The Irreversible Welfare State: Its Recent Maturation, its Encounter with the Economic Crisis, and its Future Prospects

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Göran Therborn ◽  
Joop Roebroek

The rise of the welfare state in the 1960s and 1970s meant important changes within the Western states: apparatuses of armed forces, bureaucratic ordering, and public transport and communication became institutions of transfer payments to households, and public education, caring and social services. In this article we describe the influence of the current economic crisis on the welfare state. Average yearly growth of social security expenditure continues, but has declined since 1981. Generous systems of social security clearly provide no security against the consequences of the economic crisis, especially unemployment. Public commitment to social security and full employment are largely independent of each other. We describe how, under the surface of welfare state growth, the political relations of force have changed in favor of those social forces advocating fundamental reappraisal of the welfare state over those supporting its maintenance or extension. The resistance to significant changes is so strong, however, that fundamental reconstruction of the welfare state is as yet excluded. We hold that the welfare state is an irreversible major institution of advanced capitalist countries, as long as democracy prevails. The building of a majoritarian anti-welfare state coalition seems impossible for the foreseeable future, but in some countries significant cuts must be expected; we end by specifying some economic and political preconditions for such cuts.

2021 ◽  
pp. 120633122110193
Author(s):  
Max Holleran

Brutalist architecture is an object of fascination on social media that has taken on new popularity in recent years. This article, drawing on 3,000 social media posts in Russian and English, argues that the buildings stand out for their arresting scale and their association with the expanding state in the 1960s and 1970s. In both North Atlantic and Eastern European contexts, the aesthetic was employed in publicly financed urban planning projects, creating imposing concrete structures for universities, libraries, and government offices. While some online social media users associate the style with the overreach of both socialist and capitalist governments, others are more nostalgic. They use Brutalist buildings as a means to start conversations about welfare state goals of social housing, free university, and other services. They also lament that many municipal governments no longer have the capacity or vision to take on large-scale projects of reworking the built environment to meet contemporary challenges.


2000 ◽  
Vol 27 (5/6) ◽  
pp. 471-518
Author(s):  
Anghel N. Rugina

Investigates, in Part 1, the effects of West German stagnation in the 1980s following on from the welfare state doctrine of the 1960s and 1970s, which led to an economic and social crisis becoming inevitable. Shows this is not purely a German problem but one that also affects almost all other capitalist countries – either developed or developing. Expresses irony that the former communist bloc countries should also be engulfed in such crises. Proffers explanations and recommendations to offset the problems in Germany. Part II looks at Israel and how it has begun to emerge from its 1974 austerity programme by Rabin. States that Israel must initiate a new system of stable equilibrium to open a new era that is very possible, but involves economic and social thinking to avoid previous mistakes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
V. Hadiyono

ABSTRACT: The concept of a welfare state is the idea that the state is responsible for its citizens, that is, by means of the welfare of its people through services, assistance, protection and prevention of social problems. Indonesia applies this system by adopting a minimal welfare state model, namely by providing a very small budget for social spending. So that social services are provided only for civil servants, Indonesia Military members and private employees who are able to pay the premium. Constitutional support is mentioned in the Indonesian Constitution of 1945, namely Articles 23, 27, 28C, 31, 33, and 34. This is then followed by laws. Number 40 of 2004 concerning the National Social Security System. However, the concept of welfare state is implemented in a minimal model. This is exacerbated by the corruption problems. Indonesia should not only focus on the health sector in realizing the concept of the welfare state, but the education sector can also be a priority to provide an idealistic human resources to create a clean Indonesia for the achievement of the dream of a welfare state.Keywords: Indonesia, Welfare State, Corruption, Poverty ABSTRAK:  Konsep negara kesejahteraan (welfare state) adalah gagasan bahwa negara bertanggung jawab atas warga negaranya, yaitu dengan jalan sejahterakan rakyatnya melalui pelayanan, bantuan, perlindungan dan pencegahan masalah-masalah sosial. Indonesia adalah salah satu peganut sistem ini dengan mengadopsi welfare state model minimal, yaitu dengan memberikan anggaran begitu kecil dalam pembelanjaan sosial. Sehingga pelayanan sosial diberikan hanya secara minimal serta pada umumnya diberikan kepada pegawai negeri, anggota ABRI dan pegawai swasta yang mampu membayar premi.  Dukungan secara konstitusional termuat dalam UUD’45 yaitu Pasal 23, 27, 28C, 31, 33, dan 34 yang selanjutnya ditindak lanjuti dengan UU. No. 40 Tahun 2004 tentang Sistem Jaminan Sosial Nasional yang dirasa masih keteteran karena undang-undang yang mestinya mendahuluinya justru terbit belakangan, hal ini justru memperlihatkan ketidak siapan pemerintah untuk menyelenggarakan konsep welfare state sekalipun dengan model minimal. Hal ini diperparah dengan kondisi negara Indonesia yang syarat dengan korupsi yang dapat dibuktikan melalui survay-survay internasional yang menyoroti masalah negara-negara yang dilanda korupsi. Di mana negara Indonesia menduduki rangking 107 negara dari 177 dengan indeks 34 dari 100 (merbupakan angka tertinggi). Seharusnya Indonesia tidak hanya terfokus pada bidang kesehatan saja dalam merealisir konsep welfare state, tetapi bidang pendidikan juga dapat dijadikan prioritas utama karena sebagai penghasil sumber daya manusia yang idealis, bermoral, bermental dan berakhlak untuk menciptakan Indonesia bersih demi tercapainya angan-angan negara kesejahteraan.Kata kunci: Negara Indonesia, Welfare state, Korupsi, kemiskinan.


Author(s):  
Christopher Hood ◽  
Rozana Himaz

This chapter describes four fiscal squeezes across two decades marked by broadly full employment and no major recession, albeit with slow economic growth, recurring currency crises, and ‘stop-go’ policies to dampen consumer demand. The first squeeze in the mid-1950s reflected the Conservatives’ uphill struggle to deliver on their 1951 election promise to cut taxes and ‘set the people free’ against the background of currency weakness and the Korean and Cold Wars. Spending restraint in this era put the emphasis on cutting wartime legacy spending rather than checking the core drivers of welfare state growth. The subsequent three squeezes under Conservative and Labour Governments in the 1960s all put a heavier emphasis on revenue than spending to support welfare state expenditure and stabilize the currency, but the Wilson Labour Government made significant defence cuts in the late 1960s.


Author(s):  
Erdem Yörük

This chapter examines the political dynamics that have shaped the transformation of the Turkish welfare system since the 1960s. Over the years, income-based social assistance policies have supplanted employment-based social security policies, while the welfare state has significantly expanded. To explain why and how the Turkish welfare state has expanded during neoliberalism and why social policies have shifted from social security to social assistance, the chapter focuses on the rivalries between mainstream parties and the impact of grassroots politics, as well as the political mechanisms that mediate and transform structural pressures into policies. The chapter illustrates that political efforts to contain the political radicalization of the informal proletariat and to mobilize its electoral support have driven the expansion of social assistance policies during the post-1980 neoliberal period. State authorities now see the informal proletariat as a more significant political threat and source of support than the formal proletariat whose dynamism drove the expansion of the welfare state during the pre-1980 developmentalist period. The chapter provides a historical analysis of the interaction between parliamentary processes and social movements in order to account for the transformation of welfare provision in Turkey. It concludes by locating Turkey in a larger context, in which other emerging markets develop similar welfare states as a response to similar political exigencies.


2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-192
Author(s):  
Kwon Huck Ju ◽  
Dong Grami ◽  
Moon Hyun Gyung

"East Asian countries have been hit yet again by economic crisis, this time of a global nature, after having endured the Asian economic crisis of 1997-98. Social protection for the weak in society during the crisis poses a great policy challenge. This paper examines Korea’s social policy responses to these economic crises in the context of the evolution of the welfare state. Faced with the economic crisis of 1997-98, the welfare state was extended and strengthened in terms of coverage and benefits in order to facilitate labor market reform. In the current global economic crisis, social policies such as public assistance and unemployment benefits, together with extra job-retaining measures that the government put into place, have enabled Korea to respond much more effectively to social risks arising from the crisis than it did during the earlier Asian crisis. However, it is imperative for Korea to further strengthen the welfare state, particularly in the areas of social services for children and the elderly, in order to maintain its economic potential in the face of dramatic demographic transitions and changes in family structure that are likely to occur in the future."


Author(s):  
Johannes Lindvall ◽  
David Rueda

This chapter examines the long-run relationship between public opinion, party politics, and the welfare state. It argues that when large parties receive a clear signal concerning the median voter’s position on the welfare state, vote-seeking motivations dominate and the large parties in the party system converge on the position of the median voter. When the position of the median voter is more difficult to discern, however, policy-seeking motivations dominate, and party positions diverge. This argument implies that the effects of government partisanship on welfare state policy are more ambiguous than generally understood. The countries covered in the chapter are Denmark, France, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom (going back to the 1960s). The number of observations is (necessarily) limited, but the diverse cases illustrate a common electoral dynamic centered around the position of the median voter.


1980 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 457-470
Author(s):  
John Pinder

THE 1950s WERE A WONDERFUL DECADE FOR APPLIED SOCIAL science: for the belief that reason addressed to economic and social problems can improve the human condition. Compare the 1950s with the 1930s and ask how much of the improvement was due to Keynes and Beveridge. It is inevitable that a generation of debunkers should follow whose answer would be ‘not much’. But that would have seemed a strange conclusion in the 1950s; and the view of the 1950s was surely right. We had full employment in place of 10 per cent unemployment in the 1920s and nearly 15 per cent in the 1930s; and after the first years of post-war reconstruction, it was reasonable to attribute this to Keynesian demand management. We had a safety net through which relatively few fell into poverty; and this was Beveridge's social security and the welfare state.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 906-936
Author(s):  
Fernando da Cruz Souza ◽  
Nelson Russo de Moraes

A austeridade permanente e a disputa de quem ganha o quê, quando e como, lógica intrínseca às políticas públicas, colocam as políticas sociais brasileiras em constantes testes. O universalismo tentativo iniciado com a Constituição de 1988 pareceu caminhar para uma ampliação da cidadania social no país, mas tem sofrido constantes ataques por falta de um compromisso de classes em torno de um projeto de país mais ou menos homogêneo. Diante dessa falta de precisão no estabelecimento Estado de Bem-estar brasileiro, em especial, pelo encolhimento no investimento público previsto para os próximos anos e com os governos mais alinhados a maior mercadorização dos serviços sociais, torna-se importante revisitar a trajetória do Welfare State em suas origens e objetivos, a fim de compreender como chegamos até aqui, o que podemos esperar do futuro e quais a intervenções necessárias para que nos aproximemos de uma inclusão sensível do grande contingente de pessoas ainda sujeitas a uma cidadania de segunda classe no Brasil. Para atender a esse objetivo, este trabalho realizou uma revisão bibliográfica convencional sobre o Estado de Bem-Estar Social, elencando a partir dela as razões históricas de seu surgimento, a tipologia de Esping-Andersen, a noção de funcionamentos e capacitações de Amartya Sen e os períodos constitutivos do bem-estar no Brasil.   PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Proteção social. Desenvolvimento. Direitos sociais.     ABSTRACT The permanent austerity and the dispute over who wins what, when and how, logic intrinsic to public policies, puts Brazilian social policies in constant tests. The tentative universalism that began with the 1988 Constitution seemed to be heading for a broadening of social citizenship in the country, but it has been under constant attack for the lack of a class compromise around a homogeneous country project. Given this lack of precision in the establishment of the Brazilian Welfare State due to the shrinking public investment expected in the coming years and with the governments most aligned to the greater commodification of social services, it is important to revisit the trajectory of the Welfare State in its origins and objectives, in order to understand how far we have come, what we can expect from the future and what interventions are needed to bring us closer to a sensitive inclusion of the large contingent of people still subject to second class citizenship in Brazil. To meet this objective, this paper has carried out a conventional bibliographical review of the Welfare State, listing from it the historical reasons for its emergence, Esping-Andersen's typology, Amartya Sen's notion of functioning and capabilities and the constitutive periods of welfare in Brazil.   KEYWORDS: Social protection. Development. Social rights.     RESUMEN La austeridad permanente y la disputa sobre quién gana qué, cuándo y cómo, la lógica intrínseca a las políticas públicas, pone a las políticas sociales brasileñas en pruebas constantes. El tentativo universalismo que comenzó con la Constitución de 1988 parecía dirigirse a una ampliación de la ciudadanía social en el país, pero ha estado bajo ataque constante por la falta de un compromiso de clase en torno a un proyecto de país más o menos homogéneo. Dada esta falta de precisión en el establecimiento del Estado de bienestar brasileño, en particular, debido a la reducción de la inversión pública esperada en los próximos años y con los gobiernos más alineados con la mayor mercantilización de los servicios sociales, es importante revisar la trayectoria del Estado de bienestar en sus orígenes y objetivos, para comprender cómo hemos llegado hasta ahora, qué podemos esperar del futuro y qué intervenciones son necesarias para acercarnos a una inclusión sensible del gran contingente de personas aún sujetas a una ciudadanía de segunda clase en Brasil. Para cumplir con este objetivo, este documento ha llevado a cabo una revisión bibliográfica convencional del Estado del Bienestar, enumerando de él las razones históricas de su surgimiento, la tipología de Esping-Andersen, la noción de funcionamiento y capacidadess de Amartya Sen, y períodos constitutivos de bienestar en Brasil.   PALABRAS CLAVE: Protección social. Desarrollo. Derechos sociales.  


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Winda Roselina Effendi

Walfare State concept born in the era of the 20th century as a correction of the development of the concept of the country as night watchman, the phenomenon of economic capitalism that gradually leads to lameness in the distribution of sources of prosperity. In the Walfare State concept, the state is required to extend its responsibility to the socio-economic problems facing the people. The functions of the state also include activities that were previously beyond the scope of state functions, such as extending the provision of social services to individuals and families in specific matters, such as social security. The role of the state can not be separated with Welfare State because the state that plays a role in managing the economy which includes the responsibility of the state to ensure the availability of basic welfare services in certain levels. Welfare State does not reject the existence of a capitalist market economy system but believes that there are elements in the public order that are more important than market objectives and can only be achieved by controlling and limiting the operation of such market mechanisms.Keywords: walfare state, country, economic systemKonsep Walfare State yang lahir di era abad ke-20 sebagai koreksi berkembangnya konsep negara sebagai penjaga malam, gejala kapitalisme perekonomian yang secara perlahan-lahan menyebabkan terjadinya kepincangan dalam pembagian sumber-sumber kemakmuran bersarma. Dalam konsep Walfare State, negara dituntut untuk memperluas tanggung jawabnya kepada masalah-masalah sosial ekonomi yang dihadapi rakyat. Fungsi negara juga meliputi kegiatan-kegiatan yang sebelumnya berada diluar jangkauan fungsi negara, seperti memperluas ketentuan pelayanan sosial kepada individu dan keluarga dalam hal-hal khusus, seperti social security, kesehatan.  Peran negara tidak bisa dipisahkan dengan Welfare State karena negara yang berperan dalam mengelola perekonomian yang yang di dalamnya mencakup tanggung jawab negara untuk menjamin ketersediaan pelayanan kesejahteraan dasar dalam tingkat tertentu. Welfare State tidak menolak keberadaan sistem ekonomi pasar kapitalis tetapi meyakini bahwa ada elemen-elemen dalam tatanan masyarakat yang lebih penting dari tujuan-tujuan pasar dan hanya dapat dicapai dengan mengendalikan dan membatasi bekerjanya mekanisme pasar tersebut. Kata Kunci: walfare state, negara,sistem ekonomi 


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