The new politics of the welfare state

Résumé du document

The New Politics of the Welfare State gathers a selection of key texts and thinkers in order to analyse the question of welfare state transformation in our current ‘post-industrial society'. By using Esping-Andersen's division of the three ‘worlds' of welfare system, the scholars highlight the necessity to question the core reasons and reactions to the changes of our current social systems. The emphasis of the book remains in responding and refuting the assertion that holds that globalization and the spread of neo liberal trends are the main reasons for the change we are witnessing in our welfare systems. By looking at this idea, The New Politics of the Welfare System highlights the limits of this assumption and questions other economic, political and social factors embedded in national polities as the main motives for change.

While not denying entirely the influence of globalization, The Politics of the New Welfare State explores the new dynamics in motion by going into a more depth analysis of the origins of the current difficulties governments need to respond to. In order to approach this topic, Pierson and his colleagues affirm that there is a necessity to further explore the origins of the welfare state crisis in order to respond to it accordingly.

Extraits

[...] For instance, the idea of globalization as a main source of disruption to the contemporary welfare systems could have been further explored at the initial stages of the book in order to the reader to highlight the contrast in terms of opinion. The new institutionalist approach could have been contrasted with other theories. The third part on political reactions relating to economic interest could have expanded further on the consequences of social policy reform on politics. The idea of ‘stickiness' highlighted by Pierson relies on the idea of historical continuity and further exploration on the electoral politics could have been incorporated. [...]

[...] Research question: The New Politics of the Welfare State gathers a selection of key texts and thinkers in order to analyze the question of welfare state transformation in our current ‘post-industrial society'. By using Esping- Andersen's division of the three ‘worlds' of welfare system, the scholars highlight the necessity to question the core reasons and reactions to the changes of our current social systems. The emphasis of the book remains in responding and refuting the assertion that holds that globalization and the spread of neo liberal trends are the main reasons for the change we are witnessing in our welfare systems. [...]

[...] These societal alterations conflict with the Bismarckian model based on the tripartite division. The entrance of women into the job market has created new necessities for childcare support or maternity leaves which trigger a new source of social money transfer, services that were regarded as ‘free' in the traditional male breadwinner model. Furthermore, the difficulty to combine professional and family life has also lead many women to sacrifice family life, decreasing the fertility rate (Pierson:2001:90-4). The second section focuses on the dynamics between the interested of economic actors and the policy creation and implementation of social welfare policies. [...]

[...] Pierson looks at four main changes leading to new politics of the welfare state. The slowdown of economic growth resulting from the switch to a service based economy unable to reach such high rates of productivity and resulting in a slow down in economic growth. In addition, Pierson points out at ‘government commitment maturation' whereby current government have to ‘pick up the pieces of yesterday's commitments' even though resources do not match the high demand (Pierson:2001:424). In terms of demographic change, Pierson underlines the issue of population ageing paralleled with a low fertility rate in most European countries, an issue that is widely accepted but that poses a serious challenge. [...]

[...] The role of The New Politics of the Welfare State in social system reform research. The New Politics of the Welfare State has been used by many academics as a reference in terms of welfare system research. Thanks to its range of articles by several authors and its use of key notions such as Esping- Andersen's three worlds, it appears to have had an impact on social system literature. Drawing from the previous literature on welfare systems, Pierson has sparked a new approach to the topic through his analysis of retrenchment that has set the tone for further studies. [...]