Social foundations of post-industrial economies – Esping Andersen

Résumé du document

The text we have is a chapter extracted from a book written by Esping-Andersen. In this chapter, the author talks about different kinds of Welfare regimes and states the previous typologies he has already elaborated. He then tries to have a critical perspective on his work and interrogates about the odds of a fourth welfare model in order to make his typology more relevant.

The first part of this chapter is a reminder of the work he has already done before. In his opinion, we can distinguish three welfare regimes. The first one is the liberal welfare regime: it is based on the primacy of the market, the state is minimized, and risks are individualized (idea of "self-help"). It is characterized by a narrow eligibility, a narrow conception of social rights and an encouragement of the market. This clusters Anglo-Saxon nations.

Then, he describes the social democratic model which characterizes Nordic countries: this regime is State-dominated (creation of public employment) and is based on universalism (comprehensive risk coverage, high benefits and high eligibility). Private welfare is minimized in this system, egalitarianism is praised. This regime is also characterized by de-familialization. Eventually, he speaks about the third model which is the conservative welfare State, widespread in continental Europe. It favors familialism and local communities (segmentation) and it is also characterized by Etatist legacy. This system reproduces inequalities.

Extraits

[...] He thinks about an Australian (or Antipodean) welfare model, about a Mediterranean fourth model, and about an Eastern Asia fourth model. Eventually, he states that creating new models is not so relevant and argues that doing individual comparisons would be more interesting. Typologies aim to compare easily and even if they are many differences among countries which have the same model, it is better to have few typologies in order to study welfare regimes. In his opinion, none of the 3 “fourth model” he envisaged are convincing. However, I think this point of view is questionable. [...]

[...] On the other hand, European countries may try to overcome the crisis altogether, with a federal governance, and then unify a bit more their welfare regimes even if a total unification does seem possible. To conclude, Andersen typology is quite useful and relevant even if it still has several weaknesses. Maybe it will be necessary to change and correct this typology if large shifts occur in terms of welfare regimes organization within Europe. References: Esping-Andersen, Gosta Social Foundations of Post-industrial Economies. [...]

[...] They add this welfare regime which they empirically constituted to the pre-existing ones. Andersen is reluctant to add a model because he argues it could be harmful for the parsimony. However, Andersen's refusal to correct the previous typology he elaborated in order to add the Mediterranean model seems to be more a sign of scientific narcissism than sociologic convictions. Furthermore, sociologists who elaborated new typologies (based on Andersen's one) generally agree to say that this three-way classification can also be empirically discredited. [...]

[...] Social foundations of post-industrial economies Esping Andersen The text we have is a chapter extracted from a book written by Esping- Andersen. In this chapter, the author talks about different kinds of Welfare regimes and states the previous typologies he has already elaborated. He then tries to have a critical perspective on his work and interrogates about the odds of a fourth welfare model in order to make his typology more relevant. The first part of this chapter is a reminder of the work he has already done before. [...]

[...] Private welfare is minimized in this system, egalitarianism is praised. This regime is also characterized by de-familialization. Eventually, he speaks about the third model which is the conservative welfare State, widespread in continental Europe. It favors familialism and local communities (segmentation) and it is also characterized by Etatist legacy. This system reproduces inequalities. In the second part of the text, Esping-Andersen interrogates about the typology he has elaborated many years ago and tries to bring new elements in order to improve it. [...]