underlying causal mechanisms. By distinguishing between three different phases (war preparation, warfare and post-war period) it provides a systematic overview of possible causal mechanisms linking war and the welfare state and a discussion of likely effects of war for belligerent, occupied and neutral countries in the age of mass warfare stretching approximately from the 1860s to the 1960s.

scholarly journals Those were the days: welfare nostalgia and the populist radical right in the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Sven Schreurs
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Populist Radical Right ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract In academia and beyond, it has become commonplace to regard populist parties – in particular, those on the radical right – as the archetypical embodiment of politics of nostalgia. Demand-side studies suggest that nostalgic sentiments motivate populist radical-right (PRR) voting and welfare chauvinist attitudes, yet systematic analyses of the nostalgic discourse that these parties promote have not been forthcoming. This paper seeks to fill that lacuna by analysing how the Freedom Party of Austria, the Dutch Party for Freedom and the Sweden Democrats framed the historical fate of the welfare state in their electoral discourse between 2008 and 2018. It demonstrates that their commitment to welfare chauvinism finds expression in a common repertoire of “welfare nostalgia,” manifested in the different modes of “reaction,” “conservation” and “modernisation.” Giving substance to a widespread intuition about PRR nostalgia, the paper breaks ground for further research into nostalgic ideas about social policy.

The Second Marriage of Justice and Efficiency

1990 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe van Parijs
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Major Reform ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACTNo major reform of the welfare state has a chance of going through unless one can make a plausible case as to both its ‘ethical value’ and its ‘economic.value’, that is, that it would have a positive effect in terms of both justice and efficiency. In this essay, this rough conjecture is first presented, and its plausibility probed, on the background of some stylised facts about the rise of modern welfare states in the postwar period. Next, the focus is shifted to the current debate on the introduction of a basic income, a completely unconditional grant paid ex ante to all citizens. It is argued that if basic income is to have a chance of meeting the strong twofold condition stipulated in the conjecture, some major changes are required in the way one usually thinks about justice and efficiency in connection with social policy. But once these changes are made, as they arguably must be, the chance that basic income may be able to meet the challenge is greatly enhanced.

scholarly journals Economic Globalization and the Welfare State in Affluent Democracies, 1975–2001

2005 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 921-948 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Brady ◽  
Jason Beckfield ◽  
Martin Seeleib-Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Economic Globalization ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
State Expansion ◽  
State Variation ◽  
State Models ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Previous Scholarship ◽  
The Welfare State

Previous scholarship is sharply divided over how or if globalization influences welfare states. The effects of globalization may be positive causing expansion, negative triggering crisis and reduction, curvilinear contributing to convergence, or insignificant. We bring new evidence to bear on this debate with an analysis of three welfare state measures and a comprehensive array of economic globalization indicators for 17 affluent democracies from 1975 to 2001. The analysis suggests several conclusions. First, state-of-the-art welfare state models warrant revision in the globalization era. Second, most indicators of economic globalization do not have significant effects, but a few affect the welfare state and improve models of welfare state variation. Third, the few significant globalization effects are in differing directions and often inconsistent with extant theories. Fourth, the globalization effects are far smaller than the effects of domestic political and economic factors. Fifth, the effects of globalization are not systematically different between European and non-European countries, or liberal and non-liberal welfare regimes. Increased globalization and a modest convergence of the welfare state have occurred, but globalization does not clearly cause welfare state expansion, crisis, and reduction or convergence. Ultimately, this study suggests skepticism toward bold claims about globalization's effect on the welfare state.

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