Reforming European Welfare States: Germany and the United Kingdom Compared by Jochen Clasen by Jochen Clasen

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-328
Author(s):  
Michael Hill
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
European Welfare States

Why Should We Be Beggars with the Ballot in Our Hand? Veto Players and the Failure of Land Value Taxation in the United Kingdom, 1909–14

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAIN McLEAN ◽  
JENNIFER NOU
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Veto Players ◽  
Temporary Increase ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Land Value ◽  
Fiscal Discipline ◽  
Veto Player ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Entire History

Recent veto player work argues that majoritarian regimes such as the United Kingdom have better fiscal discipline and smaller welfare states than proportional regimes with more veto players. An analytic narrative of the failure of land value taxation in the United Kingdom between 1909 and 1914 shows, however, that it failed not because of previously advanced reasons, but because the number of veto players in British politics was sharply increased. This increase in veto player numbers prevented a tax increase. All seven of the conventional reasons for characterizing the United Kingdom as a low-n veto player regime failed to hold between 1906 and 1914. Observable implications discussed include the need to review the entire history of British politics in this period in the light of the temporary increase in veto players; and the ambiguous implications of number of veto players for fiscal discipline.

scholarly journals Redistribution and Insurance in Welfare States Around the World

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Bartels ◽  
Dirk Neumann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Income Smoothing ◽  
Working Paper ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Long Run ◽  
High Level

Redistribution across individuals in a one-year-period framework is an empirically intensely studied question. However, a substantial share of annual redistribution might turn out to serve individual insurance in a longer perspective, reducing the level of actual redistribution across individuals. This paper investigates to what extent long-run redistribution diverges from annual redistribution in welfare states of different types. Exploiting panel data from the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) for Australia, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we find that welfare states like Germany that are assumed to engage in a high level of redistribution actually achieve relatively less redistribution between individuals in the long run than the United Kingdom or the United States. Regression results show that a higher share of elderly in a country is associated with more annual redistribution, but with less long-run redistribution between individuals. The results suggest that, in welfare states with aging populations, we might expect growing annual redistribution that, to a substantial extent, is in fact income smoothing for the elderly. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper Series)

Just Visiting? The Weakening of Social Protection in a Mobile World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Banting ◽  
Edward Koning
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Temporary Migrants ◽  
The Way

Recent scholarship has become increasingly attentive to the way different welfare states include or exclude newcomers. Much of this literature has focused on the access to benefits granted to immigrants with a permanent status. While this emphasis is understandable, it ignores the growing ranks of individuals who do not settle permanently, either because they are only given temporary status or because they choose to move on. This paper helps to fill this gap by comparing four countries that are very different in the way they treat temporary migrants: Sweden, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. We find that migrants on a temporary permit are among the most weakly protected in each of these countries, but that the exclusion is more severe in countries where politicians face considerable political pressure to appear tough on immigration and where there are few institutional protections to protect temporary residents from such pressures. These findings highlight both the fragility of social protection in a world of mobility and the importance of firmly entrenched protections of equal treatment.

scholarly journals Towards the marketization of early childhood education and care? Recent developments in Sweden and the United Kingdom

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingela Naumann
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Market Model ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
The Uk

Extensive public debate is being waged across mature welfare states as to whether social services are best provided by the state or the market. This article examines developments in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) policy in Sweden and the United Kingdom, identifying trends towards marketization and universalization of ECEC that suggest a complex picture of competing policy logics and goals in the restructuring of welfare states. This article first discusses two models of early-years provision, the market model, and the universal model, outlining underlying assumptions, tensions, and implications of market and state provision of ECEC. A comparison of recent reforms in Sweden and the UK highlights how similar ideas and trends play out differently in different national contexts. In Sweden an integrated public ‘educare' programme gradually developed over time, and market mechanisms introduced in the 1990s have so far had limited effect on the system overall. In the UK ideas about universal early childhood education became influential as part of a new social-investment agenda in the 1990s but have, owing to their restricted implementation, not fundamentally altered the existing childcare market. Historical policy trajectories continue to matter, yet tensions and incoherencies between policies can open spaces for change.

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