Enacting Community Economies Within A Welfare State

"The Nordic welfare states, despite their history of successful welfare generation, have recently experienced a penetration of capitalist market relations to ever new spheres of life. Also their failure to create ecologically sustainable welfare models has been undeniable. Simultaneously, community economies have emerged as a source of ideas and practices on what ‘the economy’ fundamentally could signify. In their multiple manifestations, community economies are about enacting the economy differently, on a grassroots level. Yet community economies have typically not been analysed as inspirations and challenges to the future of the welfare state. This is despite that, to some extent, they share the same ethos with Nordic welfare states, based on the values of universalism and decommodification. This book presents a number of empirical case studies of community economies in the context of a Nordic welfare state to better understand the potential of community economies and the interaction and friction with state governance, and more generally the conditions in which community economies and Nordic welfare states can co-exist and cooperate. Could a Nordic welfare state be an enabling platform for community economies to diffuse? And could community economies show the welfare states a future based on decommodification and respect of the ecological limits?"--Publisher's description.

The book presents a number of empirical case studies of community economies in the context of a Nordic welfare state to better understand the potential of community economies and the interaction and friction with state governance, and more generally the conditions in which community economies and Nordic welfare states can co-exist and cooperate.

In the early 1980s, the welfare state, for too long regarded as a notable contribution to the establishment of a humane social order, had over the previous decade come under increasing attack. Some of its critics, especially in the UK and the USA, maintained that it had failed to deal satisfactorily with the problem of poverty. Others held that it was over-elaborate, created a psychology of dependence and imposed costs that needed to be reduced as part of a policy of general economic recovery. In a number of countries, cuts had already been imposed or were now contemplated. In this situation it was crucially important to direct attention once more to the basic objectives of the various welfare services from a systematic and comparative standpoint. Originally published in 1982, the authors of this book, one an economist and the other a specialist in social administration, subjected these aims to rigorous analysis and discuss the underlying issues of social philosophy. They then attempt to assess the various methods adopted for their attainment in Britain and comment on those adopted in the USA and in some continental European countries. Although the authors reject the more extreme assertion that the welfare state has been a failure, they point to the need to relate some of the policies followed more clearly to the basic objectives. A number of proposals for reform are put forward which would imply some change of emphasis and should permit a simplification of existing over-complex arrangements.

Argues that the welfare state is necessary on grounds of efficiency as well as equity, and that its major efficiency role makes it relevant to the whole population. This edition takes into account reforms since 1987 in social security, the NHS and education and the Thatcher/Reagan governments.

This wide-ranging comparative analysis of contemporary and future changes in welfare states looks at the different trajectories of the welfare states of Europe, North America, the Antipodes, and the emerging scenarios in Latin America, East Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. Leading experts on each of these regions examine the current structures of social protection, consider the causes of the current welfare state crisis and highlight evolving trends for welfare policy. Different welfare states are shown to manifest different forms of crisis. Among the symptoms of crisis, Welfare States in Transition suggests that the effect of popluation ageing is exaggerated, and an at least equally fundamental challenge lies in the revolution of the modern family and the changing economic role of women. The contributors are sceptical about the neo-liberal formula for reform, not only because it increases inequality but also because it does not address the growing need for an active social investment policy to ensure against entrapment in poverty or low-paid jobs.

Few discussions in modern social science have occupied as much attention as the changing nature of welfare states in western societies. Gosta Esping-Andersen, one of the most distinguished contributors to current debates on this issue, here provides a new analysis of the character and role of welfare states in the functioning of contemporary advanced western societies. Esping-Andersen distinguishes several major types of welfare state, connecting these with variations in the historical development of different western countries. Current economic processes, the author argues, such as those moving towards a post-industrial order, are not shaped by autonomous market forces but by the nature of states and state differences. Fully informed by comparative materials, this book will have great appeal to everyone working on issues of economic development and post-industrialism. Its audience will include students and academics in sociology, economics and politics.

Covers the period from 1970 to 1988.

Comprehensively revised and rewritten, the third edition of the book embraces all the most important theoretical and empirical developments in welfare state studies of recent years. Working within an explicitly comparative framework, the book draws on a wealth of international evidence to survey what are now the most pressing issues concerning the future of welfare: among them, globalization, demographic change, declining fertility, postindustrialism and immigration. It draws extensively on the explosion of work on welfare states that has emerged within the North American political science community over the past ten years, as well as giving detailed attention to developments in the UK, and in continental and northern Europe and beyond. The third edition of Beyond the Welfare State? remains the most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the complex of issues that surround welfare reform. It will be required reading for anyone who wants to come to terms with what is really at stake in arguments about the future of welfare.