Suchergebnisse

The welfare state in the UK & elsewhere is currently caught up in a number of crises. The slowing of economic growth has reduced the resources available for its support & has consequently exposed it to theoretical challenges. In particular, it has been criticized as seeking to fulfill needs that are in fact illimitable. In addition, market & liberation theorists have suggested that the welfare state is hostile to individual autonomy & responsibility, & serves the interests of welfare professionals more than those of the poor. It appears, however, that fundamental changes in policy are less likely than incremental readjustments. The issues raised by this crisis concern the basic nature of the relation of society to state, & of both to the individual. W. H. Stoddard

What was the impact of the Second World War on the development of the welfare state? Did Attlee's pioneering post-war Labour governments create the welfare state and a socialist society? This title provides an account of the British welfare state after 1940. It re-examines commonly held assumptions about the post-war welfare state.

"This book introduces a unique, new dataset on welfare state reforms in the UK, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany from 1974 to 2014. Using a variety of welfare state types in Europe, the authors have systematically investigated core questions that have preoccupied the welfare state literature at least since the 1990s. These include, the extent of path dependency in mature welfare states, the usage of so-called "invisible" policy instruments for hiding cutbacks, and the role of partisanship - on whether the ideological color of the incumbent affects policy - which have been analysed in depth by examining the new dataset presented in this book. This text will be of key interest scholars, students and practitioners studying, and working in, welfare and the welfare state, and more broadly to political science, sociology and social policy."