A Green History Of The Welfare State

Environmental problems – particularly climate change – have become increasingly important to governments and social researchers in recent decades. Debates about their implications for social policies and welfare reforms are now moving towards centre stage. What has been missing from such debates is an account of the history of the welfare state in relation to environmental issues and green ideas. A Green History of the Welfare State fills this gap. How have the environmental and social policy agendas developed? To what extent have welfare systems been informed by the principles of environmental ethics and politics? How effective has the welfare state been at addressing environmental problems? How might the history of social policies be reimagined? With its lively, chronological narrative, this book provides answers to these questions. Through overviews of key periods, politicians and reforms the book weaves together a range of subjects into a new kind of historical tapestry, including: social policy, economics, party politics, government action and legislation, and environmental issues. This book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of environmental policy and history, social and public policy, social history, sociology and politics.

The development of social policy in Europe is explored in this accessible intellectual history and analysis of the welfare state. From the Industrial Revolution onwards, the book identifies three important concepts behind efforts to address social concerns in Europe: social democracy, Christian democracy and liberalism. With guides to the political and ideological protagonists and the beliefs and values that lie behind reforms, it traces the progress and legacies of each of the three traditions. For academics and students across social policy and the political economy, this is an illuminating new perspective on the welfare state through the last two centuries.

This 'Very Short Introduction' discusses the necessity of welfare states in modern capitalist societies. Situating social policy in an historical, sociological, and comparative perspective, David Garland brings a new understanding to familiar debates, policies, and institutions.

A range of different proposals were widely canvassed during the war years - the selection here is intended to resurrect a number of those that have subsequently dropped out of circulation but were influential in the climate of the times. A final section covers a number of early assessments of the implications of the introduction of welfare state legislation. Although the implementation of the welfare programme was in effect a bipartisan process it did not take long for doubts to be expressed. Some were directed at the principles on which the welfare state was being constructed. The collection closes with the discovery that poverty, whose banishment was a key objective of the whole enterprise, was still very much present.

Contemporary historical study of the development of social policy in the UK since 1945 and of political aspects, social implications and economic implications of government policy resulting in the welfare state - covers social security, nationalization (incl. Of transport and iron and steel industries and health services), public enterprises, the population explosion and the standard of living, cultural changes, etc. Statistical tables, and bibliography pp. 368 to 376.

Compared to other rich Western democracies, the United States historically has done less to help its citizens adapt to the uncertainties of life in a market economy. Nor does the immediate future seem to promise anything different. In Welfare As We Know It, Charles Noble offers a groundbreaking explanation of why America is so different, arguing that deeply rooted political factors, not public opinion, have limited what social reformers have been able to accomplish.

A range of different proposals were widely canvassed during the war years - the selection here is intended to resurrect a number of those that have subsequently dropped out of circulation but were influential in the climate of the times. A final section covers a number of early assessments of the implications of the introduction of welfare state legislation. Although the implementation of the welfare programme was in effect a bipartisan process it did not take long for doubts to be expressed. Some were directed at the principles on which the welfare state was being constructed. The collection closes with the discovery that poverty, whose banishment was a key objective of the whole enterprise, was still very much present.

The welfare state has been one of the most significant developments in 20th-century Britain. Drawing on recent research, this volume narrates its principal changes and provides a thematic historical introduction.