The New Politics Of Welfare

This critical and highly topical introduction to the current debates and politics surrounding welfare reform in the United Kingdom and the United States explains the origins and main tenets of the new Blair-Clinton orthodoxy. Central to the book is an examination of this orthodoxy's appeal to the concept of social justice. Bill Jordan demonstrates how values derived from the family and voluntary associations are in danger of running counter to the more fundamental principles of liberal democracy and the requirements of transnational economic exchange. He links the new politics of welfare to liberal and communitarian theories of citizenship and social justice, and assesses the broader prospects for European social policy in

First published in 1991, Beyond the Welfare State? has been thoroughly revised and updated for this new edition, which draws on the latest theoretical developments and empirical evidence. It remains the most comprehensive and sophisticated guide to the condition of the welfare state in a time of rapid and sometimes bewildering change. The opening chapters offer a scholarly but accessible review of competing interpretations of the historical and contemporary roles of the welfare state. This evaluation, based on the most recent empirical research, gives full weight to feminist, ecological, and "anti-racist" critiques and also develops a clear account of globalization and its contested impact upon existing welfare regimes. The book constructs a distinctive history of the international growth of welfare states and offers a comprehensive account of recent developments from "crisis" to "structural adjustment." The final chapters bring the story right up to date with an assessment of the important changes effected in the 1990s and the prospects for welfare states in the new millennium.

The welfare states of the affluent democracies now stand at the centre of political discussion and social conflict. In these path-breaking essays, an international team of leading analysts rejects simplistic claims about the impact of economic 'globalization'. Economic, demographic, and social pressures on the welfare state are very real, but many of the most fundamental challenges have little to do with globalization. Nor do the authors detect signs of a convergence of national social policies towards an American-style lowest common denominator. The contemporary politics of the welfare state takes shape against a backdrop of both intense pressures for austerity and enduring popularity. Thus in most of the affluent democracies, the politics of social policy centre on the renegotiation, restructuring, and modernization of the post-war social contract rather than its dismantling. The authors examine a wide range of countries and public policies arenas, including health care, pensions, and labour markets. They demonstrate how different national settings affect whether, and on what terms, centrist efforts to restructure the welfare state can succeed.

This critical and highly topical introduction to the current debates and politics surrounding welfare reform in the United Kingdom and the United States explains the origins and main tenets of the Blair-Clinton orthodoxy. Central to the book is an examination of this orthodoxy′s appeal to the concept of social justice. Bill Jordan demonstrates how values derived from the family and voluntary associations are in danger of running counter to the more fundamental principles of liberal democracy and the requirements of transnational economic exchange. He links the new politics of welfare to liberal and communitarian theories of citizenship and social justice, and assesses the broader prospects for European social policy in the struggle over economic and political integration. `For more than a decade, Bill Jordan has been one of our most thoughtful and independent thinkers on the future of welfare. Anyone who wants to know more about what is happening to global welfare and why and how it should be changed should read this book′ - Chris Pierson, Department of Politics, University of Nottingham

The welfare states of the affluent democracies now stand at the centre of political discussion and social conflict. In this text, an international team of leading analysts reject simplistic claims about the impact of economic globalization.

This book offers a careful examination of the politics of social policy in an era of austerity and conservative governance. Focusing on the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Pierson provides a compelling explanation for the welfare state's durability and for the few occasions where each government was able to achieve significant cutbacks. The programmes of the modern welfare state - the 'policy legacies' of previous governments - generally proved resistant to reform. Hemmed in by the political supports that have developed around mature social programmes, conservative opponents of the welfare state were successful only when they were able to divide the supporters of social programmes, compensate those negatively affected, or hide what they were doing from potential critics. The book will appeal to those interested in the politics of neo-conservatism as well as those concerned about the development of the modern welfare state. It will attract readers in the fields of comparative politics, public policy, and political economy.

In The Politics of the Welfare State in Turkey, author Erdem Yörük provides a politics-based explanation for the post-1980 transformation of the Turkish welfare system, in which poor relief policies have replaced employment-based social security. This book is one of the results of Yörük’s European Research Council-funded project, which compares the political dynamics in several emerging markets in order to develop a new political theory of welfare in the global south. As such, this book is an ambitious analytical and empirical contribution to understanding the causes of a sweeping shift in the nature of state welfare provision in Turkey during the recent decades—part of a global trend that extends far beyond Turkey. Most scholarship about Turkey and similar countries has explained this shift toward poor relief as a response to demographic and structural changes including aging populations, the decline in the economic weight of industry, and the informalization of labor, while ignoring the effect of grassroots politics. In order to overcome these theoretical shortages in the literature, the book revisits concepts of political containment and political mobilization from the earlier literature on the mid-twentieth-century welfare state development and incorporates the effects of grassroots politics in order to understand the recent welfare system shift as it materialized in Turkey, where a new matrix of political dynamics has produced new large-scale social assistance programs.

Weighing in on the euro-austerity debate, this book uses case studies from three countries to evaluate the distinctive politics of fiscal policy and welfare state reform during a key period in Europe.