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Welfare States in Transition
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Welfare States in Transition
National Adaptations in Global Economies

Edited by:

July 1996 | 288 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Published in Association with UNRISD, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development This wide-ranging comparative analysis of contemporary and future changes in welfare states examines 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 from these regions explore the current structures of social protection, consider the causes of the current welfare state crisis, and highlight evolving trends for welfare policy. The emerging picture is one of varied policy choices in each region. Contributors argue that anxieties about population aging as a cause of welfare decline are exaggerated and that the key issue for welfare states is enabling women to work and form families simultaneously. They suggest that the neoliberal strategy of deregulation and heightened inequality is no real solution because its negative side effects. The authors conclude that a viable positive-sum solution would involve social investment strategies, offering guarantees against entrapment in poverty or low-paying jobs. Professionals and researchers in comparative social policy, sociology, economics and political science will find Welfare States in Transition an invaluable resource.

Dharam Ghai
Foreword
G[sl]osta Esping-Andersen
After the Golden Age? Welfare State Dilemmas in a Global Economy
 
PART ONE: DECLINE OR RENEWAL IN THE ADVANCED WELFARE STATES?
John D Stephens
The Scandinavian Welfare States
Achievements, Crisis and Prospects

 
G[sl]osta Esping-Andersen
Welfare States without Work
The Impasse of Labour Shedding and Familialism in Continental European Social Policy

 
Francis G Castles
Needs-Based Strategies of Social Protection in Australia and New Zealand
John Myles
When Markets Fail
Social Welfare in Canada and the United States

 
 
PART TWO: EMERGING NEW WELFARE STATES?
Evelyne Huber
Options for Social Policy in Latin America
Neoliberal versus Social Democratic Models

 
Roger Goodman and Ito Peng
The East Asian Welfare States
Peripatetic Learning, Adaptive Change and Nation-Building

 
Guy Standing
Social Protection in Central and Eastern Europe
A Tale of Slipping Anchors and Torn Safety Nets

 
 
CONCLUSION
G[sl]osta Esping-Andersen
Positive-Sum Solutions in a World of Trade-Offs?

`An impressive editorial feat which attests to the potential for well-structured and consistently integrated comparative social analysis providing, not only a cogent evaluation of the ironies of current policy developments, but also asserting that economic and political configurations may well ensure that "welfare states in transition" could retain the most positive and popularly valued elements of their "aquis"' - British Journal of Sociology

`Welfare States in Transition gives a comprehensive overview of the current state of affairs, as well as the problems of, on the one hand, the "established" welfare states, and, on the other, some of the states that do not have comprehensive welfare schemes, but which struggle with the social policy issues, and have to make decisions which also have an impact on the belief in the `welfare' concept as a whole.' Acta Sociologica

`This important collection of studies by political scientists and sociologists investigates the diverse responses of welfare states to their increasing unaffordability.' Population and Development Review

`This wide-ranging comparative analysis of contemporary and future changes in welfare states looks at the different trajectories of such states in Europe, North America and the Antipodes, and the emerging scenarios in Latin America, East Asia and Central and eastern Europe. Authors from 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.' International Social Security Review

'This volume contains nine chapters developed out of a study originally commissioned by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development as part of its preparations for the Copenhagen World Summit in March 1995.... an exceptionally coherent book which offers readers clear and wide-ranging access to some of the most innovative and informed analysis currently being produced by students of welfare states. In the editor's, words, it tackles "the future of the beleaguered welfare states of Western Europe, North America and the Antipodes (Australia and New Zealand), and the prospects for welfare state construction in the newly democratised nations in East Asia, Latin America and East Central Europe"... What is distinctive about the analysis found in all the chapters of this book is that it places the operation of welfare systems at the very heart of the adjustments that countries are having to make, or sometimes failing to make, in the face of a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive world market.... an exceptionally informed and intelligent debate about the future of the welfare state.' John Baldock - Policy Studies

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